Who Gives A Shit: Do You Eavesdrop On Your Annoying Neighbors?

Last week, I spent a good 45 minutes listening to my neighbor's phone conversation. No, I wasn't tapping into her phone line or placing my ear up to her door. I was sitting on my couch reading a book, minding my own business. I had the window open to air out the place when Chatty Cathy decided to pace outside our buildings while catching up with her friend. She was talking as if she were in a wind tunnel: "So I  said, no, we're not going to your mother's house next weekend. It's Memorial Day and we're not sitting in all that traffic to go to New Jersey. Do you believe him?" And next thing I knew, I had placed my book down and listened to her entire conversation, as if I was tuned into some 1920s radio program.

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How Do You Pick Your Bike Shop?

IMAGE VIA PARK SLOPE LENS

Park Slope needs another bike shop like it needs another mexican restaurant. But that didn't stop Soho's Bicycle Habitat from opening up their first Brooklyn shop on 5th Ave and 10th St. last week (pictured above). What used to be a Toys"R"Us pop-up shop - and a Jeans Express before then - is now an expansive, 3,000 square foot storefront filled with wall-to-wall bikes and gear. But the large space isn't the only thing Habitat has going for it. Named "Best Bike Shop" by New York Magazine, the shop's been around since 1978, and is known for its fair prices, great service and boutique selection. Not a bad reputation, huh?

Still, with R&A Cycles, 9th Street Cycles, 718 Cyclery, Ride Brooklyn, On the Move, and of course Dixon's already well-established in the Slope, Bicycle Habitat has a lot of competition. Most bike owners I know have loyalty to pre-existing Slope shops, and don't like to change. After all, choosing a bike shop is less like picking a place to grab a bite and more like choosing a primary care physician. You kind of want to go somewhere that'll know your medical history and squeeze you in during an emergency.

So here's what I'm wondering: What do you look for in your bike shop? And what, if anything, would get you to switch?

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BUGOFF: IT'S NOW [KINDA] SAFE TO GO BACK TO THE PAVILION

Now, while we all hope that news of the renovation is, indeed, true, in the meantime there's this: anyone who's stepped foot in the Pavilion Movie Theater plays a dangerous game of what I like to call "Bed Bug Roulette." As in, "Will this $12 movie I'm about to see actually cause me to burn my entire wardrobe and most of my possessions?"

If you're anything like me, you don't even play the game, instead resigning yourself to having every movie spoiled for you by Twitter and Facebook chatter by the time you finally see it three months later on Netflix.

But for those still brave enough to actually go to the movie theater, there's hope.

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THE BEST FIRST DATE BARS IN PARK SLOPE

I've been going on awkward internet first dates for years in this neighborhood, so if there's one thing I know, it's that finding the perfect first date spot is harder than you might think.

So when I saw this e-mail in my inbox this morning, I cheered that I wasn't the only one searchin'. Take a look (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

From: Emily Valentine 
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 8:17 AM
To: NineDaves
Subject: quick advice: good bar?

Hey! I have a first date with a lawyer from South Dakota (well, he lives here now) tomorrow night. He lives in the East Village, but offered to come to Brooklyn to “try something new.” Where should I suggest? I go to the same 3 bars over and over, as you know.

There's a lot of requirements for the perfect first date bar: you want a place that's interesting, inexpensive, and intimate. It has to be quiet but not too quiet; casual but not dingey. There can't be a lot of other singles there (lest he/she find someone cuter), but you also don't want to be in couples kingdom. It's always nice to leave the door open for an upgrade to dinner if the date is going well, so staying close to a few good restaurants is key. You also need an escape route if things start sucking, so being within walking distance of a subway is also clutch. Add all this into the typical first date jitters mix ("Please god, let him look something like his picture!"), and the pressure to find a good spot can become totally overwhelming. 

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JOANN FROM BENSONHURST IS MY HERO

I can't imagine you were watching the Fox 5 News at 10 last night. I wasn't either, but the teeves was on that channel when I flicked it on, and I happened to catch their new segment called City Rant! The premise is simple: Fox gives a local New Yorker a platform to rant, and they bitch and moan about a number of topics. For their inaugural broadcast, they introduced us to Joann from Bensonhurst.

Ladies and gentleman, meet my new hero:

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