4.20
Today in the Commons there was a vending debacle. Krishna and I saw a pack of peanut M&Ms just hanging there. We shook the machine a little but they were stuck, so she bought the pack next to them, in hopes of dislodging and doubling our value. Hers got stuck. Laura Atack tried to buy the pack behind her stuck pack, and those got stuck, too. Laura Kuhn tried to buy a pack of plain M&Ms next to the two stuck peanut ones, and those got stuck! Then she tried again, and her second pack got stuck! We shook it and shook it--I bruised my elbow--and finally dislodged one of the stuck pack of peanut ones. Mrs. Schmid had a bag of quarters the vending company had given her to reimburse us with, and both Lauras got their money back. She wouldn't give Maria (the girl whose hands you can see raised in frustration in the reflection of the glass there) any money for the Coke she had just paid for and not gotten, because that was a different company and the quarters she had weren't authorized for the Coke machine. She suggested Maria write Coca-Cola.
Heh, "You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company." I adore Doctor Strangelove; don't you? It's Patrick's favorite movie of all time. As I was just telling Caldwell, Casablanca is mine. The scene where the French patriots sing the Marsaillese made me tear up the first time I saw it, and I'm not French. I commented to Caldwell about how cool Bogart is. "Not as cool as Steve McQueen," he said. (And this from a boy who's not seen Bullitt! But that's another issue altogether.) This is an interesting question:
Bogart or Steve McQueen? Who's cooler? I say Bogie. He's tougher; he's the reason cigarettes and trenchcoats are cool. McQueen is cool, but come on. He could never be Sam Spade.
Speaking of great stuff: I've lately been drinking café au lait. I recommend it! I'd never had it until last month; I didn't know what I was missing. The milk cuts the coffee taste just enough so that it's not bitter, and it cools it down enough that you can make it immediately. I'd been getting it at Fido, mostly, and then I read about it online, where I learned that their steaming of the milk beforehand is not necessarily correct. One is, according to the internet, supposed to scald the milk, not steam it, which just means to heat until it starts to form a little skin. I can do that at home! I just did! I'm drinking it now.