Kind of a homey place, likable staff, colorful Santa Cruzians shuffling in and out with their hipster wear and crunchy hair (well, some of them). A couple of old men are huddled at a nearby table trying with all their might to work out a crossword puzzle. Even the flies get in on the action every now and then.

I miss doing this. I like coming to coffee shops and writing, but I so rarely get the chance. I should make the time to do it more often, really. This place is a little out of the way compared to wear we live, but I’m sure I can find a place just as good in Aptos for weekends when I just don’t feel like being cooped up in my office.

I want to keep ordering coffees, but I feel a little like peeing, and I don’t want to pack up and lose my seat by going up to the bathroom. I’m set up at a sweet table and I don’t really want to lose it. Dilemma!

You know, screw this thing. It’s TINY. If LG tries to top this with a new version of the Voyager that’s smaller and more compact (thereby ruining the perfect form factor and functionality of it’s QWERTY keypad inside) I will seriously cry… even though it won’t really impact me until around December of next year (new every two, don’t you know).

I’ve never understood this whole fetish with smaller, smaller, smaller phones. Pretty soon we’re going to start seeing bug-eyed, tiny-thumbed mutant children evolved specifically to see tiny micro-phone text and bang out long txt messages on keypads normal people can barely even see.

Loving the Voyager, by the way, and can’t imagine a better phone. Well, I suppose the camera could be slightly better (okay, a lot) and it could have a lens cover like the enV… but the size and functionality tops this Glyde pretender by a mile.

Because I’m pretty heavily involved with direct/email advertising campaigns at my day job, I have a gmail account set up specifically to receive various emails from retailers, companies, etc.

I just happened to get this from Costco…

Philips 42″ 1080p LCD HDTV
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Dynamic screen contrast: 29000:1
Brightness: 500 cd/m²

$999.99

What’s the catch here? The specs look fine. I’m not completely sold on Philips as a brand over, say, Sony, Sharp, Samsung or even LG… but at under a grand for a 42″ LCD? Fuck it, that’s like a perfect second set for the bedroom or something if you had room.

Tya and I were just talking about how nice it would be to have a TV in the bedroom now that we have a nice huge bed to be lazy in…

Tya and I are making mental lists of stuff we want to rush-pack and take with us if we get evacuated.

Needless to say, this is not altogether the best feeling I’ve ever felt.

In other news, I’m all about getting the Wacom Cintiq whenever i have a spare grand floating around to drop. It’ll probably have to wait until Christmas realistically, however. The next thing on my list is a 24inch iMac, if only because we’re upgrading to them at work in about a month and I’ll be damned if I use a lesser machine in the home nerdstation than I do at work!

More later. There are some things I’m really itching to talk about here, but I can’t yet. I may start vaguely skirting the issue, though and post some related periphery posts about it.

I probably should have seen the writing on the wall ahead of time, though, because T was with me, which typically means conversation will ensue. She’ll talk to anyone as if they’ve been friends for years while standing on line. It’s this whole big thing.

Much to my surprise, however, I found myself actually engaged because of probably the best retail chit-chat story I’ve ever heard. I don’t even care if the guy was embellishing, this story made me laugh so hard… because it’s so typical.

He told the tale of a guy who came in last week for an upgrade and at the same time wanted to knock off the $10/mo unlimited txt messaging charge (which meant he’s go to the default $.20/message sent or received charge. As he’s asking for this, and as my sales guy is making the change in the system, the customer is feverishly sending and fielding text messages. “He must have sent and received literally 20 messages in 5 minutes, just while waiting…”

For those keeping track at home, that’s a $4 tally if my guy was being accurate.

He said, “sir, you’ve just been texting for 5 minutes straight…”

The customer says, “Oh, yeah, sorry. I guess that was rude.”

The Verizon guy says, “No, it’s not that. But I have to ask if you’re sure about taking this unlimited messaging off. If you text all the time you’re going to be paying a lot more than $10/mo.”

“Oh,” says the genius customer. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I was texting…”

You think?!

I wonder how many people have actually gone through with this idea… thinking, hell I don’t need to pay that $10/month. I’ll just drop it! And then end up paying tons more because they habitually text so much.

I hope most of them are teenagers.

This particular Monday, as you no doubt realize, had the terrible misfortune of being the one after that filthy bitch Daylight Savings Time reared her fantastically ugly head, stuck out her tongue and blew a wet, germ-spraying raspberry at us all.

So I got to wake up in the dark again, 6:40am, wondering just why the hell I agree to do this after all these years, wondering why I haven’t just explained to everyone that I just don’t DO Mondays and that whatever it is I have on my plate that day will just have to wait until the much more agreeable Tuesday to follow.

I zombie through the morning as usual, shower, dress, mumble barely coherent and somewhat incomplete elements of conversation at Tya, pet the dog, mention hello to the cat (who is not a morning person, either, and totally understands) and then grab my things and head out the door.

My desk at work welcomes me back like a cruel bastard, gloating; its face in the form of an Apple cinema display brightly (too brightly) beamed at me, inviting me to please stare back at it for the next 9 1/2 hours, and offering no consolation whatsoever.

I slo-mo through some emails and proof corrections, feeling the agony of the day’s first hour lumbering by before the Monday production meeting. It’s a blur of quaint chit-chat and business as usual, everyone being dragged back on the same page, given direction for the week.

Finally time for coffee, a chance to have a bowl of cereal. Wander down to the in-house food counter and order the usual – quad-shot cappuccino, skinny with cinnamon. I grab a small bowl of some sort Special K and a pint of milk; Walk it back to my desk, letting the aroma from my 4 mouth-watering espresso shots embrace me. Delicious mistress.

With the morning just beginning to grind out of first gear and into the flow of things for the day I get an icy splash of mild disaster to remind me – this is not my day. Three bites into the cereal and… somehow it slips from my grasp, spilling partially on the front of my shirt, and landing in a heap of milk-sogged mess on the carpet at my feet.

Touche, Monday.