A friend of The Black Table is a loyal, devoted drinker. How do we know this? The other night, she went out drinking with another friend who is a bit of a lightweight. The next day, he complained to us that he was hungover and couldn't drink that much. We asked him how much he drank.

"Three beers, two martinis, one shot and a vodka tonic."

We then asked our alcoholic friend how much she'd made him drink. She had the exact same tally: "Three beers, two martinis, one shot and a vodka tonic."

That's a mark of a real drinker: Not only do they know how much they drank, they know how much everyone they were with drank. We respect that. We love that, actually.

Just short of a baker's dozen of submissions today. Using the form on the right, you'll have the right to write.

-- BT

The Black Table needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your best shot. Fire away.

SHIT ROLLING DOWNHILL: "Shit rolls downhill" is a universal enough expression that we gladly accept as a fact of life -- but we don't remember it stinking this badly. Photos of the U.S. military torture of Iraqi prisoners continue to provide fodder for the same media outlets who did the Bush administration's bidding in promoting this war, outlets that now act shocked that things like this would go on. Meanwhile, it is only enlisted soldiers with their heads on the chopping block so far. Military contractors who dare upset Big Brother by photographing the coffins of American soldiers warrant immediate dismissal, but contractors who encourage torture and the high-ranking officials who turn a blind eye to it are still safe in their jobs. It's easy to denounce the dumb bumpkins smiling and pointing at their humiliated prisoners. But it's important to remember that our harshest words should be for those responsible for sending them to Iraq in the first place and who ordered them to run a prison without proper training and with little help. George W. Bush is right when he says that the soldiers who tortured Iraqis don't speak for America. They speak for his own outrageous dishonesty and incompetence, and our country's desperate, pleading need for a new President. F -- Matthew Sheahan

RACIST INSECTICIDES: I went to my local gardening store, looking for a spray to kill a shitload of tent caterpillars devouring all the new buds on my crab apple tree. What do I see in the insecticide section, but a spray specifically for Japanese

beetles called "Hari Kari." Does this can actually spray out tiny little swords for the beetles to pick up and slide into their own stomachs? I'd like to think so. On the whole, I find the name and writing (in the Asian style of calligraphy most commonly seen on Chinese take-out menus) to be mildly racist. C- -- Amy L. Stender

LIVEJOURNAL DRAMA: Livejournal, undoubtedly, is the junior high cafeteria of the Internet, and in every junior high cafeteria, there's someone who can tell you exactly what is going on at every table. Ljdrama proudly takes on that role, weeding out all of the "What character from Maude are you?" and "Here's the same survey that went around two weeks ago" posts to relay only the best conversations, gossip and arguments. It's the best in melodramatic blogging packaged into an easy-to-read format, summarizing the craziness while providing a direct link to it -- just in case we want to read all 143 posts about cabaretchick1985 not getting the lead role in the high school play or myusernameistoocoolforyou69 flying off the handle about someone's thoughts on God. It's a godsend to bored office surfers, especially those of us who are endlessly entertained by the misspelled, overwrought navel gazing of teenagers. B+ -- Tom Panarese

TED RALL'S POLITICAL CARTOONS: I'll be the first to agree with everyone else that Iraq is a war that we should not be involved in, but sometimes I think people take their opinions to an unnecessary extreme. Ted Rall created a cartoon blasting Pat Tillman for giving up football to "kill Arabs." Rall is showing Tillman as some sort of racist, Rambo-type - with no regards for Tillman's family and friends. Rall recently said, "The word 'hero' has been bandied about a lot to refer to anyone killed in Afghanistan or Iraq. But anyone who voluntarily goes to Afghanistan or Iraq [as a soldier] is fighting for an evil cause under an evil commander in chief." That's fine; he has every right to say what he wants. And Bush isn't exactly the greatest leader our country has ever had. But attacking the soldiers that are doing their job, and ultimately dying for our country, is despicable. I hope that Rall realizes that if we didn't have anyone to volunteer and fight for the army, there wouldn't be anyone to defend his right to create such a classless comic. F -- Tim Hankins

WHITE PEOPLE WHO DON'T ORDINARILY LISTEN TO HIP-HOP TOLKENIZING ONE MEDIOCRE ARTIST: For many years the Caucasian community only appreciated a specific triumvirate of hip-hop acts. You could have asked any suburban white boy in the country if they liked rap, and they would have said, "not really - but I dig De La Soul, Tribe, and the Beastie Boys." But since the break up of TCQ and the realization that all the concerts in the world couldn't free Tibet, Abercrombie frat boys have added some new MCs to the arsenal. Look for the kid with the backwards hat and flip-flops at the party tactfully slipping in a Jurassic 5 track between 80s songs, and you'll know what I'm talking about. C -- Chris Fara1

GOLD BOND MEDICATED POWDER: We're barely even into May and it's already hotter than boiling monkey shit. And like the trucker hat, it's a sad, dead trend that won't be going away for a while. The end result of this mess for guys is a rather soggy mess known in certain circles as "Swamp Ass," a direct effect of the sweat glands in the nether regions working double time in a vain effort to keep the goods cool. When coping with swamp ass, a fella can do one of two things:

1. Go to the 99-cent store and buy a spatula specifically for peeling your balls from your inner thigh.
2. Live the Miller High Life like a true gangsta and drop an Abe Lincoln on Gold Bond Medicated Powder, available at any pharmacy.

Opt for Gold Bond -- Its triple medicated formula will have your junk as dry and cool as Death Valley on Christmas Eve. Each granule is so powerful that even the smallest dab feels like a million tiny blowjobs. For best results and greater euphoria, apply to freshly shorn nalgas, which if you're not already doing, step into the 21st century. Not even Andre 3000 can find a girl who likes a hairy tea bag. A -- Todd Munson

WINNING AT THE RACES: Saturday at Belmont Park. Race 7. I pick horses 3 & 4 in an exacta box. For me to win, Canadian Frontier and Key Deputy both had to come in first and second (though boxing it meant I didn't have to pick the exact order). As they passed me on the final stretch, Canadian Frontier was in the lead, with Key Deputy in third. Key Deputy must have made a push at the end, but I couldn't see it. I didn't know I won till the official order came up. Then there was the ordeal of waiting for the payoff numbers. Canadian's odds were 20.5 to one, so I knew I made significant bank. I got nauseous waiting ... and waiting. It probably took less than two minutes for me to see the magic number, but it felt like hours: $209.50. My parents were thrilled. My friends wished me a happy birthday. My mother said a couple times, "I'm so happy we could be here for this!" Another Gallagher Family Milestone: Kid Wins Big at Track. Now I'm going out for steaks. A -- Aileen Gallagher

MID-AFTERNOON WAKEUP PRODUCTS: The advertising industry seems to be catching on to what everybody else has always known; around 3 or 3:30 on a weekday is the time to get some coffee, a Coke, maybe a candy bar, to bolster yourself for those long hours before you hoist yourself from behind the desk and head for the train, around 6-ish. The recent Cup-a-Noodles campaign is using this tactic, implying that the "hey, could you pick me up a small?" mid-afternoon coffee run should be replaced with a sodium-laden second lunch. The latest version, for Dunkin Donuts frozen lattes, seems more reasonable, but also overestimates the amount of sugar required to blast through the rest of your workday by about, oh, the equivalent of five twinkies, give or take. It appears the next logical step is the Pizza Hut mid-day stuffed crust pizza, or the Taco Bell afternoon chimichanga plate. Or ... shit, now I'm hungry. I could actually kind of go for a twinkie. C -- Brett

WORKING UNTIL MIDNIGHT IN BANGKOK: My job in journalism requires odd hours. Finishing up at the office at 12-ish every night should mean fun fun fun in most cities. Well, Bangkok is not most cities. For starters, the bars close at 2 a.m. I've mastered downing 4-5 gin and tonics in that two hours. Afterwards, you only have "after hours" shitholes (and this IS the third world, so I do mean shithole in the literal sense) or drinking at scummy tables on the street. So, night after night, you quaff bottles of nasty Thai whisky and chat with the passersby who inevitably stop by when they see a white guy drinking alone. These passersby invariably are prostitutes. While not of the Western crack-ho variety, they are not always the best drinking partners: They eat funky food, the aroma of which can cause immediate hurling; they can drink more than you; and they inevitably ask for money for something or other. On the plus side, everything's really cheap here. Best advice: try to get a job in a first-world country. C- -- Jonathan Gardner

THE WOMAN IN MARKETING WHO GLARES AT YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN WHILE WALKING PAST YOUR DESK: You're sitting in your cube, hitting the refresh button at the top of your Hotmail account over and over while pretending to be busy or just not look so damned lazy. So you're sitting there staring at your computer screen like the good little day slave you are when that random fat lady in Marketing saunters ever so slowly past your cube. You feel her eyes on you, and a sidelong glance confirms your suspicions: She's STARING AT YOUR SCREEN WHILE SHE PASSES. Why? She's either staring at your screen to determine just what fascinating web fluff you're perusing, or else she's just staring at you because she hates you, or maybe because you're just so incredibly hot or so incredibly heinous or most likely, so incredibly LAZY that she just can't help herself. And watch, she'll do the exact same thing five minutes later while walking back to her desk? As if anything has changed in those five minutes, as if you're any less lazy or ugly or hot -- or as if you'd interpreted her poisonous glare as a prompt to "get to work" and you'd actually suddenly decided to begin WORKING. Ha! Good one, but nope. No way. F -- Laura B.

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