So I decided to hit the town after work yesterday... which ended up being a lot of fun, but made work not nearly as much fun today.
Originally I was going to catch a concert at this bar right near where I work.
As I got closer I noticed this big line of people waiting outside the club, and as I got closer, I realized it was like 95 percent girls... which is not a minus to say the least. But, as I got even closer, I realized the club did not have an age limit and they ranged from tweens (some with their humorously unexcited looking fathers) on up to mid-twenties... I figured that probably wouldn't be the best place to go so I wandered to the Village and kept exploring.
Eventually I ended up at a bar with some friends from USF, which was fun. I spent a good part of the evening talking to this girl who was in town from the Czech Republic.
I pulled a John McCain and mistakenly referred to her as being from the now defunct Czechoslovakia. She quickly reminded me that country no longer exists.
Still? I thought for sure by now they'd have hooked up and had some crazy makeup sex by now, oh well...
I also mentioned something about European geography and was way off, and I got called out on that too. I explained to her that we don't need to learn European geography here on this side of the Atlantic and asked her if she knew the geography of our states. Luckily she laughed at most of the crazy jingotastic jokes I made rather than smack me in the face... I probably get away with a lot more than I should sometimes, but I digress...
I wish I had thought to ask her if she was a fan of Eastern Europe's favorite cat and mouse team - Worker and Parasite! ...
The night, which ended up costing a bit, also got me to thinking about finances. I'm definitely doing fine at the moment money-wise, but the more I go out drinking, the more cash I'm hemorrhaging and at some point that might cause some trouble. I really need to reign in the spending, whether it's from drinking, eating out, or just buying things for the apartment - it all keeps adding up.
So I've decided to try something out. Until next weekend (except Wednesday, my birthday!), I'm not going to spend another damn cent. I'm going to prepare every meal at home, not go out drinking, no Chinatown for lunch... heck, not even pick up a 50 cent New York Post on the way to work in the morning. Nothing!
I was totally rocking out to Candy Girl in one of the bars I went to yesterday...
I was just thinking, maybe I'll pick it up for 99 cents on iTunes, what's 99 cents, right? Nope, that's 99 cents too many. I guess my need for a New Edition fix came at a bad time. Oh well, somehow I think I'll survive... even though it really is a fun little ditty...
I'm still debating whether I'll skip doing laundry this Saturday morning too... we'll see.
I'm already planning some thrifty tactics to make this work. Like I'm going to go to get a library card Saturday morning and get a new (free) book to read on my commute instead of the Post. Hopefully it will be better than With a Tangled Skein, a chill just went down my spine thinking of that "book"...
That reminds me, maybe if I can find some sort of abridged children's version with tons of pictures I might pick up Pride and Prejudice. The poll showed that six people had read the book and five had only seen a film version. Either way, in my drunkenness I forgot that the debate was actually over whether all girls had read the book... and the poll didn't specify anything about that, so it was kind of useless I suppose. Oh well.
If I limited it to just women, it probably would have gotten confusing anyway, having to do the math to calculate the results of all those partial votes... I'll just consider that bullet dodged.
Side note: I passed by an epic dominoes match walking home today. These two old guys had a table set up on the sidewalk and they actually had a fairly loud (for dominoes I suppose) crowd watching intently. It was a little odd. It also reminded me that I can't remember the last time I played dominoes and I'm not even sure I even remember how to play.
Showing posts with label the Village. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Village. Show all posts
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Bullets from a fun weekend...
So some friends were in town this weekend and we relaxed, had a few drinks, behaved ourselves and philosophized about the current state of the civilized world and whatnot.
Well, sort of.
Another way of looking at it might be that we drank all weekend and went all over town from bar to bar causing varying degrees of trouble. We really did go all over the place, so I'll just mention some of the more random things (that I can remember)...
* So bar hopping was a little interesting when we were near NYU... because they tend to card more. Normally presenting ID isn't an issue, but when I recently applied for my New York state driver's license they made me surrender my old license... leaving me without a picture ID.
What I did have, as far as something government-issued that had my birthday on it, was my draft card.
In case you were wondering, about half of the bars on Bleecker Street near NYU checking ID at the entrance let me in using my draft card (draft cards don't have pictures on them in case you didn't know). The other half hate America.
It definitely made for some interesting conversations with the bouncers, most of whom had not registered with the Selective Service System (despite the fact that the law says, with a few exceptions, all males 18-25 must register). Then again, we were right by NYU, so I shouldn't be terribly surprised I guess.
Overall though, it didn't come up too much, since there wasn't too much carding throughout the weekend.
* We went to one bar that had a family of mice living behind the bar... but don't worry, I'm pretty sure they were friendly mice. The bartenders were friendly too, even though I could tell they were a little miffed when they came back from the bathroom to find me heading behind the bar trying to catch the mice. I figure they would make good pets, right?
They were also none too pleased (but still nice) when I pretended to try to get a drink from the Corona lava lamp... come to think of it, they had the patience of saints. Hmmm, if any of us remembers the name of the place, we'll have to go back.
* We went to the home of the best General Tso's chicken in Chinatown for lunch Saturday. Next time I go there, I'll have to get a side order of something we noticed that kind of stuck out on the menu... "duck's blood with yellow chives."
Part of me says it will probably be inedible, like the jellyfish we got there last time, but the other part of me is just fascinated, so we'll see what happens with that...
Sidenote - our fortune cookies were served to us on a bed of sliced oranges... which I had never seen before, there or anywhere else.
* I was exposed for the first time to Concrete TV, which is glorious. Oversimplified, it is this public access show in New York where all kinds of totally random scenes are mashed together into these crazy montages and set to music.
The clips are all over the place, they range from scenes from Barney to people getting run over by cars to porn scenes to newscast snippets to absolutely anything you can imagine under the sun. Hell, I think they had a snippet from JEM and the Holograms.
This is just one random sample... DO NOT WATCH THIS AT THE OFFICE! (along with the random stuff, there's naked folks interspersed...)
An old roommate from USF who lives in the Upper East Side had the DVDs of the show. it was great. He even had one episode that was entirely comprised of essentially just people getting hit by cars and set to a cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic "Crosstown Traffic" and Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" (I get knocked down..., that one).
For some reason, (though admittedly we weren't even close to sober at that point) I couldn't get enough of clips of people being hit by cars. I couldn't stop laughing and was in tears watching it... the other guys might have been a little worried at how much I was laughing at those clips.
I was kind of like when Homer had to watch the Troy McClure video of car crashes at traffic school ("Here's an appealing fellow... in fact, they're a peeling him off the sidewalk.") Everybody else is mortified and Homer is cracking up ... "It's funny cuz I don't know him." Truer words were never spoken.
* I'd be sad if I forgot to mention that Lisa and I resumed our epic Blades of Steel rivalry. My Toronto Maple Leafs, of course, dominated his feeble Montreal Canadiens.
* We did go to the nipple-burger bar near where I work, but nothing crazy happened. The bartender from before wasn't there then. We just had some uber-cheap PBR's and hung out, it was relatively early and thus quite.
* We also had some beers at the microbrewery under the Empire State Building... that was kind of cool. FYI -they have really good cheese fries. We also learned there's a KFC right near the Empire State Building too, which is comforting to know.
* We went to the site of the old CBGB's punk club, which is now an ultra-trendy designer clothes boutique catering to the (with those prices, apparently well-to-do) hipster crowd. The situation is really kind of sad.
Along with the stunningly overpriced shirts, they sold mint condition used records selling for around a $100 a piece. Some looked pretty familiar, since I have copies at my apartment (though admittedly many are not in good enough condition to be considered sold as "collectibles" like theirs). They also sell antique (read: used, and old as crap) stereo receivers, like the 1975 hand-me-down receiver I use. They ranged from $500 to $1,000. The same ones probably sell at Goodwill for $10... but the world is filled with very, very stupid people with too much money... so why not try to get some of it, right? I'm going to try to sell the store my receiver and maybe some records too and see what happens with that.
* I really need to remember to bring my camera everywhere with me. Today's subway ride home was interesting, to say the least. Toward the end of the ride, a high school drumline and group of dancerettes got on the train... which isn't too strange... unless they're all dressed in hospital-themed costumes. The musicians were all wearing scrubs, and the dancers were all wearing matching naughty-nurse outfits (maybe it was good I didn't bring my camera then... since they were all teens...). The teacher/band director was wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope.
One stop away from them getting off, they just randomly decided to all start drumming and salsa dancing on the train... it was incredibly strange - and loud.
There was also a homeless guy on my train for a while begging for money... which is also not too unusual... but he decided to keep things interesting. He basically approached guys individually and would half whisper "Hey, you look like you've got a big dick," and then he would present his change cup. (I assume it was an attempt to flatter some money out of riders. I know I was flattered... but not flattered enough.
I assume either he had some serious issues in the head or that he was totally faking it... sad either way I suppose.
Besides, I had already exhausted my money-for-strangers-on-the-train budget for the day by giving a dollar to an a cappella group that did a really fun version of "Stand by Me" on the 6 train earlier.
The 6 train is on the East side... so the East side apparently gets performances of golden oldies while my train on the West side gets homeless people commenting on my girth... I guess that's the difference between the East and West sides.
Well, I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head... it's bedtime anyway... we didn't go to bed terribly early these past couple of nights to say the least.
Well, sort of.
Another way of looking at it might be that we drank all weekend and went all over town from bar to bar causing varying degrees of trouble. We really did go all over the place, so I'll just mention some of the more random things (that I can remember)...
* So bar hopping was a little interesting when we were near NYU... because they tend to card more. Normally presenting ID isn't an issue, but when I recently applied for my New York state driver's license they made me surrender my old license... leaving me without a picture ID.
What I did have, as far as something government-issued that had my birthday on it, was my draft card.
In case you were wondering, about half of the bars on Bleecker Street near NYU checking ID at the entrance let me in using my draft card (draft cards don't have pictures on them in case you didn't know). The other half hate America.
It definitely made for some interesting conversations with the bouncers, most of whom had not registered with the Selective Service System (despite the fact that the law says, with a few exceptions, all males 18-25 must register). Then again, we were right by NYU, so I shouldn't be terribly surprised I guess.
Overall though, it didn't come up too much, since there wasn't too much carding throughout the weekend.
* We went to one bar that had a family of mice living behind the bar... but don't worry, I'm pretty sure they were friendly mice. The bartenders were friendly too, even though I could tell they were a little miffed when they came back from the bathroom to find me heading behind the bar trying to catch the mice. I figure they would make good pets, right?
They were also none too pleased (but still nice) when I pretended to try to get a drink from the Corona lava lamp... come to think of it, they had the patience of saints. Hmmm, if any of us remembers the name of the place, we'll have to go back.
* We went to the home of the best General Tso's chicken in Chinatown for lunch Saturday. Next time I go there, I'll have to get a side order of something we noticed that kind of stuck out on the menu... "duck's blood with yellow chives."
Part of me says it will probably be inedible, like the jellyfish we got there last time, but the other part of me is just fascinated, so we'll see what happens with that...
Sidenote - our fortune cookies were served to us on a bed of sliced oranges... which I had never seen before, there or anywhere else.
* I was exposed for the first time to Concrete TV, which is glorious. Oversimplified, it is this public access show in New York where all kinds of totally random scenes are mashed together into these crazy montages and set to music.
The clips are all over the place, they range from scenes from Barney to people getting run over by cars to porn scenes to newscast snippets to absolutely anything you can imagine under the sun. Hell, I think they had a snippet from JEM and the Holograms.
This is just one random sample... DO NOT WATCH THIS AT THE OFFICE! (along with the random stuff, there's naked folks interspersed...)
An old roommate from USF who lives in the Upper East Side had the DVDs of the show. it was great. He even had one episode that was entirely comprised of essentially just people getting hit by cars and set to a cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic "Crosstown Traffic" and Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" (I get knocked down..., that one).
For some reason, (though admittedly we weren't even close to sober at that point) I couldn't get enough of clips of people being hit by cars. I couldn't stop laughing and was in tears watching it... the other guys might have been a little worried at how much I was laughing at those clips.
I was kind of like when Homer had to watch the Troy McClure video of car crashes at traffic school ("Here's an appealing fellow... in fact, they're a peeling him off the sidewalk.") Everybody else is mortified and Homer is cracking up ... "It's funny cuz I don't know him." Truer words were never spoken.
* I'd be sad if I forgot to mention that Lisa and I resumed our epic Blades of Steel rivalry. My Toronto Maple Leafs, of course, dominated his feeble Montreal Canadiens.
* We did go to the nipple-burger bar near where I work, but nothing crazy happened. The bartender from before wasn't there then. We just had some uber-cheap PBR's and hung out, it was relatively early and thus quite.
* We also had some beers at the microbrewery under the Empire State Building... that was kind of cool. FYI -they have really good cheese fries. We also learned there's a KFC right near the Empire State Building too, which is comforting to know.
* We went to the site of the old CBGB's punk club, which is now an ultra-trendy designer clothes boutique catering to the (with those prices, apparently well-to-do) hipster crowd. The situation is really kind of sad.
Along with the stunningly overpriced shirts, they sold mint condition used records selling for around a $100 a piece. Some looked pretty familiar, since I have copies at my apartment (though admittedly many are not in good enough condition to be considered sold as "collectibles" like theirs). They also sell antique (read: used, and old as crap) stereo receivers, like the 1975 hand-me-down receiver I use. They ranged from $500 to $1,000. The same ones probably sell at Goodwill for $10... but the world is filled with very, very stupid people with too much money... so why not try to get some of it, right? I'm going to try to sell the store my receiver and maybe some records too and see what happens with that.
* I really need to remember to bring my camera everywhere with me. Today's subway ride home was interesting, to say the least. Toward the end of the ride, a high school drumline and group of dancerettes got on the train... which isn't too strange... unless they're all dressed in hospital-themed costumes. The musicians were all wearing scrubs, and the dancers were all wearing matching naughty-nurse outfits (maybe it was good I didn't bring my camera then... since they were all teens...). The teacher/band director was wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope.
One stop away from them getting off, they just randomly decided to all start drumming and salsa dancing on the train... it was incredibly strange - and loud.
There was also a homeless guy on my train for a while begging for money... which is also not too unusual... but he decided to keep things interesting. He basically approached guys individually and would half whisper "Hey, you look like you've got a big dick," and then he would present his change cup. (I assume it was an attempt to flatter some money out of riders. I know I was flattered... but not flattered enough.
I assume either he had some serious issues in the head or that he was totally faking it... sad either way I suppose.
Besides, I had already exhausted my money-for-strangers-on-the-train budget for the day by giving a dollar to an a cappella group that did a really fun version of "Stand by Me" on the 6 train earlier.
The 6 train is on the East side... so the East side apparently gets performances of golden oldies while my train on the West side gets homeless people commenting on my girth... I guess that's the difference between the East and West sides.
Well, I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head... it's bedtime anyway... we didn't go to bed terribly early these past couple of nights to say the least.
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