Happy Buff Day!

You may recognize the character above from walls around the country, from vinyl toys, art galleries and t-shirts. This cake is Buff Monster's, Pink Pirate, and it was by far the coolest birthday cake I've ever seen. Buff's brother planned this surprise for Buff's birthday, and in doing so, blew everyone away with the enormity and awesomeness of this cake. It wasn't vegan, so I can't say much about the tasty factor, but everyone who had a slice seemed pleased. Underneath all that fondant was chocolate cake with massively fat layers of chocolate frosting in between the cake - three or four layers I think. Decadent, just the way Buff likes things!

Speaking of decadence, I popped into Whole Foods inbetween errands this morning. My tummy was rumbling, and I needed to get a few things for the critters and the house before packing up to head off to New York Comicon this weekend. The Whole Foods in West Hollywood is like a pseudo eco-friendly, free-range meat market - always a good place to watch self-righteous Prius driving people watching people.

After finding some seitan to snack on, I went to the drink cooler by the salad bar to find a juice to wash the gluten down with with. There was an old white guy in front of the case trying to get people to try a new Green Tea beverage Whole Foods was carrying, called Carpe Diem. There weren't any weird non-vegan ingredients in it, so I chose the "Ginkgo" version for a taste. It wasn't half bad, but I almost gagged on the spiel the old white dude was dishing out.

It started innocently with a lesson in Latin, and degenerated into a monologue about the Green Tea in all the drinks, and how Asian's knew the score on secret ingredients, which was some sort of indication that Asians knew all kinds of other secrets - like how to build better cars, better tiny technology, and how their food was the best.

I couldn't argue with a lot of the points he raised, I mean... we have a tendency to look like the master race most of the time, but I couldn't help but feel like this was a racially motivated sales pitch. There are lots of those thrown our way at GR, and it's something I never get used to. I have an urge to launch into my own monologue about race here, but I'm kind of wiped out from the weekend and the current week of madness. I'll save it for another day.



I bought a bottle of the Ginkgo Carpe Diem, kind of out of pity since the old white guy reminded me of the Korean women handing out kim at the Korean market, trying to get you to buy the grocery item they've been assigned to shill that day. If I try it, I usually buy it unless it sucks. This drink was okay, I guess... kind of like an oddly carbonated Arizona Green Tea. I won't be buying it again, even if the person pushing it tells me that my almond eyes are exotic and asks me how to say "Green Tea" in Korean.