Folks, life is full of uncertainty. Life is all about uncertainty. The Universe is all about uncertainty. The Universe likes to find things in your life of which you are certain, light them on fire, and piss on their smouldering ashes.

It is the only thing of which I am certain. Don't let the cheap irony of that escape you.

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. At some point or another, everybody has figured this little gem out. Hell, even physicists, with their runny little noses and beady little eyes focused intently on big black boards cryptically scratched up with dull, white chalk, have pieced it together. Naturally, they got all anal about it and distilled this simple uncertainty down to a formal principal. They called it The Uncertainty Principle (don't let physicists name stuff - they suck at it).

The Uncertainty Principle is a theory in quantum mechanics stating that it is impossible to specify simultaneously the position and momentum of a particle with precision. The theory further states that a more accurate determination of one quantity will result in a less precise measurement of the other, and that the product of both uncertainties is never less than something called Plank's constant. The present accepted value of the constant is h = 6.626 × 10^-34 joule-second in the meter-kilogram-second system. Whatever the fuck that means. Apparently, this uncertainty results from the fundamental nature of the particles being observed. Therefore, in quantum mechanics, probability calculations replace the exact calculations of classical mechanics.

In short, life is a crapshoot, and if you think you know something, you're wrong.

It was this principle that tapped me on the shoulder shortly after I decided that Rocktober was a good idea.

I've known Dutch, for all intents and purposes, as long as I can remember. This is owed to the fact that I can't remember the first part of my life. That, coincidentally, is owed to a particularly bad bender I went on with Dutch, about 10 years ago. Neat little circle, there, no?

In any case, at the start of October, Dutch came to visit Shaggy and I. Shaggy is my landlord. I live in a spare room in his house. I've known Shaggy a long time too. Not as long as I've known Dutch though. I still remember stuff from before meeting Shag. We just haven't gone on a big enough bender, yet.

After a night of drinking gin and shaking our fists, the Bacchant spirit took hold of us and we foolishly decided to declare the month Rocktober. We dedicated ourselves, singularly, to the acquisition and consumption of alcohol.

I've been on weekend benders. I've been on weeklong benders. But, until that moment, I had never even considered embarking on a 31 day voyage across a deep sea of booze.

I hoped Bacchus and Poseidon were tight.

The first thing that I learned during Rocktober was that the best cure for a hangover was more booze. No matter how sick, and how vile you felt, pouring booze into you would eventually make it better.

The second thing that I learned during Rocktober was that pouring booze down my throat when I felt sick and vile almost always resulted in the immediate, and violent expulsion of said booze. This translates to a lot of wasted booze. But hey, everything comes at a price, right?