It sounds like your lesson is somehow more about carrying cash than about crypto. Even without having crypto problems, you wouldn't have had cash in your wallet.

Also how much was this barber? The ATM wouldn't give you enough to pay him, and you needed to get cash back at a gas station, too? Damn.

It was a few days before Valentine's Day and we enjoy whiskey, wine and chocolate, man

It's not that serious

Anyway, it wasn't fantastic. Music was OK. But somehow almost all of the vendors were kinda second-rate.

Exactly - last I checked, New Dumpling and Chengdu and How Lee all had it.

We went in February 2020 at Rivers Casino, before we knew what COVID would become, and I'll tell you what -- if I had gotten deathly ill at a festival that mediocre, I would have been pissed.

I'm downtown catching a bus nearly every Saturday or Sunday night, and I've seen exactly two fistfights in 15 years and no gunshots. I don't know who pissed off whom in the last few weeks, but this is extremely unusual.

Hey, we found the only person who likes the usual Pittsburgh weather.

That's the owner's dad, I believe. He apparently likes to chat with people he already knows and ignore people he doesn't, though. I know someone who (I wasn't there, but the story goes) spent their birthday just sobbing waiting to be seated for an hour because he bumped several friends of his in front of her reservation.

Street-parking four vehicles should be punishable by law.

Oh, simple -- make public transit so prevalent and reliable that people stop driving.

Oops, sorry; I was still in sci-fi dreaming mode, from the OP prompt!

Oh, um. I'm just gonna list dreams, I guess? I'm honestly not sure what's pragmatic / "realistic." Probably none of it, or some of it would have happened by now.

• A huge, outdoor amphitheatre downtown that has free shows all the time, like the one in Chicago's Millennium Park

• A riverwalk, too, while I'm stealing from Chicago -- with vibrant business running along at least one of the rivers

• Buses that run to/through downtown that pass through all of our neighborhoods every 20-30 minutes, at least

• The train to run through the North Hills, and not just the South.

• Snow removal as reliable as the surrounding suburban areas have, where they run all night and you're ready with a drivable road in the morning

I'm kind-of "over" that whole restaurant group, or I was until recently -- because we went to The Rib Room, spent too much money, and had a hell of a good time.

Eating inside can be an adventure, depending on the employee vibes, not gonna lie. But the food is always exactly what it purports to be, and like you said -- largely Nigerian-based and spicy as hell.

Gaucho.

Bridges and Bourbon has some "elevated cocktails" that you/they mix in front of you and wild glassware (you can ask for something fun).

The rooftop of Sienna Mercato for after dinner, maybe.

Because it's profoundly overrated by several orders of magnitude.

I wouldn't take a date to Christos. It's kind of a delight as a dingy Greek cafe, but the atmosphere for a date feels all wrong to me.

UNLESS they just walk in and grab two Jackie Os for takeout afterward. That could be fun. The dessert is classier than the decor.

Parentless children run rampant in the streets. There are more pizza shops than people. Other than that? It's whatever.

I remember that the big dreams and projections they had for new transit layouts all got put on hold, service got destroyed, and they're *still* trying to figure out how to do the plans they cancelled in 2008.

I've been tipping 20% since about the year 2000; I thought that was the norm all this time.

You would think once it "looks like soil inside," it would clue them in.

38 is fourth youngest? Jesus. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad. (I do not and cannot really own a home tbf)

I was gonna say, I don't love my landlord (company), but when our furnace circuit board died on goddamn New Year's Eve, they answered their emergency line and dropped off two space heaters at least, the same day. Was it enough? Not really. But we didn't freeze.

Oh really? I mean that's not surprising, but I never noticed.

EDIT: At least for China Buffet King, I'm seeing lotsa complaints, but no closures.

I mean, if you liked Old Town, try China Buffet King on Noblestown. I would personally classify both of them as "Not Great or Gross, But There Sure Is A Lot"

I think it helped reach the public consciousness when the goddamn president was coincidentally in town that day and stopped by, making national news. Also probably the reason it's actually getting fixed in a reasonable amount of time.

It is unfortunately legal, although depending on the store, there's a chance that someone else owns the building, and not having heat could be a violation of their lease. You'd have to do some research to find out who to talk to about that and it still might not come to anything, though.