Happy T-Day everyone, I wish all the more peaceful families a nice peaceful day, and to the warrior inclined families may all injuries be minor! 

Don't forget to sharpen your eating weapons! So you can properly do battle with dinner! 

A $3.99 bottle of Jacques Bonet panther piss probably goes for $60. I'm actually surprised you found import/premium beer for under $10 there...even the regular night clubs here sell import beer at double digit prices. I haven't been to a toples bar since the early 90s but even back then they sold ButtGeyser for $7.50 a bottle...I'd hate to see what they charge these days.

Here in CA if it is topless over priced crappy beer not sure what the current price is but it is high... & if it is a nudy nudy show over priced Juice only bar not even beer! I don't know what makes it all exciting, sounds like a wallet drain to me. 

 I remember the first stripteases act I saw, it was a movie wrap party, I was working for a company supplying the boats and shuttling equipment for the big bridge FX scene and shooting site, no one asked my age ever when I was on set working on stuff, as the company was local and had never done anything with the film industry we didn't know there where special rules for people underage and the film folks forgot to mention that, so I got sent down to do the water safety for the film crew & shuttle them about and equipment... so latter here I was at the wrap party (as part of the film crew) on a boat that was chugging along, surrounded by alcohol and saying no to all the spirits (they had some good stuff too) sipping my sprite, and no to some drugs, when the entertainment starts  and it dawns on me the chick & dude are going to strip not just dance, so I say to the actress closest to me, "So this is what adults do for fun? Look at body parts they already got?"  & she goes "Adults?" and I respond "Yeah, I am 14." Oh my god she freaked... I told her to calm down and asked if they where leaving the underpants on, she said yes, I yawned and said then "I ain't seeing anything I haven't seen already, ever heard of speedos?" She then preceded to freak about the alcohol being served & the folks with drugs... I pointed out I was not getting drunk or high (I was never into drugs) on a boat with no life vest on, and I had been part of their water safety crew for the film, so sprite it was for me as the adults where clearly too drunk already (someone needs to be able to swim to the dumb ass who falls over board), then she freaked I was on the boat with no chaperone, I pointed out it would take  hours to get back to dock. She then freaked out about my age and being on set, apparently there are rules about kids on set (even if not acting) and I was suppose to have some sort of adult supervising me or something... I found the whole thing funny and the strip show really boring... Oh the film was about cows eating irradiated grass, the town drinking the milk and then everyone going crazy...  

Hence Shadow's apt witicism "everyone getting F----d and no one getting laid."

I suppose its not really about seeing boobs as there is always the internet and that is on your phone these days. Rather its probably about an experience. Beer is seriously cheaper to buy and bring home, yet people pay more to drink it at a bar? I think its about the experience and what you are willing to pay for it. I dont mind dropping $20-30 at a sports bar while catching the news and having food and a drink- i could do the food and the drink cheaper at home and the news if free there too as I dont pay for cable.

Thus strip clubs are probably the same: selling the experience. Although, since men are prone to think with their penis over thinking with their head I suppose that the strip club experience is addictive and that frequently men find they have blown their whole paycheck and its 5 or 6 days to the next infussion of cash.

Side note: First time I attend Historicon wargaming convention after friends at the wargame club talked me into going I went with the perception that it might be a lot like what my window washing boss had attended industry conventions for: boozing and women (the . I assumed that with 5ooo men attending a convention packing into all the local hotels that you would see hookers trying to discretely work hotel lobbies (I say discretely because I use to work in a hotel and being at the front desk I would alert security to help said escort find the door). Yet this activity was noticably abscent and I figured that from past experience I would spot it if it was going on. I commented on that to a buddy and he pointed out that wargamers would rather spend the money on more lead figures that they may never paint than pay for a sex- which is true: "Hello, my name is Tom I am a wargamer and its been 3 months since I last spent money on a metal miniatrue that I have not painted."
The value of more miniatures to a wargamer or collector exceeds the value of sex it would seem.

Alas the business has changed significantly, and not just in recent times. It wasn't a decade ago I could waltz into any restaurant and flash my Captain certificate to get a deep discount --- this was a tradition as Captains wear a concierge hat and recommend restaurants etc to our guests. But in this past decade the Captain positions have been phased out in favor of know-nothing managers, and if I were to flash that certification today I'd get the "WTF" treatment.