Friday, March 9, 2012
Friday, December 23, 2011
Day 11 stats by Trent Eman
Day 11, City Streets Cafe, Hightstown NJ
So as my first time writing stats, and probably not my last, I am both nervous and excited. I’m still unsure as to my motives for doing these shenanigans, but everyone seemed to be really excited that I was doing it. I still think they are just too lazy and didn’t want to do it themselves. Maybe I’m just excited that the old rents are going to let me stay up later tonight, or maybe this Christmas cheer is rubbing off on me. I’m uncertain whether my English teacher would be proud that I am writing over my Christmas break or if he would be ashamed that I’m writing about drinking.
When I was told I was writing stats, I had no idea what to do. Su and Gman told me to just lie or I could tell people about TDDoC from a teenager’s perspective. I chose to remain honest. So Twelve Drinking Days of Christmas in my perspective it was. Maybe I’m not the coolest teenager roaming the streets these days, but I’ve come to like the old hags I see every night (don’t take offense anyone who is over 25 is basically an old hag to me). I enjoy eating as much of Su’s meal as she does, and saying about 5 words to each person there. I like every minute of twelve days no matter how bored and sad I might look sitting over in the corner.
So day 11: City Streets. This used to be my favorite place because the quesadillas were world’s greatest, but it is slowly going down the drain. Happy hours with $2.99 appetizers sounds nice, but when the nachos have Kraft singles quality cheese you start to wonder if it was even worth that. We were also blessed to have a live performance for the first time I can remember in TDDoC history. I thought I was going to go deaf. His rendition of Free Fallin by Tom Petty went pretty well, but the rest of the show was definitely not up to par. Maybe he could start by playing songs that were produced past the late 70s, or just turn down the volume so I can hear myself think.
These factors, and others, led Gman to finally believe we should not come back. “If I say we should come back to this place next year, hit me over the head with a hammer” was exclaimed at one point by him. I think we should have filmed him saying this because there is a high chance we will be back again.
After all my complaining, I enjoyed my time at City Streets. I suppose there’s a certain charm to it all. But after its shortcomings this year, I don’t expect it to be on the 2012 TDDoC list.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Day 10 Stats -- The Big Fish Bistro
Day 11 Location: City Streets Cafe
510 Route 130 South, East Windsor, NJ 08520 609-426-9400
Day 10 Stats, The Big Fish Bistro
There seems to be a love-hate relationship with this place. You love to go, but hate waiting for your drink to be served, or at least I have been told. Or maybe if you are Eman you just love to hate the place.
Concerning the waiting times, we are talking about a restaurant with seating for 130 people and a bar area which can easily hold (and apparently was holding) another 75. The bar wait staff, while being extremely efficient, numbers two people until about 7:00 PM which then drops to single coverage. But that is OK, because the dining room now only has 75 people in it. So while most people love to hate the BF, I hate liking it.
I arrived at the place about 6:20 PM, and while walking from my car a passes by me on the access road with the driver yelling at me "SUUUUUUUUUUCK!" I am unfazed by this because it happens to me all the time to me in Robbinsville as I am a known local agitator (call the mayor's office to verify). I am informed later this was Eman and he was not yelling at me, but at the building that the houses the BF which he hates so much.
After walking in I am greeted by an already good-sized TDDoC crowd including one enthusiast demanding to know why I am "late". I'm thinking, "Late? it's not even 6:30." The barrage continues, "Uji was here at four o'clock!" Now thinking, "Uji is a trooper, we are lucky to have him." "Where have you been!?" At this point, my mind is racing, "That drink I ordered you in 1997 is still sitting on the bar. Don't give me this "you're late" crap. Come talk to me in 2018 when you life-time point total is some reasonable fraction of mine." Tamp mediates the altercation after seeing my obvious incredulity.
There are some new faces. Allie makes her first appearance. Kean is spotted drinking wine while Scugi shows him photos of Porsches and various central NJ bartenders. CSI Stu! And the more usual crowd: Mertz offers a correction to the point tallies on a napkin somehow emailed to Eman and then goes on about the evils of bowel movement discussions in the public forum. Grace makes a second appearance and flirts with regular status. The return of Goettle (and Yvette!).
I talk to Joe Chubb for the first time and the typical mutual Joe friendship develops. If we could get Joe Biden and Joe the Plumber up in here, who knows?
Crowd thins. I inform everyone that Danielle, the bartender, is the only person in the room that I actually like. This thins the crowd a little more. But now with Goettle available, the BF does not close easily. Goettle somehow get the discussion moved to Galois Fields and how they aren't fields in the sense of say a scalar or vector field. It is pointed out that since the del operator is a vector operator, the gradient of a scalar field is by definition a vector field. Then someone says that it is possible to calculate the curl of the vector field and in the case of the original scalar field we weren't sure what this means. Consider, any scalar field, F, then with the del operator, del F is the gradient of the field F. The curl is easily(?) calculated using a vector cross-product as del X del F, but the physical significance is not clear to us. At this point Goettle and I realize no one in the whole bar wants to talk with us anymore. This was understandable, but if anyone can give us some insight on the curl of the gradient of a scalar field we would be most grateful.
Danielle calls last call. Holy crap Uji is still here! Granted, the BF last call is much earlier then the NJ de facto 2AM standard, but he is still here. The chairs are going up around us. Everyone leaves, except Goettle, and poor Yvette, who has to put up with Goettle and his refusal to leave the BF. I leave and just outside on the same sidewalk as earlier am accosted by a group of Eagles and Jets fans who are employees of the Big Fish corporation and have formed some perverse Green Alliance for this weekend and taunt me on my allegiance to Big Blue.
I do like this place and I really hate that.
For reference, the del operator in cartesian coordinates, using the "inverted delta":
510 Route 130 South, East Windsor, NJ 08520 609-426-9400
Day 10 Stats, The Big Fish Bistro
There seems to be a love-hate relationship with this place. You love to go, but hate waiting for your drink to be served, or at least I have been told. Or maybe if you are Eman you just love to hate the place.
Concerning the waiting times, we are talking about a restaurant with seating for 130 people and a bar area which can easily hold (and apparently was holding) another 75. The bar wait staff, while being extremely efficient, numbers two people until about 7:00 PM which then drops to single coverage. But that is OK, because the dining room now only has 75 people in it. So while most people love to hate the BF, I hate liking it.
I arrived at the place about 6:20 PM, and while walking from my car a passes by me on the access road with the driver yelling at me "SUUUUUUUUUUCK!" I am unfazed by this because it happens to me all the time to me in Robbinsville as I am a known local agitator (call the mayor's office to verify). I am informed later this was Eman and he was not yelling at me, but at the building that the houses the BF which he hates so much.
After walking in I am greeted by an already good-sized TDDoC crowd including one enthusiast demanding to know why I am "late". I'm thinking, "Late? it's not even 6:30." The barrage continues, "Uji was here at four o'clock!" Now thinking, "Uji is a trooper, we are lucky to have him." "Where have you been!?" At this point, my mind is racing, "That drink I ordered you in 1997 is still sitting on the bar. Don't give me this "you're late" crap. Come talk to me in 2018 when you life-time point total is some reasonable fraction of mine." Tamp mediates the altercation after seeing my obvious incredulity.
There are some new faces. Allie makes her first appearance. Kean is spotted drinking wine while Scugi shows him photos of Porsches and various central NJ bartenders. CSI Stu! And the more usual crowd: Mertz offers a correction to the point tallies on a napkin somehow emailed to Eman and then goes on about the evils of bowel movement discussions in the public forum. Grace makes a second appearance and flirts with regular status. The return of Goettle (and Yvette!).
I talk to Joe Chubb for the first time and the typical mutual Joe friendship develops. If we could get Joe Biden and Joe the Plumber up in here, who knows?
Crowd thins. I inform everyone that Danielle, the bartender, is the only person in the room that I actually like. This thins the crowd a little more. But now with Goettle available, the BF does not close easily. Goettle somehow get the discussion moved to Galois Fields and how they aren't fields in the sense of say a scalar or vector field. It is pointed out that since the del operator is a vector operator, the gradient of a scalar field is by definition a vector field. Then someone says that it is possible to calculate the curl of the vector field and in the case of the original scalar field we weren't sure what this means. Consider, any scalar field, F, then with the del operator, del F is the gradient of the field F. The curl is easily(?) calculated using a vector cross-product as del X del F, but the physical significance is not clear to us. At this point Goettle and I realize no one in the whole bar wants to talk with us anymore. This was understandable, but if anyone can give us some insight on the curl of the gradient of a scalar field we would be most grateful.
Danielle calls last call. Holy crap Uji is still here! Granted, the BF last call is much earlier then the NJ de facto 2AM standard, but he is still here. The chairs are going up around us. Everyone leaves, except Goettle, and poor Yvette, who has to put up with Goettle and his refusal to leave the BF. I leave and just outside on the same sidewalk as earlier am accosted by a group of Eagles and Jets fans who are employees of the Big Fish corporation and have formed some perverse Green Alliance for this weekend and taunt me on my allegiance to Big Blue.
I do like this place and I really hate that.
For reference, the del operator in cartesian coordinates, using the "inverted delta":
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Day 9 stats -- Dacey's Tavern by Sophia
Day 10 Location: Big Fish Bistro
3535 U.S. Route 1 South, Princeton, NJ 08540 -- 609-919-1179
Day 9 Stats by Sophia, Dacey's Tavern, Morrisville, PA:
It was great to be back at my old stomping ground with my sisters, brothers-in-law, old friends, and especially fellow TDDoCers. I tried to get there early enough so that I could place a “WHYYYY?” call but even at 5 PM Ugi had beaten me to it. I had beaten Scugi there, but that wasn't good enough. So I had to sit and wait to see who else would make it across the river. I was glad to see so many brave the mighty waters and accomplish the feat. George Washington would be proud.
Michael's hasn't changed much over the years except that now it's called Dacey's and the menu is more limited, but it still can host a good time to anyone who wants one. Pat was happy to serve up drinks early on but was sure to remind us that our waitress would be in "soon" so that we could order some food too. They don't mess around here it seems with mixing the two up. Although they weren’t chasing us down to pay the bills, either. And they still have great wings at Dacey's. It's one of the things they promised to keep when it went from Michael's to an Irish pub and somehow those guys have managed it well. I saw a lot of them around but I didn’t get to sample any. I guess I’ll have to get back there sometime soon. After the 12 days and a little rest though.
Some of the slacker PA folks made it out (Bill (Billy Bob?), Dorian, Donna,…) but some were still noticeably absent (Howard Jones, Falvo, CPL,… ). Keeping track seems like a big job and one that I am happy to have left to others so far. Do you have to write down all of the names as soon as you get home? I would have to do it at the bar, which I didn't. Cole has his second missed point. Should we send out the cavalry?
My brother-in-law was pleasantly (!) surprised at all of the people who showed up for "a quiet dinner with my two sisters-in law". Ha! Felicia and I discovered that we knew about 20 or 50 people from about 35 years ago when we were both in school in Morrisville one year apart. Then found out she's friends with Helen, my sister-in-law-in-law (is that real?) who came out for her first point. Pap was there, but I didn't even recognize him, then Jocko showed up to cap the whole thing off. If you don’t recognize these people that’s probably a good sign.
Rebecca and Lynn showed up early and left quickly with an excuse about Mahjong, but I heard them whispering about the dive they found themselves in, and dark back-streets, and I’m not sure what to believe now. My bribe at Jo- Jo's seems to have helped, but not to actually keep them in the place once they saw where they were. It was great to see Niel and Pat for their first point of the season. Michelle promised to make it out for her second point if we hit Morrisville but wasn't actually spotted by anyone. I think she's still alive and drinking; we're just not sure where. Reese however is continuing her streak and was right there with us, but I didn’t notice any fancy martinis coming around. A slow night for Reese. For Russ too– thermal vac at Christmas! Sheesh. Don’t they know we need our points!
I saved up my drinking-and-staying-up-late for tonight but I guess I was one of the few. Maybe my 1.5-mile drive home had something to do with my ease. Or the stumble-to-sister's-house-if-you-can't-make-the-1.5-mile-drive was working on me too. Either way I was still raring to go when the place started to empty out. Maybe I had reverted to the "old days" when I could stay out until 2 or 3 AM and still function well enough the next day. But I am kidding myself. My ears are ringing and I will have a headache at some point. I am lucky that I don't have to work tomorrow. Just lots of baking. But isn’t the sugar good for what ails you – whatever that is? That’s my story and I think I’ll stick to it tomorrow.
It was really great to see everyone who came out to the “ramrodded” (is that a word?) Dacey’s. The families – Emans, Gmans, and Chorbas; the secret committee members (you know who you are – and I don’t since there isn’t one, so you won’t be named here); the rookies (Kevin, me?); old timers (you know who you are too); stragglers, and the unsuspecting masses or family members who might not be inviting me back for Sunday night dinners any time soon! But true happiness was mine for the night. Even though I didn’t see Mike the Homicidal Maniac, so he won’t be getting his point. But don’t tell him – he gets a little crazy when he doesn’t get his daily point and will want to shake your hand with his lizard-oil one so that you too will have to trek off to the bathroom with a chaperone in tow to scrub the top 5 layers of skin off.
I leave you with 7 Things you didn't know about alcohol:
Happy New Year! Or at least “Happy Day 9”.
3535 U.S. Route 1 South, Princeton, NJ 08540 -- 609-919-1179
Day 9 Stats by Sophia, Dacey's Tavern, Morrisville, PA:
It was great to be back at my old stomping ground with my sisters, brothers-in-law, old friends, and especially fellow TDDoCers. I tried to get there early enough so that I could place a “WHYYYY?” call but even at 5 PM Ugi had beaten me to it. I had beaten Scugi there, but that wasn't good enough. So I had to sit and wait to see who else would make it across the river. I was glad to see so many brave the mighty waters and accomplish the feat. George Washington would be proud.
Michael's hasn't changed much over the years except that now it's called Dacey's and the menu is more limited, but it still can host a good time to anyone who wants one. Pat was happy to serve up drinks early on but was sure to remind us that our waitress would be in "soon" so that we could order some food too. They don't mess around here it seems with mixing the two up. Although they weren’t chasing us down to pay the bills, either. And they still have great wings at Dacey's. It's one of the things they promised to keep when it went from Michael's to an Irish pub and somehow those guys have managed it well. I saw a lot of them around but I didn’t get to sample any. I guess I’ll have to get back there sometime soon. After the 12 days and a little rest though.
Some of the slacker PA folks made it out (Bill (Billy Bob?), Dorian, Donna,…) but some were still noticeably absent (Howard Jones, Falvo, CPL,… ). Keeping track seems like a big job and one that I am happy to have left to others so far. Do you have to write down all of the names as soon as you get home? I would have to do it at the bar, which I didn't. Cole has his second missed point. Should we send out the cavalry?
My brother-in-law was pleasantly (!) surprised at all of the people who showed up for "a quiet dinner with my two sisters-in law". Ha! Felicia and I discovered that we knew about 20 or 50 people from about 35 years ago when we were both in school in Morrisville one year apart. Then found out she's friends with Helen, my sister-in-law-in-law (is that real?) who came out for her first point. Pap was there, but I didn't even recognize him, then Jocko showed up to cap the whole thing off. If you don’t recognize these people that’s probably a good sign.
Rebecca and Lynn showed up early and left quickly with an excuse about Mahjong, but I heard them whispering about the dive they found themselves in, and dark back-streets, and I’m not sure what to believe now. My bribe at Jo- Jo's seems to have helped, but not to actually keep them in the place once they saw where they were. It was great to see Niel and Pat for their first point of the season. Michelle promised to make it out for her second point if we hit Morrisville but wasn't actually spotted by anyone. I think she's still alive and drinking; we're just not sure where. Reese however is continuing her streak and was right there with us, but I didn’t notice any fancy martinis coming around. A slow night for Reese. For Russ too– thermal vac at Christmas! Sheesh. Don’t they know we need our points!
I saved up my drinking-and-staying-up-late for tonight but I guess I was one of the few. Maybe my 1.5-mile drive home had something to do with my ease. Or the stumble-to-sister's-house-if-you-can't-make-the-1.5-mile-drive was working on me too. Either way I was still raring to go when the place started to empty out. Maybe I had reverted to the "old days" when I could stay out until 2 or 3 AM and still function well enough the next day. But I am kidding myself. My ears are ringing and I will have a headache at some point. I am lucky that I don't have to work tomorrow. Just lots of baking. But isn’t the sugar good for what ails you – whatever that is? That’s my story and I think I’ll stick to it tomorrow.
It was really great to see everyone who came out to the “ramrodded” (is that a word?) Dacey’s. The families – Emans, Gmans, and Chorbas; the secret committee members (you know who you are – and I don’t since there isn’t one, so you won’t be named here); the rookies (Kevin, me?); old timers (you know who you are too); stragglers, and the unsuspecting masses or family members who might not be inviting me back for Sunday night dinners any time soon! But true happiness was mine for the night. Even though I didn’t see Mike the Homicidal Maniac, so he won’t be getting his point. But don’t tell him – he gets a little crazy when he doesn’t get his daily point and will want to shake your hand with his lizard-oil one so that you too will have to trek off to the bathroom with a chaperone in tow to scrub the top 5 layers of skin off.
I leave you with 7 Things you didn't know about alcohol:
- The family of compounds known as alcohols are all toxins that can kill you, whether instantly, quickly, or gradually. But you'll have a good time at it, or you won't remember anyway.
- According to the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis, our zest for alcoholic beverages derives from our distant ancestors' impulse to seek the ripest, most energy-intensive fruits. (not s3x?!)
- Seriously, officer! Japanese doctors have observed patients with "auto-brewery syndrome", in which high levels of candida yeast in the intestines churn out so much alcohol that they can cause drunkenness.
- No digestion required. Ethanol is such a small, simple molecule that it pours directly out of the stomach and small intestine into the bloodstream.
- Until 1916 whiskey and brandy were listed as scientifically approved medicines in the United States Pharmacopeia.
- Methanol, a distillation of wood pulp, can destroy the optic nerves. "Blind drunk" was Prohibition-era slang for damage caused by drinking grain alcohol that had been cut with methanol by unscrupulous bootleggers.
- Resolution for 2012: Don't stare at the cork. The CO2 in champagne bottles creates 90 lbs of psi, 3x the pressure in auto tires. Flying corks can cause retinal detachment, double vision, and blindness.
Happy New Year! Or at least “Happy Day 9”.
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