NationStates Jolt Archive

"Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. said it will quit marketing a drinking game called 'Bud Pong,' " the Associated Press reports (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/10/20/anheuser_busch_pulls_water_drinking_game/);

The nation's biggest brewer rolled out "Bud Pong" in July, sending kits to beer wholesalers in 18 states. The bar game is played by bouncing ping pong balls into cups of liquid, with participants taking a drink if they lose a point.

Sounds like harmless fun, but the instructions urged players to drink a deadly chemical called dihydrogen monoxide, or DHMO, which can cause a variety of dangerous symptoms:

Excessive sweating
Excessive urination
Bloated feeling
Nausea
Vomiting
Electrolyte imbalance
Hyponatremia (serum hypotonicity)
Dangerously imbalanced levels of ECF and ICF in the blood
Degeneration of sodium homeostasis

"It is irresponsible in itself to suggest that [DHMO] be used during a bar game, said Glynn Birch, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving," the AP reports.

Apparently, however, some people were using beer instead of DHMO. That begs the question: Why doesn't Anheuser-Busch simply market it as a beer-drinking game? A-B is in the beer business anyway, so not only would it be safer, it might actually help move some product. Actually, the idea seems so obvious, I have to wonder why they haven't already thought of it. Maybe alcohol really does make you dumb.

Oh God, not Dihydrogen Monoxide!!! It's in everything! :eek:

Oh noes!! If a beer company stops selling over-priced pre-made kits for beer pong, the game will utterly die out!

Or, you know, not.

Oh God, not Dihydrogen Monoxide!!! It's in everything! :eek:
It's a major ingredient in acid rain y'know! The government should put a stop to it!

Such fucking hypocrisy. Such fucking unending hypocrisy. A fucking beer company sells drinking game kits and then tries to act fucking surprised at a news article claiming people are using them with beer. Oh fucking no. I'm sure they're crying all the way to the fucking bank, now these things have, no doubt, sold in their millions. This is like those fucking toy guns that say "Do not fire at humans evar!", packets adorned with pictures of smiling children shooting at each other with them.

I don't give a fuck that they're selling drinking game kits. If people are stupid enough to buy them instead of, y'know, reading the instructions and replicating with plastic pint glasses and ping-pong balls, then good luck to them. I object to the company, which sells fucking beer, claiming surprise right now.

It's a major ingredient in acid rain y'know! The government should put a stop to it!

I heard its been found in arctic ice! and there are traces in damn near every resevoir in the world!

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!


the transparent hypocracy aside, how DARE they suggest that drinking beer be FUN? to reduce this sacred tradition to a mere GAME?

beer drinking is a serious business done by serious men and women who never crack a smile. its never FUN.

Is it just me or would such a game be more fun and move a lot faster with shotglasses of liquor instead of glasses of beer?

Is it just me or would such a game be more fun and move a lot faster with shotglasses of liquor instead of glasses of beer?
Almost certainly...though nothing will beat the drinking game my friends and I played for the US election - swig of beer for every democrat state, shot of vodka for each republican state. Vomiting equals disqualification.

I really thought the clincher was that MADD objects to using water in a drinking game.

Dihydrogen monoxide isn't funny anymore. It's dead. You killed it. Then you animated it as a zombie and killed it again. Let the poor thing rest in peace.

snip
Dude....um.....not to cut in on your apparent rage at the alcohol companies in general, but the point of the original post was actually another tired "water" joke. Dihydrogen monoxide = water. Two hydrogens, one oxygen. H TWWOOOO O. Can I make it any clearer? :rolleyes:

I don't know which is worse....the fact that water's been pulled out like this again, or the fact that somebody replied with beer rage....

Is it just me or would such a game be more fun and move a lot faster with shotglasses of liquor instead of glasses of beer?
First, you can't fit a ping-pong ball into a shot glass. (At least, not into one of mine.) Second, unless you chose a fairly low-alcohol liquor, the game would be too short. The aim of the game isn't to get drunk, it's to win. Getting tipsy (but not smashed) is the intended side-effect.

Getting smashed is no fun, because then you can't do anything except get more drunk. If you're just a little drunk, there's a world of fun to be had with other slightly intoxicated people.

Getting smashed is no fun, because then you can't do anything except get more drunk.

Walk me though this. Why is that not fun?

Walk me though this. Why is that not fun?
Heh, I guess it's a matter of taste.

What's the line? "Strong drink giveth a man the desire but taketh away the ability"? Something like that, Polonius says. Funny old man, Polonius.

Leaving aside the fact that an OD of alcohol causes at least temporary brain-stem shutdown, which I don't really like (breathing is definitely more fun than not breathing) all you get from being really drunk is an unpleasant sleep and a headache when you wake up, assuming you don't vomit. If you do, all the more so.

Who the crap BUYS a Beirut kit?

First, you can't fit a ping-pong ball into a shot glass. (At least, not into one of mine.) Second, unless you chose a fairly low-alcohol liquor, the game would be too short. The aim of the game isn't to get drunk, it's to win. Getting tipsy (but not smashed) is the intended side-effect.

Getting smashed is no fun, because then you can't do anything except get more drunk. If you're just a little drunk, there's a world of fun to be had with other slightly intoxicated people.
First, you need wider shot glasses, I have some where they would fit, and I think even in a standard sized flared one they could at least sit on top.
Second, hard alcohol doesn't hit you until you stand up anyways, so as long as everyone remains seated until the game is done, you're good.
Third, if you want to drink to get buzzed, you don't play drinking games, you drink at your own pace. The point of drinking games is that someone gets thoroughly wrecked and you make fun of them/draw stuff on them when the pass out.

I guess I never saw the lure of drawing stuff on people or making fun of them when they're drunk. Even when I'm drunk. (I'm pretty good at drinking games - must be the Irish blood. I tend not to be the loser, or at least the first loser.)

I can't think of any shot glasses that would actually be shotglasses and still be wide enough and tall enough to actually contain a ping-pong ball, rather than have it bounce off. You're throwing the ball, remember, not setting it down.

I guess I never saw the lure of drawing stuff on people or making fun of them when they're drunk. Even when I'm drunk. (I'm pretty good at drinking games - must be the Irish blood. I tend not to be the loser, or at least the first loser.)

I can't think of any shot glasses that would actually be shotglasses and still be wide enough and tall enough to actually contain a ping-pong ball, rather than have it bounce off. You're throwing the ball, remember, not setting it down.

Whisky shot glasses could probably half contain a ping pong ball. It would certainly make the game go faster to use shot glasses.

Whisky shot glasses could probably half contain a ping pong ball. It would certainly make the game go faster to use shot glasses.

Surely filling standard pint classes with whiskey or similar spirits would be a more effective way of speeding the game, no?

Surely filling standard pint classes with whiskey or similar spirits would be a more effective way of speeding the game, no?

It would indeed.