Halloween is supposed to be a time of ghouls and ghosts and in general good times.
While I for the most part had a good time this halloween, going to Spitzer's corner (a great beer bar) with my friend Dan, and then heading over to the venerable Burp Castle, where I met my friend Sean and his girlfriend Katherine, it's after that which became truly memorable, and not in a good way.
After spending some time at the castle, we decided to head off to a little place called 1 and 1, which is a place at (you guessed it) the intersection of First Street and First Ave. All my friends presented their ID's to the bouncer at the door and promptly gained admittance.
I presented my ID at the door, and was flatly denied admittance, with no reason given. I can only presume that the reason was that my ID was from the great state of New Jersey, which is commonly viewed as a second class citizen in New York. We're just there to cause problems and deny the experience to "true" New Yorkers.
Well, needless to say, I didn't put up any type of fight with the bouncer (anyone who knows me knows that I'm not that type of person), however, I promptly called over my friend who had just gotten in the door. The bouncer explained that there was "no negotiation" which wasn't a problem for me or Sean.
Except that there is negotiation in situations like this. The negotiation of the mighty dollar. In times like this, you would think that bars would welcome customers with six-figure salaries that had money to spend there (after all, I'd just happily paid a tab in excess of $100 for me and Dan at Spitzer's Corner). Apparently not this one. Since they didn't welcome me, they didn't welcome my friends either. Their loss, mine and my friend's gain.
"One and One", you've just lost a customer for life. And entirely likely, the several others that were with me as well. I'm none the worse off for it, I have money that I may not have otherwise, that could have belonged to you. I encourage everyone else reading this to likewise refrain from patronizing this establishment.
How does this relate to open source in any way? Well, from 1st and 1st, I walked to 9th and 6th (without event, mind you), and waited for the PATH train to take me back to "scumbag New Jersey", I had to get on the train taking me to midtown, since the downtown one was apparently too full.
Now, there was this person that got on the train that was dressed in a penguin costume. I asked if it had anything to do with Linux, and he said that I was the second person to ask that tonight! He said that while he himself didn't run Linux, some of his friends did. How I wish I would have had a LiveCD with me tonight! It would have all been worth it.