Fix You

So I'm riding the elevator from 10 down to 1. A man gets in around 8. As we silently creep down the floors, my eyes unfocus into infinity, and I'm zoning, zoning, zoning...

BAM!

The man behind me had kicked the metal door really hard. Angrily. We started moving again (I hadn't noticed that the elevator was stuck).

I looked at him, and he had a funny little guilty smile on his face. He knew his act had lacked Fonzie's jukebox suave. It was more like when someone is yelling and hitting their computer when they think no one is watching.

He started to explain that you have to hit the door in a certain place when it gets stuck. I could tell he was getting self-conscious about the whole thing. To take the pressure off, I walked over to the door and pointed to where he kicked it and said "So that's the sweet spot."

He laughed.

Within You Without You

About a week ago, Treiger announced: "I *need* to learn how to make Indian food."

"Why?" I asked.
"Because it's good."

And that's why he and Allon showed up at Daniel and Yoni's Pad at 6PM yesterday, armed with basmati, garbanzos, coriander, cinnamon, ginger root, green chilies and organic whole milk. They were ready for Indian magic, and all they needed was a kitchen in which to make it.

Four hours later, they were still cooking. Indian food, apparently, takes a while. Especially the cheese. See, they made cheese by curdling the milk with lemon juice. You, in your boorish ignorance, probably think that milk curdles with acid looks gross. Well, it does. It doesn't taste so bad, though, although it isn't really worth waiting 2 hours for it to harden under a weight (in our case, a genetics textbook).

Another think I learned about Indian food is that it needs salt or, if available, MSG. At least it did when I tried it. Allon and Treiger claimed that it had "enough" salt in it already, but I strongly begged to differ. The more salt the better, I always say. As for the MSG, despite a brief misunderstanding about its historical origin, I still see it as both harmless and delicious.

We had a great time eating that food. It tasted great. But I would be remiss if I neglected to mention the nauseating stomachache that beset my innards early this morning. I don't blame the Indian food, though. I blame the coffee I drank that night. I remember now, I remember now, why they call it Night Coffee.