Aladdin's Eatery is a charming little place on North High Street that my boyfriend took me to on one of our first dates. Nostalgic value aside, Aladdin's has great food to boot, for vegetarians and meat-eaters alike, made with fresh ingredients for delicious results. (I'm particularly fond of the spinach salad, although the V-Nine soup I had yesterday was pretty tasty too--there really were nine vegetables, I counted!) Though I'm not a hummus connoisseur, I am told Aladdin's is the best on earth. Having only eaten the lumpy mess from my high school cafeteria in comparison, I'm not qualified to judge, but it is pretty tasty. Aladdin's also carries severely large slices of gourmet cake and cheesecake, dessert bars, cookies, and baklava. The three times I've been there have never been terribly crowded and it was downright quiet when we went yesterday around 7:00. The decor is certainly unique, featuring large fiberglass hemispheres suspended from the ceiling, evoking the planets or perhaps mushrooms. The service is good, and the prices inexpensive. Dinner for three rang up under $25, though I'm sure drinks and dessert would raise the tab. At any rate, it's better than pizza for the eighth night in a row.

Posted by nice_genes at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Best Place to Eat:

Now, this is more relevant to me because I am a fairly strict vegetarian, but my carnivorous family enjoyed this place a lot too. Souplantation offers all-you-can-eat soups, salads, pasta, and bread. I had three dinner plates of salad the way it should be and three bowls of soup, and I'm pretty sure the whole thing topped off under 500 calories. Magnificent.

Best Place for the Kid in Everyone:

Legoland (Carlsbad, CA) I was dubious about the Lego theme park. My thirteen-year-old brother plays with Legos. But within minutes of entering the park, I was taken, particularly with the larger-than-life Lego person. Miniland, with models of such cities as Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans was very impressive, as were the Lego Taj Mahal and Sydney Opera House. It's cooler than it sounds, I promise.

Best Place for the Arts:

The J. Paul Getty Center has art galleries out the wazoo, as well beautiful gardens and landscape views. The architecture is also impressive, I guess, but I'm not really into that sort of thing. I spent about four hours checking out the collection paintings. There's a special exhibit now of Jean-Baptiste Oudry's menagerie paintings for the French king and that's pretty cool.

Best Hotel:

The Mirage was the better of the two hotels we stayed at, the other being the Monte Carlo. First of all, the Monte Carlo is undergoing renovations, so the construction was very noisy and dusty. But the Mirage was more nicely furnished anyway, was in a great location, and is home to Siegfried and Roy and the volcano outside.

Best Free Show:

The fountain show at Bellagio is definitely best seen at night. Stick around for a couple consecutive shows, since they play every 15 minutes and there are several different shows on rotation.

Posted by nice_genes at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

• Read the following books: Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (mainly so my Daddy will know I appreciate his birthday present), Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. This will never happen because every time I go to the library I will get distracted by the shelves and shelves of other good books.
• See the following new movies: Evan Almighty, A Mighty Heart, Ratatouille, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, No Reservations, The Simpsons Movie, Becoming Jane
• Compensate for my cloistered upbringing and see the following old movies: Nacho Libre, Never Been Kissed, That Thing You Do, Grease, 10 Things I Hate About You, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Goonies, Better Off Dead
• Indulge myself with old favorites: Titanic, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Bend It Like Beckham, The Princess Bride, Chicago, Legally Blonde, The Notebook
• Sing along obnoxiously to the following Disney movies: The Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Mulan, Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, oh my gosh, all of them!

And I supposed I'll just have to find time to go to work, church, the gym, etc. But those are just minor details.

I've had four days of summer and am already going slightly stir-crazy, but only because my family flew out to California on Saturday and I don't do well in a quiet house. I'm joining them this afternoon for nine days of sunny SoCal and Viva Las Vegas! Work and research start up when I get back, but I think I deserve this little break first. Will try to update from Cali and certainly when I get back. Cheers.

Posted by nice_genes at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In three hours I'll be sitting for my last exam of the quarter, and in about five hours I will be halfway done with college. (God willing!) My roommate moved out yesterday, much like she moved in, with a car filled with odds and ends. I have significantly more stuff on account of all my kitchen paraphernalia (my bakeware collection alone has doubled over the year) so my mom stopped by after work yesterday to haul home some of the bigger items. Now I am down to a very Spartan existence with nothing but edamame and frozen broccoli in the fridge, empty hangers in the closet, and a clear desk for the first time all year. Trying to pack up the past few days has given me a strong urge to renounce all earthly possessions and become a bride of Christ, but I'm sure that will pass. There's a curious symmetry to the year, I guess, since I was first in our room as an OWL and I'll be the last out as the victim of an unfortunate exam schedule. A few things I discovered this year:

• Falling asleep in class is not a crime.


• It takes exactly 4 minutes to get from my room to the physics lecture hall.


• Never play chicken with the CABS buses.


• It is possible to make it from Marketplace to North Campus in under fifteen minutes wearing pointy-toe kitten heel purple boots. But it is not pleasant.


• The Sullivant Library, the Fine Arts Library, the Music and Dance Library, the Digital Union, OSU's Lost and Found, Explore Columbus, SOURCE

I suppose I should finish up my last minute studying now. Almost done!

Posted by nice_genes at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The First Amendment is a very good thing, but sometimes I think it is a little too enabling.

I was walking across the Oval last Wednesday, and I passed this guy who asked, "Want a free massage?" With all the sista-ttitude I could muster, I snapped, "From whom?" He reassured me it would be from a professional masseuse and proceeded to give me a handwritten flyer promising a free massage, time and place to be arranged after contacting a listed e-mail address and "answering a question." Now, in terms of creepiness, this is definitely up there with "Open-minded Female Models Wanted" ads in the classifieds. Seriously, what good could possibly come from something like that? I can only hope no one is achy enough to accept a massage under such dubious circumstances.

Am I out of line to want to ban crap like that from public places? The Western idea of individual freedom is still contingent on that freedom not infringing on anyone else's individual freedom or society's collective good. Yes, that is slightly paradoxical, and I tend to lean toward preserving other people's freedom over my "rights." I just don't see how anyone could benefit from this sort of advertising without hurting someone else. I guess I technically shouldn't assume there is something shady going on, but seriously, kids? I'll trust my intuition, which, incidentally is probably your best bet when it comes to staying physically safe on campus and anywhere else. But all in all, one of the weirder things I've run into at OSU so far.

Posted by nice_genes at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)