It's been a busy summer....

...but I'm back in neo-Cambridge now.
I have to tell you about all of my adventures!
They were not brave, or explorer-y, but did involve junk food (SPOILER ALERT - oreo donuts, filled with "kreme", at 5am. Terrible error. Obviously)

Scooperbowl!

I had relatives visiting for the first week in June, which was super awesome! I got to do fun Boston things, learn about the city (because they had been on tours, and then reported their findings to me), and hang out with my family. One of the fun things I got to do, that I would never have noticed on my own, was go to the Scooperbowl!! You pay $10 and then enter a fenced off area with all you can eat ice cream! Yum!

You entered through a giant pink ice cream cone!

There were many different stands from different ice cream makers and you could just wander up and take which ever flavour took your fancy. There were even people wandering around offering chocolate sauce to go with your ice cream! I'm sure you're not surprised that I always picked the most brightly coloured and weird flavour at each stand. This was a mistake.

I ate:

• Espresso chip - the tastiest, because I hadn't yet adopted my "eat the blue one" policy. Not pictured, because I was too busy eating to take photos.
• Popping candy - did not pop. Was very blue, with a violet swirl. Tasted sugary. And wrong.
• Cotton candy - Very pink, with gritty rainbow choclate chips. At this point I was realising that the "choose the most colourful" policy didn't seem to be a particularly good one.
• Lemon poppyseed - this was a nice pale yellow, as befits a delicious ice cream that may have seen actual lemons (no blue ice cream available at this stand, thank goodness).
• Lunarmax cheesecake - a MIB3 tie in from Baskin Robbins (like the donut). It is green because the moon is made of green cheese (I am not kidding, this is what the ice cream lady said). However, the ice cream wasn't minty, or pistachio-y, it was just cheesecake flavoured. I was flagging by this point.
• Americone Dream - apparently I am not a fan of blueberry ice cream, even though this wasn't spectacularly blue.

A respectable SIX cups of ice cream. Totally worth $10.

The rest of my family made more sensible choices and generally had more delicious ice cream. The take home message, I think, is that you should almost always choose the ice cream that sounds tastiest, not just the most colourful.

I bet most of you realised this long before you were 28 and a half years old.

Confetti Cupcake Pop-Tarts: a terrible error

You might remember my previous Pop-Tart experience, but it is safe to say I have learnt nothing from that, as when I was in the grocery store the other day and noticed new Pop-Tarts then it was inevitable that I would buy them. Especially because they were covered in rainbow sprinkles. 

I present - Confetti cupcake flavour Pop-Tarts!

Confetti cakes, which are just white cakes with rainbow sprinkles in the cake and in the frosting, are fairly common here. You can get "Funfetti" mixes in the supermarket (I like the name and their rainbow-ness). They are highly colourful, but very mild in taste. So I figured it would just be a mild sweet flavour and I could totally polish off 8 Pop-Tarts. And how wrong I was.

The photos don't really explain the icky "birthday cake flavour". A lot of things are cake flavoured here, I have eaten birthday cake oreos (mint ones are far superior) and cake batter oreo ice cream from JP Licks (very batter-y in flavour and far superior to actual birthday cake oreos). However, these Pop-Tarts were a complete failure, filled with nasty cake-y flavour cream and bland sugary-ness. I swear I could feel my tongue drying out from all the sugar (like an osmosis thing?). So I took the bite that you can see in the top photo, broke a piece off for the second photo, then tried to make myself eat another bite, gave up and had a nice bowl of Weetabix (from Wholefoods, which also sells Nandos sauce! Joy!). One week later I accepted that I didn't want to eat any more cupcake Pop-Tarts and that I didn't know anyone who did. No more cupcake Pop-Tarts for me, I gave up and threw them out.

Shame I'm missing out on those eight vitamins and minerals. And all those weird colours. It would be nice to start each morning with a rainbow.

MIT maths department art, featuring Spongebob!

The other day I was walking through the maths department (or math department, I suppose) and I found......

Yep, "TRASH ART", positioned in front of art which probably cost money, in the form of a mural.

There were four bits of art. The helpful coffee cup sign, and then these three guys...

How wonderfully nerdy is this?!?!?! Fourier Trasform Spongebob, a boxcar, and get a sinc-ed up Patrick.

I didn't expect to see Spongebob Fourier transform themed corridor art at MIT, but I don't really expect most of the things I see at MIT.

It's-a-me, Post-It note Mario (and friends)

Whilst I was away these appeared in the windows of the Koch Institute at MIT

It's-a Mario! A glorious 8-bit post it note Mario! (Halfway down the photo, a third of the way in from the left, in mainly red and green) 

It's like all those offices in Paris did last summer. But it's not just a Mario, also a gooper! And a Link, and probably a Zelda - I don't think it's Princess Peach, and she's standing right next to Link, so it's probably Zelda.

I hope they do an 8-bit Yoshi soon. I like Yoshi.

The Galaxy runs on Dunkin'

I have returned from my wanderings (which do not count as exploring, as I just returned to the original Cambridge, no Brave Explorer badges earned) and can report that in my absence there have been some pleasing donut developments:

1. Cherry blossom related donuts are OVER! *Dance dance dance* Although they were pink on the inside they were not very tasty.

2. The new Men In Black 3 promotion is most excellent and has brought a delicious new donut that is shaped like a star! And stuffed with a delicious chocolate goo. It also has star shaped jimmies.

Dunkin' donuts was my first stop on my Boston return. It was not a disappointment, due to the "Undercover Black Cocoa Creme" donut (the second best donut ever!). Coincidentally, the main Dunkin' rival, Krispey Kreme, was my first stop on UK soil. I used to love the Krispey Kreme at Terminal 3, particularly the lemon meringue doughnut, but US Dunkin' has ruined it forever.

As well as fancy new star shaped donut, there is a boring chocolate glazed one ("Chocolate lunarmax") and there is also special Black Cocoa Creme iced coffee, which tastes like "cookies and creme" according to the poster. I am not tempted. But, let's face it, it is probably just a matter of time. I'm going to crack on with some hula hooping now, in an optimistic attempt to avoid developing my very own spare donut.

Acrobats under the dome

On Wednesday morning (the day after the dalek got put on the Stata Center) I walked into lobby 7 to discover a CIRCUS had appeared under the dome at MIT!

I love it so much! Although the dummies are a bit creepy.....

Unlike the appearance of a dalek on the Stata Center, every person who passed by this hack noticed it. You can see from my photos that lots of people stopped to have a look and take pictures. I thought the the ribbons to turn the Dome into a big top were particularly pretty and I love that there were so many performers to look at! The suspended ones were really impressive.

There was something on or above all four platforms (headstand guy balanced on chairs, upside down hanging guy, ringmaster and hanging circle guy, man being shot out of a canon), a tightrope walker going across the middle of the dome and my personal favourite, the trapeze artist above the main automatic doors.

You can even see the trapeze artist from Mass Ave, outside lobby seven.

The most astonishing thing was that the trapeze guy had a SWINGING mechanism!!

I'm sorry about the poor quality of the gif, but note the swinging!
Also marvel at my ability to make gifs. Marvel.

The campus appears to have a higher than normal number of visitors at the moment. I think that that might be why the hackers felt the need to put lots and lots of this sign up around the dome this morning (on day two of the hack). 

Maybe people were confused? MIT hacking is confusing initially (in my case, after being exposed to a hack for the first time I thought it was an official thing). I do like the fact that the circus has a name too;

"Mens et Manus Bros. Lobby 7 Circus"

Back to back hacks this week, people! *And* it's been a four day week (for Patriots Day, I patriotically went shopping in American Eagle and Clarks, whilst feeling sorry for the poor marathon runners in the 30C heat). I wonder if there will be any more hacks this week? It seems like a lot of the hacking space is already in use. Don't worry - I'll keep my eyes peeled.