Use defunct CDs for software you don't want anymore. Solves several problems: beer coaster, recycling CDs, and letting everyone know how much you hate that version of Windows.

This could mean the end of beer coasters. What with all the tooling up that has to be done to make round pieces of plastic, and it's obvious that liberals -- Wait a second, this is not a story. What's wrong with you people? Have my comments made you afraid to put up something with a little teeth in it? I can't intellectually slap a liberal around over something like this.

After a due amount of processing, I try to put my beers in the toilet or urinal.

sued the beer coaster company, won, and drove them out of business.

The world has CHANGED. Beer coasters are slowly going the way of NEWSPAPERS. Coasters must be GOOGLE-Y to survive. Adapt to DIGITAL or PERISH.

Um, on a paper napkin? Now, don't get me wrong here. I like the festive design aspects of a cleverly executed coaster as well as the next guy but "art" it ain't. My Lagunitas IPA tastes the same regardless of whether it's reposing on a coaster, naked bar top, picnic table or a circular chunk of graphic'd cardboard. I too, however, have to wonder what allowed for the demise of the company. Something smells skunky there.

How is it that people have ever felt that CDs make good coasters? I've been hearing that claim since the Era Of Inescapable AOL discs in the 90s... It always seemed to me that the inability to absorb or insulate made them near-useless. Don't most glass or crystal ones usually have a raised edge to retain liquid?

Besides, Linux isn't really a good source of discs anymore... These days, big distros like Ubuntu have easy programs that write it to a USB flash drive. Websites like PendriveLinux seem to cover all of the others, but I'm still too much of a novice to entirely understand what's going on there.

... and the first 5 posts, I might not have re-subscribed today.

I have good friend, 1st gen American born of Germ-Austrian parents. I first heard these coasters named as "bierdeckels." For decades I have considered a coaster to be one of permanence, reusable. Made of stone, plastic, cork, wood, tile, what have you.

A bierdeckel is made of cardboard and is disposable. That's only my distinction, and it's a way more fun word in my eyes.

Google translates the word as Beermat.

You are precisely the people who will outlaw alcohol after you've criminalized smoking, fast food and meat. We won't need coasters and he'll, isn't wasting paper a war crime now?

I agree with angeldog. Someone really fucked up to make a company with zero risk go under. Was it so hard to cut back on staff or relocate to cheaper pastures?

I use a coaster for other drinks as well. This has nothing to do with lower beer sales.

Talk to any Linux veteran and you'll have your answer. I have about a hundred CDs with Linux distros going back 5 years. You download your OS, burn it, install it, and then it's a coaster. With Ubuntu bringing out a fresh release every 6 mos. (a new one arrived two days ago), and the economy forcing people to realize that they can't afford $400 for Microsoft's next release or $1500 for the hardware needed to run Mac OS X, it's going to be a near endless supply.

"Boo-hoo

An unnecessary, disposable product may soon disappear and I'm supposed to cry? Jesus, we should be celebrating all the trees that WON'T get killed just to keep your damn bottom from making a stain on your underpants. As far as I'm concerned, it can only be a good thing. So the crapper will have to wield a coarse corn cob, a goose's neck or a touch stick once again. How traumatic.

MORE shit like this should disappear, I mean, metaphorical shit, of course."

FTFY.

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First they came for the beer coasters, but I drank Whiskey, so I didn't speak up . . . then they came for the toilet paper and there was no one left to speak up for me.

I blame the Nazis.

How could a company so old (nearly age 300!)go BK selling a product which is only produced after being given an order by a known client? Must have had former AIG execs involved, maybe even Harvard MBA guys!

An unnecessary, disposable product may soon disappear and I'm supposed to cry? Jesus, we should be celebrating all the trees that WON'T get killed just to keep your damn beer from making a ring on the bar. As far as I'm concerned, it can only be a good thing. So the bartender (or the waitress) will have to wield a wet towel again. How traumatic.

MORE shit like this should disappear, not less.

Wait until the last toilet paper company goes under.

Coasters also help your glass from losing its coolth. I'll drink to that!

...I need a beer.

(I heard on some newscast that beer consumption is down because hard liquor is a cheaper buzz in the long run, and comsumers get more out of a bottle of booze than a 24-pack of beer although the cost is the same.)

There are shames, damn shames, and tragedies. I think we all know where this one fits in.....

What's WRONG with the world?

Living in Berlin in the fifties, where excellent beer was cheap and when I drank a hell of a lot more than I dare to today, I soon learned that coasters were used to record a tab on the customers. I learned that when making an ass of myself with a table of other ugly Americans who were frisbeeing our coasters out a window onto the street below.

Has that changed? I assumed coasters were still not like those dim sum dishes that pile up until we call it quits and ask for the bill reckoning.

P.S. I have no coasters from those Berlin years, but the memories are priceless.