Hey guys, need a tune-up? via Flickr user nilexuk

It’s been a long, rainy winter/spring kinda thing even deep into June. Despite all that, we’re sure you’ve had a few days where you saw a temporary nice day, took your bike out and then WHOOPS. Rainstorm and all the attendant crap it kicks up from the street to your bike. Try as you might to clean it and fix it up, you’re not a professional bike mechanic. The guys and gals at Ride Brooklyn are professional bike mechanics though, and with this fantastic internet deal, you can get them to fix your bike up for half price. (more…)

Perfect for: eating, sleeping, waterboarding probably

Summer is the time for eating outdoors, but why go all the way to a restaurant and pay a bunch of money for it, when you can just grill in your backyard or on your roof? Of course, maybe you have an issue about sitting on the ground. In which case, can we interest you in an eleven-foot picnic table that you’ll have to transport yourself in one piece? (more…)

Happy little electronics on the wall of the warehouse. Photos by Tim Donnelly.

I recently found my old Nintendo 64 back in my possession after my mother finally vacated our house in New Jersey and forced me to reclaim all my old crap I stockpiled as a kid. But there were no controllers, which means my desire to eradicate my friends with green turtle shells in MarioKart was thwarted! Since this is not exactly 1999, you can’t just roll down to your neighborhood Toys R Us and pick one up. The options were: 1) buying a new, pricey but off-brand one out of one of those dicey little used game shops near Fulton Mall; or 2) buy one on Ebay for a better price of $15-25, though you never quite know how much the previous owner’s jam hands have gunked up the joystick.

That’s when someone told me about the Lower East Side’s Ecology Center E-waste warehouse in Gowanus. I originally pictured a mountain of old wires and broken keyboards; instead, it’s more like a cross between the robot junkyard of Wall-E and an outdated Best Buy. The space is filled with an almost museum-like mix of technology from the past 20 years, from computers to Apple TVs, a lot of which is still perfectly usable and totally cheap. The idea here isn’t to make money; it’s to get as much life out of this stuff as posible. Here are some treasures you’ll find inside: (more…)

See Drew Magary talk about dad stuff, curse, at Running Late on Wednesday

To us, the benefits of being a Brokelyn reader are pretty self-evident. But sometimes people like you guys so much that they’re willing to give you things just for showing up and hanging with them. Case in point: “Running Late” with Scott Rogowsky, which previously had a visit from Alex Karpovsky from Girls, will give you a free Grolsch beer when you go to this month’s show, just for telling them “Brokelyn sent me.” There is a terrible price to pay however… (more…)

We can do this (we can’t do this). via Facebook

Yoga. Everyone’s into it, except for lunatics who think it’s Satantic. And even if it is, eh, it’s not like a little Satanism ever hurt anyone. Besides, we all know the true evil of yoga, like the true evil of anything, is having to pay for it. But, starting Thursday, you’ll be able to get around the whole “providing legal tender in exchange for services” thing for a few days, thanks to the Luna Free Yoga Series, in which 25 studios will give away a total of 500 free class passes from June 13 – July 17. (more…)

Aww, which busker left this little guy behind?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to own a license plate that once belonged to the B54? Yearned to use the very same plastic recorder a third grader left behind on the 2 train in 2007? Harbored a desire to use the hand sanitizer some Transportation office worker ordered nine extra bottles of? Well, now’s your chance: the MTA is auctioning off unclaimed, used and and excess items that have ended up in their offices over the years, and bidding is open NOW. (more…)

Why leave to eat at Janelle’s when it can come to you? via Caribbean American Cuisine & Bar

Miss Restaurant Week? We can’t imagine why, since they always pretend we don’t exist. But OK, we’ll grant you that a deal is a deal. But what if Restaurant Week could come to you? Would you not leave the house for two weeks? We’re about to find out, because from today until June 16, Seamless is rolling out Delivery Week, a Restaurant Week-like prix-fixe from participating restaurants that will bring the food to you. (more…)

Look at this hungry hipster. via Groupon

Like we’ve said before, slap “hipster” on anything that’s otherwise normal, and baby, you’ve got a stew (of publicity) going. The people of Great New York Tours are aware of this, so lo and behold they put together a Hipster Food Tour that takes place in Williamsburg. You’re curious, aren’t you? Well now you can pretend you’re new here because a Groupon has cut the tour price in half from $50 to a more manageable $19. (more…)

With a cover like this, how could you NOT want it? (via bizweekdesign’s flickr)

In case you haven’t noticed, the city is filled with a lot of rich people, many of whom are perhaps far savvier businessmen and women than we oft-unemployed Me-Me-Me Millennials. And, as oft-unemployed Me-Me-Me Millennials, we welcome their financial advice (well, maybe not these guys’ advice), encouragement and any other well-intentioned helping hand. But isn’t there a better way to help us out than with a tongue-in-cheek free subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek, complete with snarky little notes to remind us of what economic wastes we all are? (more…)

If you really appreciated art history in college but don’t have a hedge fund, you probably weren’t lucky enough to be at Christie’s record-breaking art auction last week, where the art house brought in $495 million selling contemporary art made by a bunch of frustrated, poor artists who hated commodities. But here’s a collection of look-alikes that will class up your place for way, way less, and no one will ever know you’re not Leo DiCaprio. Above, the record-breaking Dustheads by Jean-Michel Basquiat, $48.8 million. Below: your new painting by lesser known artist, $200:

But wait, there’s more!  (more…)