What the... Drunk?!

Well, as you know, Flint and I enjoy cigars. This week, we have been trying out some new brands rather than our usual.

We like the Romeo y Julieta and Monte Cristo's, but we decided to take advantage of the other cigars in the selection available at Maska's. We let them know our desires, and they e-mailed us a list that we have been uncontrollably drooling over ever since.

This week, we have tried a Partagas Series D No. 4, and a Bolivar Royal Coronas 25. We also got an H. Upmann Corona, but we haven't smoked it yet.

The Partagas was smooth, but strong, while the Bolivar was smoother, less strong but more flavourful. The Partagas was smoked on a Friday night, late because Flint is stuck at work until 10. So we didn't have anything with it but regular beer, which is no way to smoke a cigar. But after the work week we needed it, and it was a nice way to relax and wind down from the rigours of teaching. It gave us a chance to chat about this and that, shamelessly ogle the eye candy, and laugh at the antics of the mooks that shamble through our lives.

One of the things we talked about during our smoke was what cigars Churchill smoked. We didn't know off-hand, but a quick Yahoo search has revealed the secrets.

Churchill's cigar smoking habit began during his stay in Havana, Cuba at the end of 1895, just before his 21st birthday. He had gone there as a correspondent, and to get involved in the fighting between the government soldiers and guerilla fighters. Churchill's preference for Cuban cigars was to last him for the rest of his life (as was his other Cuban habit: the afternoon siesta).

Churchill's cigar tastes were limited to a small number of favoured suppliers. In particular, his favourite cigar brands included Romeo y Julieta (my own personal fave rave).

Churchill's cigar consumption was between 6 and 10 a day, and he maintained a supply of several thousand in a room near his study in Chartwell. Winston usually smoked his cigars down to a couple of inches.

In contemplative moments, he would let his cigars go out, and he would then chew on them as he was thinking and writing. Despite receiving cutters, and wearing one on his watch chain, Churchill would pierce the moistened end of a cigar with a match rather than cut off the end. He could also be very careless with his ash. He had a favourite silver ashtray that followed him everywhere, but he would still burn carpets and even his clothes with carelessly dropped ash.

Pepin Fernandez Rodriguez, who bought the Romeo y Julieta brand in 1903, is credited with introducing the "Churchill cigar." At 7 inches long, with a ring gauge of 47, the delicious Romeo y Julieta Churchill cigar in its distinctive red and gold band is still a favourite today. I myself kept the tube as a souvenier, and look forward to having another one any day now.

Of course, Hitler and Mussolini were non-smokers, while Churchill and Roosevelt were both keen smokers. And we all know what happened to all of them. Churchill, as a lover of food, liquor, smoke, and liberty, is one of my ideals.

So anyway, Flint and I were out on the benches earlier tonight, enjoying the Bolivar Corona, and vainly waiting for the usual parade of eye candy. The pickings were pretty slim, but the mooks were out in force.

Mookmookmookshepalchoahgesekimookchoahmookshepalnommoommookmook.

There was this one particular group gathered outside of the rib place Flint and I frequent. We noticed one particular mook smoking a cigarette with one foot up on the wooden table outside the restaurant. He looked like he was trying be dramatic and cool, but of course he came off as nothing more than a mook.

It looked as if they was trying to decide where to go. Most mooks don't know where they are going from one moment to the next, so to see them arguing about where to go is not unusual.

One person was pointing one way, and another person was pointing off in another direction, and one mook at the centre of the group was just trying to maintain his balance. It's always the way here. They drink to excess. Flint and I drink for enjoyment. Mooks drink to get plastered.

I remember coming home Friday night; the first thing I see getting out of the cab is two mooks going at it hammer and tongs. It was really funny, because both of them were so drunk they couldn't get a handle on walking, much less winning a fight.

Anyway, the group seemed to splinter, and go off in various directions. The mook at the centre, who was obviously the worse for wear, wandered into the street with another mook trailing him disconsolantly. Ignoring the traffic, as all mooks tend to do, he headed toward a Korean SUV, where he got into the driver's seat and pulled into traffic.

This is the type of shit that really gets my goat. With the number of cheap taxis and call vans available to the drunk and disorderly, there is absolutely no reason for someone over the line to get behind the wheel.

It's the kind of asshole-shit for brains-mookish-ass clown behaviour that shows all Koreans in the worst light imaginable. This is normal? People get away with this?
Fuuuuuuuuuck!

What the ... drunk driver?!?!?!?

Korea has a great system in place that makes it so simple for people to NOT drink and drive.

For 10,000 Won ($9) a van will come with 2 people. They will take you and your car wherever you live in the city and drop you off. Back home this would probably cost you $50-100 if it was ever implemented. There is NO excuse for drinking and driving with this around. Great idea.

Tonight I saw one of these vans. Stig and I were enjoying a cigar on the benches in HaBokDae. A car pulls up. Then a van. The guy driving the car shuts it off and helps an obviously drunk guy out of the van. The drunk thanks him and pays him. Then hops in his car and drives off.

What the kimchi?!?!?!? The guy actually SHOWS some sense and gets the call van to safely take him home. THEN he gets in his car and drives off? What a fucktard.

I wish I had taken his picture. He would be my Mook of the Week if not the year.