Send Some Salami To Your Boy In The Army

New York is a bit of a city made for masochist. The best places in the city are the gritty ones with questionable food ethics and seemingly morose employees. Katz deli is one of these places. You walk into Katz and some disgruntled man slouched onto a stool hands you a ticket with a list of numbers on it and no explanation.  What they are NOT telling you when they hand you this ticket is:

• you hand it to the person who makes your food, and they hand it back to you with the total on it.
• if you lose this ticket, you get charged 50 bucks.
• this “lost ticket fee” was instilled about 10 years ago.

You choose the person you want to make your sandwich, and they chop the meat in front of you, and give you a sample of the fresh meat while you wait. I always try to find the oldest guy because he’s usually the biggest asshole who makes the best sandwich.

Although the sandwiches are a bit pricey (15-17 dollars a pop) I bet you can’t get through half of one without wanting to die a little inside. As a meat eater and a lover of irrelevant history, this is one of my favorite New York establishments.

Heres a few more Katz facts:

• Katz is where they filmed THE scene from When Harry Met Sally
• It was established in 1888
• During World War 2, they used the slogan “send a salami to your boy in the army” and still use it to this day
• Each week, Katz’s serves 5,000 pounds of corned beef, 2,000 pounds of salami and 12,000 hot dogs

 

All photos by Chloe Rice

Happy Billy Ocean Day!

Things I love about Billy Ocean, as we celebrate his birthday, today:

• His ability to minimize consonants in order to create a perfect song
• His contagious smile
• His video featuring Day DeVito, Kathleen Turner, and Michael Douglas

Facts That Will Chiwow You.

A Family/ Self Portrait December 2010

To counteract the unrelenting hatred I have for cats, I love dogs. I watch a lot of The Dog Whisperer. I used to recite the dialogue from All Dogs Go To Heaven. I’ve even eaten dog food and not totally hated it….I mean…what….

Here’s list of some random dog facts and dog photos I’ve taken!

• Dogs have three eyelids. The third lid, called a nictitating membrane or “haw,” keeps the eye lubricated and protected
• The Basenji is the world’s only barkless dog.
• In Ventura County, California, cats and dogs are not allowed to have sex without a permit.

• Different smells in the a dog’s urine can tell other dogs whether the dog leaving the message is female or male, old or young, sick or healthy, happy or angry
• Scholars have argued over the metaphysical interpretation of Dorothy’s pooch, Toto, in the Wizard of Oz. One theory postulates that Toto represents Anubis, the dog-headed Egyptian god of death, because Toto consistently keeps Dorothy from safely returning home.

• Dogs have a wet nose to collect more of the tiny droplets of smelling chemicals in the air
• Small quantities of grapes and raisins can cause renal failure in dogs
• Ancient Egyptians revered their dogs. When a pet dog would die, the owners shaved off their eyebrows, smeared mud in their hair, and mourned aloud for days

• The average dog can run about 19 mph
• A dog’s shoulder blades are unattached to the rest of the skeleton to allow greater flexibility for running

• Apple and pear seeds contain arsenic, which may be deadly to dogs.

• A puppy is born blind, deaf, and toothless
• The term “dog days of summer” was coined by the ancient Greeks and Romans to describe the hottest days of summer that coincided with the rising of the Dog Star, Sirius

• A dog most likely interprets a smiling person as baring their teeth, which is an act of aggression
• Dachshunds were bred to fight badgers in their dens.

• Petting dogs is proven to lower blood pressure of dog owners.
• The name of the dog on the Cracker Jacks box is Bingo.
• The Taco Bell Chihuahua is a rescued dog named Gidget.

• The phrase “raining cats and dogs” originated in seventeenth-century England. During heavy rainstorms, many homeless animals would drown and float down the streets, giving the appearance that it had actually rained cats and dogs

• The most intelligent dogs are reportedly the Border Collie and the Poodle, while the least intelligent dogs are the Afghan Hound and the Basenji
• Dogs have sweat glands in between their paws

• French poodles originated in Germany. Not France
• During the Middle Ages, mixed breeds of peasants’ dogs were required to wear blocks around their necks to keep them from breeding with noble hunting dogs. Purebred dogs were very expensive and hunting became the province of the rich

All photos are by Chloe Rice

Dog facts by Random History

Couture Rats (57/365)

I walked out of my room, last night to see that we now own a chinchilla!

To be honest, I thought these things were gonna be a lot like a guinea pig, but it is actually, despite its unbelievably soft fur, it is more of a rat. So now I live with 2 humans, a snake, a pup, and a couture rat! How our house still smells like windex and lavender, is beyond me.

Heres something I didn’t know about Chinchillas:

• They have no sweat glands, so they don’t do well in heat.
• They can’t get wet. Not because they’ll reproduce like some adorable mogwai or something, but because they cant clean it off of them, so it can turn into mold rot the chinchilla.

My favorite part of this chinchilla expreience? Getting to say the word all the time.

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