Centerfield

That's good to know. I feel better about downing a couple 16.9 oz bottles of Zywiec over the weekend. Polish porter - 9.5 ABV. I plan to arm myself with a few of these for the late-season tailgates at the Linc.

I think I've only had one pumpkin ale that I really liked. I wish I could remember whose it was. All the others seemed more like novelty beers. I would drink one, maybe two, and it would be time to go back to a "regular" beer.

I'm sure no one cares, but the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers are a ranked NCAA 1-A football team for the first time in 30 years. Meanwhile Penn St. has fallen from the top 25. Down is up. Up is down. The world has gone utterly mad, and I like it.

Saw that study when it came out. Cowen is missing the boat--it actually correlates public social drinking with income. Which makes sense--those who stop at the bars after work with co-workers and other professionals have both increased "social capital" and better cross-company information networks. Also access to the "brains" in other companies. From the study:

Thus, if social drinking enables greater social networks, it will also increase earnings. In terms of search theory: the more one drinks, the more people one knows, and the more people one knows, the lower the marginal costs of search. The person with the larger Rolodex can contact more people in any given time period, so the probability that he or she finds the best employment offer increases. But social drinking may provide benefits in addition to those predicted by simple search theory. Drinkers may be able to socialize more with clients and co-workers, giving drinkers an advantage in important relationships. Drinking may also provide individuals with opportunities to learn people, business, and social skills.

It can also provide the opportunity to BLOW your career by being an obnoxious and uncontrollable drunk, but that's another story. A Darwinian one. :-) In the meantime, which way to the bar?