Like lots of Honolulu college kids in the mid-'90s, I spent many aimless evenings of my University of Hawai'i-Manoa experience at Moose McGillycuddy's next door to Puck's Alley.

Those Thursday, Friday, Saturday and sometime holiday eves went similarly. The night might start with some slices and beer at Mama Mia Pizza (now Magoo's) and move on to Shark's Café (now Red Lion). Then I'd find myself either choking on secondhand smoke and rave music at Access (now shuttered) or trying to charm nice UH girls at Moose's (now Eastside Grill).

I wasn't living on campus. I had a car. And I had a logic class I always should've been studying for, slowly postponing my graduation with each beer order.

Yeah, life was pretty good.

I didn't need Moose McGillycuddy's Waikiki and it didn't need me. The closest I got to it or spending an evening out in Waikiki (which I then abhored) was Wave Waikiki. And that was OK because the Wave, radio ads assured, was "always on the edge of Waikiki."

Moose's now sole location in Waikiki still doesn't need me. But a wall-to-wall late-night Friday crowd of imbibing, macking and hip-hop loving twentysomethings — visitors, military personnel and locals — still seemed to need Moose's.

The only elements missing from back in my day were Alice In Chains and Soundgarden tracks and an excess of flannel and unkempt hair. Otherwise, the kids still seemed all right and ever libidinous.

"I (expletive) still got it!" bellowed a lantern-jawed male in shorts, dress shirt, ball cap and new white sneaks bounding back to his two friends from Moose's packed dance floor. "I got three numbers! Beat that (expletive)!"

He said his name was T.C. Johnson. His big concern that evening? "Where's the (expletive) real (expletive) hip-hop?"

A blonde server passed by shilling Jell-O shots.

"I got three numbers!" Johnson reminded her, loudly.

To be fair, a good number of folks of both sexes seemed to be after love or something like it. Sitting alone at the main bar — its varnished wood construction accented with a border of corrugated roofing and a string of promo multicolored mini-lights shaped like Malibu-rum bottles — I nosed in on neighboring conversations.

My favorite of these? Two women discussing whether one of them should break the unwritten rules of friendship by dating their best friend's ex-fiance. Scandal!

Born way back in 1980, Moose's Waikiki proudly wears the guise of a college-kid-friendly pub that's been around since folks believed Lipps Inc. would be around for the long haul.

Tchotchkes and wall art that earned their kitsch factor over years rather than days are everywhere. Beer mirrors and framed photos of sharks, surfers, scenery and The Beatles cover the walls. Varnished wood is the lead design element throughout.

Then Ying Yang Twins demanding a "freak in the mornin' " and "freak in the evenin' " exploded onto video screens scattered throughout Moose's, slapping me back into our current decade.

I blasted Mudhoney all the way home.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.