(ATL’s Deerhunter, visibly thrilled at having inspired the Couch Slouch)

Bob Costas baiter Norman Chad, author of “Don’t Worry Honey, I’ll Take You To The Hospital At Halftime”, declares “among the seven or eight monumental mistakes I’ve made in my tortured adult life – outside of the occasional matrimonial gaffe – none was bigger than embracing Shiner Bock as my beer of choice to replace the late Rolling Rock,” the former beverage he describes as “a little too elusive, a little too expensive and a little too Quentin Tarantino.” From Sunday’s Cleveland Plain-Dealer :

I was first exposed to Rolling Rock by the 1978 movie, “The Deer Hunter.” Coincidentally, about a week after I saw the film, I noticed Rolling Rock ponies in the liquor store and bought them for a weekly card game, and it became our unofficial home beer.

For more than a quarter century, I depended on Rolling Rock. It was my longest-sustained relationship – by at least 19 years – and arguably my most rewarding. Brett Favre has started 237 consecutive regular-season games as an NFL quarterback; I watched 479 consecutive “Monday Night Football” games with a remote in one hand and a Rock in the other.

And, then, on Black Friday, the green bottles were forever contaminated.

Anheuser-Busch, as many of you know, purchased Rolling Rock on May 19, 2006, and moved it out of Latrobe, Pa. This would be like Sumner Redstone purchasing the Roman Catholic Church and moving it out of Vatican City. I was left high and dry. How shall I say? I was hopping mad.

Anyway, responding to a reader suggestion, I made the switch from Rolling Rock to Shiner Bock.

In retrospect, I would’ve been better off pouring Red Bull down my shorts and cracking my head open with a Tim McCarver signature baseball bat.