I spent the better part of four months of Sundays in your establishment. It was the only regularly-scheduled item on my agenda every week. Whatever kind of craziness my week brought me, I was in Blackbirds on Sunday eating hot wings between 1:30 and 2:00 PM. Did I mention your hot wings are the best in Astoria?

But about a month ago things went bad. So let’s imagine this, shall we? I enter your establishment at around 1:30 PM. I’m dressed in black pants, a camouflage jacket, and a hoodie. The hoodie has flames on it, by the way. Strangely this time around the bar seems full, but the tables are empty, which is the reverse of how it normally goes. Okay, so I take off my coat and sit down at a table. I forgot to mention, I’ve got a big, fat copy of the New York Post on me.

So I sit down with this copy of the New York Post, crack it open and begin reading. One of your friendly waiters comes over to me and asks what I want. I tell him “I’ll have a Peroni, and an order of very hot wings well done.”

This is really where my day turned to absolute shit. Look, I know there are starving people in Zimbabwe and I understand that the overrun of certain areas of Pakistan by elements of the Taliban is a problem; however, on Sunday at a sports bar I expect wings.
I hope you’ll understand that that’s why what your waiter (who was very nice) said to me next was so baffling.

“We don’t have the regular menu today because we’re serving brunch.”

I gave him a blank look and he, to his credit, looked a tad sheepish.

“You see, all the stuff for brunch takes over the kitchen, so we can’t cook the regular menu.”

My look now was a little less blank, but I’ll give your waiter (who I mentioned was really nice, didn’t I) a little less credit for his next statement.

“Would you like to take a look at our brunch menu?”

No. No I don’t want to take a look at your brunch menu. I’m a guy in a camo jacket with a copy of the New York Post. Do you see me with anyone else? Brunch is for couples. It’s something guys do when they’re with girls because the girls like it and maybe the food’s okay.
Or it’s something you do when one of your “bros” is in from out of town and you want to go check out the cute waitresses and feel okay getting trashed at 11AM. It’s not something a lone guy who looks like an escapee from the Montana Militia is going to do.

No, Jeremy is here for wings. Which, as I was putting my coat on and leaving, your waiter (who’s still friendly, regardless) said he would communicate to you. On my way out (without spending a dime), I noticed an omelet station.

…

An omelet station. In a sports bar. There were a couple of hot plates and a dude in a silly hat. Really. Here are a couple of better ideas for a station in your bar:

1. a gimlet station
It sounds about the same and makes more sense for a bar to have. “I’ll have a gin gimlet, hold the emasculating bullshit.”

2. a wing station
See, you have a guy out there cooking the wings you can’t make in your kitchen now, apparently. Everyone wins. “I’ll have a dozen very hot wings. Then I’m going to read about the destabilization of the Zimbabwean dollar because of Robert Mugabe’s regime.”

You know, even though I’m some fancy music industry dude, I don’t make a lot of money. But, I was willing to part with $20 - $30 every Sunday for you guys. Because seriously, those wings are killer.

You know what I do now instead of going to your bar? I spend an extra $15 to take a train up to the Peekskill Brewery in Westchester. There, I can get a lovely view of the Hudson River, I can choose from four times as many beers as you have, and I can get some really good hot wings.

No, they’re not as good as yours, but at least Peekskill has figured out how to serve brunch and bar food at the same time. What, your grill can’t handle a burger and truffle oil grilled cheese sandwiches with added estrogen at the same time?

Look, I know it’s not football season and you’re not going to do the wings special cheap anymore. I don’t even care about football. I don’t even know what downs are. I just want hot wings on Sunday and I want them six blocks from my house.

So fire up that deep fryer and get your act together. ‘cause brunch is really bumming me out. And I’m starting to tell my friends.

Yours truly,

Jeremy Rosen

The first hint that practical fusion power was coming arrived last year when scientists at the Platha Battery Research centre announced a new theoretical technological framework for energy storage. Platha, well-known for its reliance on direct current to store and transmit power, has seen its only burgeoning technological sector evolve from the need for well-functioning direct current.

For decades the PBR centre has advanced the course of power storage. The AA battery was invented at the PBR as was the cumbersome DD battery which powered Platha’s only successful consumer electronics export: the People’s Ghetto Blaster, an overpowered combination tape deck and radio which sold moderately well between 1986 and 1988 across the U.S.

Able to last for up to 36 hours on a single charge, the DD batteries which powered the People’s Ghetto Blaster still outperform most modern portable electronics. People’s Ghetto Blasters in good condition continue to sell for hundreds of dollars at online auction sites, even while the unit’s 53 lb. weight adds substantially to the cost of shipping.

The PBR centre previously reached national prominence when its former director Nikolai Arkady was a 3-day champion on Jeopardy (later dramatized in “Jeopardy: The Movie” (see our ad on March 1, 2007)).

This publication had long been a proponent of direct power, with editorials from the period of Edison’s push for direct current extolling it as the only truly American form of power distribution. Calls for its adoption were still coming from these pages as late as 1987 with the introduction of the late-model People’s Ghetto Blaster. However, with little fanfare the subject was dropped by then Editor-in-Chief Samuel Smelt. In 2004 the subject was again raised with the introduction of direct current to Katharinetowne, WD (Volume 456-BR6, Issue 6 “March of Progress”).

With the PBR centre’s new FusionDynamo eXtreeem, the issue is now at the forefront again. The FusionDynamo eXtreeem is actually an array of 48 giant batteries. Each stands over 60 feet high, except for the first two in the chain, which reach nearly 100 feet into the sky and measure a diameter of over 700 Lincolns. Inside every battery exist billions of molecule-thin layers of voltaic cells sandwiched together with barely any space between. The entire system is able to store the entire power output of a single high-yield thermonuclear weapon and can power a small city for nearly six months.

To get the power into the FusionDynamo eXtreeem is another matter. Once the potential of the new battery system was perceived by scientists at Fermilab, and the schematics extricated from Platha by a crack team of Willinois Grenadiers, two problems with the plan were discovered. First, how to siphon off the enormous power of a thermonuclear explosion. Second, how to transmit that power effectively to the FusionDynamo eXtreeem.

The latter had the easiest solution as Fermilab called on colleagues in Velociraptor, Elizabethia, known as the nation’s Superconducting Capital. Researchers at Meissnercorp were able to provide miles of superconducting conduits for low, low prices. Often no more than 10% over wholesale.

Capturing the explosive power of a thermonuclear weapon was more problematic. The final design consists of a flattened spherical chamber located underground and over 3 miles across. The entire chamber is lined with turbines for direct conversion of the explosive power to electric current. The chamber sits underneath a second chamber of approximately the same size filled with water, which receives energy input in the form of the heat of the explosion which creates steam which turns another set of turbines. The surface of the lower chamber is coated entirely in a heat-resistant, semiconducting alloy.

The energy thus generated passes through the superconducting conduits to the FusionDynamo eXtreeem. The large initial pair of batteries accept the first set of charges from the explosion, then pass off the overflow to the remaining 46 batteries. Power distribution from this point on is quite simple and can be transferred over to an alternating current system at will.

This is of course not true fusion power as thermonuclear weapons are actually hybrid fission/fusion devices, but hopefully lasers in the future will make it happen.

Pico jumps over the Golden Gate Bridge.

40-foot tall blue bear statue.

Ukrainian fighting girls.