Eating Cookie Soup

A certain someone I know likes to make this gourmet dessert I like to call "Cookie Soup". It's like having Oreo cookies with milk, only you just say fuck it and go the whole way. Be warned: this is only for serious sugarheads. The recipe is:

- Several Oreo cookies
- Bowl
- Spoon
- Milk (whole is best)

Combine ingredients and let sit for 5 mins. Cookies will get soggy and you will get mushy Oreos and chocolate flake-infused milk solution.

According to it's creator, it's more efficient and less messy than the traditional dunking method. I have to say, it's pretty good, and I don't usually like sweets. Give it a whirl and post your reviews below.

At MIT recruiting

I went to Boston to give a recruiting presentation to the MIT kids (who are WAY dorkier than U-C types, by the way) and on the way I saw this bananas looking Frank Gehry-type of thing. Apparently its the Stata Center which houses all sorts of artificial intelligence, computer science, and philosophy folks.

I'm not sure if this is the coming style of modern architecture, but it looks like a Tim Burton movie set and I like it. I can't imagine what it looks like from the inside...

In cabs

As a business traveler (sigh) I am constantly in cabs, largely to/from the following four places: My house, the office, the client, the airport. You tend to notice many things about cabs and their conductors after a while.

• For example, the cabs in Boston have much less footspace than the NY ones do. I think they put the big divider thing into normal cars instead of semi-modified ones as you see elsewhere.
  
• In DC, there are no dividers, and the drivers are almost entirely of African origin, especially Ethiopia. The fares are also entirely calculated by the number of zones you travel through, not the time or distance traveled according to the odometer. The idea here is to disincentivize out of the way trips to pad the fare but a flat fee just for picking someone up (as in NY) encourages them to turn fares as fast as possible already.
  
• Additionally, DC cabs will think nothing of picking up other riders if they seem to be going in the same direction as you ("seem" being key here). This is wholly unacceptable in New York and will earn you a serious yelling/fistshaking by your existing passenger.
• When you throw your luggage into the trunk of a cab, you'll notice two things: 1) It's way bigger than it needs to be. I mean you could really make the cabin larger if you decided not to have a swimming pool sized slot in the caboose. 2) Junk. Lots of it. Most cabbies have some crap of theirs left in the trunk which they clearly don't care if people make off with. I've seen boxes, jackets, backpacks, DVDs, bungee cords, fuel cans, and babies. Okay, no babies.
  
• Also in DC, for no apparent reason, the (mostly African) cabbies drive around with the passenger and driver windows down. IN THE WINTER. You have to ask for them to put them up and even then they often leave a crack open. I have no idea what this is accomplishing
• One cab in DC I got into this past week had tons of little plastic animals in it (see photo) on the back platform thing behind the back seat under the rear window and all over the dash and ceiling. The contents were largely bobble-head turtles which were surprisingly freaky.
  

Rico Fonseca

I got a slice of pizza yesterday at Ben's Pizza. It was severely average. What was not severely average was the sequence of framed, hand-drawn murals hanging on the wall. My favorite was this one, titled "Awesome 80's" and if you click for the zoom, you'll see in the center bottom the artist's signature (and self-portrait) reading "With love from me to you, Rico Fonseca. May 3, 1985".

It's pretty amazing if you have a close look. Something about an 80's mural made in the middle of the decade makes me happy.

[Edit: Looks like he is pretty famous: Rico on Flickr and PBase.]

Fog

This is a view of the Met Life building, which strangely sits smack in the middle of Park Avenue, perhaps indicating its real or percieved importance in the financial world. The road literally goes around the building, which has to be an urban planning nightmare.

Often times in NYC, fog will roll in and obscure the tops of skyscrapers. It makes them seem infinitely tall and makes you realize how tiny you are in comparison.

Watching Hipster Love

You know when girls are best friends in NYC because they dress the same way when they go out and are super excited because they realize its ridiculous but don't care, which of course makes them superhot. When guys dress the same, it just instantly transports you to the moment when the item was purchased:

"Dude, I love this hat with the feather in it. It's fucking sweet"
"Yeah, I've been thinking about getting a hat for a while, but I'm not sure if I'm a 'hat guy'"
"I'll get one if you get one"
(silence)
"Okay"

Glaring at you

There is a place in my neighborhood that serves half-assed cheap Italian food and last night this table of Asian folks asked me to take a picture with their camera. The guy on the left made this amazing toughguy face so I asked to take another with my own camera. Inbetween photos, he was happy and laughing. So weird.