Downstairs

Sometimes I come to the Starbucks downstairs from the office to get some work done. It's a good balance of being able to focus without interruptions and without feeling isolated. If I had it my way, I'd have a local coffee shop with free wireless downstairs from work, but I don't work in Brooklyn or the East Village.

Anyway, pretty much every time I come in here I feel like I'm in an Apple ad. Apple has something like a 5% market share, but if you were to judge by the looks of things in here, it's an 80% market share. There are invariably numerous hipsters, bobos, and chickenheads not unlike myself tapping away on their iBooks and PowerBooks. Apple users are conformist non-conformists, it's all a bit sickening, especially with a large coffee in my belly.

I like to ride my bicycle

So there I was peacefully riding my bike home in the East Village when sirens go off and a copcar pulls up to me and says, "pull over up ahead." I think how ridiculous it is that I'm being pulled over while riding a bicycle, not to mention that a copcar is speaking.

I pull over and the cop says I went through a red light at the intersection of 10th st. and 3rd ave. I'm not sure if I did it or not, but I wouldn't doubt it as I do it all the time (doesn't everyone?). He gives me this spiel about bike safety, lots of accidents lately, blah blah and says he has to give me a summons. Then he slaps on a bit of the ol' patronizing passive aggression with, "I know this is a stupid reason to get a ticket and I feel about giving it to you but it's for your own good."

Fine, I'll get a slap on the wrist, maybe 20 or 30 bucks, and I'll be on my way. I ask him how much the ticket will be for and says he doesn't know, I'll have to look on the fine schedule. He gives me my ticket and cruises off and I look at the fine schedule. Let's see, that'll be $150 plus a $50 surcharge. Come again? $200!? I can see why he didn't want to divulge that gem.

So I solicited the advice of an acquaintance who happens to be a lawyer and an avid cyclist. He suggests that I plead not guilty and hope the P.O. doesn't show. I think that I will do that. You can PayPal donations to the Alex Is Probably Guilty But He Sure As Hell Shouldn't Have To Pay $200 Fund.

New Powerbook

The hinge on my PowerBook broke on Wednesday and since I was due for a new laptop anyway, I (or work really) picked up one of the new PowerBooks.

It's pretty snazzy looking and it runs rather well indeed, though it isn't leaps and bounds better than my old one.

I haven't had a chance to really stress it yet, but I just got two molars drilled and have a head full of novocain, so I think I'll sit back and encode a great movie from DVD to DivX and see how it works.

Montepulciano Panorama

I was playing with the panorama feature on my camera and just pieced together this view from Montepulciano with Vicky on the left: