Oh, just the usual--rice cooker banana bread, a celebrity sighting, and orgasmic dessert.

So around noon today, James, Chihiro, and I were sitting in Union Square Park, and we spot all these photographers suddenly converging on this woman and her child. So we figured it must have been some celebrity. "Come to think of it, she does kinda look like Katie Holmes," I said. So we asked one of the people standing around if she knew who this woman was, and sure enough it was her and her daughter Suri. We were all just like, "oh, that's cool.." And then we proceeded to debate the ethics of being part of the paparazzi. At one point, James was like, wow, are we really talking about this? Which begs the question, why are we such losers? My first celebrity sighting since my arrival to the city, yet somehow it wasn't all that special; perhaps it'll hit me that we saw an A-list celebrity once I recover from my typical Friday morning delirium.

The same three of us also made banana bread the other week, except in a rice cooker. It actually came out really good the first time, but then we began to ad-lib the recipe. We added cappuccino ice cream to the mix, and it just tasted like...ice cream bread. Then we eliminated bananas entirely from the recipe and substitute ice cream. The result? Mush. Tasty mush, but mush nonetheless. I wonder what else you can bake in a rice cooker?

Last week, the five of us, including Alice this time and Josh, who came from Newark, (I feel like we should have a cool name for ourselves, even though that would be pretty lame, but just so i don't have to keep saying Alice, Chris, Chihiro, James; any ideas?) went to probably one of the most touristy restaurants in the city, Serendipity 3. Even though the main fare is a bit overpriced, the dessert is simply to DIE for, it's like an out of body experience. The frozen hot chocolate satisfies the hype, and the cheesecake and quadruple layer triple double chocolate cake are rich beyond belief.

So at least one movie is almost always part of the night on Thursdays, and we've seen good movies, and some flat-out horrid ones.

• The Heartbreak Kid. Absolutely terrible. If you'd like to torture someone, a good way might be to force them to watch this movie. When I picked it out, I thought, "oh, a Ben Stiller movie, it's got to be at least decent." Nope. I think we're going to lay off the Ben Stiller films for a little while.
• Made of Honor. No, I'm not kidding. I can hardly believe that I watched it either. Not that it was that bad; it starts out promising, but in the end, it's just another chick flick.
• Zach and Miri. Pretty raunchy, to say the least, but just hilarious. Sort of like Pineapple Express in that there are so many funny parts that it's hard to remember one, if that makes any sense.
• Gone Baby Gone. So many layers of meaning to this powerful movie, most of which were lost on us; watching this while dazed at 2am is a no-no. Just go with Wedding Crashers or something for a late night. (Which we did.)

Last weekend I went to Chicago to visit family, then drove over to Indiana to see the Notre Dame v. Pittsburgh game. It was a see-saw battle going to quadruple overtime, but in the end, Pitt emerged the victor in the 4th OT period. I'd talk more about this, but honestly, I'd rather not; it was a tough loss to swallow.

A totally unrelated side note to conclude: I was thinking about getting contacts, and a certain friend suggested that I get a pair of bright blue ones. I don't know...there must be a reason Asian people don't have blue eyes. It would be interesting to try, I think? They'd just be a disposable pair though, but what say you?