I would give in to the urge to just give up.

There should be an option to say "Look, someone would be bound to come look for us, so why not everybody kick back with their phones and chill to some music?"

edit: except for the poor schmoe whose phone I blew up.

Had fun at the zoo today. I think it was a bad time to come—all the attractions and keeper demonstrations/chats were closed down (even the ones the map didn't identify as seasonal or weekend-only), as were most of the cafes and food stands. However, the first enclosure I encountered after entering was the red pandas, which made up for a great deal, and I also got to see the seals, sea lions, and penguins being fed and a lion and tiger having a roar-off.

The Manhole was my favorite name for a gay bar.

Yeah, but Boston had (or may still have) one called the Ramrod. Which I think sums things up nicely. Two blocks from Fenway Park, BTW.

Sounds good to me, Matt.

We had a gay bar called The Pipeline; in the basement was a separate bar called The Manhole.

I was going to post that I went to the Pipeline a few times when I was in Cincinnati for grad school, but I never did go down to the Manhole.

I'm interested to hear what you think of it, shrift.

To my surprise, I actually liked it. My team of four got a puzzle room where we had to recover a stolen Mona Lisa, and I do like me some puzzles. Their theory behind it is they wanted to do a real world version of games like Myst. The other group got the Escape from Alcatraz room where they actually handcuffed you.

Didn't hate it, would recommend if you like adventure games, don't hate your coworkers, and don't have claustrophobia.

That would be fun with my team from work, I'm surrounded by gamers.

I was going to post that I went to the Pipeline a few times when I was in Cincinnati for grad school, but I never did go down to the Manhole.

You never penetrated their private circle?

I did one of those escape the room things with my coworkers last month. As team building things go it was pretty fun. Way better than a ropes course. Ours was 90s themed, and we had to use clues in various 90s things (video tapes, concert stubs for Chumbawumba, etc.) to crack the code.

Puzzles definitely sound more fun than handcuffs to me. Ymmv, obviously. Thanks for the report, shrift! And Calli!

I hear escape the room and think of the first one of those I heard about, which had s zombie in chains in the corner who would eventually escape, giving an element of time pressure to the escape, and that sounds like too much stress to be fun.

Not that I likely have one of these in my near future, but you never know.