$4 only gets you to Porirua if you're a kid

I'm posting this here as Facebrick is broken at the moment with respect to writing notes (read: they don't work... at all).

I've had it with drunkenness. As far as being on the receiving end of a drunk person, I haven't really had any issues. But twice I've encountered people from Porirua, at Wellington Station, needing a train ride home after getting smashed and losing their wallets. The last straw was walking home and seeing a girl crying her head off on the footpath, moving along and hearing a party at a house nearby.

It doesn't help that I go onto Facebrick and get an invite to some "Mardi Gras" in Oakune (I think there's supposed to be an "h" in there): "A night and morning of intense amounts of alcohol. Be there or be square." Pity Facebrick doesn't have a "No flippin' way" option. Or the most recent likes, like "Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a alcohol, LOL .. JK your just a slut. :)", "Being Too Honest When Your Drunk", and the not entirely related "Hey baby, wanna come over to myspace and twitter my yahoo til' i google all over your facebook? ;)".

Some time last year I was waiting at a bus stop and someone kinda begged me to use the money he was giving me to go to the bottle store over the road to buy some alcohol. I didn't, and I think the only way my butt was saved was that the boy was hungry and I had a bag, knowing it had an apple, and not knowing it had a couple of cookies in it, too.

There are several (IRL) groups called "Students Against Driving Drunk". I'd be keen to take it one further. We have this culture which says it's not OK to drink-drive, but perfectly fine if you get smashed in and you have someone who can take a hit for the team. That's kinda like walking on the handrail on a cliff: it may seem like you're OK, but if you slip wrong, you fall, and there's only two ways you can fall: back on, or way off.

Some of you may be saying that this is really only the extreme side of drinking. Y'know what? The line is drunk. Hit that line, and game over, you've lost control. Y'know what the extreme is? Dead. Not many hit that, but we can safely say that you'll only hit that once. People try to rationalise it, but the concept of getting drunk is stupid, and not even you can excuse yourself from this rule.

Some of you may be saying that it's all in fun. So's lighting your teacher on fire. But it's not fun anymore when you find that your teacher is dead, and neither is it fun when you've got a headache. (There is a bit of assumption there, but I've heard a bit about what it's like the morning after, and I do know how unfun a headache is.)

It's only a matter of time before I encounter a rape victim.

Right now, all I can say is lay off the booze and keep control of yourself. One drink shouldn't hurt but I can have fun without it.