Social Drinking Excellence: Justin Gilpatrick

This isn't Justin pictured here; it's his patron saint.

I've always been interested in visiting Portland. Now I'm not so sure. If nothing else, this incident is not a good look for the area's professional drinkers.

From The Huffington Post:

After a night out at a Portland, Oregon bar on Thursday, the 27-year-old made the wise decision not to drive home drunk.

Less wise, however, was the choice to curl up in a recycling dumpster to sleep off the booze.

Waste Management crews emptied the contents of the dumpster-- including Gilpatrick --into a compactor truck at around 1 a.m. on Friday, KGW reports. The truck driver drove for about a quarter of a mile and compacted his load twice before hearing Gilpatrick's terrified screams.

Gilpatrick survived largely because the truck was relatively empty, according to the New York Daily News. Had there been more recyclables in the compactor, the drunkard's prospects would have been grim.

Mr. Gilpatrick didn't just cheat death, he cheated Darwinism.

1. Okay, you're out on the town; you're drunk, and you want to sleep it off. How far down your list of bedding options is "recycling dumpster"? Fourth? Fifth? Maybe higher? There certainly are benefits in this location. Presuming there's only plastic in there, there is slightly more cushioning than sleeping on the ground. It's a dumpster, but nowhere near as foul as a regular garbage dumpster. And no one is going to see you in there and harass you. The only real con is that you could be crushed to death if you don't know the collection schedule.
2. Is it just me, or doesn't this sound like the backstory to a new superhero? "He was an ordinary man, living an ordinary life in Oregon. Until one night, when a terrible accident fused his body with recycled materials...and made him invincible! He is...CAPTAIN REUSABLE!"
3. I find it interesting and/or disturbing that no mention is made of Gilpatrick's friends. He had to be at the bar with other people, right? Had they parted ways before he decided to book a room at the Go Green Inn? Was his buddy a little further down the alley, laying on top of a stack of milk crates?
4. Wait, just watched the video at the HuffPo link, so I know the answer to #3. His friend's just a dick.
   
   
5. ...That Jasmine Bailey is tasty piece of yes ma'am. Damn...
6. ...wait, this is about Gilpatrick. While I'm happy he made it out of the situation relatively unscathed, I find it ludicrous that he blames it on drinking. If you drive your car off a cliff, you don't blame the people who made the upholstery.

Mr. Gilpatrick, your Rummy's in the mail. It has a compartment to stash emergency cab fare.

Four Loko Saves the World

As On the Rocks has methodically investigated Four Loko—a.k.a. the Drink That Will Live in Infamy—we have learned first of its dangers, and then later of its culinary merits. Now it seems there is yet another facet to the wonder lurking in these camouflaged 24 oz. cans.

From The Huffington Post:

RICHMOND, Va. — Truckloads of Four Loko and other alcohol-laced energy drinks are being recycled into ethanol and other products after federal authorities told manufacturers the beverages were dangerous and caused users to become "wide-awake drunk."

Wholesalers from Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and other East Coast states started sending cases of the high-alcohol, caffeinated malt beverages to MXI Environmental Services in Virginia after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a crackdown on the sale of such beverages in November.

...MXI distills the alcohol from the drinks, then sells the fuel to be blended into gasoline, Potter said. It sells the aluminum cans to a recycler. Potter estimated it takes "30 days until it's back on the shelf as another beer can." It also recycles the drinks' water, cardboard packaging and shipping pallets.

"These are actually things that could go directly into a landfill or incinerator or some other waste process that's not as environmentally friendly, so I think it's a good thing," he said.

Sometime soon your car, powered by Four Loko, could take you to a store to buy a case of beer cans made from recycled Loko cans; the pizza you buy while blacked out at 3 a.m. could be sold in a box made of cardboard recycled from Loko cases; and bottles of water you chug the next day could also be recycled from Loko. Now that's a harmony of existence.

I tangled with the Loko again on New Year's Eve, and I can attest to its effectiveness as an energy source. It fueled me through five or six hours of madness before I crashed into a brick wall disguised as Shannon's couch. And here I was thinking I'd been reckless with my intoxicated antics that night; turns out I was actually being environmentally-responsible.