Saturday, July 01, 2006

Guacamole, Glass and Goat Cheese

Over a month ago, I started going to the Armadillo Grill on campus. The original location is in Carrboro. It's a very easy way to eat cheaply and wear your lunch all day afterwards. I experimented with the differences in a bean and cheese soft taco with guacamole and tomatoes and a guacamole soft taco with beans, cheese and tomatoes. The latter is considerably messier and more soup-like than the former and I may never order either one again. I later discovered that their bean burritos are far easier to eat and taste better, too.

One night, I made the mistake of ordering wings at Vinny's. I knew when they were served in a pool of grease that it was a bad sign. It's best to stick fo the four cheese ravioli, which is excellent.

Another night, I played with pandora.com, which was linked off of Friendster. It's kind of neat in that you can create "radio stations" based on your favorite artists and songs. I have since discovered that last.fm is much nicer for this. You download an app that runs locally on your desktop and it determines what music to play based on what you play on your machine. Alternatively, you can have it play selections based on specified artists, simlar to pandora. Somehow, I thought that the comparisons last.fm made were far better than pandora's. I tend to play in this mode more often than not and have it play music similar to Jim Croce or Joan Baez. I like being able to avoid making decisions about what to play and get the opportunity to hear new stuff while being able to skip tracks I don't like.


At the end of May (yes I'm behind), all of CIT went to the new Nasher Museum of Art for lunch, to celebrate the arrival of two new employees. I'd been wanting to go there ever since they opened, last October, because the pictures I'd seen of the interior were quite impressive. Those of us who like the idea of living in a greenhouse will understand why I thought this was so cool.


I had a BLT salad, which contained the obvious ingredients as well as goat cheese, squash, cucumbers and a light vinaigrette. There was Dijon dressing on the side, but it wasn't necessary. I really enjoyed the salad. For dessert, I had a large bowl of fresh strawberries with a generous glop of whipped cream. I didn't see any of the exhibits, but I'm looking forward to seeing them in the future. One of the nicest things about the outing was that YB, her husband and new baby daughter were able to join us.