ANGRY RETIREE OP-ED: ANNOYING BANS ARE STUPID!

by Barry S. (NWM Staff Writer)

NYC has a plan to ban smoking in all parks and beaches. Whoopdeedoo! Are policemen going to be saddled with yet another demand on their time? Don't they have enough to do without bothering with this? You can bet Public Safety won’t be able to stop this newly anointed crime. Threats to public safety already exist in the parks. At the top of the list are those perverts near the park bathrooms. Oh and public safety also can't stop those horrible kid bikers and skateboarders from running down us law-abiding citizens walking in the park. (I suppose that if the perverts and bikers are smoking then they’ll be caught. If you believe that I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.) This is an example of tunnel-vision taking over common sense. Bloomberg and his staff are so fixated on smoking that they forget about good old common sense. Enough already! Get back to making government work!

TRAVELING MATT REVIEW: KEENS CHOPHOUSE (NYC)

All right, Matt is back with another review, this time local. So, I went out tonight for drinks and dinner with my brother, we wanted steaks, or at least that ambiance. It was a rare occasion, I was home. We chose to go to Keen's Chophouse, which has roots back to, well a long time ago. To start, we both ordered Grey Goose Martinis, up dirty, I asked if they had blue cheese olives, the waiter said they didn't, an automatic thumbs down, normally. Our drinks arrived, and with them, the waiter brought an extra glass full of olives, and a plate of blue cheese, along with apologies. A+ for ingenuity and for the effort. In fact, given the fun we had stuffing the olives ourselves and the thoughtfulness of the waiter, more than an A+. We waived apps and my bro ordered lamb chops, wimp, in all fairness, they were the large order. I ordered the only thing to order, the mutton chop. Get it, it rules. Along with that, we ordered more martinis, which came with more olives, more blue cheese and more fun. Now, I am a semi pro wine connoisseur, and the wine list here is small, but everything pairs well. We had a Malbec from Argentina it was great. We also had two slightly-hookerish looking girls on either side of us, also awesome. Better yet we spoke with one of the guys with one of the girls and he was cool too. All-in-all two thumbs up for Keens Chophouse, 36th and 6th.


HOTTEST SAUCE IN THE WORLD: BLAIR’S 16 MILLION RESERVE

My friends and I were drunk in some sports bar years ago. The name escapes me. Anyway, we decided to order food. Big shocker. The place we were at specialized in wings. So we flexed our beer muscles and (against the waitress's objections) ordered the hottest freakin' wings on the menu – Chernobyl, plus fries. Needless to say about 20 minutes later the fries were gone and the wings – not a bite. They were so hot it irritated our eyes and skin just to touch them. Those wings are pretty much in "Honey BBQ" land compared to Blair’s 16 million Reserve hot sauce.

Just look at the bottle. There’s a warning label that’s not a marketing ploy. It’s Guinness World Record certified hot. Inside this tiny bottle contains 1 mil of pure capsicum crystals. It's like the hottest chili powder in creation! Bottles have gone for as high as $313. And supposedly you can’t use it on food, just experimenting. Comforting thought. The reserve is currently sold out (he only made 999 bottles.) Though fortunately for you hotties, Blair’s got a bunch of other Death Sauces to torch your taste buds. Check out his site at extremefood.com.

See Blair's Death Hot Sauce put to the test.