what america means to me

I love taking day trips across the border into Washington. It's a mere 1-2 hour drive and a delightful foray into what feels like another world. One of my favorite things to observe are the culinary masterpieces found at their grocery stores. A true sign of commitment to sustainability and healthy living. This website also illustrates it well.

An entire display devoted to canned arerosol cheese. Placed next to
a display of cookies. Coincidence, or brilliant co-branding?

Walls and walls of pre-packaged snack cakes. Enough preservatives
in one aisle to ensure Nicole Kidman looks the same long after
we're all dead.


Your patio will look embarrassingly naked without this outdoor turkey fryer.

lunch meating

I'm always suspicious that many "vegetarian" menu items contain meat, either with malicious intent, or just accidentally. Case in point, my lunch experience today.

11:30am - I line up at the buffet. A colleague points out "Oooh look Mitchell, they have veggie gyozas today!" to which I reply "That's odd, they've never served those before. I think I'll stick with the salad bar today."

11:35am - Colleagues are still raving about the veggie gyozas. "Try one Mitchell!"

11:45am - I'm finished my salad. More people are still raving about the gyozas. I relent and grab one from the buffet.

11:46am - After half a bite: "This doesn't taste right. Nope. I taste something distinctly meaty in here." I put my fork down and call the server over. "Are you sure these are vegetarian? This gyoza is making me uncomfortable." I'm met with the blank stare of a food service bot who has little interest in my feedback. I implore: "I'd really appreciate it if you could check with the kitchen just to make sure these are labelled correctly."

11:52am - The server disappears for a while and comes back. Then disappears again and comes back. No response or follow up to my inquiry.

11:57am - Avoiding eye contact, the server quietly slips over to the buffet and removes the 2/3's-full tray of gyozas and replaces it with pasta and tomato sauce.

retail repartee

I love a good pun. A witty little sales gal at Jonathan + Olivia is my new friend after sharing this one with me on Sunday:

Q: What did the strawberry say to her boyfriend, after finding out she was pregnant?
A: "We wouldn't be in this jam if you weren't so fresh!"

whyfi

I always feel that scanning for WiFi signals is a slight invasion of privacy, hence why I love it. The names people give to their wireless networks are such an interesting insight into the human mind. A few of my favorites that I've come across:

two scents

Spotted at Hornby and Georgia: The cologne one of these two gentlemen was wearing instantly and inexplicably triggered a memory of R.L. Stein's Goosebumps novels. Yep, I totally acknowledge how odd that is.