Rattle, hum, hic

Mary Jo suggested the Rattle n Hum (14 E 33rd St) and after a nice afternoon hanging out with old friend and NY transplant Simon P and his dog Oscar (Old John is a nice place for brunch near West End) we tried it out for a drink. With the warning that the small nachos does 2 people for dinner, on to the beers.

We tried three different Captain Lawrence Ales: the Freshchester is maybe over-bitter, the old gold is nice, the trippel Xtra is very nice. The Thomas Hooker Noreaster is like Ibarra made into beer: cinnamon, cacao, even a touch of cornflour hardness. The Smuttynose Big A IPA is big, rich for an IPA, like a trippel. The Middle Ages Duke of Worship is a spicy dark ale and the Stone Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout has that dusty oatmeal hardness in a rich dark brew.

I hate TicketMaster

They make you do a capcha to even see tickets. Then they send you through long rigmarole screens with a 2 minute timeout. Then there is no way to use anything but a US or Canadian credit card - for a New York show! This is the cultural melting pot and tourist destinatin but Ticketmaster says the rest of the world can drop dead. By this time your ticket offer has expired. Madison Square Gardens has an in-person box office but the phone number only goes to Ticketmaster. And when you call them you have to deal with a tedious one question at a time answer by the numbers voicejail system to buy tickets. And if you wanted anything further to complete the experience, how about gouging international customer an extra $2.50 for collecting tickets when it's free for US and Canadian cardholders. I hate Ticketmaster and actively wish to destroy the company. I suppose they're too ignorant to even do online sentiment mining so I shall have to mail this to them myself.