Thursday, April 22, 2010

Peter Luger

My friends Sandy and Rico who visited me in Puerto Vallarta generously gave me a gift certificate to Peter Luger for our hospitality.  Knowing that I would want to get their steak and that the Mysterious Chinese Woman and I could never polish of their steak for two, we decided to invite Jim.  For some reason he thought it would be a good idea to meet in the Lower East Side and then walk over the Williamsburg Bridge. Now, I must admit, I have never walked over that bridge before so I thought it sounded like a good idea.

We agreed to meet at Lucky Jack's, a bar that is a full block wide, albeit, a narrow block, and has an entrance on two streets.

Lucky Jack's
 

Just before I got there Jim phoned and said he was going to be a bit late so I just settled in and had a beer.

What Else?


I had Six Point's Sweet Action, a mighty fine beer for a warm sunny day.  Six Point's is located in Red Hook, Brooklyn and they, like Brooklyn Brewery, turn out a might fine line of beers.  Then, when Jim did show up I had just ordered a Guiness.  Jim followed my recommendation and had a Sweet Action.

We were going to walk around the Lower East Side a bit before heading across the bridge to Peter Luger, but with Jim running late and having that second brew, we decided to just head on over.  Not before Jim bought himself a fine new straw hat, though.

Note The Hat


Well, let me tell you, the Williamsburg Bridge is a lot longer than the Brooklyn Bridge.  It is almost a mile and a quarter on the walking path.  Actully, that isn't that much longer than the Brooklyn Bridge, which is over a mile.  Sure seemed like it though.  I think it is because the approach to the actual bridge is so long, but I'm not sure.

And On We Walked


Are We Almost There?


March, Or Die


The Last Leg


Well now, wasn't that just the most exciting series of pictures.  You can just imagine how exciting the walk was.

But, at long last, there it was and here we were.

Peter Luger


And, as planned, Jim and I split the steak for two along with Rob Roy's made with Johnny Walker Black.  It has been a long time since I have had one of these, tending more towards Maker's Mark Manhattans.  I had forgotten how good they were and may make a temporary switch.

A Feast For A King, Or Two


And, as you can see, we made short work of it.

Not Much Left


We also had their delicious fried potatoes and the obligatory creamed spinach.  The Mysterious Chinese Woman had a huge salad to go with her fish and we finished off by splitting a slice of cheese cake.  Jim and I also had a Rusty Nail, keeping with our Scotch theme.

And Then We Headed Out


But that wasn't the end of our day.  You can read about it tomorrow.  A sneak preview, though, we ended up at Otto's Shurnken Head in Manhattan.

Peter Luger Steak House on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Photobucket Phollow-Up

As a follow-up to my problem with Photobucket I had couple of email exchanges with them.

First, I sent an email to pro@photobucket in order to find out why I could not upgrade to Photobucket Pro.

I received notification that my alloted monthly bandwidth had been exceeded. I thought I was a Pro-Photobucket user but I see my last payment, automatically taken from my credit card, was several years ago. For some reason my account was no longer being automatically renewed. I attempted to sign up for it today and received the following message:


Our records show that the 'Thousandbars' account is not available for upgrade due to usage violations.

Please contact us if you feel that this is in error.

I am sure what the useage violations might be. Twice I have had pictures, pictures taken in a museum and an art gallery, removed because, I believe, they showed an exposed female breast. These were just pictures of pictures, for goodness sakes. I am suprised if a picture of the statue of Venus would get by you guys.

Anyway, I am not sure if I want to upgrade now, apparently I have been getting by without it for several years. I do kind of want to know what my useage violations might have been.

 It didn't take long for them to get back to me, I will give them credit for that.

Please accept our apologies. Your linking has been enabled and your Pro status is valid through 6/5/10 currently. Please clear your cache and refresh your page. Thank you.

If you have further questions regarding media removed for TOU violation, please contact abuse@photobucket.com.

Sincerely,

Your Photobucket Support Team

I decided to take them up on their offer to contact abuse@photobucket.com and sent them the following email:

I have had two pictures blocked by Photobucket due to inappropriate content. In one case it was a picture of an exhibit in a museum in Paris. The picture depicted how the human male and female were similar and different. This was in a museum that regularly hosted visits by grade-schoolers. Yet the picture was blocked because, I presume, there was a naked female breast depicted.


The second was, again, a picture of a picture. This time one that was in a small gallery. It was a semi-abstract painting that, again, depicted a naked, although unrealistic, female breast.

Am I correct that a picture that depicts a naked female breast is routinely blocked by Photobucket? What if it happened to be a picture of the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

The reason for this query is that I recently was not allowed to upgrade to Photobucket Pro because I had "useage violations." Aside from the two times that I had pictures blocked, out of thousands that I have posted, I can think of no other possible usege violations.

Again, they quickly got back to me with a reply,

Your account contained images which violate our Terms of Use. These Terms apply to all users regardless of the Public/Private setting of the account. When you created the account, you agreed to abide by these terms and we clearly explained the consequences of violating those terms.


Photobucket.com attempts to maintain a website that is absent of offensive, indecent or objectionable content. That is our general policy and your images were removed in accordance with that policy. The Photobucket.com Terms of Use, found at http://www.photobucket.com/terms, reflect that policy by giving Photobucket the right to remove content that, among other things, (a) it deems unlawful, obscene, harmful, threatening, defamatory, or hateful; (b) invades the privacy of any third party; (c) contains nudity, illustrated nudity, pornography, illustrated pornography, child erotica, or child pornography; or (d) Photobucket deems otherwise objectionable.

We do allow nudes in classical art, such as Picasso, Dali, or Michelangelo. Modern art nudity is a violation.

Sincerely,

Your Photobucket Support Team

So there you have it, bare breasts don't make it, unless it is in classical art.  Now, what am I going to do with all of these pictures I was going to share with you?

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Bandwidth Exceeded

Apparently I have exceeded the 10 gigabit bandwidth that Photobucket allows me each month.  I think this is the first time this has ever happened.  I guess I must have posted more pictures than usual.  It looks like Photobucket's month rolls over on the 21st of each month and my pictures will reappear at that time.

I tried to upgrade to a Pro-Account or whatever they call it that would allow me unlimited pictures but I got the following message:

Our records show that the 'Thousandbars' account is not available for upgrade due to usage violations.

Please contact us if you feel that this is in error.
 
What those usage violations might be, I really don't know.  I do recall they blocked a couple of my pictures, pictures of artwork, one from a museum and one from an exhibit, because they showed a, gasp, female breast.  One of the blocked pictures was from a museum of humans or something like that in Paris.  It was a picture, half male and half female, showing the similarities and differences between the sexes.  When I took the picture a group of school children were being shown through the exhibit.  Too racy for Photobucket but perfectly acceptable for French grade-schoolers. 
 
Maybe that was the problem.  Who knows.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Goldman Sachs, Or Sacks Of Gold

I see where there is a lawsuit against Goldman Sachs based partially on the fact that, gasp, they didn't always have their customrers best interests at heart. 

Well gosh, isn't that a shock.  Some of you may remember I post I made back in 2009 touching upon this very subject.  It dealt with a notice I received from Banc of America who had taken over Quick & Reilly but before they bought Merrill Lynch.  BAI is Banc of Americal Investment Services Inc.

"Because BAI receives revenue sharing payments based on the amount of sales of, and assets invested in, annuities of Branch Access Annuity Companies and mutual funds of Branch Access Fund Families, BAI has a financial incentive to promote sales of those annuities and mutual funds, in particular annuities of Branch Access Fund Families that pay the highest revenue sharing rates to BAI."

For those of you who can't quite figure out what they are saying, they are saying BAI will recommend annuities and mutual funds to their customers based upon how much much revenue BAI stands to make, not necessarily based upon how good they may be for their customer.

Now how anyone reading that could ever believe that any brokerage necessarily has their clients best interests at heart should check out the bridge I have for sale.  You can walk to it from my house.