Ode to Ruby's We went to Ben's birthday party Saturday night at the annoyingly high maintenance, bouncer packed, and cleavage farm known as Zanzibar. A bar a reviewer on NYMetro described as:
Don't come for the scene (none's here), but if you don't mind sitting on a barstool bolted to the floor, Zanzibar will suffice...
They have a hilarious pricing setup for drinks. The waitress would come back and tell us that our drinks cost $8.65 or $7.85. We all wanted to be like, "hold on, I know I have 65 cents around here somewhere - hey, can someone loan me a dime?" It's real wanna-be cool.
Zanzibar is right down the street from a formally wonderfully nutty dive-esque bar that was named Ruby's (among other names). Now, notice I said RUBY, not RUDY, which is also a wonderfully nutty dive-esque bar also on 9th avenue. Rudy's has hot dogs, those creepy Jaegermeister taps, and a good number of 65+ aged patrons who like to holler.
Ruby's was very similar. I don't recall how we found it, but my co-worker Craig (future Mr. Lisa Says) and I stumbled across it when we worked near 9th avenue and wanted to have an after work drink on a Friday. There were lots of unique features that kept us coming back:
1. We got there early enough to always get the booth by the window. 2. We were the youngest patrons there by at least 30 years (there for the youngest and hippest I suppose). 3. There was sawdust on the floor. 4. There was a toilet on the floor by the front door. 5. Cheap drinks. 6. Johnny Cash on the jukebox. 7. A weird mannequin hanging from the ceiling. 8. The bartender offered us his kidnapping services if we ever needed them.
Ruby's, last I checked, was gone and replaced by a neo-Hell's Kitchen restaurant. No toilet by the door I suspect.
Mike Tyson A popular sporting event mentioned on happyrobot - you can tell your kids you were here! Nutty old Mike Tyson. I don't follow boxing, but you couldn't escape the news about Mike Tyson and his new facial tattoo these past few days. Apparently, he was in one of them boxing matches the other night and he knocked the other fella down in 49 seconds. Ow. That's gonna leave a mark. I do have to give props to Tyson for at least being honest:
``I like doing other things,'' Tyson said in a rambling post-fight press conference. ``I like getting high, hanging out with my kids, I like drinking. I like doing other things.'' sports.yahoo.com
I spell not well Do you know how long it took me to find the correct spelling of "Jaegermeister"? Good lord. I am glad no one was looking over my back... I butchered it too many times before I got it right.
Dumb Product This is just a quick product rant. I bought this surge protector Sunday at Bed Bath Beyond because it featured extra space for those large transformer plugs - you know, the plugs with the big black box thing on them. I get it home, climb under my enormously crowded desk and realize that you can't plug two of the transformer plugs in side by side. The spacing is short by like 2 centimeters. Now, granted I may just have weird shaped plugs (all those uncommon electronics companies like Palm, Epson, Canon, and Harman/Kardon). Stupid stupid product. So, don't spend 19.95$ (the low price should of tipped me off) on the Power Sentry Office Workstation Surge Protector.
