After a long day in the big cold city, nothing warms the soul like a soft-boiled geoduck.

Karaoke fever.

A journalist friend in Greece writes:

I'm currently researching a bunch of taxi-related articles, so if you have any good taxi stories let me know. How you pick up taxis in different countries (it's insane here in ways too long to enumerate, and in Kiev/Moscow i'm told there is little difference between taking a taxi and hitchhiking for example...), how do you flag one down off the street (taxi stands or moving, arm up or down, finger up your nose, whatever). How do people screw each other out of taxi rides (you know, one person moves past another to be first in oncoming traffic), weird ways taxis are regulated (i read in NY that taxis can't stop/park at all even to pee), devilish ways taxis cheat people/hurt people (in Czech R. for a while a bunch of taxis were fitted with electroshocks to force exorbitant sums of money out of unwilling people), weird taxi services (I have bought mobile phone calls from so many taxi drivers and people are always surprised by this...), the worst and best taxi cities, taxi strikes (Athens excels here, but I think Paris is also a candidate)... If you have friends in foreign countries who might have some taxi lore that would be good. (feel free to forward this to anyone relevant -- they can write me at: <joyce@aias.gr>)