Estava eu aqui, no meio de um dia de trampo - daqueles que você não quer fazer nada -, quando recebi o link pelo MSN. Abri e pirei!!! Das 60 eu encarava, na boa, umas 35. Por baixo!!!! Mas resolvi ser bonzinho e listar só os meus favoritos...
. Danger dogs.
The Tijuana delicacy -- a hot dog wrapped in bacon, fried, and topped with mayo -- has made its way to San Diego and Los Angeles, sold from carts outside stadiums, clubs, and wherever hungry drunks congregate.
. Black Cat espresso from Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea.
A triple. Note the exceedingly heavy body, with chocolate, caramel, and dried-fruit notes. Also note that you're vibrating. That means it's working. intelligentsiacoffee.com
. Mountain biking in Moab, Utah.
Possible dehydration, heatstroke, and disorientation. Probably the most inspiring panorama you'll ever see.
. Testing your cold-weather driving skills in Arjeplog, Sweden.
Where auto engineers converge to drive at high speeds on frozen lakes. They seek automotive innovation; you seek 75-mile-per-hour doughnuts. Beginners should first try the Porsche Camp4 Colorado Winter Driving School -- ice slaloms in a 911 Carrera.
. The fugu (poisonous blowfish) tasting menu at Morimoto in New York and Philadelphia.
. Carousing with the Mob
It happened one night in a bar near the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. I was researching a novel and found myself deep in conversation with a number of ballet dancers. Don't laugh. Dancers drink. Dancers smoke. Dancers believe in the short life.
Two in the morning. We had all been overserved. It was time for one last song. I closed my eyes and belted it out. The bartender grabbed me by the shoulder. "Shut up," he said. I've heard the complaints before. "Shut the fuck up," he said. "Look."
I turned and saw a number of impeccably dressed men walking into the bar. They were packing guns. One of them stopped and stared at me. It was as if all the oxygen was gone from the air. They cased the bar and abruptly left. I started singing again. The bartender grabbed my arm. Seconds later the real mob -- without their well-dressed bodyguards -- walked in: fat and unshaven and scruffy. Each had a bouquet of beautiful women on his arm.
"Leave," my ballet friends whispered. "Leave now -- and quietly."
I walked across the room. I picked out the meanest fucker of them all and hunkered down beside him. He looked as if he'd just strangled Vladimir Putin's mistress. There are times in life when we must throw out the anchor, even when it's unattached to a rope. "You want to hear an Irish song?" I asked him. He stared at me, his mouth quivering. I was suddenly quite sober. He took me by the collar. I could feel my heart beating in my cheap white shirt. He said nothing but slowly broke into a grin.
The drunk man often navigates by the stars beyond the ceiling. Still to this day I cannot remember what song it was I sang, but I do recall that fifteen minutes later I was party to the spectacular sight of three great Kirov ballerinas dancing on the long wooden table of the Shamrock Irish Bar on Dekabristov Street, performing ballet moves with three very large Russian mafiosi, shots of vodka thrown back and forth, and the dancers outlasting them, and outcharming them, with ease.
As they left the bar -- it was five in the morning -- the Mafia leader put his arm around me and said that he would help me if ever I was in trouble. "What do you do?" I asked, trying hard to be naive. He turned and looked me straight in the eye. "I am . . ." he said, stumbling toward the door, "...I am a Russian baby-sitter."
. Attending a Glasgow Rangers versus Glasgow Celtic soccer match.
Preferably in the Scottish Cup final. Imagine: Red Sox versus Yankees, if the ALCS involved sectarian hatred, hooligan rioting, and the occasional death threat.
Duvido que exista algo mais arriscado - e divertido - que isso no mundo!!!
P.S.: Recomendo uma leitura atenta do tópico 31...
