Thursday, September 13, 2007

Harumph.

It's taken us three days, but we've finally been able to figure out what was causing all the strange characters to show up in our most recent blog post. Which is no longer our most recent blog post, since I've written this.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Don't Sit So Close to Me (2007 remix)

A couple of things in the 19 Minutes Universe today, neither of which adds up to anything extremely useful, but I thought they were interesting:

The bus I take to 19 Minutes World Media Headquarters is also used to get Milwaukee high school students to and from school. As I may have noted in this space previously (but which I can’t seem to locate at this point), I apparently give off some kind of Don’t Sit Next to Me Under Any Circumstances vibe, so I don’t really get much insight into these students’ lives.

But we reached the point on the trip today when there were no other seats available. Really, every single seat, including the one next to the guy with the two large garbage bags (full of, um, I’m not sure) on the bus filled up before the one next to me, despite my recent application of anti-perspirant. And so one of the students braved whatever strange aura I give off, and sat down next to me to go about her morning ritual of listening to her iPod at brain-frying levels.

And that would be about it, except that I noticed the text book on her lap. A history book, called “The American Pageant.” The same history book I used in high school, twenty-one years ago. Which isn’t all that remarkable, I suppose, considering the book is in its 13th edition. What strikes me as remarkable is the fact that I remember the name of my high school history textbook.

Onward.

On another note, I’d like to point out that I was WAY ahead of the curve on the whole iced coffee phenomenon.

As an iced coffee fiend, I’m enjoying the ubiquitousness of frostly caffeinated beverages. As far as I’m concerned, McDonald’s iced coffee is a wonderful invention. They could start serving the stuff at Linens-n-Things, or One Hour Martinizing, or Radio Shack, and the world would be an even better place.

That’s why I was dismayed when I stopped in at a local, Milwaukee coffee purveyor Wednesday, only to find out that “iced coffee went out of season on Tuesday.” Wednesday’s high temperature in Milwaukee: 91 degrees. Sounds like hot chocolate weather to me.

But maybe I'm ahead of the curve there, too.