Necessary Roughness

After a year with an NTN account, I tend to look for new places to play NTN Trivia. Being in Houston this week, I stopped by Sam’s Irish Pub. Because it was a location that consistently listed in the top 20 locations, I had hopes of getting in with a group that collaborated for high scores.

There is a group, and they do collaborate, but the group is so large that they occupy all the gaming consoles. This group also plays in their own backroom, just large enough to hold the regulars. Moral of the story: play the big NTN games somewhere else.

The night wasn’t without results, though: Sam’s Irish is just west of the Galleria, one of Houston’s premier shopping districts, so I went in and got a nice Valentine’s Day gift for the misses as well as got my hair cut. I prefer to get my haircut by a real barber, such as Denny and Donzie at the Downtown Barber Shop in Rolla, but I had to settle for a stylist chain. I practically begged them not to do anything special; thankfully they complied.

There is a Häagen-Dasz booth on the main floor, and they were advertising Bailey’s shakes. I was hoping for something akin to a mudslide, and asked if they needed to see my ID. It turns out, though, that Bailey’s is the flavor of the ice cream, sans alcohol. The indoor ice rink in the middle of the mall now sports the sign, “Home of Olympic Champion Tara Lipinski”. I had seen her practice on the rink a couple of years ago; of course they give her the whole rink.