An excerpt: "In New York, I was always envious of people who could walk into a coffee place and the guy behind the counter would know them so well he would just start fixing their order, without any exchange of words."... I walk into the cafeteria of my office building, and the manager gets my coffee ready, at 6:02 a.m. I walk into the Peet's near my office, and they start making my order without my having to say a word.
Caffeine carnage
This is the current collection of recyclable cups, under my desk; about two weeks' worth. Most of the cups are stacked in multiples to save space. It's more than a little scary how much caffeine I drink.
Yes, it's been that sort of month. 
Branches
So when I said I was raiding Christmas tree scraps -- I wasn't kidding. For reference, that's the pile of branches in the back of the Mini, and with a bundle of firewood. Go big or go home, I like to say. I might get more tomorow night, too.
It's not quite cutting mistletoe with a sickle at dawn while standing on one leg, but hey, I'm a modern pagan. And, there's no mistletoe growing within 25 miles of me -- yes, I've looked. But if you're local and you know of any, hip me to it, yes?
the breakfast triangle
You might be familiar with the service triangle, the truism that you can only have two of the three qualities in a service provider: good, fast, or cheap.... But in what seems like the very instant a deadline is set for a project I'm doing for free, bugs, typos, and other errors inexplicably begin breeding like cockroaches.... You cannot find breakfast food that is all three of the following: good for you easy to make/acquire/consume in an undercaffeinated state tastes good Absolutely cannot be done.
Read MoreCaffeina
All hail Caffeina!
Yes, I really do love caffeine enough to have a statue of an Office God named after it. Especially coffee.