Definition of Bases

Dear Slumlog, Some of the patrons at my bar talk about how their significant others got to first, second, or third base with them. I feel kind of left out because I don't know exactly what they are. Could you tell me what the bases are for girls and guys? I'd really appreciate it.

 —Grumpy Bartender

Dear Grumpy Bartender,

There is no "official" definition of what the bases represent. However, the following is a general guide to what they mean:

• First base = kissing, including open-mouth (French) kissing, drinking the Miller Lite 
• Second base = petting above the waist, including touching, feeling, and fondling the chest, breasts, and nipples, drinking the Yeungling 
• Third base = petting and/or orally stimulating below the waist, including touching, feeling, and fondling the vagina, clitoris, penis, and testicles, drinking the Sierra Nevada 
• Home run = sexual intercourse or drinking the Guinness 

These definitions are subject to change and can vary among different people, so don't be embarrassed to ask the person sitting across the bar from you exactly what they mean (and you probably aren't the only one who needs clarification). It's great that you want to be informed — asking is the best way to find out.

Sincerely,
Slumlog

Rocktoberfest

We here at Rogue Enterprises Inc apologize for our terrible record for posting to this blog during Sucktember 2012. Below is a partial list of the bullshit excuses our editorial team compiled:

1. We found a keg of Peroni left over from the World Cup and drank ourselves blind.
2. We were serving as replacement referees in the National Football League.
3. We're still trying to get over the fact the Red Room is non-smoking.
4. We were stuck on the Metro Blue Line for an entire month.
5. We were so distraught Joe canceled Wednesday karaoke.
6. We were too busy jumping on the Nationals bandwagon.
7. Its October already? Where the f' did the summer go?
8. Neither Obama nor Romney endorsed our message.
9. We've been trying to resolve the hockey lockout.
10. We've been rereading 50 Shades of Gray.
11. Kristen Stewart cheated on us.
12. We do not have Siri.
13 Nasdaq.
14. RG III.
15. ODB.
16. Ahmadinejad.
17. Maryland's Proposition7.
18. We're dumber than Ryan Lochte.
19. We depleted our supply of blue electrical tape.
20. Its Summers, what the hell did you really expect?

The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Bar Owners: Habit 3

Habit 3: Put First Things Last

Confuse the issue in your own mind and then don't tell employees what you're thinking and then evaluate their performance and compensation on ground rules you haven't even discussed with them. Avoid planning like the plague or avoid it like you avoid that customer who shows up like clockwork wearing their team gear and wants to see their team play on one of the many lo-def televisions that Summers. Use this opportunity to disappear into your dungeon for three hours and encourage the server to disappear to the light side because that's where the paying customers are. Execute the bar's tasks based on their least importance rather than urgency. Never evaluate your efforts but evaluate the efforts of others and criticize them for it even though you haven't explained the ground rules.  Refuse to exemplify your desired character values and then betray them. Propel yourself towards the all-mighty dollar and don't worry about your goals or your employees goals. Remember that enriching roles and relationships with customers, staff and even your own family is for  total losers.

The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Bar Owners: Habit 2

Habit 2: Procrastinate and Never Have a Goal In Mind

First, never ever create a mission statement. I can't emphasize this point enough. Never. Ever. Mission means work and statement means putting stuff in writing. Putting stuff in writing is bad because writing means more work and writing means committing to something which means employees or patrons could bring it up later under oath in litigation. Lord knows we all have enough commitment issues in our personal lives that we don't need to deal with them in our professional lives. Never commit to anything. Besides, how is one supposed to build on highly ineffective habit number one of taking everyone one knows completely by surprise to gauge their honest reaction if one commits to something ahead of time?  

Since you will never ever craft a mission statement, don't even bother envisioning your ideal bar or the ideal characteristics for you or your employees. It is a complete waste of time. Employees will always let you down.

Plus, envisioning the ideal work environment only means more work and you need to have the flexibility to completely dismantle your highly-abstract concept of the ideal work environment when that one customer comes in one time right off the street after a long-day of trying to figure out the baffling Washington Metropoitan Area Transit Authority metro system in which more than one train runs on one track and that train is always completely full and the train doesn't even drop them off by the museum they wanted to see and they're happy because they're on vacation and everyone else is not and maybe that's why does everyone looks so sad and these tourists are coming back after a long day of wandering around the National Mall in the hot hot sun where a bottle of water costs more than this family vacation they planned and they're hot and they're sweaty and they're mad and they're in the right frame of mind to offer solid business advice to the owner of the first restaurant they pass between the metro station and their hotel and no bar owner wants to be mired in an untenable position in which they cannot use the recently collected pearls of wisdom to the utmost strategic advantage because they're hamstrung by the completely useless business plan that the completely incompetent accountant made them draw up for the completely imaginary county regulators.

The Obvious Sonny

Why deny the obvious Sonny?

We had a lot of fun, we had a lot of money.
We had a little son, we thought we'd call him Sonny.
Sonny gets married and moves to Arlington to work at Summers.
Sonny has a bucket and bills to pay which is a total bummer.
Sonny gets sunnier day by day by day by day.

The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Bar Owners: Habit 1

Habit 1: Be Reactive

React, react, react, and then overreact.

If you want to be a completely useless and ineffective bar owner or manager, you need to react to past trends and overreact to customer and staff feedback. Javelin Joe at Summers is a shining exemplar of reaction and overreaction. He reacted well when he signed a non-exclusive contract to show the Olympics at Summers and he overreacted when he ordered ordered a million metres of blue electrical tape.

To make the most of your ineffectiveness, and completely bamboozle patrons and workers and confuse them beyond reasonable doubt, you must not only react, but overreact. Take what one customer says one time about one thing the one time they come in the establishment and make that a policy. Then change the policy when another customer comes in one other time and says something different. Remember not to tell regular customers or employees, because you want them to react too. It doesn't matter if the change in policy is four hours or twenty-four hours, you can't gauge people's reactions unless it a complete surprise.

Hard Times-- Book IV: The Whole Point

The whole point of the series of posts about Charles Dickens' "Hard Times" was to compare Hard Times Cafe & Summers to prove how much Hard Times rules & Summers sucks. I think that point was lost in the most convoluted drawn-out and boring series of blog posts ever posted on Slumlog.

The original moral of the story was that during the power outages in Northern Virginia a couple of weeks ago, the customer service that patrons received at Hard Times, which had no electricity, was better than the service that patrons receive on a regular basis at Summers, which usually has electricity.

As soon as the power went out in Alexandria, the wait staff and the manager on duty checked with each patron to see if they were okay and had no safety concerns. At Summers, one can't even get a server to check on patrons on a regular basis with the lights on and the clock ticking towards the end of happy hour. And since the power was out in Old Town, the point of sale systems didn't work, but allowances were made. At Summers, customers can't catch a break. I remember one time, at band camp, when a customer asked about their ticket with an off-hand comment about how they thought they had ordered the last beer before happy hour ended and the server said yeah, but I didn't ring it in until later, after happy hour ended.

!#@#$*&^%$? Don't understand? Play a game of Q*bert.

And it was hot as sh!t sitting next to the grill at Hard Times with no air conditioning, but the staff handled it with aplomb and made the best of a a bad situation. When it gets to be hot as sh!t at Summers, Joe turns down the lights and turns up whatever crappy radio station he has playing on the sound system.

Hard Times-- Book III: Garnering

The discomfited customers leave Summerstown, on an admonition from Sissy Joe and ass backwards non-smoking ans, never to return. He submits to a life of declining profits and dwindling customers. Every bartender has been absent from Summers, trying to find work under a pseudonym.

Sissy Joe makes a plan for rescue and escape, however, and he reveals that he suspected Tom early on during the proceedings. He sends Shawn off to the circus that he used to be a part of, namely Mr. Sleazy's. Shawn and Sissy Joe travel to the circus; Maya is there, disguised in blackface. The two have feelings of acrimony towards each other.

Then everyone dies. Shawn dies of a fit in a street one day. John dies in the Americas, having begged for penitence in a half-written letter to his sister, Lika. Lika herself grows old and never remarries. Mr. Bish abandons his Utilitarian stance, which brings contempt from his fellow bar patrons, who give him a hard time. Sammii continues to labour while still consistently not having a work ethic nor having honesty. Sissy Joe is the moral victor of the story, as he has children who can't escape the desiccative education of his dungeon school.

Hard Times-- Book II: Reaping

This is the second in a series of posts about why Hard Times rules and Summers doesn't.

Hard Times--Book II

Book Two opens with the attention focused on Joe's new back bar, the Red Room, of which Sonny alongside the austere Mrs. Saammii keep watch at night for intruders or burglars. They do not however keep watch for customers wanting a drink which is why the customers have such Hard Times. A dashing gentleman enters, asking for directions to the Red Room. It is John Sturm, a languid fellow, who became an bartender out of boredom.

John is introduced to Joe, who regales him with improbable stories of his javelin-throwing youth. John is utterly bored by the blusterous bar owner, and is astounded by his inability to draw customers.

Hard Times-- Book I: Sowing

This is the first in a series of posts about why Hard Times rules and Summers doesn't.

Hard Times--Book I

Mr. Joe, whose voice is "dictatorial", opens the pantomime by stating "Now, what I want is customers" at his bar in Arlington. He is a man of "unproven facts and miscalculations." He interrogates one of his servers, Saammii, whose father is involved with the circus, the members of which are "Fancy" in comparison to Joe's espousal of "Fact." Since her father rides and doesn't tend to customers, Joe offers Saammii the definition of customer. She is rebuffed for not being able to define a customer factually; and she is rebuffed a second time for not being able to serve a customer after she learns what the definition of a customer is. Her coworker Lika does, however, provide a more zoological profile description and factual definition of a customer. Saammii does not learn easily, and does not learn at all as the rest of the pantomime proves, and she is censured for suggesting that she would carpet the Red Room floor with pictures of flowers. Saammii is taught to disregard customers altogether. It is customers v. Joe's unrealistic and incorrect version of Fact.