Internet Goings-On

Food Find: I made some wicked chicken salad today. And we're talking the kind you put in a sandwich, not a salad that happens to have chicken on it. Someday when I open my restaurant/bakery/universal trend-setting-hub, I'll serve seven different chicken salads, one a day. Or maybe eight, that way people who only eat there on Mondays can try each flavor.
Weather: People keep saying it's about to get oppressively cold here. Well, I'm already spending all the time indoors, might just continue on with that.

Got home last night, and I've already run out of things today. Today I spent a lot of time with two websites--kiva.org and couchsurfing.com, both of which are really brilliant examples of the power of the internet, it breaking down physical barriers, getting people in contact with others, yadda yadda. Kiva is one of the coolest things I've seen; basically it has postings by entrepreneurs in third-world countries who need loans, then users on the site can give them 'micro-loans,' (starting at $25), which are interest free and are paid back usually within the year. In return, we, the lenders, get some assuaging of our hippie, liberal guilt, and periodic updates on how their businesses are doing with our money and so forth. I spent a while looking at the various people asking for money (which is hard, since the money is flowing in and, as a result, the people turn over all the time), and ended up giving to Dilorom Nurmatova, a bazaar owner in Tajikistan who needed a loan to buy more sweets (!!), and this baller Stephen Asare, a grocery store owner in Ghana trying to expand is inventory. To read more about Kiva, there was a pretty amusing editorial in Time a month or so ago by Joel Stein.

Also, I signed up for and starting perusing Couch Surfing. The basic premise is you volunteer your couch for wandering travelers, and at the same time are given access to a huge global network of people doing the same. Right now I'm trying to find somewhere to stay in Auckland, since I gave myself an intentional layover there of about three days. It's a pretty overwhelming process; there are hundreds of people in the city offering places to stay, ranging from 20 to 60+. Essentially, I'm trying to find someone who I think I would get along with and would be cool to be around for a few days from what is essentially a Facebook profile. I'm going to start corresponding with a few people in the upcoming days, and hopefully something will connect. And then superhopefully when I get back to LA, some cool, exotic travelers will come crash on my couch.

Mapparium

Sports thought: I'm still not sure what the Utah win will stand for in the long run. I think a really convincing Texas win over OSU and a one-sided National Title game (especially if it's an OU win, however likely that is), will be more playoff fodder, because this will be the second year in a row that none of the BCS bowls were really competitive. I don't think Utah should be national champions, as some people are semi-facetiously arguing, but I do think a lot of people would pay a lot of money in tickets and ad space to see them (and SC) keep playing.
Food find: Ate at a Harvard sandwich shop called Z Squared today, and I got a curried chicken salad sandwich. This is the second time now (prepacked sandwiches on campus being the first) that I've seen this combo, which is essentially chicken, mayo, curry powder, celery, raisins, etc, and I think it's awesome. Hopefully more 'artsy' sandwich places will start to pick it up.
Currently: How do east coast people live with radiators? And seriously, wtf is going on. It sounds like someone is beating on the window. This is horrifying.

If you're ever in the greater Boston area and have a passion for Christian Science, cartography, or stained glass, then you should check out the Mapparium. It was actually one of the cooler places I've visited; it was a huge globe that you could walk inside, entirely made out of stained glass. There was a long glass bridge along it, a lot like the one Obi-Wan had to go across to shut down the Death Star core in Episode IV. What I found the most interesting was that since the globe had been constructed in 1935 or so, all the countries were still in that configuration, including the massive USSR, a single Korea, and like fifteen countries in Africa.

Then we took a tour of the gigantic Christian Science church next door. The guide did a good job of blending facts about the actual church (the organ had over 13,000 pipes!) and the religion (they don't believe in medical treatment...). The church itself was this massive building (actually two churches fused together), with huge stone walls and cool roof domes, that for the most part, hasn't been modified since 1904. Definitely worth the visit.