I love mangoes and eat them often. This morning, I thought Wouldn’t it be great if I ate a mango at work? As it turns out, it was great. However, I have learned some valuable information about the process and so I thought I’d provide this helpful guide on how to eat them properly while in your cube at work.

1. Lay out a napkin or a tissue or something else completely inadequate to absorb the juice you are about to subject it to.
2. Place mango on napkin; realize simultaneously you did not bring a knife or other sharp instrument with you.
3. Check kitchen for knife; find nothing.
4. Find pair of new scissors with office supplies.
5. Use wide open scissors to cut around the mango along its length; cut similarly around the center, dividing it into quarters.
6. Use edge of scissors to peel back skin on one of the sections.
7. Attempt to chisel away as much mango as possible from the pit on the skinless section.
8. Eventually give up and simply bite at mango flesh.
9. Continue like this, eating the other section until you realize you’re late for a meeting.
10. Upon returning from the meeting continue to peel, chisel and devour mango.
11. When done feasting upon the mango walk - somewhat ashamed - with hands and scissors covered in juice to the kitchen area; clean up face and hands.
12. Return to your cube and realize that during the meeting the napkin fused with the desk.
13. Use scissors to scrape mango infused napkin from desk.
14. Vow never to be without scissors again.

Last night Paul came by and hung out. As always it was good times. We went to the Coney Island near my house that I’ve been meaning to check out for a few months now for dinner and it was totally great. There’s something about a Coney Island place with friends that is just fantastic in my opinion. The food was pretty good too I can happily say; not quite to Zorba’s level (and certainly not as good as Lafayette) but it was pretty damn good.

We headed back to the house where I gave a quick demo of some of the beats I’m working on and then moved on to Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the NDS. This is a game about solving puzzles. It’s very much like that comic shows actually. Every time you try and do something, a person tells you, “Hey, how about you do this puzzle first.” Being a jerk of a professor who acts like an insufferable know-it-all you have to prove to the simple villagers that their pointless mind games are child’s play.

The game is actually quite pretty, with very nice looking art and a level of animation for critical scenes that surprised me, even voice over work (which was hilarious on in its own way). We hadn’t really gotten too far into the game to see what exactly made the village so curious except for the obvious stack of homes reaching into the sky. We did, however, learn that I am an absolute bloodhound at finding “hint coins.” Must be from those days as a kid playing pixel-hunting adventure games.

The puzzles kind of attempt to fit with the game’s plot/story/environment but sometimes they’re pretty blatant about the “Hey, solve this math problem,” attitude the game has. That said, a couple that we came across were actually quite tricky and fun. I don’t really have any puzzle games like this that encourage actual critical thinking (I have to do a lot of that at work as it is…) but this might be worth picking up when I can find it used for cheap.

After that we watched a few episodes of Flight of the Conchords, one of my favorite shows as of late. Paul seemed to appreciate the dry and often wacky sense of humor that the show has, and that we both also share.

Before it was time to call it a night Paul helped me unlock level 5 in Rez HD. After failing on the final boss (making me realize just how bad I am at this sort of thing now) I realized it was after 11:00 and that I should probably head to bed.

I have no less than seven drafts sitting in my WordPress right now. Seven. Several of these are really good posts too… Or will be when I actually write them. Work is really hitting hard right now and I’m running on all cylinders to keep up. Hopefully I’ll get some time this weekend to do a little writing.

This past weekend was full of a lot of good times, such as going to the MSU vs. Penn State football game on Saturday (a much needed and deserved win) but Friday was the tops. Some of the usual suspects (Matt, Kari, Stephanie, Tony) as well as a few others got together after work, dressed up a bit and headed out into the city for a night on the town. The reason? Well we don’t really need a reason, but in this case we happened to be celebrating Stephanie’s birthday, so all the better!

We started with cocktails at the Coach Insignia on the 72nd floor of the Ren Cen. I love going to that place for drinks. Not only do you get the breathtaking elevator ride up to the top that looks out over the river and Windsor but you get the 360 degree panorama of the city when you walk around the lounge. I always find it really cool to look out over downtown, or the bridge. Easily one of the greatest views around.

From up there we had a good view of how packed the city was, since it was the night of the Christmas tree lighting (which some of you paying attention to my Flickr would have seen going up in front of my office over the last couple weeks). We watched the actual lighting ceremony from the lounge and then once we were done there walked through to Campus Martius to get a first hand look at the tree, the ice skating, and the bands that were playing.

After that we headed for Fishbone’s in Greektown for an excellent dinner. That place has always been very consistent in terms of the food and the service. I really like it because they have a great variety, it’s a nice large restaurant (though even still it can take a while to get a table) and while you can definitely go there and dress it up a bit, it is still a pretty casual environment that puts you at ease.

Then it was back to the cars and over to the new MGM Grand casino (which I visited a little more than a week prior just to scope it out) though this time we planned on doing some more serious clubbing. We hit all the lounges and gave the place a once over; I can happily say that it is definitely a great place to go and a lot of fun, though you need to be expecting to drop some money if you do go (even if you do stay away from the tables). V has a great sound system and lighting. I would love to see that place turned up to 11 with a really good DJ spinning some house or trance. Ignite is definitely more laid back, with it’s unique fire displays and down-tempo chill out soundtrack. The other bars are a bit more relaxed, more tailored for people coming in for a drink from the slots or the tables, but Agua is still a unique place to go hang out, and has some pretty projected special effects and water displays.

After closing the place down everyone agreed that it was a really great night, and best of all really great to see everyone out downtown and having a great time. Detroit gets a hard time, but this city has plenty of life left. It will come back strong over the next 10-15 years, I can feel it.