At the height of the franchise's dominance, there were four Windows outlets -- beautiful and terrible they were -- striding the Shanghai nightlife scene like the Four Horses of the Apocalypse. Let's take a trip back to ... oh say 2005ish, when that fabled strip, Maoming Lu, was at the very height of the lowest depths of its depravity. Windows Maoming, of course, was at the heart of its darkness, and from within its neon bowels the original "Windows" concept was born: cheap drinks (10rmb), cheaper toilets and Top 40s hip hop/RnB circa 2001. Simple and glorious, what else could you possibly want or need than to spend the evening in the club, partying like its your birthday, sipping Bacardi like its your birthday, or possibly even going upside someone's head with a bottle of bub? Also at around this time, incidentally, at the bottom of Maoming, a little labor of love called Plan B was boisterously beer bonging and beer ponging the nights away. Ah memories... Already open in 2005 was Maoming's expansion, "Windows Too," but perhaps instead a more descriptive modifier of 'Windows' would have been "On Crack." It was at this Jingan outlet, at the time nestled at the top floor of something called the Email Fashion Plaza, that the Windows idea got horribly out of hand -much to the delight of all. Perched at the top of a dark, open-air auditorium, in those early days the action in Windows Too used to spill out into a boozy carnage below, with drinking, smoking, drugs, sex, fighting and worse in those shadowy depths early into the morning. And then a gapping hole presented itself in the market. Perhaps it was always there but who knows... Where do you go if you want to drink around twenty or thirty 10 kwai drinks, but don't want to hear P. Diddy, be blinded by lasers or have your fake rum and coke knocked all over you? And then it was born. Whoever the rocket scientist is behind Windows deemed necessary the opening of something called "Scoreboard," offering up the 10rmb drinks, a total dearth of P.Diddy, no real dancefloor, a pretty good pool table, fixed lighting, a really great (newly fixed) foosball table, a big screen for sports and a selection of surprisingly decent food in the 10-30rmb range (personal fav: grilled cheese with chicken poppers, total damage: 30rmb). Every night of the week and more so on the weekends, Scoreboard calls out to your tired, your poor, your hungry, your drunk, your socially inept, your bad dancers, your bad dressers, your new, your old, your high school students, your university exchange students, your English teachers, your businessmen of indiscriminate employment and origins, your pre-drinkers, your pill poppers, your stoners, your professional DJs, your amateur musicians, your 80s relics, birthday parties, goodbye parties, bachelor parties, bar crawlers, pool sharks, guys with no money, girls dating guys with no money and people who still play air guitar on pool cues when Welcome to the Jungle inevitably comes on. Oh Windows Scoreboard, how many mixed drinks and bottles of Tiger have been scraped off that simple mahogany bar at the back? How many times has this phrase rung out in your hallowed halls: "Goddamn, I wish I didn't have to teach tomorrow." At the two-year anniversary party last weekend, SmSh caught up with the manager Matt, erstwhile owner of Plan B and fielder of your drunken requests for Joy Division, to get his take on the Windows Scoreboard phenomenon: "You know sometimes people still complain about the drinks or the music or whatever ... But fuck. Its 10 kwai. If you don't like it go someplace else. Put that in your article." Amen. And so congrats to you Windows Scoreboard on your two year anniversary. One of, if not the best place in town to get shot-buying stupid at. Long may you run. Windows Scoreboard is at 3F, 681 Huaihai Lu, near Sinan Lu. It open 5pm daily.