i finally caved and purchased a quality mini bento from zojirushi, inspired ultimately by laura. i find that making my lunch is one of those day to day accomplishments, particularly in that i don't end up busily wolfing down fritos from the vending machine, or buying an 8 dollah salad from cosi downstairs in my building. in fact, i take an awful lot of pride in having people lean over my cube and asking "what do you have there?"
this is not the exact model, as i purchased from an ebay vendor in kyoto and it's either too new, too old, or simply unavailable on the zojirushi website, but here's what it looks like:
very exciting. happy happy consumer nilee. ps. go celtics!