Beirut = Beer pong

This might be old news, but… As I'm not of American / Canadian background, this one was new on me...

Going through Google Reader this morning I spent some time trawling through Under Rug Swept as I’m occasionally want to do. The “Looks like Beirut” collection is a personal favourite.

I had a few minutes to kill just now and Googled “like Beirut” to find out how prevalent the phrase really was.

Here’s what I found:

“Beer Pong, also known as Beirut, is a drinking game in which players throw a ping-pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer/water on the other end. The game typically consists of two two-to-four-player teams and multiple cups set up on each side set up in triangle formation.There are no official rules, so rules may vary widely, though usually there are six or ten plastic cups arranged in a triangle on each side.”

Yes… they named an adolescent drinking game after Lebanon’s capital.

Hoping for some truly inspired reasoning behind this, I returned to Google. Here’s what I found:

“Q. Why is the game called beirut?

A.      No one really knows, but the likely reasoning is related to the violence in Beirut, Lebanon during the eighties.”

Look at the name of the site containing the rules … Beirut-guide.com …

Someone needs a smack up the side of the head.

I could just about understand a drinking game named after a particularly memorable night in Gemmayze ... but because of the "violence in Beirut during the eighties" ... uurrrgghhh...

I get the feeling the printing press at Under Rug Swept will be working overtime.