Tipsy Crow: San Diego, CA

This weekend a group of friends and I decided to go to Downtown San Diego to take part in the Halloween festivities, and oh boy did we have fun. I called my friend Roberto, a San Diego native, and asked if I and a group of beautiful ladies would be able to crash in his apartment for the weekend. After exchanging a few words, he kindly agreed. 

While in Down Town, we decided to go to the Tipsy Crow. It is probably one of the more exciting places to have a drink in the Gaslamp.  The main reason for this is the the bar's schizophrenic personality.  With not one but three levels to choose from, you have no excuse for being bored here!

Ground level is a traditional-style pub. With a long bar and lots of booths, it's surprisingly roomy, even on a busy Friday night.  There's no shortage of things to keep you entertained, including board games (Connect Four and checkers) on the tables and a constantly-updated "drink exchange" to help the staff ensure that even unpopular bottles get used up eventually.  (There's also an inordinate amount of cleavage bouncing all over the place, in case you were wondering. :)

The basement is a hidden little nightclub, with people dancing the night away. There is more than enough room to dance with your friends, shuffle, or even dougie. The dance floor is evenly distributed I would say with large groups of girls and a few guys here and there trying to take someone home.

The coolest part of the Tipsy Crow is their upstairs lounge.  The vibe is reminiscent of an old library, with huge bookshelves, comfy couches, and elegant decorations strewn about.  There's another bar, and plenty of opportunities to have a quiet conversation and take goofy bar photos (Didn’t bring my camera inside).  Given the choice, I'd spend all my time at the Tipsy Crow up here.

All in all, as a bar, the Tipsy Crow is probably a solid four-star establishment.  A little rough around the edges but still worth checking out.

But seriously, “What happened last night?”


Here are some photos before and after the bars:

Malone's Bar and Grill

Friday night's group: Me and two chicks
Time of arrival: 10:15 pm
Wait time: None

The CSUF guitar recital was last Friday so I invited a couple of girls to see me play. The two are actually sisters and I hadn't seen either of them since the summer so I figured it would be a good chance for us to catch up. The show wrapped up around 9:30 pm and the other guitarists and I were hanging out in the green room when one of the guys said, "Anyone down for pizza and beer?" Approval was unanimous; I think someone clapped.

I headed out to the hallway and told the girls about the plan. The response was not what I expected; they both looked confused.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Jessica, the older one, says, "We were supposed to go see Janna's band, remember?"

I guess I had one of those "Oh !@#$" moments. Janna is our mutual friend and she's the drummer in a classic rock band. I had put off going to her shows because I'm not really into that genre anymore, but I promised her I'd go this time so she'd get off my back. Unfortunately, Jess and Erica had commited to it too so I had to turn my boys down. Because there are so few guitar majors at CSUF, we're like family and it was tough to say no to them because we always have fun. But in my defense, the girls were cute and I was horny that night.

So we carpool to a place called Malone's Bar and Grill in the Santa Ana/Costa Mesa area. Pretty tough place to find because it's literally on the side of a shopping plaza and facing in a different direction from all the other businesses. Anyway, the front is average-looking and there's just the one bouncer but he was friendly. As soon as I stepped past the threshold, I immediately regretted it. The music was loud and incomprehensible, it was too crowded so most people had to stand, and everyone in the joint was older. By older, what I really mean is old, as in 40 and over. Hell, besides Janna, everyone in the band was in their 50's, which explains a lot about the crowd of senior citizens we had to deal with.

The dance floor in front of the stage was packed with inappropriately-dressed older women who were trying a little too hard to look sexy. Ever seen an old, bald white guy with a beer-gut try to get his freak on with two old Mexican women with equally large bellies? I wish I hadn't, and now I can't seem to erase that image from my memory. We spent most of the time avoiding that area by standing next to the bar catching up with Janna's mom and other acquaintances. Occasionally, old creepers would try to chat up one of my girls when I wasn't looking but they were easily dealt with. All it takes is a smartass comment about hip replacements, cardiac arrest, or Viagra.

The band finally had a break around 11 so we took the opportunity to say hi to Janna and then made our excuses to take off. She was disappointed we were leaving so early but she should consider herself lucky we showed up at all. I'm sure the place might have been more enjoyable on a different night with a different crowd. Unfortunately, it felt like I wasted an hour of my life for nothing. I gave up guaranteed fun with the fellas because I was thinking with my you-know-what instead of my brain.

However, the night was still young so the girls and I went to my place and made the most of it. We had all the ingredients for a good time: ping-pong, leftover steak, jacuzzi, liquor... What more do you need?

Supperclub Los Angeles

The Group: tall asian chick, hott blonde, skinny brunette.
Time of Arrival: 11:50 pm
Wait Time: 5 minutes with a promoter
Cover: none

What started out as a calm night in down town Pasadena turned into a late night dance party at Supperclub in Los Angeles. We really tried to have fun in Pasadena but the crowd was just unusually ugly and dull last night so we hopped in the car and got on the 110 down to LA with no particular plan in mind. We got a call from a friend of ours who works at Supperclub and we decided to follow his advice and check it out.

After driving around for a half an hour, we finally decided to pay $15 parking for the structure right across the street. It was convenient and safe so it was probably the best bet since we still wanted to have our car there for us at the end of the night. So, the three of us walked a little red carpet to get into Supperclub and I was very let down as I walked through the doors because the first thing you see is a small bar, a couple people, and a staircase. I almost thought it was going to be a bust until we rounded the corner and saw the rest of the club.

The inside had a very cool feel and the people seemed very "L.A." My favorite part was the acrobatics going on above me as I danced to insane house music mixes by some talented DJ's. My only complaint is that the VIP tables have cushions on the floor which makes it nearly impossible to dance in heels with or without a buzz. I stuck to dancing on the dance floor but really... how boring is that when you can dance on a table?

The drinks were priced at the L.A. standard, $11 for a vodka sprite at the bar and free at VIP tables filled with weird guys looking to get a little action. The crowd was mostly Persian girls and their boyfriends. Not really the best place to look for a hook up if you are a girl.

Overall though, the experience was awesome. We danced, we oohed and awed at dancers hanging from the ceiling, and we drank a lot more than we needed to. I would definitely go back for a great dance party.

Supperclub

Supperclub: Los Angeles

Oktoberfest: Alpine Village

Last night’s group: Six beautiful women, and myself. 

Time of Arrival: 9pm 

Wait time: ~5min

Cover charge $20.00 (per person) 

On Friday night, a group of friends and I decided to go to Oktoberfest, and let me tell you, it was a success.This event is great, there’s plenty of beer, food, music, and even girls dancing on tables! So what’s not to love.

We arrived at about 9pm so parking was not a problem. Once we parked in the lot, our group was escorted towards the entrance, where we bought our tickets. After going through what seemed like airport security, we made our way to the bar. They have about five different beers on tap, all costing a whopping $11.00. The beer was delicious, and definitely helped make the night a more enjoyable one. After we all got our drinks we walked around to find a place to sit. This is where we came across our only problem. The benches were scarce, and occupied by crowds chanting German drinking songs. After keeping an eye out, we found some seats and enjoyed the live band, energetic crowd, and drinking games on the stage. During the intercession our group decided to walk around, and grab another beer. They have bars set up pretty much everywhere making it easy to grab a beer no matter what your location maybe. Having consumed a substantial amount of alcohol, our next stop was the bathroom. The bathroom line was not very long (even the ladies room), but they were porta potties located outdoors. 

Back inside people were dancing, and it was definitely more crowded than when we first arrived. There was still more than enough space to walk and move around, without having someone bump into you every other second. Oktoberfest was inside a massive tent, with an adjacent outdoor section to accommodate the people smoking. 

The crowd was great the entire night, and I didn’t witness any type of rowdy behavior.

So if you love beer, great food, and a good time Oktoberfest at the Alpine Village is definitely where you want to be at! 

So what happened last night? Well, why don’t you take a look. 

 We love German Beer!

Heroes Bar & Grill

Friday night's group: 8 mean lookin' dudes (and Dr. Peterson)
Time of arrival: 11:15 pm?
Wait time: None to get in

So last Friday night was Bowling Night for Men's Chorus. Sounds a little lame, right? Well, it kinda was. 20 dudes playing pool and bowling at the Titan Student Union was not my idea of an exciting night. Fortunately, the pool tournament finished around 9pm which left us plenty of time for shenanigans. About eight of us were hungry as hell, so we headed towards Downtown Fullerton for food and booze.

Scratch that, make that nine of us. We managed to convince Dr. Peterson, our choir director, to tag along with us.

Mission: Get Dr. Peterson wasted.

So our first destination was Heroes Bar & Grill, which is probably the place to go if you're in DTF. We were starving so we wanted to sit down and eat, but we were told it would be a two-hour wait for a table. Screw that. We walked over to the Old Spaghetti Factory and within a couple minutes the hostess put together some tables for us right in front of the bar. Within half an hour, we were singing drinking songs and getting dirty looks from patrons at the bar. Can't speak for everyone else, but I was pretty happy. The garlic mizithra was delicious, the wheat hefeweizen wasn't bad so I had two, and I had a perfect view of two TVs with ESPN and ESPN2. About 5-6 bucks for a beer and $11-12 for the pasta. Dunno what Peterson had but he had a little buzz goin' on so he was happy. The hours flew by, and after dessert we gave Heroes another try.

This is where the fun really started. Everyone who's been there on a busy night knows what's up: loud music, no personal space, good range of beer, and peanut shells all over the damn place. Long wait for booze but it was worth it. As soon as the shots were poured, things picked up fast. Here are just a few highlights from those precious hours:

1. Nikita approaches a circle of four girls, gets in the middle, turns to face the one with the big ass and proclaims, "DAAAAMMMNNN, girl! I'd marry yo' brotha just to get into yo' family!" Crazy Russian.

2. Zack gets hit on by two older women. To put this in perspective, Zack is barely drinking age and these two ladies were both in their forties. One was average, but the other one fell off the ugly tree and broke all the branches with her face. Zack didn't care, he made out with both of them. They followed him out into the parking lot as we were leaving and we sorta left him behind. Not sure how he got home.

3. Jason tries to convert a drunk girl to Buddhism. No B.S. It was super-loud so I don't know how well that went. Who am I kidding? She was wasted, I don't think she remembered diddly.

4. Crying black girl charges at me, grabs my jacket, and screams in my face, "TELL HER YOU LOVE HER!" She kept repeating this until her friends found her and dragged her away from me. She also knocked over my beer in the process. My friends were laughing, but everyone else looked just as confused as I was. Bartender felt sorry for me and gave me another beer. Still can't wrap my head around this.

All in all, a pretty fun night. By the way, you're probably wondering what happened to Dr. Peterson. Well, he ended up sleeping in his car. Mission accomplished.