pumsti goes NYC

This is the weather forecast for this week. One of the reasons I moved to NY and not London when I had the option.

The German word for pharmacy. That’s a bar in China Town and not just a random bar it is a really nice cocktail bar with special cocktails. Cocktails of a kind that you have never tasted before. Founded by an Austrian, Apotheke serves cocktails like Strawberry Fennel or Lavender Raspberry and they really taste awesome. They try to take oils and flavors into their cocktails which make them special. And all their staff wears white coats as they would be working in a real pharmacy . Whenever you come to NYC and you are up for cocktails you should really try this place. It is not easy to find but just aim for the red sign with the “9″ on it. Just make sure you are there early as they pretend to be having a “private party” where you have to be on the list if you try to get in there after 10 pm.

Next door (on the left hand side) is actually the best Vietnamese place which we also had to try out tonight. Awesome! Nice and fresh food. Highly recommended!

A regular Friday evening. Some friends and I hit a Irish pub at Gramercy park to have some beers and burgers. A really nice and old place and the burgers were supposed to be awesome. But here it comes: We were ready to go after the waitress put those huge juicy burgers on our table and I grabbed the bottle of ketchup. You would think a common bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup. Common? Well not like that. I still don’t know what happened exactly but after I opened that bottle of ketchup it was like I would have opened a champagne bottle. The whole thing was under immense pressure and the ketchup just came out like crazy. I and the guys next to me were full of ketchup. I was really scared that they are going to kill me since they were wearing nice bright pants that were ruined at least for that night. I was just happy that I was wearing a black shirt as I would have looked like a mass murderer if I would have worn a white shirt full of ketchup. It took us all a couple of beers to get over that shock and I guess I would have enjoyed the burger a little bit more without that event. I got it at least for free. Be careful with those ketchup bottles!

Since last night I have some visitors from Austria. Two friends of my sister (who denied to visit me so far – that’s a hint, Chrisi :p ) came over and are starting their East coast journey from here. They are staying for 2 nights and will then get a rental car and move on to Boston. I went with them to see Time Square – haven’t been there since my parent’s visit anyway – and the usual suspects like the Toys’R'us, the M&Ms store, etc. After that we had some beers and no burgers since they enjoyed their meal on their flight too much

Looking at the designs of some user interfaces out there (including the one of that company I’m currently working for) makes me think if those responsible are either drunk or colorblind. I mean – no offense – but do you really want to have to deal with pink text on gray-greenish background as seen in one example below? But I’ve also seen dark grey text on light grey background before….