[FIPS WAS THERE…] Singles Mixer at Brooklyn Game Lab

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m here to tell you: I am not great at the online dating thing.

Reason #1: I'm picky. If someone’s not smiling in his pictures, uses “LOL” or “haha” in his profile or message, or lives outside of the city, I will not write back.

Reason #2: Basically I just don’t write back.

Despite my online failures, I am perfectly willing (well, mostly) to put myself in situations that involve meeting new people while doing something fun. That’s why I grabbed a friend and headed to Brooklyn Game Lab in Park Slope last Thursday to check out their new weekly Singles Mixer.

I heard about it here on FIPS, of course, and saw that for the month of February, most adult events at the Game Lab, including the singles mixer, are free. Playing board games with friends is always a good time, and playing board games with potentially interesting single guys seemed like a nice bonus.

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[FIPS Works Out] Contra Dancing Edition

January is over. Have you already bagged on your New Year's Resolution to work out at least twice a week? Yeah, I thought so. This post is the second in a new series where FIPS writers tell you what they do to stay in shape.

Exercising in the winter is tough, and it’s easy to come up with excuses not to do it. After the holidays I came down with a cold, and I’m only now getting back to the gym. I kept saying to myself, “It’s too cold out! I’m still sick! I’m tired of watching reruns of “Charmed” while running on the elliptical!” So if, like me, you’re looking for a different kind of exercise, one that’s a little more social, then I have a solution for you. It’s called contra dancing, and you can do it right here in Park Slope at Brooklyn Contra. Dorky? Maybe. But hear me out.

If you’re wondering, “What the fuck is contra dancing?”, think back to middle school gym class and square dancing. All the boys were like, “Ick, no,” and the girls were like, “Fine, we’ll just be partners with each other, who needs you?” …Actually, that might have been high school. Either way, contra is like that, except much more fun.

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[My Favorite Park Slope...] Bus

Image vi ParkSlopeStoop.comI have a fondness for the B67 and B69 buses. It’s nice to have a convenient pair of buses that will take me to Barnes and Noble and Rite Aid, or home from buying expensive cheese at Union Market. Yes, these are distances I can and do walk, but in the winter, knowing there is a bus that will pick me up a block from home and drop me off outside my destination is the best. Especially when I make the idiotic decision to buy a gallon of milk when I'm a twenty-minute walk from home.

Let's forget about New Years Eve, when I went to Grand Army Plaza for the fireworks, watched the bus pass by from a block away, and walked a long way home without seeing another bus. And a few days after that, when the same thing happened to me on the way to Rite Aid in desperate need of cold meds and I walked there, sniffling, in the fucking slush.

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Get your blades of glory ready, Lakeside opens December 20th!

Image via NYC Parks DepartmentOkay, FIPSters, you know we’ve been pretty fucking excited about the ice skating rinks opening in Prospect Park soon. There was that obscenely expensive party back in November to celebrate how little rent money the complex is paying. We’d say we’ve been looking forward to this since August, but if you can remember back to October 2011 (we can’t), when our less cynical selves thought the lakeside project would be done in Fall 2012, we showed you the construction as it was underway.

So after over two years of breathless anticipation, the rinks are set to open on December 20—or at least, that’s what the website implies. No pricing on admission or rentals listed yet. Here’s hoping it beats anything in Manhattan by a lot, since even at Bryant Park’s free rink, skate rentals are $15.

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