+1 

On Nov 19, 2011, at 7:44 AM, J Cruit wrote:

> I'll bring my kids, mandolin, and friendliness to Keegans anytime.
> Let's just say there is hanging out with people drinking to get drunk
> and then there is hanging out with folks just having a beer.  Big
> difference.
> 
> In any case I think the point is we simply need to change the name
> from beer meeting to "Drink whatever you like but I'm going to have a
> beer meeting"
> 
> On 11/19/11, Yaron <tclug at freakzilla.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Nov 2011, Ryan Coleman wrote:
>> 
>>> Bars are not pubs.
>> ...
>>> And you don't have to drink beer. My roommate who is 17 years sober
>>> comes down with me on a regular basis.
>> 
>> A few years ago I spent a couple weeks in Ireland. Most of that time was
>> spent being intentionally lost, in small village kind of situations. When
>> asked where one might find some food, the ONLY answer was "Down the pub".
>> Ok, occasionally the answer included "We have two restaurants but they're
>> only open between May and October". And don't get me started on the answer
>> to "Any place I can get WiFi around here?"
>> 
>> My point is, I know what a pub is. I know how it differs from a "bar",
>> which, granted, my sample-size for is very small.
>> 
>> Now, I've been dragged to what were described as "Irish Pubs" in the twin
>> cities. They are nothing at all like pubs in Ireland. For one thing,
>> nobody was particularly friendly. Second, there were no children. There
>> were also no people who brought their mandolins from home and were having
>> a go and didn't mind letting a foreigner have a go even though he defiled
>> their mandolin by playing guns'n'roses songs on it, but I digress.
>> 
>> Pubs in Ireland have atmosphere. And frankly if I never go back to one of
>> THOSE, I'm good.
>> 
>> 
>> You say your roommate is 17 years sober? I've been sober for 37 years. As
>> in, my entire life. I've never had a drink, and I've never wanted one.
>> Drinkers (and ex-drinkers), you guys just don't realise that for some
>> people, being around people who are drinking is just absolutely not fun.
>> 
>> 
>> Now, to be clear, I am not trying to convert the TCLUG to the Twin Cities
>> Teetotalers & Temperamce Users Group. I think it's great that the tclug
>> has social gatherings and they should definitely continue to happen, and
>> I'm sorry I went off on a rant on this.
>> 
>> The only way I can even begin to describe the perspective I have on this
>> is imagine you used a very uncommon operating system, and everyone else
>> used Windows, and people would all get together and talk about Windows all
>> day and you just couldn't understand why people were even doing that to
>> themselves.
>> 
>> That's what it's like for me to hang out with people who drink.
>> 
>> 
>> -Yaron
>> 
>> --
>> 
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>> 
>> /and yet I consider posting rants at 5am to be perfectly normal.
>> _______________________________________________
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>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>> 
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