Another Year, Another Beer Garden

See what I did there? I love Google Reader, but I also love seeing my hit counter go up on the blog - self gratification or something like that. So now you have to click on the blog link from Reader to read it all. If I could add a link to Facebook to do the same (rather than posting the whole blog), I would do the same thing - force people to click on the link, increase my counter by one, and increment ye old counter.

Anyway, as everyone knows (thanks to Facebook), it's my birthday on Friday. Strange, I never really celebrated my birthday much during adolescence or college, but I enjoy doing something here in New York.
I think my first out-of-body/outer-borough experience was on my birthday, when I visited the (now local) Czech beer garden. I remember it well....Susannah was too cool to come on time and arrived just before we were leaving and all my friends except Melissa bailed on me just because I wanted to go dancing at some non-reputable Polish disco in dirty Greenpoint. But I'm not still bitter about that! ;o)

Well, I'll turn a new year in a few days, so I've turned a new leaf and will be going to Radegast in the hipster safe-haven of Billyburg for this year's birthday. Having a birthday that is around the day that Oktoberfest commences is a great benefit (and so is having a Name Day around the start of the summer). So all you New Yorker friends of mine, I expect to see you on Friday night next to me with a liter of German beer in one hand and a bratwurst in your other! Whether I decide to go back to the nearby Polish disco or not remains to be determined!

Just a note: how not to celebrate my birthday (yes, this is how my cube looked when I came back from lunch. This will be removed tomorrow morning):

J. Riley, my foam mattress topper arrived today (finally)!!!