Paging Captain Nemo

~ Patrick O'Grady
The Queen of Beers. As in "drag queen."
The Queen of Beers. As in "drag queen."

Rain. Again. And plenty of it, too. All we need is the Nautilus and a giant squid and we’re good to go.

Big Jonny of DrunkCyclist torments me via Twitter, announcing, “Sea World’s got beer, son!” He then follows up with this photo of himself (well, one hand, anyway), the wife and kidlets in sunny San Diego, along with said beer — a pair of Bud Lights.

Now, if I have just wrapped up my first year of law school, and I am spending my vacation driving from Phoenix to San Diego and back with the tots and spouse in order to see a bunch of sushi on the hoof, there had better something more palatable than Bud Light on hand to take the edge off or there will be trouble. Stella Artois. Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Lagunitas IPA. A case of Pacifico and a few shots of Herradura. A jeroboam of Talisker. Maybe some smack, I dunno.

But Bud Light? Puh-leeze. If this is what living in Phoenix and going to law school does to a man, I’ll stay ignorant, right here in waterlogged Bibleburg. Maybe Captain Nemo will take me water skiing.

10 thoughts on “Paging Captain Nemo”

  1. Yes, Sea World has “beer”, Sea World is owned by Anheuser Busch. Somehow Shamu and those stupid clydesdales are related. Rumor has it that Bud Light is just Orca piss. A bunch of years ago there was a small controversy involving Sea World when they had Budweiser labeled toys in the Sea World gift shop. Such a “family” place.

    And don’t feel too bad about not being in San Diego. I spent the first 28 years of my life there and there is no place I’ve been that is more overrated. It might be 72 degrees all of the time (boring!), but the air is brown, the traffic is horrible, the people are self centered, and the cycling anywhere within twenty miles of the coast almost guarantees winding up as a hood ornament. Give me rainy ride in Colorado Springs or Grand Junction over San Diego any day.

  2. John,
    Can’t disagree with you more about TJ – North. I’ll take “72 all of the time” over wet, cold, dry, hot and sweltering any day of the year. As for the hood ornament observation, I can’t say if that’s true since I only spent 6 years of my life there, but the past 15 years I have spent in NorCal and I have had many more close encounters with idiots in cars. Maybe that’s an issue about riding only on the road. Cross was awesome there. Lots of barely legal trails to get around the crappy autos. As for the narcissistic San Diegans, I’d say that you might be right, but I only lived there. I wasn’t born there.
    But I wills ay this: living that close to the options that abound in the riding department more than made up for the short-comings.
    BTW, Corona IS piss, amigo.

  3. Dodging raindrops and lightning bolts here on the right coast, too, Padraig, and killing time in between with a Magic Hat lager listening to a Buffet cover-band and some decent blues acts at the local arts/music Memorial Day fest.

    Tomorrow, Tour of Somerville, strictly from a sidewalk perspective. It’s easier to hold a beer standing in the cheapseats. I think a Yuengling porter might be just the thing …

  4. We went to Sea World Orlando a couple of years ago and the adult beverages were present there as well. Yes, they had the “orca piss” in the bottles. However, Way in the back of the park is the “hospitality center” where they did have some interesting brews on tap. None of which have I seen anywhere else.

  5. Bud Wipe’s local distributor is a drinking friend of mine. As my constant harping about pushing more of his better lines on our watering hole has met with success. We now have Stella, Goose Island Honker’s Ale, Lienie’s Honeyweiss, Summit IPA, New Castle, along w/ the usual weasel piss selection on tap. That, along with the finest wait staff around, can make for a pleasurable afternoon into evening of merry making. Now, where was I, Patrick? It’s a bit too early in the morning to think about such things.

  6. James, I respect your opinion, and it would appear that you are not the only one who shares it. Three million people live in San Diego county, and a healthy percentage of that visit it each year, so you have lots of company. We all have a different idea of what constitutes a high quality of life, some even believe it involves Bud Lite (god help them!). But I visit family in Tijuana Norte every couple of years and if anything my opinion of the places sinks lower each and every time. Maybe it’s because I was born and bred there, but to me, that place has nothing on the western slope of Colorado: anything that I once found appealing about San Diego (Mt. Palomar, the Lagunas, etc.) exists in much more beautiful and spectacular fashion in Colorado, and that’s a vast understatement.

    So if you, unlike me, do enjoy San Diego I encourage you to go there and hope you have a great time. Just don’t look for me there.

  9. Oh, those blue cylinders are beer. Thought they were CO2 tire inflators and was expecting an epic flat story. My bad.

  10. I feel kin to Big Jonny at DC.

    I didn’t go to law school, but my wife did. We’ve taken our kid to Sea Whirled in SD. I’ve been drunk. I’ve been a cyclist. In a pinch, I’ve had a Bud Light. I swear, my wife has that same hat.

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