I thought the whole cops and donut shops was a myth, an old, out dated stereotype. After all I remember the sense of palable fear in the early mornings when I was a kid out on my paper route, and the entire Capitola police force would pound by, out for an early morning run, like a commando squad, of black clad, fitness obsessed Marines.

However as we all know Seattle holds itself to a differnet standard. For example, while waiting in line this morning at Top Pot I was surrounded by a sea of uniforms. A Seattle metro cop walked out the door as I was walking in, a white paper sack clutched tightly, in front of me is a sheriff’s deputy, gun on hip, was ordering 2 dozen (including a significant percentage of pink boas), and behind me, two people are wearing Seattle fire department dress uniforms.

Delegating Your Soundtrack

On a totally different note, coffee shops should all have websites that automatically show you what is playing, and maybe even let you tune into it. This is useful to:

  1. check if the person working that shift can be trusted to lay down a good soundtrack for the next couple of hours you plan to be sitting there
  2. find out what is currently playing when something good comes on while you’re sitting there. (yeah, yeah, easier to just go up and ask, but it would be cool! and reason 1. is still a valid use case.)

Cafes in general are really great canidates for some sort of digital jukebox. I remember it was a constant issue with folks bringing in their CDs, and having them walk off, or get misplaced, and there was the cluttered mess over by the CD player. (plus what do you do when your cafe is unexpectedly seized.) The RIAA is really standing in the way of progress, I can’t wait until they get flattened by its inexorably march.