Here's the trouble with the holidays: indulging in too many homemade, holiday treats — latkes, gelt, pecan pie, eggnog and the like — often results in no longer looking so svelte in the lovely argyle sweater Santa or the Hanukkah Armadillo brought for you. And you know, eating healthy isn't so bad. What with Pink Berry, Tasti, the numerous sushi joints and the other healthy options Broadway offers, sticking to pretty healthy diet can be pretty easy for those who care to. What's not so easy, however, is maintaining a healthy-ish diet while maintaining a moderate-ish budget.

On this chilly November night, the guys at Westside thought to keep the outdoor produce warm with flannel blankets! The picture above documents their attempts to keep their asparagus and grapes relatively happy, if not frozen!

Rejoice! Mediocre falafel purveyor Amir's has opened back up after getting beat down last week by the Department of Health.

Bwog ventured into the newly-scrubbed feeling establishment to query the proprietor as to whether his food was, in fact, safe to eat. He assured us it was, and that the issue had been "just a refrigerator problem."

We hope so!

Welcome to the latest installment of our occasional series on libraries you should really get to know.

What with the widespread Columbian ignorance of most things further north than Appletree, you've probably never been to the library of the school of Social Work, located on the East side of Amsterdam at 121st. And with its normal people hours of about 9am to 9pm, it's not likely you night owls and procrastinators will make it a habitual Butler alternative. But for the rest of the world, take heed—this is as lovely a study spot you'll find in Morningside, and one to keep in mind when finals roll around (all too soon!).

The primary, overarching virtue of the Social Work is its health. Floor-to-ceiling windows onto Amsterdam remind you that you are part of New York, and provide light to remind you what time of day it is. The grad students are not unattractive—although not quite as good-looking as those hovering outside Avery, or frequenting the SIPA café—but it doesn't matter, because you know they all have golden hearts.

Morningside Heights doesn't have much of a reputation amongst epicures, but for vegans and even vegetarians, there is a disheartening lack of restaurants that abstain from using any meat in their kitchens. Fortunately, New York City is a haven for veggie eaters, and delightful restaurants who cater to them, ranging from healthy organic fare, macrobiotic Japanese, to mock meats, laden with all the greasy fried goodness of regular American fare—sans the actual flesh.

I ventured to Angelica's Kitchen, an old-time favorite of mine, located on the Lower East Side. (A sign between 1^st and 2^nd Ave. on 12^th street indicates Angelica's, in a neon-lit, loopy script.) In addition to being completely organic vegan, Angelica's Kitchen also has an environmentally conscious ethos: A minimum of 95% of all food used to prepare the menu has been grown ecologically. Credit cards are also not accepted as a form of payment, as greenbacks are more natural than cold plastic. That said, all of these trendy green-factors are really beside the point if the food doesn't hold up, but luckily this is not the case.

Columbia's paranoiacs probably got chills when they received a flyer asking them if they live within 300 miles of campus and were willing to accommodate students in "the event of an emergency." And if you're not a paranoiac and are honestly curious as to what kind of emergency could be catastrophic enough to both shut down campus and prevent people from traveling more than 300 miles, you should have a look at this.

So does the University's active preparation for a flu pandemic bad enough to keep us within a 300-mile quarantine for months at a time mean that we're actually doomed, or that Columbia isn't taking any chances? Until we find out, Bwog will sleep a little better knowing the University has a "pandemic influenza response plan" ready--although the whole thing strikes us as just a little...Strangelovian?

Harold noticed something wonderful outside the 92nd st. Equinox today:

SEE CORRECTION ABOVE.

As part of Black History Month, there was a blood-free HIV testing event on College Walk today (Wednesday) in order to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in the African-American community. It was open to the community, and we're not sure how many test-ees were Columbia affiliates and how many weren't, but we've heard some of the results were rather sobering.

At the end of the event, speaker Miss Black New York Shade Ogunleye mentioned that out of the 57 people who were tested, 13 were found to be HIV-positive. Remember: One out of four people who have HIV aren't even aware that they do. If this isn't reason enough for you to be safe(r), we don't know what is.

Bwog is grateful for Columbia's sizeable flock of vending machines, with their promise of large amounts of readily available, prepackaged foods, junk and otherwise. Certain oddities within the vending machine empire, however, cannot be ignored.

• The green leaf symbol, supposedly found next to so-called "healthy snack choices" in campus vending machines, suffers from highly inconsistent placement. Baked Lays, for instance, are considered to be healthy in Hartley, but not in John Jay. Arcor-Brand fruit snacks are healthy in both John Jay and Hartley, but not Wallach. And, until last year, the vending machines in Lerner lobby featured another dubious "healthy choice"—Doritos.

• Rock Star Energy Drinks, available in vending machines in Lerner and EC, cost $2.50—yet the flex-card swipers attached to them allow you a maximum credit of $1.50, making the refreshing treats essentially impossible to purchase with flex, despite the presence of CUID swipe boxes.

• Last year's infamous iPod Shuffles are no longer available for sale in the vending machines in the basement of Lerner—although you can still get your music fix with a blank CD and a $15 iTunes gift card.

• And, perhaps most shockingly: current upperclassmen will notice a disturbing trend in the size of the packages of Cheez-Its, Bwog's radioactive orange treat. In the 2004-2005 academic year, the average size of a bag of Cheez-Its from a campus vending machine was one and a half ounces. Last year, it was two ounces. This year, the bags are three full ounces. That's fully double the amount of Cheez-Its we were expected to consume three years ago. What's more, the same 3-oz. bag will cost you $1.25 in Hartley, but only $1.00 in all other campus buildings. The madness! Where does it end?