Well, this is a damn shame. Only AFTER I move out of Hoboken, does A-Rod move in.. he’s after all the young women in town, if you ask me. I’s too bad, though.. if I still lived there, I certainly would’ve carried a lead pipe with me at all times.. just in case.

This guy is gonne be pretty psyched when he finds out..

With the 2006 Major League Baseball playoffs kicking off this evening, I figured it’d be a great time to mention one key item that will not be missed upon leaving the greater New York City area: The Yankees Fans.

Take a look at Exhibit A:

This is the window of a Laundramat on Washington Street (between 9th and 10th) in Hoboken. The owner (or I assume he’s the owner, as he’s often sitting outside of this fine establishment) wears one of several Yankees T-Shirts or Jerseys and often will be watching the game (if applicable). Each time I walk by, I thank my lucky stars that we have had laundry in the basement and I do not need to spend any of my precious life in this building.

While we’re not necessarily moving to be closer to the Red Sox, we’ll at least be in neutral territory. The Oakland A’s.. the SF Giants.. neither of which do I have any major issues with (except Mr. Bonds, of course). But, overall, it’ll be refreshing to get away from these slimy Yankee fans.

Since Miss Possible and I moved here a little over a year ago, we’ve often struggled to find a decent site about the goings on in The ‘Boken. There was always Hobokeni.com but that was just a site used for reviews, for the most part. Some of which were fairly out of date.

On my way down Washington Street this morning, I happened to spot a sticker that promoting Hoboken411.com. After getting settled into work, I decided to go check it out, and I must say I’m pretty impressed.

First off, the site is extremely well designed. Very Web2.0ish with a Yahoo Maps mash-up of crime in the town. A lot of great reviews, plus the ability to rate and review specific posts. Considering that the site is probably maintained by one (or a few) people, it has quite a lot of news updates throughout the day, which I found very impressive. I’ve already added it to the list of RSS feeds that I subscribe to, in hopes of being the first to know about the disorderly conduct that might occur at First and Hudson.

Personally, I think my favorite feature is the Doomed business listings. There’s a number of recently-closed businesses and Hoboken411 covers them all. Considering it’s such a small town, everyone pretty much knows everything that goes on here.. and this site does a great job of covering it.

In other Hoboken-related news, the town has recently made national attention with the dispute surrounding the robotic employees of a parking structure located at “midtown.” It was recently covered by Wired magazine, and I recommend the read. This is the most action we get around these parts..

It’s funny how you stumble onto things.. for instance, just last Friday the Captain, Mrs. Larby and myself were wandering around “Lower Hoboken” (if you can call it that) looking for a place to kill some time and grab a quick drink. We decide on a place called McSwiggans, that we’ve no doubtedly called attention to nearly every time we walk by.

We head inside, sit down at one of the only two tables at the place and order a drink. It’s only after 5-10 minutes that Mrs. Larby points out “Hey, there’s a Red Sox logo over there.” We then realize that there’s Red Sox notations all over the place and signs that say “Free Trivia while The Game is on, etc.”

Come to find out, it’s Hoboken’s very own Boston Red Sox Bar. In all of the years that the Captain resided in this town, and the year that I’ve spent here — we happened to stumble upon this fine establishment in this very strange manner.

Go figure.

On April 15, 2006 the State of New Jersey banned smoking from all bars and restaurants in the entire state. It’s the 11th state in the nation to impose such a ban, and let me tell you — we’re glad.

Coming from Boston just about a year ago, one thing I immediatley noticed was the number of smokers in the New York / New Jersey area. Maybe it has something to do with the youthfulness of Hoboken, but nearly every day on my way to work I would spot at least a half dozen individual smoking — not to mention that there’s a large contingent of employees at my company that smoke.

I know that my old roommate smoked, and a few other people in my circle of friends, however I feel as though I’m surrounded by more strangers that smoke cigareettes now as opposed to when I lived in the Boston area. Go figure. It’s strange, and maybe it’s all in my head — but at least it will no longer be in the bars.