DUI? Dewey? Dee Ewe Eye? No. FRI-DAY.

Now kids, listen carefully - I DO NOT CONDONE DRINKING AND DRIVING. Our title here was just a playful mantra for tonights absolutely outstanding turn of events. (Bad grammar? Lick my scrote.)

After an unusually slow Friday at work, my good friend calls me at about 4pm.
-Hey, we're going to Brew Fest. You wanna come?
I'm broke as hell. I'm trying to NOT spend money and this goes completely against the plan. I had a nicely laid out agenda of eating a small dinner with no booze and possibly seeing my girlfriend if I was still awake.
-It's $20 to get in, and they give you ten tokens for beers.
I did some quick math. That was only about $2 per beer. And there was the possibility of using my charming personality and stunning good looks to get more, gratis. Righteous. How could I pass this up?
-I'm in.
We met and carpooled not long after this conversation took place.

Upon entering, we noticed the fairgrounds to be a bit.. empty. Who cares. We started drinking. First up was some Long Trail Blackberry Wheat. A decadent brew whose barley-powered flavor sent my taste buds reeling. We quickly finished the first beer. I needed to eat, badly, I could feel my stomach turning on me.

I'm not sure if any of you are aware of what happens to a man if he drinks on an empty stomach.. or - better yet - what happens to ME when I drink on an empty stomach. But I assure you that it's nothing short of anarchy and a maniacal sense of world domination. So we opted for some BBQ pulled chicken. A wise choice.

A few more beers and we bump into more friends of ours who tip us off that Dog Fish Head is pouring 12% porter at their tent. Outstanding. This is where I'll station myself, with good footing, and pour as much of this into my face as my wooden coins would allow.

Turns out, if you ask these kind folks working these tents for a 'sample' they give you a full glass, but they take no tokens. Truly a magnificent discovery, Nobel worthy, and we certainly planned to abuse this small loop hole to our fullest advantage!

Hours passed. We didn't give any of our circular pieces of wood for trade in a beer exchange, and things were looking great. At least from my perspective, which was blurred, euphoric, and distorted at best.

It had been hours, and I needed to relieve myself. In blunt language - I needed to piss. Bad. It seems in all of my beer drinking glee I had forgot about this function of life.

I stepped into what had to have been the cleanest Port-a-Potty that I've ever seen. It was spotless. I was impressed. Of course, it was only 6pm. I imagined what would have happened had my friends decided to tip this portable fecal dumpster over. Would I drown in a sea of blue sterilizing liquid? Would I fall out of the front door, penis in hand, covered in used toilet paper? Had my mind run away from me? Would I ever get it back? If I didn't, would it be for the worse?

All of these thoughts rushing through my brain as if I was still working, trying to critically think and solve a problem.

I shook myself, mostly to clear my head. It was time to drink as much beer as I could steal from these poor saps. Surely I am the only one who has found this 'sample' loophole!

As I exited the human waste containment unit I found that more people had found out about this Brew Fest. And that all the beer here was not mine alone. This made me slightly angry, until I realized that I had more to drink than I had expected.

Oh well. We're out of here. At this point we've been in this stinky rotten tent with all these low-rent miscreants for so long that I wanted nothing more than to be free of their stench.

We joined with other friends at a local chain restaurant, where we ordered $3 well margaritas with a copious amount of tequila and yelled at the waitresses in a slightly profane tone. I don't remember what was said, but I do remember the waitress saying, 'I lost. We drew straws to see who would get you guys back there.' when she came to our table.

This, of course, only angered us more, and we thought it would be wise to see how much we could torment this waitress until she gave up.

Too late, bored again. We left before she finished serving our party. Dropped a few dollars on the table and headed to the liquor store.

We were headed to another friends house, who had apparently invited hundreds of people to have a party since he was moving out. This was clearly a lie once we arrived and doubled the population.

After meeting quite possibly the coolest kid ever, Antonio, and learning many unspeakable Italian words for parts of the female anatomy, we got bored.

I left early. Now, I'm tired. I'm sitting on my girlfriends couch waiting for her to come home. I need to stay awake until she does, since she doesn't have any keys to get in otherwise. Thanks for keeping me awake for the past 30 minutes.

I think it is one of the most important characteristics of a person to know when to stand your ground and fight for something that you truly believe in. A close second is to know when to keep your mouth shut and exercise tact in a situation that would not benefit from the verbalization of your disagreement with a subject.

Of course, in the event that you must disagree, there are some rules of engagement.

• Assess your audience. If you're talking to a friend of a friend, you can be as blunt and straight forward as you need to be to beat him into submission. However, if you're talking to your Aunt, you need to show a little more respect.

• Try to avoid personal insults. I feel like this should be obvious, but there is nothing more classless than trying to win a debate by calling someone else names or attacking their personal life. However, if your opponent crosses this line, then all bets are off. Try to show some regard, however, and if you word it carefully enough others might not even pick up on what you've said.

• Outsmart your opponent. There is nothing I like better than walking someone into a verbal trap by using convoluted language.

These rules apply when you truly believe that something being discussed is important enough to you to share your input.

However, recently I've crossed paths with someone who doesn't truly believe what they're arguing about. They're just regurgitating what they've been told their whole lives. They've never questioned it, it just gets spit back up when the time is right.

These are my favorite types of debates, because rather than focusing on the subject at hand, you can simply scrutinize the other person about why they feel the way they do. 99% of the time they have absolutely no idea why they think what they think is right and you're a clear victor before the debate even happens.

The sweetest part about these types of conversations, is that the other person will get so upset that their ignorance has just been exploited, that they'll start coming at you with personal attacks. At this point, it's best to stay nimble and avoid personally attacking them back. Remember, you've already won before this began and now they're giving you a shot to embarrass them further.

I've been a serious asshole in the past. I know it's part of who I am, but I control it and I try to walk a thin line to where it's more humorous then offending. Lately, it's been working pretty well. It's important to be able to pick your battles wisely, because they all inevitably relate to one another.

Remember who you are and what you believe in, but always be willing to listen to an alternative idea. Don't come out guns blazing when it's not what you think. That other idea might be something you relate to more closely then your current set. The ability to mold multiple points of view and opinions into something that is unique to yourself is, I think, what wisdom truly is. No one knows everything, but the wise know that everyone knows something, and they extract it.