Random stuff about menu engineering, Buffy, and vegan meet up

It's already halfway through the month and I haven't popped in a blog post yet? I'm not saving up ideas for this year's MoFo in October, though I should. I've been cooking much of the usual, which isn't very blog worthy and for some reason I'm on a rice and beans kick. So here's what I'm doing instead of blogging...well, besides working obviously. (Just got busted for writing this at work...)

#1
One of my favorite random facebook finds is econ girl's website Economists Do It With Models. Here's a recent post about menu engineering. Apparently, taking the currency sign out of the price gets people to spend more. Also, putting in a high priced item few people are expected to order will make any other dishes look cheaper in comparison. If we're so easily manipulated, I think there has to be ways to sneak more vegan food onto the non-veg masses. Someone just needs some economic incentive.

#2
The Guild. Felicia Day one of the potential slayers in Buffy and heroine of Dr. Horrible's sing along blog, has a web series called the Guild which is about a group of online gamers. Here's a link to episode 1 Wake Up Call. And check out the video for Do you wanna date my avatar?

#3
And just in case you're missing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 8 is available in comic book form starting with The long way home. Book 5 comes out later this month. It's really good. Nice to see what can be achieved when you don't need an astronomical special effects budget.

#4
And if I haven't proven my nerdiness, I've been watching Bleach on hulu in Japanese with English subtitles. It's also on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, but it's pretty far into the series.

So since, CLEARLY I need to get out more and get a life, I'm headed to a vegan eatup group dinner tonight at the Peacefood Cafe in NYC. That'll give me something vegan to blog about tomorrow.

Cheers!