I was waiting for my drink at a cafe today and a guy went to pick up his macchiato. He kind of stopped dead for a couple seconds and just looked into his cup, which I thought was hilarious since he was obviously expecting something more along the lines of what Starbucks serves. He walked back to his girlfriend in a daze, still gazing into his anemic drink. He still didn't quite believe it when he told her, "It's just, like, espresso." She said she was sorry in the way you tell a 5-year-old you're sorry the bug he just made friends with in the park flew away without saying goodbye. He was moved to ask the employees what a macchiato was, exactly, which is either pretty bold or pretty thick, since when this happened to me the first time I figured it out and was too embarrassed to protest.

The employees had to know by his bewildered face what had happened, but they feigned this total unawareness of the Starbucks menu, "A macchiato's just a shot with foam; 'macchiato' means marked, so the coffee's just marked with foam. Oh, you wanted like a Starbucks sort of...?" They left that question open-ended, inviting him to further belie his naivete. Another customer in line took it upon herself to help the poor gentleman by telling him in the most condescending tone I've heard outside of a Chloe outlet store, "You probably wanted a mocha or something, or a latte with lots of sugar and stuff." Well, yes he did, but hell if anyone with any pride at all was going to ask for one now. He went back to his girlfriend who offered up another helpless apology on behalf of the universe, and the folks in the cafe went back to ordering and drink sophisticated coffee like sophisticated people.

I've never heard of this instrument before, but it's really sweet in a "don't play it at a party" kind of way.

This rocks; it reminds me of Kraftwerk's website.

Here's a clip a few of my friends from way back when made, though I saw it for the first time today. Props for making something so short so awesome.

Stephanie and I found a bunch of old letters at a flea market written to one J. Lowell Groves over the course of several decades of his life. He was in the army, and one was even a love letter written overseas on Valentine's Day. Very touching. But his family, or his estate, sold off the whole lot at an auction, and this lady at the flea market was letting them go for $1/piece. She very obviously failed to grasp the story that lay within the papers she described to us as "pretty" and was splitting among hundreds of flea marketers such as ourselves. Anyway, here's one of them:

Thankfully, the region's dubious political climate didn't yet trouble the existence of Groves' correspondent, Mildred (and Georgie, by proxy), who was apparently on vacation at the Hotel Leinfelder which may or may not still be around, given the liberal airstrikes on Munich toward the end of the war and lack of the hotel's Google presence. The beginning of the letter:

Working from home is the best fucking thing in the world. It's restoring my sanity.