People PAY for it?

According to my Dad, for a monthly fee, I can apparently get my own home internet service. But oh how I'd miss the glamour. I had to move my car tonight (Monday parking zone - detailed parking anxieties in SF Metblogs) and decided to cruise around to find an open wireless connection. Ended up parked outside - Cafe Lo Cubano. Listen, I just don't WANT any damn coffee. I just want to write.

It's odd that I consider myself kinda lazy and sluggish, b/c apparently I can't sit still for long. Like through an entire movie. Over the past few days, I've watched 4 and haven't sat still through any of them. I was making quiche, doing laundry, paying bills, cleaning the kitchen, taking out trash, making mashed potatoes... I just can't SIT. I felt guilty that I wasn't at least online writing, but didn't really feel like lugging my laptop over my shoulder down the street - so since I had to move the car anyway, here I am. I tell you - I kill many, many, little tiny helpless birds with one small stone.

Another Foray into the Blogosphere

Check it out, y'all! I'm blogging for SF Metblogs! Now I can dazzle untold anonymous dozens of people about my musings on life in San Francisco! Let me know if the photo's too silly, or unflattering. It seemed appropriatle city-ish - and the other good one showed off too much boobage, which might attract the wrong type of reader. Or maybe - the RIGHT type of reader... Hmm...

Shared Moments

The MUNI is a vital player in my daily city existence. I still get a thoroughly suburban thrill from using the bus regularly to commute, and meet friends in different places, and run into people I know, or just share random moments with others also along for the ride. Yesterday, I was heading home before going out to the 49ers game (yes, you purists, I know it was preseasons and didn't count but FREE TICKET) - and found there are tons of express buses to Candlestick Park at my regular bus stop. I still needed to go home first to gather layers - not to do so would surely require the purchase of warm clothing advertising my allegiance to the Niners - but I took note for future reference. I saw that there WAS indeed a #2 bus at the very head of the line, so I picked up speed, weaved my way through lines of the milling-about, and got to the bus just as they closed the door. Bus didn't move, though, and the last guy on was digging in his pocket for change. I knocked on the glass, and stepped to the side where the driver could see I had a pass and wouldn't take up any time if he just opened the friggin' door - and he looked RIGHT THROUGH ME and waited for the other guy to get his bill into the fare machine and DROVE AWAY, leaving me yelling, "DUDE!" A MUNI overseer, who was chaperoning the crowds onto the express buses, also yelled, "HEY!", to no avail, then muttered under his breath "Prick." But offered me no personal consolation. I still felt a little better, though.

While waiting another 10 minutes for the next bus (GRRRRR), I saw a familiar face among the millers - the bass player from my friend's band. I went over to say hi, because he's a nice guy, and I want to recruit him for whatever band project I get together outside of Blue Bear. He's AWESOME.

I board my bus, earbuds in, eyes unfocused but taking in the general surroundings. As we stopped at a light along Sutter Street, I realized I was looking right at a guy who was sitting in a bar on the corner. He looked right back, and I decided not to refocus. Then he broke out in a goofy smile and waved, so I grinned and waved back. I described this silly, friendly moment to Lauren as we drove to Candlestick/Monster/Kind of a Shithole Compared to AT&T Park - and she asked if I remembered the great Dockers ad where the couple spies each other in street cars going different directions along the Embarcadero, and they both jump off their trains to catch the other, and have a moment smiling shyly at each other across the tracks. Clearly, I remember the ad - but I told Lauren, "Yeah, it wasn't that guy. It was just kinda funny."

Where To

Home at a reasonable hour, and Top Chef isn't on for a while, so I decided to take the laptop on the road. I passed by Cafe Lo Cubano, which is adorable and has a free connection, but I'm afraid their cafe con leche is TOO DELICIOUS to be appropriate for the Weight Watchers plan. I keep walking. Down to the evil empire - where it is PACKED. Not a seat to be had. I sit on the bench outside, and open up my laptop, eyeing those around me warily in case they seem like the type to grab my Dell off my lap and run. There's the homeless guy in the raincoat who's taken to riding the 1BX around the same time I do in the morning, but he shuffles away quietly. I power up, and find the only connection at that end of the street is the TMobile. Ya gots ta pay for the TMobile. Not cool.

I close the laptop and shuffle off myself, back to Cafe Lo Cubano. Which is practically empty. WHY?!? Now, the place seems to do a decent business, and they won't be going under, but I don't understand why the Starbucks is PACKED and there are seats galore in here. I do a Half-Sally and ask if they use condensed milk in the cafe con leche - nope, either whole milk or nonfat - and I get one. I guess what makes it sinful isn't cream, but sugar. It's tasty. And probably still not all that points-friendly. Ah well. I still get to write it off as dairy.

And now - I am one of those hipsters who blogs at their local cafe. Color me bloggerati. Speaking of which - Lauren chastised me via Anna for not linking to them in my last post. Is that poor blog netiquette? I suppose I should learn these things, now that I can apparently claim to be a Blogebrity of sorts. It won't go to my head.

Unplanned Hiatus

Haven't been posting for a while, since the neighbor who so kindly (and unwittingly) allowed me to piggyback off their wireless for months has apparently - moved. Tragic. I now have to use maps rather than transit511 to figure out how to get anywhere. And I have to type in the names of songs I download into my iTunes. AND I couldn't instantly go to the IMDB to look up where I've seen Ernie Reyes, Jr. before - which I was curious about when he showed up on an MTV2 show called Final Fu.

No fabulous updates for the month. Worked a lot. Still felt a little sad about the X.L.C. Got kinda pissed when he made it a point to email me and mention he was going to DC and NC for his vacation this week - why does he feel the need to tell me he's going to see the girl he was apparently "not with" when I saw him? Aggravating.

Read a LOT of books this month. I'm currently reading Gig, which is a series of short interviews with people in a random assortment of jobs talking about how they feel about their work. (Work kinda sucks, but ya gotta go anyway.)

I attended my first blogger event yesterday - albeit unwittingly. Banane and Lauren, who write for MetBlogs, invited me to meet them at Pier 38 for the wrap-up event to a blogger conference they'd attended that day. "Open Bar" were key words. I found that I enjoy hearing WHAT people blog about, but that I don't care much about HOW blogs work. I also started wondering about audience, and if I feel the need to have one. Still pondering that. The short answer is "YES, DUH." The longer answer involves figuring out who do I feel my audience needs to be?