The Hot Food Eating Contest

A couple of weeks ago, my friends Tarun, Meenakshi and Vicki dropped over to my desk to ask whether I liked "spicy food". I answered a rousing "yes", having long been a fan of endorphin-elevating hot food, but not knowing that they were in fact pitting me in a contest against "Andrew"...they didn't say anything about the fact that Andrew was not American, but Indian-Malaysian. Ha!

So today we held the "contest" at Rasa Sayang in Roswell, but Andrew and I (and most everyone else at the table) thought the food was not truly hot, in our sense of the word. Nevertheless, I did eat one hot red pepper whole, which garnered me an increased level of respect from my Indian, Malaysian and (even) American friends. I now eat on a different level, I think.

Planning is underway for another Hot Food Eating Contest, this time to be held on July 13 at Thai Star in Norcross. There are some rice dishes there which can put a person in the hospital, regardless of his/her national origin. I'm ready. Stay tuned!

P-Council

These days, it goes without saying (if you know me, that is) that I'm all about diversity. I find great delight in having friends from all over the world who relate stories of their own cultures and customs, whether they're from Japan, Jamaica, or Jacksonville. Put me in town with people from all over the place, sitting outside on a veranda on an Atlanta evening, and I'm as happy as a clam.

But a few months ago, a friend of mine from Colombia suggested that with all this wonderful diversity going on, we might need to address perversity as well, and what better way to do this than with a standard weekly meeting (after work, of course)? Oh, come on...you know it's funny. Anyway, I snapped some pictures over the last few weeks that just beg to be included here. One look at these and you'll see why P-Council (for Perversity Council) has become a regular thing!

Mary Mac's Tea Room

This is a picture of my long-time friend Jean sampling the offerings at Mary Mac's Tea Room on a recent dinner visit. It had been a hard day at work. Mary Mac's is a downtown Atlanta institution which you must try if you're in the city looking for "real" Southern food. My friend Marc was also in attendance, and since I had my camera phone at the ready, we thought the time just seemed right. We posted this picture in the office, and Jean's celebrity was immediately apparent!

Bollywood Fever!

I just returned from my morning walk at Atlanta's Piedmont Park. On the way back home, I stopped at my favorite city coffee shop, San Francisco Coffee, to pick up an iced espresso with vanilla -- gotta have fuel in this town. Coffee in hand, I popped the top down on the car and pumped up the volume on a mix CD I put together a few weeks ago called "Asian Chic". And there they were -- the glorious new tunes of Bollywood.

Last night, we watched the 2005 movie Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena, featuring Fardeen Khan and Koena Mitra. There is something about Bollywood (India's Hollywood, for those of you who have not heard the term) that is infectious, not the least of which being the seemingly random interspersing of music and dance routines throughout the movies. Indian filmmakers appear to have recaptured a spirit that we here in America left somewhere down the road -- old-fashioned escapism mixed with an off-beat sense of humor. Sure, there are some serious moments in these movies, but they don't get under your skin or keep you awake at night, and the comic relief surfaces when you least expect it.

It's going to be an interesting summer, because I intend to rent more Bollywood movies. Who knows -- I may even host a festival.

Forget the Zip Code. What's Your Cube Code?

This all started quite innocently. We were notified a few days ago that an office move was imminent; actually, we'd been expecting it for some time. Moves are not all bad, because they often give you a chance to experience your company from a slightly different perspective while (hopefully) allowing you to maintain your workflow and overall stream of consciousness without too much disruption. But this move would be different.

Our business unit is very creative. Perhaps that is an understatement. So, when we were presented with the move details and a map of the new building, we immediately began accounting for everyone's new location. (You always want to know where your peeps are.) Soon, it became apparent that a designation like 3701-D was just not sufficient to fully describe one's cube. A more descriptive system was needed.

Almost without thinking, the nomenclature evolved -- a basic cube would be a "3C", whereas a slightly smaller cube would be a "2C". (The actual theory behind the "3C" and "2C" logic is confidential company information which I am not permitted to disclose at this time, but suffice to say that it is hilarious.) It was duly noted that no cube, however small, could be designated less than a "2C".

From there it took off like a model rocket in a open field. A standard cube in the middle of an aisle became known as a "3CMA", for standard-sized cube, middle of aisle. An end cube that was slightly smaller was designated a "2CEA", indicating that it sat at the end of an aisle, etc. By the time the naming standards were fully developed (two days in this case), codes such as the following had been devised and agreed upon:

• 3CMA - Standard cube, middle of aisle
• 3CPMA - Standard cube with pillar outside, middle of aisle
• 4CTVEA - Large cube with view of testing room, end of aisle
• 2CLBVEA - Small cube with limited bathroom view, end of aisle
• 3CLBVAG - Standard cube with limited bathroom view, adjacent to Gonzalo (our resident Colombian godfather)

By the end of the first week of this madness, people at all levels were literally lined up to receive their cube codes. Indeed, the flexible nomenclature has been so well-received by staff members that a proposal has been made to base office property values on the cube designation, in much the same way that municipalities assess property taxes based on location and millage rate.
So far, the system is working well. I'm sure that there will be some bugs to iron out, but hey, that's what we do for a living, and we are darned good at it. As for me, next Monday morning, I'll be in a nice, tastefully decorated 3CPMA, complete with a sconce uplight on the outside pillar. I'm ready.