Drink What Now?

It’s Thursday, and I blew off a free concert (with free beer!) thrown by the iTunes group to have a little beer-blogging time. It’s been tough, lately; they keep putting hockey games with the local team on Thursday nights, and the bar fills up and it’s hockey so it’s intense — and, well, fiction doesn’t happen.

Tonight, things are calmer.

The bar features a pretty wide variety of beers on tap, from the basic American lame-ass beer to some nice microbrews. This spectrum is not broad enough for two guys at a table near mine, however. They are drinking Old Milwaukee. From cans.

ADDENDUM: On one the TV’s here in the bar, I just saw an ad for “Badass American Lager”. Genius. Now you can say “badass” — and believe you are one! — while you drink like a pussy.

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Nose Pull-Open Thingies

Over the past few years I’ve become an increasingly noisy sleeper. The primary cause is allergies; once the congestion starts there’s just no way to sleep quietly — whether I breathe through my mouth or through my nose, my sweetie will have something to keep her company on sleepless nights. She also has a lot more sleepless nights.

I’ve been taking allergy pills for a long time. I don’t think Claritin has any affect on me at all; I certainly couldn’t tell any difference on nights I forgot to take the little pill. I switched to a different one whose name I can’t think of right now, and it seems a little better, but not much.

Recently I decided to try a mechanical solution to my (and my sweetie’s) woes. Nose pull-open thingies (NPOTs) are basically pieces of plastic that you tape to your nose. The plastic acts as a spring and pulls your air passages open a little wider.

You know something? Those suckers work. We started with the CVS brand, and the first night was completely different than any I’ve had in months, if not years. There were two bits of adjustment; it didn’t take long to get used to the piece of plastic taped to my nose, but an area inside my right nostril was irritated, and that lasted all night.

I have a theory about that, if you will indulge me. My right nostril is very small, and pinched almost shut. (I’m not sure, but I think that indicates I have some cold-weather heritage influencing my nostril-size genes.) If I inhale sharply though my nose, the right nostril closes down completely. The irritation, I believe, is a result of air making contact with parts of my nose that almost never feel the arid kiss of the atmosphere.

NPOTs are more expensive than pills, but Costco carries a name-brand version in bulk, and bang-for-buck they kick the pills’ tiny corn-starch asses. Then there’s the added bonus that you’re not altering your body chemistry, or introducing an agent into your bloodstream that we might realize years from now is bad for you. (There’s the adhesive to worry about, I suppose, but I’ll take the chemicals on my skin over the chemicals in my blood any day.)

If breathing at night is an issue for you, give NPOTs a try. You (or your companion) might just thank me.