BYOZ
This weekend, to celebrate a friend’s Grad School graduation, we’re doing one of our favorite things; A BYO dinner. We love these dinners so much in fact, that a coulple years ago we made them a monthly tradition between our group of guy friends and a great group of girl friends with whom we always hang out. Needless to say, this monthly tradition heavily influenced the conception of Ignighter and its group-to-group model. Going out in groups is what we always enjoyed most, so why not create a structure online to facilitate what we’re already doing in real life?
BYO dinners with a big group of friends are the bomb. In a city like New York, it takes an extra effort to track down complying restaurants, but trust me, it’s entirely worth it.
First of all, you never have to guiltily ponder the eternal non-BYO restaurant question: “should I order another $12 glass of wine?”. When you BYO like we do, the only question you ask yourself is “can we finish the rest of these bottles before the restaurant closes for the night or they kick us out first?”.
That brings me to point two. BYO can be a very interactive experience because you can theme your night and bring fun things to drink. Sure, everybody loves Santa Margarita Pinto Grigio, but that gets boring. When we BOO, we like to coordinate, often times around the food that we’re eating. I usually get yelled at for consistently bringing the same thing to our Asian meals, Soju a Korean kind of sake made from sweet potatoes that tastes like a combination of vodka and sake and can have as high an alcohol content as 45% – hence our cognomen, sadka. I strongly recommend it though, fun drink.
Finally, BYO just creates an awesome atmosphere for enjoying time with your friends. You share food, you share drinks, and everybody relaxes and has fun. If your group wants to go out after, BYO dinners serve as wonderful pregames too.
For all you New Yorkers, below is a list of a few of our recent BYO destinations, let us know in the comments if you have any more to recommend.
1. Hop Kee – This is a divey Chinese restaurant in Chinatown with great food. Conan O’Brien is supposedly a regular. I must add the following disclaimer though: the last time we ate there, our meal ended with giant cockroaches nosediving from the ceiling onto our (mostly) empty plates as the girls ran out of the restaurant screaming. After enough sadka however, it wasn’t such a big deal (see equation below).
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2. Poke – This is a great sushi restaurant on the Upper East Side. It’s better for smaller groups since they don’t really accommodate any tables greater than 6 people. They also only take cash.
2a. Azuki – This sushi joint isn’t technically BYO, but it’s all you can drink sake and wine when you order their Japanese beers. As far as I’m concerned, if there is any dinner outing more fun than BYO, it’s sake-bombing.
3. Panna II – A really good/affordable Indian restaurant decorated with thousands of hanging red lights. You know you’re in for a treat when before the meal even starts, one of your buddies (see below) starts passing Zantacs around the table like it’s the 70s and we’re experimenting with some new recreational drugs.
9 out of 7,919 Doctors Agree: Ignighter Helps Control Plaque
On Monday we posted a list of nine reasons that the innovative concept behind Ignighter is great and conventional dating “blows”. Keep in mind the list of reasons is far longer than nine – in fact the last time I unrolled the scroll of parchment on which we use our quill to enscribe our ever-growing list of reasons, we were up to 7,919. That might seem like an ordinary number, but it’s actually the 1,000th largest prime number. So what? Well let’s do some free association:
There are currently 7,919 reasons why Ignighter is better than online dating. 7,919, the 1,000th largest prime number. Some might even call it an optimally large prime number. Optimus Prime. A robot. A Transformer. The leader of the Transformers. The Transformers revolted against Cybertron. The revolution was at night…
Ignighter is leading a revolution to transform nightlife as we know it.
Holy Sheba! I feel like I’m stuck in the movie Pi. My mind is blown.
Well back to the list. This weblog entry marks the first in a series of entries in which we will start at #1 and go through our list, elaborating slightly on the reasons that Ignighter is great and, conversely, “creating your own internet blind date” (yeah you heard me, that’s what you are Match and eHarmony!) sucks.
Today we start with #1:
It’s more natural and social
Human beings, in the real, offline world, meet new people with and through their groups of friends.
It’s true. Think about it. Unless you’re on a date with your significant other, who do you usually go out with? Your group of close friends. Of course. It just makes sense. I don’t want to be redundant because we already talked about this in detail in a weblog post from November 5th, but now we even have a quote from a behavioral scientist to support our hypothetical (but pretty damn obvious) claims:
Psychologists have found that:
When people interact on an individual basis, anxiety, inhibitions, and a heightened sense of self consciousness can prevent positive social connections. Socializing with a group of friends diminishes and sometimes eliminates these connection roadblocks. The sense of security individuals feel in groups results in rapid bonding between individuals from different groups. It is a concept of ego strength in numbers.
Before we were on to something, now we’re really on to something. People with degrees are backing us up!
We hope to return tomorrow with #2 on the list. Sorry for the lag before today’s post. In fact, if my calculations are correct, we haven’t posted in exactly 3.14 days…
This is getting weird. I better go.
Adam
Chief Ignighter Friend Maker
Why Sparkker rules and conventional online dating blows
Sorry, we’ve been busy debating names again and stuffing our faces, so not much time to write. But, nothing like lifting some (mostly) pre-written copy for a blog post:
Why choose Sparkker over conventional online dating?
- It’s more natural and social
Human beings, in the real, offline world, meet new people with and through their groups of friends. - It’s safer
Safety in numbers, people! - Avoids the stigma of conventional online dating
Which sounds desperate? “I’m meeting some new people with my friends” or “I’m going on an internet-arranged blind date with some stranger named Pat. Did I mention I met Pat on the Internet.” - More options among a group
Not hitting it off with this guy or girl? Move on to the next one, you have a whole group to choose from. - Your friends help you make better decisions
(When they’re sober.) - The group setting helps weed out the loners and boners
People without friends can’t do much with a group dating service; liars will get called on their lies by their friends. - If it’s a total bust, at least you’re still out with your friends
No need to frantically call your friends after a dud date–they’re already there! - It’s something new
Seriously, Sparkker is a revolution in nightlife! - It’s more fun
It’s simply more fun!
Who should use it?
- Single people looking to meet new people
- Taken people who want to hang out with their friends and help them meet new people
- Friendly, social people of all sorts and interests
Peter (& Adam & Dan)
