And that's the way it is!

oh wow! last night i totally got my Walter-Cronkite on!





as i approached the building i spotted a celebrity: chipper the chipmunk from herr's chips or snacks or whatever. he was hanging around the parking lot. so weird.

i met mike at the security desk at cbs-3. never have i felt safer meeting a blind date than when signing in with a guard in a well lit room of cameras.

he gave me a comprehensive tour of the studio which was really bright. i met a whole bunch of very attractive and well styled people which made me realize i desperately need a haircut. i just got off the phone with my place and i'll be getting one tonight. here are some things i saw at the studio:

cameras

and a view.

i also saw that chipmunk mascot about five more times all over the place. they either have a bunch of hims or a really fast guy in a cumbersome suit.

we headed out to get dinner with nothing specific in mind. i suggested indian and he, never having tried it before said he'd give it a go. whereas i'm vegetarian, his diet consists primarily of meat. he went for it anyway and the food was alright! (i may have requested spicier, but this isn't a restaurant review.) the atmosphere was conducive to conversation and the garlic naan was superb.

following dinner mike actually produced proof that he had in fact planned a scavenger hunt around the city. i was totally stoked because up til that point he hadn't really mentioned it. i figured maybe he'd forgotten or changed his mind. this was good for two reasons: a. it shows his willingness to do something kind of ridiculous with a stranger b. i couldn't be that bad to spend time with. he easily could have called it a night post king of tandoor. but he didn't. he instead showed me the two copies of a list of holiday inspired objects for us to seek out on this one degree evening. there were six neighborhoods, each assigned a number. we--the state of the art and futuristic people that we are--used a dice rolling app to determine where we'd go: old city.
some of the more ridiculous/challenging/difficult finds include:

a salvation army style bell ringer

a bell was surprisingly hard to find

a christmas lights "display." can you even stand it? we ended up using these light-lined windows on the top of a tall residential building. where's your spirit, philadelphia??

a tacky gift: this "pawda" dog purse.

a star: mr. ivanovich, i can only assume, was inside giving us the stink eye for taking pictures. he maybe thought we were casing the joint for a jewel heist.

mike accidentally put both a candle AND candles on the list. i'm a competitive pain-in-the-neck and insisted on finding both. also, we could only claim one find per address. this resulted in extra time being devoted. the above photo is through the basement window of some restaurant. it's "candles." "candle" is another photo that i can't distinguish.

wait, i found it. it's upstairs on the table to the left of the white box.

oh man. in order to get stockings i almost started a number of women on the street to check out their gams. i never would have expected it to be so hard to find stockings at this time of year. ultimately we had to pretend we wanted information on a little hotel so i could sneak this picture:

it was an all around good night. i don't think i would have had the opportunity to meet mike, had it not been for the project. he's a really nice guy who wasn't intimidated by my outlandish request for involved fun.


oh, by the way: pretty cool, right??