Minors Tend to Travel in Groups

Because I'm a nice person, and because she's paying me $20 to take it for her, I'm taking the online alcoholic beverage commission certification course for my sister right now. I'm not sure if this is true of every state, but in order to serve alcohol here you have to have your certification. Basically, it involves taking a three hour course on how to tell if someone is intoxicated, how to avoid serving minors, blah, blah, blah. You can go to an actual class, or you can do it online, which is what I always do. Because the certification expires every two years, I've already taken this course twice in my life for two different jobs, and my sister has already taken it at least once as well. Her internet connection isn't working well tonight, but she had already started the course when it crapped out on her and once you pay for the course and start it you only have six hours to complete it. I'm sure she could just call someone tomorrow and explain the situation and start the program again, but she figured it'd be easier for me to just let the stupid thing play in the background while I watch Food Network and screw around on the internet, and she's probably right. And I already know all of her answers to her security questions. That's what happens when you've known someone her entire life.
My biggest problem with the online course is that it begins with a pre-test. The pre-test has basically the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS that are on the test you have to take to get your certification at the end of the course. So wouldn't it make sense that if you can pass the pre-test, you already know all of the information that is going to be explained in the course, you're already an experienced "server/seller", and therefore you shouldn't have to sit through three hours of cheesy slideshows with painful dialogue that repeat the same things over and over and over again in different ways? It's so stupid.
I got a warning from the introductory slideshow that it's a felony to take this course for someone else, but you're also not supposed to consume alcoholic beverages, do distracting things like watch TV, or listen to loud music while taking the course, and you're probably not supposed to be blogging, either, and I'm breaking all of those rules, too. Except for the loud music thing. I don't usually listen to music unless I'm in my car or cleaning my apartment.
I did just learn a couple of things that I don't remember from last time, though. Did you know that it's illegal to serve alcohol to an insane person? Since that's the case, I probably shouldn't be serving drinks to a quarter of the people that come into the bar on any given day. I keep imagining how great it would be to say to a customer, "Sorry, I can't serve you tonight, dude, because you are INSANE."
Also while I did know it's possible to be arrested for public intoxication, I never really translated that in my mind as "it is illegal to get drunk." But it is. It's illegal even if you're not driving. Which, like I said, I sort of already knew, but I never really thought about just how often I've broken the law.

I'm looking forward to breaking it this weekend, though! Maddi is coming to town on Friday night, and I can't wait to see her. I imagine we'll end up doing a lot of drinking, because most of the places I want to take her are bars or restaurants. My sister's boyfriend was laughing at my sister last week because the only thing she really wanted him to do here was try various restaurants that we love. In retrospect, a very large part of our childhood revolved around restaurants. When I think about my hometown, my favorite restaurants are the first thing I think about. As much as this city has grown on me in the years since I stopped being stuck here full time, I have to admit that there's still not much to do around here either than eating or drinking. But then again, isn't that kind of the case anywhere?

P.S.-I've been spending way too much time rating movies on Flixster ever since discovering it a few days ago, and do you know what I have realized? For someone that claims to love movies, I have no interest in seeing about 75% of them. And I wish there was a similar site for books. Surely I'm not the only person in the world that would enjoy it.