Chicken cuts brownie with a lightsaber inside a Starbucks' library doing the Haka dance

OK. I have to clean up and finish business here before my trip, so this may be a strange post, just like the title, but try to follow me. Today I went to meet with the acting Head of Design at Massey University at the Albany campus. I just love that campus and their design facilities are amazing... the only problem, just like any place in Auckland is to find a parking spot. The students are on holidays and there was not much movement around Albany village, and still I had to drive a few rounds before finding a spot just in front of the entrance! Why, why do urbanists do not plan for enough parking places?

Anyway, there were many chickens running around the place... just like you see on discriminating american movies and series about Mexico. It was really funny, and nice at so many levels. My wife Sandra complained about the giant seagulls at Granville Island (Vancouver / Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design) She worked nearby, and said that trying to eat a bagel for lunch was like a nightmare from a Hitchcock movie. Then there are those peacocks and deers at Tec de Monterrey. Some of my students got the spook of their lives, sitting next to a window and suddenly the peacocks started to "sing" after climbing to the upper levels of some buildings... you know how horrible noise they make. I don't know wich would be scarier and/or more difficult: to catch a peackock or a chicken inside the library.

To get to Albany I drove for 30 to 40 mins. To get back, it took me 1 h :45 mins. I said that before and I say it again: I can't believe there's only ONE bridge and ONE motorway for the whole city. Anyway, I decided to order some pizza... and brownies. When I saw the big box of brownies, I thought they were going to be huge! But no. Only the box was big. Inside there were only some tiny tainy winny small pieces of brownie! Speaking of packaging sustainability.



Now that's starting to get cold, it's a good time to enjoy my favourite coffee at the chocolate boutique. We just love that place. Guadalajara is going to be too hot to drink any coffee at all, and I am allergic to places with air conditioning... so it doesn't help much that most Starbucks are freezing cold inside. I found this image a couple of months ago. It was inspired by an anecdote of some guys who went to a Starbucks, then got out, just to enter another Starbucks across the street, and they said that they got caught in something like a Starbucks space continuum wormhole or something. In fact, there's a website reporting places around the world where you can find a Starbucks in front of the next one. That's spookier than the chicken!

And almost last but not least. Just to reanimate the sustainability debate. How do we make any sense of products like these: A workmate gave Sandra this "Olympic" pen with 10 different color tips from her recent trip to China. I bought this pen size lightsaber just for fun, when I was looking for gifts to take on my trip and I had in my mind the multisensory room project... I mean, it could make sense for something like that: visual stimulation... but for me it's just a piece of useless kitsch... I am glad I bought it anyway.

And finally... this what Tec de Monterrey students are learning from their exchange studies in New Zealand... next thing you know, they will be eating mince pies instead of tacos! Now, that's scary.

ciao