I play squash racquet's, a sport favored by the east coast \"elites\" from them Ivy League schools, those snooty Britishers and the Pakistani leisure class:) \n\nWhy they let me play, I'll never know:)\n\nLast evening, we had a little tourney in which a group of us from the Village traveled to the outer reaches of Tempe to play a group from Lifetime Fitness:)\n\nIt was a jolly good, show, ever so much fun and our Village group gave the Lifetime group a bit of a \"Rodgering\":)\n\nSo it was with happy hearts and high spirits that we headed down the street to the post tourney repast at Skip & Jan's...let me start by saying that the Lifetime group picked this place, and it's almost like they knew they were going to lose and wanted to select a venue that would be the grimiest, greasiest, grubbiest, grossest spot to try to eat...they succeeded:)\n\nWhere to start...I know...the parking lot:)\n\nWhen we arrived, the total Kelly Blue Book value of the 50-60 cars in the parking lot was about $832...we raised that by several orders of magnitude, just by driving in...this parking lot hasn't seen a lot of traffic from the Mercedes/BMW/Lexus/Jaguar crowd (and may never again:)\n\nAfter I safely parked a block or 2 away, I went inside and took in the look and feel of S&J...crappy old wood paneling...tables and chairs from a circa 1955 high school cafeteria...an intriguing mix of flat panel TV's, regular TV's and OTB results screens (yeah, you can bet the ponies here...the sport of Kings, in a slightly less than \"regal\" atmosphere:)\n\nThey must have 20-25 pool tables...faded felt...and a whole bunch of people playing pool (and frankly looking like they weren't enjoying themselves...extremely tight and serious expressions on the faces of the people playing and watching...aren't games supposed to be fun? :-)...I suspect there was gambling going on:)\n\nThe smell in S&J can only be described as \"extreme humanity\"...the place smelled like it has seen a century's worth of spilled beer, cigarette smoke, BO, vomit, urine, spoiled food and every other aroma that humans create for themselves...remarkable, given the fact that this place can't have been here for more than a few years...how did they do that so quickly? :-)\n\nS&J has menus, they have some sort of kitchen, they have Jagermeister on \"tap\", they have a bunch of beers on tap and they had a buffet (or \"boofay\" for my friend Ryan C) set up for our group.\n\nIt was supposed to be a Taco Bar:)\n\nS&J provided a table full of taco \"fixin's\"...the centerpiece of which was the taco meat hot tray...Holy Crap, was that disgusting! :-(\n\nThey told us it was ground beef, but I know my beef, and I don't think this was it...this was ground \"creature\"...possibly some sort of unfortunate non-distinct animal which happened to be near the kitchen when duty called.\n\nI kid, of course...as far as I know, this was indeed, \"beef\"...just not very good \"beef\":(\n\nThe hot tray holding the \"meat\" looked like a relief map of the Hawaiian Islands...small mountains of \"meat\" rising out of the ocean of brown/orange grease that was the real body of the dish:(\n\nBut, I was starving (a banana for breakfast and nothing else) so I tried to make a taco.\n\nI decided to forgo the slotted spoon that everyone was trying to use to fish some meat out of the soupy brine, and use some tongs instead...my idea was to try to squeeze as much grease out of the concoction as possible...I was sort of successful, but in doing so, I probably squeezed any flavor out as well:(\n\nI got back to the table and tried a bite...not good...I added several shakes of Cholla and tried another bite...and that was that:(\n\nOne of my buddies had decided to forgo the mystery meat tacos and ordered wings from the menu and offered me one...I'm not sure what the deal with the wings was, but the wing I tried seemed to be boiled (no, not \"broiled\"...boiled) and then dipped in buffalo sauce...not crispy, just wet...all the way through:)\n\nThen they announced that Karaoke was going to start soon...and that was enough for me:(\n\nAdding amateur singing to this tableau would have just been too much:)\n\nStill, it's not all bad news...the tires and wheels were still on my car when I was ready to leave...I didn't become immediately ill (although I had kind of a rough morning, this morning).\n\nThey say shared adversity can make teams grow together, so I think I should thank S&J for making the Village Squash group nearly invincible:)