MSG Sighting: La Caridad

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Remember La Caridad 78? The Upper West Side mainstay of Sino-Cuban fusion has been in decline for at least a few years. Now it appears as if they are spiking their food with massive amounts of MSG. This trash heap seems to belong to La Caridad, as it was right on the corner in front of their storefront. I snapped the picture at 3 AM today. Note how the MSG can is about the size of an old tree stump. That's a lot of umami!

Squirrels: Where the fuck did these things come from?

The Quarterlife Critter recently posted about her squirrel attack and it got me thinking about the lil varmints. I too had a close call with a squirrel. It was the Autumn of 2007 in Madison Square Park. After a long wait at the Shake Shack, I got my Double Shack Burger and made my way to a bench in the quiet northeast corner of the park. As I was enjoying my burger, I felt what appeared to be a tap on the shoulder. I turned my head, and lo and behold, there was a squirrel perched atop my shoulder. Of course, I sprung off the bench in a state of primal shock.

My theory is that varmints have been thriving thanks to a steady diet of Shake Shack table scraps over the last few years. It has caused their population around Madison Square Park to explode. We now have an emboldened scurry of squirrels (I looked it up, that is the correct term of venery). This problem looks like it will only get worse than ever after the seasonal lull that is setting in right now:
The graph shows the Google search volume relative to the base year average of 1. As Shake Shack grows in popularity, expect the situation to spiral out of control.