About the attempt to experience vertical shopping and other activities at the (pka AOL) Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle in New York... (as a badly written first draft.)

What does "limit intake" mean... does it mean that I am not allowed to drink certain beverages while under the influence of my freshly prescribed antibiotica? I wonder. I am not sure whom I could ask. I now drink mostly water and this new and excellent PomPom juice, the stuff that comes in this very cute double round bottle... (or tripple round when larger.) We are hanging in there... I just woke up again to take another look at all the beverages which I will need to limit for some time... but it is still the weekend... and I managed to survive a very odd week... Oh, and I went to take a look at New York's new vertical shopping experience. The AOL... ahem... Time Warner Center reminds me of some other place that had this similar feeling of being just too designed to work properly. The choice of stores in this new fancy mall is a really strange mix that will really excite bizzarro European tourists who will want to take a fresh look at what they could have had at home, except with some odd unfamiliar twist. Some of the stores on the first floor have upstairs departments. These are true tourist traps... it was just me, three overly eager because freshly hired sales people, and some kid that really wanted to buy some of the decoration... well that was at the cole haan store... at Boss, one of the sales women, already had an entire war laid out against that other worker, whom she, in a conversation with the "accomplice", (also called listener, or potential future backstabber) referred to as "she." ("She thinks she will just tell us what to do? Well, let me tell you something, I am going to do it, but she should know that she is not my boss and I am not going to do this forever...")... Fascinating... (I really wished these intelligent minds had some actual work to do, poor idling brains...) There is an upstairs. It takes about a minute or so to get to the upstairs by escalator. There is borders and dean and deluca inside of borders, and I think that D&D sells those little Starbucks Frappuchinos, which makes the corporate russian doll about as perfect as they get. Borders was packed with customers of whom some were really on a mission. They really wanted to know where everything was. I am not just making this up, I happened to pick up my email close to one of the information stations. About four customers wanted to know about the coding system and if Poetry really was next to, or behind Classic literature, and if it were not a better idea if they were integrated. I looked at some very strange gift ideas. There was a leather patted box which at first did not want to open. Once forced open, it revealed a whole series of little leather frames, all clinging to the inside of the box with very powerful magnets. It looked like a tool for those who want to stare at their Orkut network even when there is no electricity or even gravity... Is this how we are preparing for future mars missions?... Child proof Magnetic Orkut Network simulation boxes?.... Wait a second... child proof?... Hmm... There were a few more floors in the Time Warner Mall on Columbus circle... Somewhere on floor three were the architectural models of what the center could have looked like... and where it now was, compared to the more expensive areas of the neighborhood. An older couple clearly lacked the vocabulary to describe anything they saw in the glass box in front of them: "This is the staue out there in the front. And this id that trumpf building here. Is this the park?" (Yes, Donald Trumpf would have been proud.) Two friends were admiring the evolution of the design, presented as little wooden volume models. "What is this? Is this what they wanted to make it like? That looks so regular." And the other one:"This!, this is the one they built." Hmm... The top floor of the shopping experience was flooded into a bluish glow. The ceiling illumination made this top floor the most interesting one. It was dark, the musak was least intrusive, there was a cash machine, not a single security guard in sight... Oh, this is going to be an exciting place to visit... just give it a few years... give it some time... hmm... Oh... and then there is the basement... According to Pat Kiernan, the best anchor of New York 1, the lower level of the Time Warner shopping mall contains the largest food mart in the city... Hmm... let's say, below 72nd street... and... size is not everything... I guess some of the food was indeed organic... there was a smell of rotting something in some areas of the admittedly large supermarket... I passed on the $6.99/pound salad bar, just bought myself a little juice and followed the large hand drawn signs indicating the location of the cash registers. About 30 or so of them were cashing in at full speed, and yet there was still a long winding line to pay for those large green Salad bar bowls... I found myself in a scenario that was a mix of some well organized femin prevention initiative by the UN, mixed with immigration procedures at JFK after the arrival of a flight from hmm... Paris? Two very authoritative agents almost pushed the slightly frightened yuppies towards some cashier lines, shouting out numbers "22 is free! Go to 29! Over there, over there..." I got to pay for my juice at cashier #16. "This is like Yuppie Ellis Island." The cashier did not think that this was even remotely funny... Oh well... There is no subway connection indoors from the Time Warner Mall... I guess the subway system is not as cool as it used to be a hundred years ago... One has to step outside, find some old entrance, and still descent into that chewing gum plastered world, one that is under constant construction, especially at the Columbus Circle stop... The Subway might be smelly and not very well lit... but it somehow felt very refreshing after that exotic wood paneled virtual reality shopping experience... Cost for visit:"$2.99 for a little B-Vitamine Juice..." The subway still give me more bang for the buck... Oh, and one would think that the entire place had WiFi... you know... because this is (ahem, used to be officially) the AOL center... The WiFi signal at Borders was rather faint... oh.. and it came from T-Mobile... which makes me think that there was a real Starbucks lurking somewhere... I just really did not see it all... or did I see enough? (Oh, I will be back there, with one of those green bowls, believe me...)