Post-Drinking Post

Ahh.  Friday.  You know what that means.  The Post-Drinking Post. 

To The Patriot, thank you for being “The Patriot.”  Nothing too flashy or fancy.  Just a divey-bar with a good jukebox and great atmosphere.  However, we can live without the angry hobbitess.  Seriously, WTF?! is her deal. 

To Jonathan and Bernie and all the other CBNYC rookies, thanks for coming out for Thursday Night Rowdiness.

To Octasha and Zwann, you were missed. 

Now to business.  Since today, the friday before Indy Day, is dead, it’s less like work and more like juvey hall.  Just a vague, prison-like place where we yo’s are warehoused to keep us out of trouble.  I got bored and cleaned house.  Only half an inch of shit-sandwich so that’s good.  Later, I’m going to get in touch with the Pabst Brewing Company’s marketing department.  We really need to get a “Ladies of Cheap Beer Thursday” calendar going.  And arrange it so that the weekend starts on Thursday, not Saturday.

WordPress Meet-Up and Saturday Morning Rowdiness

Just a quick post real quick.  Evidently, there is a WordPress/blogging meet up in NYC on Saturday July 15, 2006.  I’ll probably pop by.  There’s a glitch somewhere in my code and maybe a fellow blogger can help.  I’m still a novice at php and css.  Plus, the more networking of the ole webby site I can get, the better.  Maybe I can get some design tips too.

An experiment that I did not intend to perform was last week.  7 days without posting.  Killed the readership.  Nothing is worse than stale internet stupidity.  I’m still having fun with Google Analytics.  I need to get someone at the McMurty Weather Station in Antarctica to check out my site.  Then I’ll have hit all seven continents.

Just a reminder:  Saturday Morning Rowdiness.  I’ll be at Nevada Smith’s gettin’ my drink on nice and early while soccer hooliganism goes on all around.  All are welcome. 

That’s Nevada Smith’s, 3rd Avenue and 12th Street in Manhattan, New York.  Get there at 10 a.m.  Game time is 11 a.m.  Brazil faces off against les grenouilles at 3 p.m.  I love Brazilians.  They make the best madams. 

Take Two Shares Slide Amid Inquiry

Take Two announced Monday that it received criminal grand jury subpoenas inquiring into a range of its business practices. With share prices down another 15% to $10.85 on the news, it seems that the SEC has done what Jack “Shoot Me In The Face” Thompson could not: put Take Two out of business.

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Mark Your Calendars

The countdown began last week. Five more weeks. Then, I’m gone. Out. Adios and sayonara.

It has been determined that I’ve repaid my debt to society. Of course, all this horrible horrible freedom means that I have to deal with - ack!!! - headhunters. No worries - I’ve read enough about the heart of darkest Africa to know how to deal with their ilk.

Headhunters welcome!

For 75 Years, It Was A Sight To Steer By

From the NY Times:

NEWARK, June 26 — For many who gathered here on Monday, the day marked the passing of yet one more piece of New Jersey lore, an urban monument for drivers on the Garden State Parkway. It had been the subject of a popular song and even had a role in a recent episode of “The Sopranos.”

It was the toast of a town whose bustling industrial past was awash in breweries, from Ballantine and Krueger to Hensler and Feigenspan.

It was the 60-foot-tall Pabst beer bottle, which had loomed 185 feet above Newark for 75 years, serving as a guidepost for countless weary drivers.

But on Monday, after a lengthy struggle, the rusted bottle — which was actually a 55,000-gallon water tank — came down piece by piece over seven hours. For now it is five enormous pieces of steel and copper plate three-eighths of an inch thick, and its fate is far from settled.

Ted Fiore, whose company has been demolishing the 10-acre site of the former Pabst brewery for two years, said he planned to restore the bottle at his warehouse in Newark and then give it a new home.

So far, Mr. Fiore said, “several alcoholic-beverage companies” have expressed interest. It might end up in Newark, he said, or perhaps along the Jersey Shore in Dover Township, where a nightclub could take it.

The tank was built for Hoffman Pale Dry Ginger Ale in the early 1930’s, and when Pabst bought the plant in 1945, it changed the label and painted the bottle blue. Later it turned reddish, either from paint or rust.

When the plans to demolish the plant and bottle were announced in 2004, local preservation groups tried to have the bottle designated a landmark, but removing the bottle from its original site would have made it ineligible for landmark status, according to state law, and so they dropped their effort.

“It’s kind of a sad day,” said Matthew Gosser, an adjunct professor of architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, one of the many lilliputians who filmed and photographed the dismantling of the hulk during a grim, rain-splattered day.
Mr. Gosser said he had grown so attached to the bottle that he had climbed halfway up the side last year before the police intervened. He had wandered among several of the abandoned buildings on the complex and salvaged remains for an art show, he said.

A few weeks ago, when word got out that the bottle would finally be removed, he downed some sangria, headed for the vacant brewery on a chilly Friday night and camped on the roof.
“I thought I would spend one last quiet moment with the bottle,” Mr. Gosser said. “One night.”

For less sentimental residents, memories come cheap.

“Nostalgia’s one thing,” said Earl Hardy, the owner of Papa Earl’s Deli on nearby Avon Avenue and a man with graying temples. “Reality’s another. You want nostalgia? Take pictures.”

That is exactly what he did, snapping photos with a disposable camera as he stood on South Orange Avenue. Some drivers fumbled with cameras as they passed by, and others pulled to the side to gawk.

For those who had watched the neighborhood deteriorate even before the brewery was closed in 1986, Monday was a reason to celebrate. “Yay! Woo!” exclaimed Mamie Bridgeforth, the councilwoman for the West Ward, which includes the complex.

“This is terrific,” Ms. Bridgeforth said, sounding giddy. “I want to sit on that bottle and have my picture taken like Marilyn Monroe.”

With that, she strode up and posed beside the bottle with construction workers, and then she stood inside it, flashing a hearty thumbs-up.

The old bottle had a hard time letting go, standing atop a four-story pile of concrete chunks and rebar wire that resembled the spilled guts of an industrial monster.

Crews from the T. Fiore Demolition Company of Newark had expected to take the bottle down well before this; an attempt failed last year, as did another this month that was attended by Mayor Sharpe James. At 25 tons, the bottle was far too heavy for the cranes, so a few weeks ago the company ordered reinforcing cable, and the bottle was cut into sections with acetylene torches, placed on flatbed trucks and carted to the company’s warehouse in the Ironbound district.

The rest of the site is expected to be bulldozed by the end of the year, and then New West Developers of Newark says it will begin construction of a 130,000-square-foot shopping complex. The developers hope to have the first business in the building by 2007.
Rashid Pharms, cochairman of the Neighborhood Square Block Association, said he was glad to see the rusted bottle go, since the defunct brewery had been attracting the homeless and criminals. And he had little patience for those who lamented its passing.
“That’s all wonderful when you drive past, ‘Oh, it’s a bottle!’ ” Mr. Pharms said. “But when you’re down here at ground zero, we’re the ones holding the front lines. This bottle had its place and time.”

No More Fascist Kittens

Apologies to all who have enduring the furious glare of Hitler Cat for the past week.  Been meaning to post.  Didn’t.  Site visits dropped off. 

I’ve been doing to soul searching of late.  And I know what must be done.  Operation Fade-Away is beginning.  Those who need to know, know.  Those who don’t, don’t.  Nothing much has been going on here.  I have to say, I’ll be sad to see HP leave.  He’s good people.  Hopefully, Dubble-R will handle CBNYC with as much vim and vigor and zeal as HP.  I know he will.

I was hoping for some Sunday morning rowdiness at Nevada Smith’s, whereby me and Tough Guy would watch England in the Cup surrounded by ex-pat POME’s getting blitzed early on the Lord’s Day?  Do blue laws prohibit that?  Anyway, it didn’t go off.  I was otherwise occupied. 

Instead, England vs. Portugal, this Saturday (7/1/06).  Your itinerant narrator will be there with Tough Guy, getting blitzed on a Saturday morning.  I think I’ll go with the stevedore’s breakfast:  egg in a beer (thank you, HBO). 

Also, just found a good, albeit, a bit pricey, pub close to hockey-sticks:  Jim Brady’s.  $13 for some damned good fish-and-chips.  The batter was crisp and not at all oily.  The chips were hot, crunchy, and the proper softness in the middle.  Served with malt vinegar.  Crazy delicious.  A word of warning, it doesn’t keep.  Don’t bother with a doggie bag because the steam ruins both the batter and the chips.

As you can see, I’ve gone back to the old format.  I like the monochrome.  Plus, blog.txt was being quirky and freezing up. 

One last thing on the subject of insane cat-related things on the interweb.  Have you seen the video of “Cat In A Bottle”?  It’s not complicated.  A cat climbs in and out of a 1 gallon jug with distrubing ease.  Why did I not see this 10 years ago on Letterman?  It is the greatest “Stupid Pet Trick.”  Scratch that.  The second greatest. 

The greatest “Stupid Pet Trick” is a tie between the orange tabby that tree-ed a bear (a f*cking black bear!) and the little tabby that jumped out a a bush and chased off a bear (a different bear, but a bear nevertheless).  I don’t know if they count as tricks per se but they are freaking hilarious.  Now I know why bears fall victim to home invasion so often - they are nature’s cowards. 

Oooo, the big bad grizzly bear is gonna get me.  I’m so scared. 

Get ‘im, Maxie.  Sic balls, Dita. 

I have two vicious calico permakittens and I won’t hesitate to have them attack anyone who crosses me.  Housecats:  the most vicious animals on earth.  And if you doubt me, just remember Hitler Cat.

Digg v3 now requires logging in to view unpromoted stories

Perhaps in response to the recent “social freeloaders,” the new version of digg now requires users to be registered and logged in to view certain umpromoted stories. I’m no big fan of required login in any site.

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Hitler Cats

Ellenbrenna sent me a link to Cats In Sinks and a link to Hitler Cats, implying that a good larf was to be had. I disagree, however, with her assessment that Cats In Sinks is the funnier of the two. Hitler Cats is by far the funnier. Cats In Sinks is just pathetic. As far a the claim that Hitler Cats could deliver a good laugh - indeed it did. Of course, don’t take my word for it. You be the judge.

On the left, we have a cat that not only has the Hitler/Chaplin moustache, but, incredibly, even has Hitler’s sh*tty haircut. On the right, Adolf F*cking Hitler. I think there is more than just a passing resemblance. I think that this is some Nazi genetic experiment gone horribly horribly wrong. Or horribly horribly funny.

If only this cat was a better painter, millions of Jewish mice (Maus?) wouldn’t have been killed. You can see the pathological will to dominate the masses in Hitler Cat’s eyes. That is the feline face of pure evil. Hitler Cat’s litter box doesn’t smell like ammonia - it smells like Zyclon B. Tragically, before Hitler Cat could be taken to the vet to be declawed, he killed himself while hiding in his bunker, I mean, the crawlspace. Of course, I’m allowed to make these jokes because I’m a Heeb. I have Tribal Immunity (where is the line between “self-hating Jew” and anti-Semite?)

Who Cares About Hockey?

Here’s a scary indicator of New York’s blase attitude towards hockey when a NYC metro area team is not in contention. Both the Post and the News relegated the Cup to an “oh yeah, by the way, the Hurricanes won” note at the top. In all fairness, the News gave a full-width banner to Stanley Cup, whereas the Post gave it a one-third width corner at the top right of the back page.

The Post went with more griping about Mickelson’s showboat/piss-poor performance at the Open. The News devoted the back page to the Ugliest Man In Baseball’s mid-season, pre-All Star Break loss that will mean nothing in September (really, June losses for the Yankees are meaningless).

One would think that there would be a big back page photo of the Whalers - err - I mean Canes, hoisting the Cup, skating around victorious, drinking beer from the Cup, puking in the Cup, etc. You know, the sort of Stanley Cup jackassery that hockey fans have come to expect and love. Nope. Just an “in other news” mention on the back page.

Is this backlash from the lockout/strike? Does New York City, as a whole, just not care about hockey the way it cares about baseball and football? Or are NYC hockey fans just fairweather fans?

Hartford Whalers Win Stanley Cup

That’s right. The Hartford Whalers hoisted the Cup. Presumably, they then proceeded to drink lager out of the Cup until they vomited into the Cup afterwards. This brings me to a little peeve:

NPR should not cover sports.

According to NPR, the ‘Canes have been around for 9 years. No mention that the Canes were originally the Whale. GO WHALE! WOOT! (Sorry about the jackassery). At least the Times, who also shouldn’t be permitted to cover sports (just like the Post shouldn’t be permitted to cover news), mentioned that the Canes were poached from New England.

Personally, I’m opposed to all Sun Belt teams. If you don’t have naturally occurring ice outside, you shouldn’t be allowed to have a hockey team. No hockey south of the Mason-Dixon line. Consider it an amendment to Reconstruction to keep them Johnnie Rebs in their place.