Weekend Wstuph
I was VERY nervous about the fact that Mike had to go for a heart stress test and EKG today. The cardiologist set this up because he was concerned about potential problems with Mike’s heart. Mike already has an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, that he had put in last year. So far it’s been fine, it’s never had to kick in.
I was scared that they’d find something wrong and put hm back in the hospital. We’ve had more than enough of damned hospitals, we don’t want to be dealing with that crap again. We just want a nice summer of fun, not of hospitals, as half of last summer was like.
Fortunately, the tests went okay, Mike is home, and not in the hospital. Better safe than sorry when it comes to doing these tests, I know, but I still get worried.
Even though I’d been worried about the outcome, I tried not to think about it. We had a very nice weekend, we went to Brockton Rox games on both Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday, we tried to go to dinner at the Uno Chicago Grill in Brockton, only to find that it was closed permanently. Apparently, the company had filed for bankruptcy after closing 16 restaurants. Apparently, they closed more since, as this other article said that only three Massachusetts locations had closed – Kingston, Methuen, and Fairhaven. Nothing about Brockton. And who knows how many more may close? So far, the Sturbridge one is still open, but who knows how much longer that will be?
The thing is that we had $20 in gift cards to use, which we got as part of the package o’stuph that the New Hampshire Fisher Cats gave us for buying our season mini-plan. They actually gave me a choice between Uno and T-Bones/Cactus Jack’s (a small NH chain). I picked Uno, thinking we’d use them after a Rox game, as we used to always go there when in Brockton. How was I supposed to know way back then that the restaurant would no longer be there? I wish I’d picked the T-Bones cards; they had given those to us the year before, we used them at the one in Salem, NH, and it was really good. If we had them this year, we could have used them to try CJ’s in Manchester, or gone back to the Salem location.
They still have plenty of locations open in Boston and Cambridge, but we never really go there much. There are other places there we like better when we are there, anyway. The nearest suburban locations are in the Woburn Mall and the Burlington Mall. As you well know, I absolutely HATE malls and try to avoid going into one. Even though you can enter the restaurants without actually having to walk through the mall, at both places, parking is ridiculous, miles away, and it’s like playing a game of human Frogger to make it to the restaurant without getting killed.
The Burlington Mall is my idea of hell on earth. If Dante’s Inferno had been written today, one of the seven circles of hell would be just like the Burlington Mall. The last time we ate at the Uno there, there was some Hugh Jass kiddie song and dance festival crap right outside the place, and the noise was deafening. Apparently, they stage similar noisy crap in this part of the mall on a regular basis. There is not enough beer in that restaurant to drown out the horrible racket, in fact, there is probably not enough beer in the WORLD to make it feel better. Even if they had never ending faucets with FREE beer flowing from them, still, not enough.
Frankly, I’m not going to bust my ass looking for an Uno to go to just to use the stupid gift cards. We don’t have time, for one thing, when we go up to ManchVegas for ball games, we have our fave places there, ditto when we go to Portland, Pawtucket, etc. It took a while to find a decent place to eat after an afternoon PawSox game, as Pawtucket has little to offer food-wise that’s good. It’s mostly fast-food crap. This year, though, we’ve taken to stopping at the British Beer Company in Walpole, which is pretty much on the way home for us. The food and beer there is fantastic, even if there were an Uno down there, why would we want to go there? I had planned to use the cards in Brockton, because there’s not much else good to eat there. We used to go to this place called Christo’s, a Greek place that’s really good. But after hearing about shootings and stuff going on, and knowing we’d have to drive through some rather sketchy parts of Brockton to get to Christo’s from the ballpark, no more Christo’s. Oh well.
We could have saved the gift cards for our fall trip to Sturbridge. But I decided not to, because for all we know, that one might be gone by then. I posted something on Facebook saying that I’d just give them to the first person who says they want them. We have a taker. Some people like the Burlington Mall.
Anyway, I’m sure that when we buy our FULL season tickets for next year (that’s right, we love the Fisher Cats so much that we’re going the whole hog!), Uno gift cards will no longer be an option in the swag package (which will have a lot more stuph because it’s for FULL season tickets). As long as T-Bone’s Cactus Jack’s continues to be a team sponsor, it’ll be those gift cards. Fine with me!
Anyhoo, when we saw that the Uno place was closed, we tried the nearby Texas Roadhouse. We wanted to sit at the bar and watch the Sox game, but they only had it on one TV, and that TV was almost impossible to see from any seat at the bar. The TVs we could see had dumb crap on, like the World Cup, and some other crap sport that I could not identify. I was also pissed that there was no Sam Adams Boston Lager on tap. Not that I was planning to drink any, but Mike was, they did have Sam Summer on tap, but Mike doesn’t like that. They did have Boston lager in bottles, but he prefers it on tap. It all pissed us off, so we left without ordering anything.
We got back onto route 24, and then to I-93 North. I was watching for those road signs that say what restaurants are at various exits. I spotted one for a Piccadilly Pub in Randolph, so we went there. It was okay, just like any other PicPub, nothing special. There was space at the bar, they had the Sox on all TVs except for the one in the far corner with Keno on it. Damn, but I HATE Keno, and usually try to avoid patronizing places that have it. Half the time, you have to wait forever to get a beer because the bartenders are forced to spend too much time dispensing Keno tickets. Mostly to skeevy guys who sit there for hours, gambling and nursing a $2 Bud Lite. There was such as guy at the bar in Randolph yesterday. Fortunately, this did not affect the quality of our service, but it most certainly has at the Tewksbury location, which is part of why we hardly ever go there any more. The best Pic is in Sturbridge, mostly because it does NOT have Keno. I’m sorry, but that damned game attracts the worst clientele.
Next time we go to a Rox game, I’ll do some research first and see what other restaurants are around, and plan ahead.
(picture above is from the second Dr. Tinycat T-shirt, from LOLMart Shirts)
