Clever. For those really fishing around for distraction whilst at work, this site is very good at redirecting your attention. Although too much of it can make you feel a little queasy. Just like food. And porn, for that matter.
Stopped in to Pret a Manger for a chocolate croissant the other morning, and it’s been insanely redone: tri-tone brown curvy seats, wavy white paper chandeliers and this awesome chocolate-brown-and-silver paisley wallpaper. It must’ve just happened, because the staff looked pretty dazed by it all. I told the counter guy I liked the wallpaper, and he just shook his head and said, “You _do_?” Minimalism is dead. Rococo has risen in its place. Which means, Tamara pointed out, that fat girls will be back in style any second as well.
By the way, the Pret chocolate croissants are pretty good, far better than Au Bon Pain, if we’re choosing among office-worker bakeries. I only discovered this because one morning I’d picked up a chocolate croissant from my Italians at Ditmars, and it was all nice and warm and probably oozing trans fats (I don’t think they’re very Old World there), and then it managed to fall right out of my bag somewhere along the way to work. I sulked and sulked, but then I passed Pret, and then actually felt I’d made a big trade up. The nice thing about their pastries is that they’re small. So even if it’s not the pinnacle of butteriness (though still not bad at all, and flaky too), you at least haven’t wasted crucial stomach space on it, or eaten so much of something mediocre that you then feel sick and self-loathing.
The latter is what always happens to me with Au Bon Pain and other stuff that looks nice on the outside but is just American 150%-scale nastiness, where you eat and eat and keep eating, always hoping that your next bite will actually have a bit more flavor. I think this phenomenon can be blamed for a portion of American obesity. A steady diet of rich, spicy, crazy-savory things–that’s the way. And how convenient–that meshes precisely with my current lifestyle. (Coming this Sunday: oyster roast for Karl’s birthday.)