Oops

So yesterday was a beautiful day -- 70s, breezy, sunny -- a perfect day to spend at the new Citi Field and watch the mets actually WIN. I got 4 tickets the through a vendor at work (at the insanely expensive 2nd deck: Excelsior level = $138 face value per ticket! the pricing matrix is mindboggling!) and took my engineer, his best friend and his best friends young sun to the new ballpark, which is pretty spiffy, with lots of womens rooms (heh -- something the American Restroom Assn takes very seriously, as noted in this NY Times article).

And unlike the new Yankees stadium (those bastidages, as one former coworker used to say euphemistically) they do not utterly extort you for a hot dog or sausage sandwich. Jimmy (my sweetie's friend) pointed out that his treating all four of us to a round of wieners and drinks (including a beer for himself) was only [ ! ] $40, whereas at an NFL game it would have easily been $60. (He is a rabid Giants fan, so he would know. If only I could find a photo of him during the 2007 Giants-Dolphins game in London: he and his friends were photographed by the tabloids, covered completely in blue and white body paint, spelling G-I-A-N-T-S, one letter per guy. Now visualize this nice NJ boy trying to explain to a Mayfair cosmetician WHY he needed buckets of blue and white eyeshadow...Heh)

It turned out that Al, owner of the harf was also there yesterday. If only I had known! I could have said hi before he moved to Chicago this month. Of course, since I think he was there with my ex and his other best buddy, perhaps that might have been a bit awkward...

Ironically, the famous Mets home run apple has apparently not been in use for 80 innings, but was called upon to rise twice in the 7th inning -- and failed. Apparently, according to the NY Daily News, it requires 2-1/2 minutes to reset the mechanism, and the second home run was just too quick. HA!

This resulted in much booing by the fans since they hadn't seen a homer in almost 10 games (remember: only HOME runs get it to pop up, not regular RBIs) and chanting of "Ap-ple! Ap-ple!" which finally yielded an appearance (see, right) at the bottom of the 7th. Heh.

Afterward, we drove home to Jersey City, dropped off Jimmy's son at home with his mom (Jimmy's divorced) and went to a new beer garden, Zeppelin Hall. There must be a dearth of venues in JC, because we were nearly flattened by the stroller brigade there!

My sweetie and left Jimmy to his third round and we went off to dinner at a cute little tacqueria which hates ersatz Mexico food such as fajitas (they have rules about what they will NOT serve there -- hee!). The back garden was delightful, but we were still a little hungry, having had only 2 little tacos each.

Since the countermen were overrun with an influx of new customers, we left and went to another place, the ever tasty Saigon Cafe and had dinner (well, okay -- more appetizers) and a show: a trucker was illegally going down this street, and well, there are reasons certain roads are zoned for NO TRUCKS! Please note the toppled traffic light draped over the truck. The restaurant owners called the cops, and there was much to do. If you click the image a larger one will open, the dangling wires (!) are more apparent. See? Dinner and a show!