Sunday started with an excellent brunch with my friend and NYC resident, Cliff Smith at Joe Allen on Restaurant Row in the Theater District.

I read something interesting about Joe Allen recently. The restaurant's walls are lined with posters from Broadway shows. But you won't find any posters from Broadway hits up on the wall. Instead it's the posters from Broadway flops that go up. This tradition isn't meant to mock Broadway flops. Instead it's to recognize that even in the case of the biggest flops it takes a lot of talent to just get a show up and running on Broadway.

We had an unfortunate incident at brunch. Cliff asked for some ketchup and went to shake the bottle before pouring some on his plate. Unexpectedly the bottle cap was loose and ketchup went everywhere. All over the front of Cliff's shirt, inside the collar of his shirt and onto the table and chair next to ours. Fortunately the neighboring chair was empty and the folks at the table next door didn't even notice until we suggested being careful given the several ounces of stray ketchup in their vicinity. Sitting across the table, I didn't get a drop on me. But I did get to watch the whole thing happen in slow motion. It took a few minutes but Cliff was eventually able to laugh pretty hard at what had happened.