Day Off

I really wanted to see Juno last week. Since I can never seem to fit going to a movie into my schedule, I decided to take a day off and go see it with Rohan and Tom. We decided, in order to make the most of our day, that we'd go to this place called "Barcade" in Williamsburg after the movie.

The day began at 10:00am when I woke up and went over to Brooklyn Bagels. I go to Brooklyn Bagels entirely too much. Not only do they make excellent breakfast bagels, but their sandwiches are also spectacular. Honestly, with all the bagels I eat + lack of exercise I'm amazed at how not giant and fat I've gotten. I guess that'll come eventually.


I had to wait with a building crowd as this obnoxious woman in a leaopard print coat and two too many layers of make-up kept ordering more and more food. It was ridiculous, the longer she stood there, the more she ordered. Her initial order was a bunch of deli meat that was taking forever to slice, then she ordered a muffin, then two bagels. But not just any bagels, she wanted specific bagels in the case "I want that one in the middle, and the one under... no, yes that one under the one in the back." And then she wanted coffee, etc, etc.

Between ordering different things that caught her eye she made small talk with the lady behind the counter. The way she was talking, I thought she knew the woman behind the counter because she was saying really scandalous, racist stuff. Leopard print coat lady started talking about her day out of nowhere and said, "I'm going to gamble with the c***nks, I'm going to go gamble with the c***nks!" The woman behind the counter said, "You can't use that kind of language," so she amends was she is saying and Leopard Print says, "I'm gonna' go play slots with the Chi-neeze, they love slots!" This woman was truly horrible. At this point I was annoyed, surrounded by other irritated patrons, and just wanted my damn bagel. I would have left but I was next in line. I didn't want to talk to her and ask for a picture, so I snapped this one on the sly.


I met Rohan and Tom and we took the subway into Union Square where we bought tickets to Juno. We were a bit late for the 1:30, so we went to Starbucks to wait for the 2:20 show. It was freakin' freezing that day, and for some reason we weren't only a few feet away from a Starbucks. Eventually we found one, the NYU one. It was the biggest Starbucks I'd ever been to (and I thought I'd seen all Starbucks had to offer). Everyone in the place looked young, and like they study film. Rohan, Tom, and I talked crossword puzzles and how the baristas make you feel like you're putting them out by ordering drinks. As we left, I saw another celebrity, but it was so fleeting that I really don't even consider it a "celebrity sighting." She was coming in as we were leaving, it was Heather Matarazzo from "Welcome to the Dollhouse."


Walking into the movie I still had my coffee. The ticket lady said something about it, and I thought, "Oh man, I've barely had any coffee and I have to thow it away? This is horse-shit!" But she actually just asked where her coffee was and let me keep it. This made me happy; I felt like I ruled the world.

The movie was amazing, as anyone who has talked to me in the last week knows. I'd be happy to see it again.

As we left the theatre and walked to the subway I saw the sunset on Union Square and thought it was beautiful. I didn't get a very good picture, but here it is:


Because I left my wallet at home, we had to go back to Bay Ridge. Rohan and I had just been arguing about whether or not the old song about cereal went: "Can't get enough of that Sugar Crisp," or "Can't get enough of that Golden Crisp." It turns out we were both right. Originally, the song was Sugar Crisp, then became Golden Crisp later. Apparently there was an old Sugar Crisp commercial wish Sugar Bear too, that of course we watched. Sugar Crisp, more like Banana Muffin Crisp! Here's a video like the one we watched, for some reason I can't find the one we originally watched:



Barcade was pretty easy to find. When we got there it was empty, but it was a Monday night. I really like going out on weeknights, as opposed to weekends because you don't have to fight with crowds to get drinks, and there aren't so many girls throwing themselves at you. Listen ladies, I'm just here to have a good time, I don't need you rubbing all over me whenever I go out, I don't care how many times you've been in the Victoria Secret Fashion Show...


They had much nicer beers than I expected to find, and they had a really nice selection. As is implicit in the name, the bar was a bar/arcade. Banks of old arcade games like Frogger, Marble Madness, and Contra lined the walls. I never realized how difficult arcade-style games are, I'm so used to the controller on a Playstation. I actually got a horrible cramp while playing my favorite arcade game of all time, 1943.


We played some games for a while and drank some crazy strong beers, they were like the American versions of the strong beers at Burp Castle; I think they're called "micro-brews." I didn't even know they had breweries here, but they actually have some great ones in Manhattan! There's even a brewery in Chelsea--their beer has a delicate balance of hops and malt that indicate the soft touch and attention to detail you'd expect from a fierce brewmaster.

We sat around a table in the back between games of Tapper and created analogies... that's right, we were all cool jocks in high school. I'm not gonna' lie, a lot of them had video game themes. Incidentally, Tapper is a really hard game that will give you a headache, sho' nuff.



Then Jade showed and shit started to go down! And by go down I mean we went from creating analogies to thinking of t-shirts with dirty slogans on them. Of course, the more we drank, the less we thought about what time it was. Tom tried to leave around 1:00, but he got roped into staying for another half hour.


On the way home, there was construction at the Lorimer stop and because we were drunk everyone was just appalled. We were convinced this would slow the train and we would never get home. In retrospect the train wasn't effected at all, but because we had to go into Manhatten and back down to Bay Ridge from Union Square it still took FOREVER to get home. I was in bed by 3:00am... and was back out of bed at 7:00am for work.


When I got to the office, I looked on my calender and realized I had a New Hire Breakfast that morning, a Sales Lunch at noon, and drinks after work with my department after work.

Tuesday was kinda' hard.