AND SPEAKING OF ADDICTIONS...
All us addicts like a good rationalization for our nutty behaviour.
And if the Latest Excuse comes from a third party and better yet an authority like a scientist or someone wise and wonderful, well, hallelujah!
Thus, imagine my glee at discovering today that espresso is good for my liver!
You think I'm grouchy sitting here in my p.j.'s in the morning?
You should see me at 3 pm if somehow the day has interfered with my small cappuccino with skim milk, please. Scareeeee...
I'm quite sure that if a day went by without my fix, my head would explode. For sure. Explode.
And while we're on the subject of Coffee Culture.
Some observations.
Almost any one's coffee is better than Starbucks. But, in a pinch...their cappuccino is not bad.
In Vancouver, the Waves chain is inviting for several reasons. The cappuccino's are excellent. There are about 90 three-pronged electrical outlets per shop making it just about the most computer-friendly environment in town. People are by and large friendly and helpful to one another.
Artigiano may keep winning "barrista" awards and their coffee is first-rate, but their staff has that miserable stupid superior attitude of coldness and superiority and there is roughly one electrical plug per store, a deliberate strategy I am told to keep students and old men who like to write in coffee shops from lingering too long. Wrong approach.
The cafe with WiFi has become the New Universal Living Room.
It is amazing how we all now take this for granted like it'd been here since buffalo.
I've seen it in Washington, DC, Venice, Toronto and Salt Spring Island and I think it's a wonderful spontaneous social development. The kind that be neither predicted nor planned.
You leave your basement apartment or high-rise flat or room in someones house or your grand mansion. You throw your light-weight netpad, notebook, whatever in your bag and head to the coffee shop. It's warm, it's well-lit, the cafe is delicious, the date and carrot slice is tasty, the music is so loud and so intrusive that it quickly just becomes a wash behind your consciousness.
Two days ago, I met a delightful and funny couple from Shanghai. They are both scientists. They were suitably impressed that I can utter a few catch phrases in Mandarin. They gave me a Beijing Olympics book mark and key chain. We exchanged e-mail addresses and promptly put ourselves in MSN Messenger contact.
I still managed to write five new pages on the fourth draft of my book.
Afternoons well spent.
