Who Where?

I thought of titling this one "Whoters II," but I'm pretty sure there won't be a third. They do tend to come in pairs, and hence any further commentary on the Austrian Hooters would disrupt the symmetry. And it already got more blog space than it earned.

Yesterday was labmate Teo's birthday, and he organized dinner at (you guessed it): the local Hooters. It's pure coincidence that we went there shortly after I blogmocked them not long ago, and I was a little curious. I mean, for purely academic reasons, out of nothing more than the noblest sociological motives, I was looking forward to seeing some nice tits. Our waitress had a smaller rack and less titillating shirt than me. I mean, when she bent over, you couldn't even see the base of her neck. The other waitresses were little better, in biology or attire. So I thought - hmm. Maybe they do have good wings. They were unexceptional. I shared a plate with birthday boy Teo. Not much to say. We got the spiciest ones on the menu, which I considered only moderately spicy, and everyone else thought were inedibly scharf. See previous Eurodining comments on Austrian tolerance for spicy food.

They also really try to present themselves as "the" American restaurant. They had Americana decorating all walls, and tried (unsuccessfully) to mimic an American menu. Most amusing was their selection of quesadillas: cheese, chicken, Texas, or Mexican. Ooooooooh. Even the most ignorant Texan would never dare call a quesadilla Mexican amidst other options, as if the Mexican variant is just one of many potential quesadillas. Our Mexican Mexican and I laughed at it.

Fortunately, the evening was more than redeemed by the quality of the company. We gave Teo a little drum and a rattle that he seemed to like, so I'm delighted there are three doors between his office and mine. It was the first time I saw Clemens outside of work, which was fun, although he remained sober and hence was pretty much the same as Clemens at work. Other labmates were also fun to hang out with. Tomorrow night, the conference madness begins with a similar event at Brot Und Spiele (Bread and Games) in honor of our returning alumni Robert Leeb and the even more recently crowned Jin Jing, who we shall now address as Dr. Jin until he gets a swelled head about it.

I conclude with my labmates singing "Happy Birthday" to Teo in Spanish last year. Go to YouTube and search for "BCI chorus." It's especially entertaining to see how they fielded Robert's (quite reasonable) editing requests.