last week for my job’s excecutive director’s birthday we bought a piñata, a purple monkey wearing red superhero boots. we named it Stanley.

Nobody wants to hit Stanley, much less flay his cardboard body to pieces, but it’s filled with mini Milky Ways, 3 Musketeers, and Twix. somebody (SOMEBODY!) poked a hole in the back of Stanley’s head, as well as the small of his back (because they’re two separate compartments).

When we’re feeling peckish, we saunter casually over to Stanley and stick our hand in either compartment to perform a candy-ectomy.

during grad school, i made frequent use of the student commons for the library program. there was a microwave, a fridge full of sodas, and a table of snacks with a jar for students to put in change for whatever they took. and people always put money in the jar (maybe not the always $.50 that’s requested, but you’ll always see money in the jar).

and the microwave wasn’t even chained down or anything!

i say that because a classmate from another department remarked, upon using our lounge, that this was rather remarkable. most other departments have to lock down any and all equipment of any value, because otherwise it’d be stolen in a heartbeat.

people have left computers alone in the lounge, with nobody else to watch it for them, without consequence. i guess it is sort of crazy, especially given how abjectly poor most of us are.

part of it, though, is probably that there are no undergrads in the library school. everyone knows undergrads are the worst (so suck it, Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy!)

i just got an email (note to self, unsubscribe to those student listservs already!) about an upcoming bake sale for the program’s student organization. they have these periodically throughout the year, and the interesting thing (to me) is that they leave everything out on the table in the commons, and expect people to pay for the goods, without having anybody standing there to watch the stuff or take the money! this is how they do fundraising!

it’s pretty crazy, but kinda awesome, i think. i will say this: studies have shown that the honor system is more effective when you place a mirror near the tip jar or whatever. because apparently, seeing your physical image triggers something in your mental self-image that somehow pushes you to be more honest. or something.

on a somewhat related, if totally pointless note, the metro in LA and subway in berlin also go by the honor system, whereas on BART and in Paris, you have those clangy ticket taking machines. Yet the MUNI and buses in Paris and Berlin go mostly by the honor system, but in LA, the bus driver is ticket-taker, enforcer, and generally merciless ruler of the Bus Universe.

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The owners of the dogs I sat for a few month ago went on a trip recently, so they asked me to dog-sit for them again. It’s nice, especially as the weather’s gotten cold; the three of us can snuggle under the blanket and stay pretty toasty.

Still, the dogs have been sort of a handful. I’ve always wanted a dog, and still do, but it really is a lot of work to take care of them. At least these two have each other for company when I’m away, but when I come back it’s as though they haven’t seen a human for years. They are pretty attention-hungry, and make me feel guilty when I’m at the computer or playing Rock Band on their owners’ PS3 (hee!).

This is the single most oft-repeated question I’ve had to ask since Friday: “What did you just eat?”

Of course, they never answer.

My dad wants to sign up for an AT&T Uverse plan. Basically, that’s a Satellite TV/Internet/Wiretapping bundle. Our cellular plan is currently also AT&T (and that will never change as long as I have Helmut!!).

But I am wondering if this is a good idea. On the plus side, we’d only get one bill! And they might give us a discount for installing ourselves firmly in the AT&T empire.

On the other hand, whenever you think you’re saving money on Internet or cable, you always end up getting nickel-and-dimed to death. So I wanna think this through very carefully before we commit.

On the other other hand, the last two sentences would apply even if we didn’t go with a bundle. Because all TV and Internet companies in the US, well, how you say? Suuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Maybe the best thing would be to learn to live without cable TV (going without internet, of course, is out of the question).

Okay, this week’s featured product isn’t exactly available at your supermarket, but it IS a common beverage item and I’ve had it for a few years now, so when it does become more widely available, I will be ahead of the curve!

Now, I’m not the biggest fan of single-serve coffee pods, due to the overall waste and expense of the whole thing, but you really can’t beat the convenience of it! The only thing more convenient is drip coffee, and quality-wise, it’s hardly a fair tradeoff. So the price, environmentally and financially, is (just barely) worth it, I think.

My parents got a Simplehuman single cup pod brewer a few years ago.* Simplehuman also distributes single-serve pods made by Molto Coffee, and I’ve found this company’s coffee pods to be slightly superior to most other such pod brands, like Senseo’s brand (Douwe Egbert) or Melitta; it’s much better than Folgers. Some of Molto’s beans taste kinda burnt, but I’ve yet to find a better brand for single-serve coffee pods of this shape.

My parents prefer the Decaf Colombian, and I have to admit, it’s not bad, especially for decaf. But I like the Kona Blend, as it’s decently mild and smooth. For a stronger cup, try the Sumatra Mandheling – it’s a bit on the toasty side, but I like it better than the Costa Rica, which is a little too earthy for my tastes.

On the tea side, the Tropical Green Tea is quite pleasant. Earl Grey is really strong and a bit too bitter, as if it’s not brewed properly by the machine.

On the whole, I wish more coffee brands produced pods. I can understand why they wouldn’t, and it may still be too early to figure out how to sell coffee in this form without seriously compromising its quality, but really, this category needs more worthy competitors. It’d be nice to be able to drink great coffee even when you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to prepare a cup the hard way.

*Simplehuman stopped selling the original coffee maker; a revamped version is due out in 2009. I doubt I’ll be buying the new one, seeing as how I’m neither rich nor a die-hard early-adopter, but I think the company produces some of the best-designed machines around (even the unboxing is well-considered, just like with Apple products!). They also have great customer service. Also, I’m totally not being paid to write this (although if anyone would LIKE to recompense me for the trouble, I wouldn’t say no!)!

The last two French movies I’ve seen, it turns out, are both adaptations of American stories (or rather, one story and one real-life occurrence. “Tell No One” was a novel by Harlan Coben adeptly adapted by Guillaume Canet, and “La fille coupée en deux” was loosely based on a sensational trial in America at the turn of the century. With Chabrollian twists, of course.

I think that I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed any American version of either. I’m not saying that that’s at all rational, I’m just saying it’s probably true.

Until recently, Hansen’s creamy root beer used high fructose corn syrup. Now, as anyone who’s ever heard of Michael Pollan knows, HFCS is the devil’s saliva and must be avoided at all costs.

So when I decided to go off HFCS, I knew I had to quit drinking Hansen’s soda, and that made me really sad. I’m a huge soda fan, mainly for the fizziness. I’m very into the idea of giving up Coca Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, and all those other mainstream soft drinks, but soda with real sugar is a bit pricier than those, especially the bottled kind (which I hear is better because it lacks the plastic lining inside).

Now, I love Izze soda and Jones soda and Thomas Kemper as much any true aficionado, and maybe it really is worth it for both taste and health (or, to be more accurate, lesser un-health), but for a die-hard fizzy-drink addict, the toll on the wallet is hard to take. I’ve even experimented with making my own soda, just using club soda or sparkling water and making variations on simple syrup by adding flavors from berries and things, but that’s time-consuming, and kind of difficult to do when, say, you just want something to drink at work during your lunch break.

So it’s been hard to give up on Coke entirely, or even HFCS in general, which is in every freaking product ever made, it seems. But I try.

The point is, I’m super pleased to find that Hansens no longer uses HFCS in their creamy root beer! It’s now made with cane sugar like every other socially acceptable soft drink. So I can enjoy the delicious creaminess of this concoction once more, and with less guilt! Also, it’s still in cans, so it’s still reasonably priced, $2-3 at Trader Joe’s.

Anyway, so yeah. If youer’ a root beer fan, give Hansen’s Creamy Root Beer a try. Real sugar is where it’s at!

At least, until I take the next big step and remove THAT from my diet. But that is a very, very long ways from now.

Now that I’m used to using Google Reader, I’m liking it a lot. I esp. like the Sharing feature, because I can see what friends are reading, plus they provide an additional filter – I can rely on my friends to show me the 20% of the internet that’s actually worth reading, so I don’t have to read the crappy 80% of the rest of what’s out there (unless I want to!). Also it’s way easier to share interesting articles/links. (note to self: should find a way to hook this up to delicious or Tumblr, where I used to do most of my sharing.)

Reader’s still got a few UI shortcomings, esp. compared to Bloglines, which I still use for more in-depth blogs, but as far as oxymoronically efficient time-wasting tools go, it’s not bad! The skimmable RSS feeds all go to my Reader, because the layout makes scanning really easy. I esp like the keyboard shortcuts that make sharing and marking all read really easy to do.

Give it a try if you haven’t already. And add me as a friend so I can see what interests you!

My mom just told me that I have one last chance to fly the airline she worked for – I have to buy my ticket by the end of September, but I can use the ticket to travel anywhere the airline flies until the end of April.

As always the ticket is standby, but it’s a pretty hefty discount – when outrageous fuel surcharges cost more than the price of the actual round-trip international flight, it’s nothing to sneeze at!

So…where should I go?