http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2001-22.html Shiiiiit...
This happens too often in my country...
That poor professor definetly had extremely poor vision... The first symptome of a methanol intoxication is a loss of vision. The trick is to find ethanol-containing liquids (I bet you know what I mean), or even heavy-spirits that usually are considered "poisonous" but actually can make you feel drunk for days, that quickly displace methanol from your methabolism.
You have to drink as fast as you can, or you'll get blind, or even die.
That professor definetly was not an everyday drinker, or he could not suffer from methanol. I wonder how much had he "quaffed". 200ml?! Too much even for a 90kg relatively healthy amateur alcoholic as I am.
We often dink pure ethanol, mostly in the field, vodka is too heavy when you go to the mountains for 3 weeks, with your backpack's "start weight" over 30kg. Alcohol helps you to recover after a 40km march, when you need to drop a backpack and prepare camp and food. You don't even get drunk, but after 50ml of pure wine spirit with cold river water, onion and dry black bread you feel completely resurrected and this "charge" lasts for at least an hour.
Maybe he was drinking from that bottle for a few days?
There was an amazing footnote in a "Toxic Chemicals Reference" printed in East Germany.
"Ethanol. Lethal dose: 250ml.(*)"
And in the bottom of the page:
"(*) - Not for Russians."
It's not a joke. I'm serious.
Hehe, had a funny experience in "Krizis Zhanra" ("Genre Crisis") bar in Moscow. I come to a counter, a young lady asks me what I want, with a foreign accent. I say my usual "dva po sto" ("two times hundreed"), and she says: "Ne ponimayu!", and then the same thing in English - "Don't understand!"!!! Damn! They hired an American exchange student as a bartender, and it was her first day at work
I had to explain that I want 2 glasses, each one with 100ml of vodka, and 4 beers, for us and for our girlfriends.
Usualy Moscow bartenders look at me as at the maniac when I order my 100 with beer. They think I'm not going to leave the bar on my own feet. They don't understand the simple fact: if I'm with my woman - i'll keep sane enough to bring her home securely.
Sorry for a long post
