NO SENSE SAYING happy birthday to me now, because by the time you read this my old-manhood will be old news. Tomorrow's the day. Today I'm happy to be able to report that in my last plate appearance of my 30s I lined a 3-1 straightball over the left fielder's head. Don't know why the left fielder was playing shortstop ... maybe because I hadn't hit a ball past the pitcher in six or seven years. But it's still big news, bigger still because I came up to bat with every intention in the world of beating out one last bunt down the third-base line, then stealing second, third, and home on consecutive pitches. My thinking being that once I was in my 40s, I'd be hard-pressed to beat out line drives over the left fielder's head, let alone steal any bases whatsoever.

But enough about sports. Let's talk about marriage and babies. One thing about being in your late 30s, or, as I call it, hell, is that everyone around you – yourself included, in many cases – is getting married and/or having childerns and/or buying houses and shit ... all the time. Know what I mean?

No? How old are you, anyway?

Well, when I was your age, sonny person, I was happy-go-luckily beating out bunts and throwing big slow curveballs. I was keeping my eye on the ball and being the ball and having a ball and balling the jack and, when possible, jacking the ball. I managed to accomplish all this in part by marrying, at 35, a hot crustaceous chick who was five years younger than me (see "Going to the Chapel," 1/27/99). Starting in late September, Crawdad will be in her late 30s. So, what, that leaves me – June, July, August – four months of fortysomething-ish peace and tranquility between my hell and hers. Then, the way I figure it, I'm going to start buying houses and shit, getting real jobs, and letting the little spermies fly – all of which should put a damper, finally, on my ongoing dream of being a baseball player when I grow up.

But how did I get here? I wanted to tell you about my buddy Birdbrain's raucous bachelor party. What a great and frolicsome fun time it was. I say this because roughly $200 worth of dirt-cheap Chinese food was consumed by myself and 20-odd other revelers, along with a grand total of – let me just double-check my notes – yes, one beer.

In everyone's defense, it was noon on a Sunday at a somewhat churchish Chinese restaurant, and a good bit of the assemblage did allegedly reassemble afterwards at a bar. I personally went to play baseball, so all I can tell you about is the food and the game, and I already told you about the game, so ...

Noe Valley Tien Fu. I say "churchish" because there's a lot of stained glass in there, and because the sunlight from one of the skylights was streaming down right onto Birdbrain's shaved clean bachelor dome, making him glow like a goddamn holy man, if not Christ Hisself, on chemo.

Birdbrain was sitting at the head of the table, or penis, as it were. What the waiterguypersons had done (probably not on purpose) was to start with one big round table and then line up a bunch of little square ones off of it in one direction, the result being about as phallic a phallic symbol as 20 odd men ever sat around eating $200 worth of cheap Chinese food and drinking one beer. Toasting the waning bachelorality of our worthy and noble and glowing dickhead, Birdbrain.

Here's to him, and here's to Tien Fu for serving their $3.95 lunch specials even on weekends. I ordered, for $4.95, the fish filet with broccoli and garlic sauce. Which sucked because the garlic sauce turned out to be that goopy, gooey, pinkish red sweet-and-sour goo I so don't like to find on my Chinese food. But in the confusion of plates going back and forth, people trying this and that and the other thing, I managed to pawn mine off on someone else and hold onto an excellent plate of beef with tender greens. I also picked clean someone's duck bones, which were great.

And I also loved the two soups I tried, shredded pork with mustard green soup ($4.25), which was about as soulfoodful as Chinese food gets, when it isn't fried chicken, and sweet corn soup with chicken ($5.25), which was even better tasting.

All in all, great time, great service, great place, and dirty magazines! Tune in next week for More Maturity in General. And now, if you'll excuse me, I better go get started on my knuckleball.

Tien Fu. 3945 24th St. (at Noe), S.F. (415) 282-9502. Daily: 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Takeout available. Beer. American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible.