I'm in a Starbucks in Newark at the moment, taking advantage of my wonderful little laptop and its wireless connection. I'm waiting for my Jetta to finish its 30k mile servicing at the dealer down the street ... they're throwing in a few recall-driven repairs and a battery replacement for my dead key remote as well. This Starbucks is right down the street from Newark Memorial High School, so i've already seen the parade of caffeine-fueled adolescents. Coffee has penetrated our pop culture to such an extent now that not only are 15 year olds getting their double mocha before going to homeroom, but the other day i saw three grade school kids slurping frappacinos on their way home from school. Egad. Not sure if getting youngins addicted to caffeine this early is good for mind or body.

I've also gotten to listen to a few of the Starbucks mix cds in their entirety. I was just forced to suppress the eye-rolls when one of the regulars had a conversation with a barista (don't even get me started) on the music. A Billie Holiday song was playing ... one of the most distinctive voices of the 20th century. The customer asked if it was Norah Jones as she'd just fallen in love with her. Okaaay. The barista replied that she thought it was Elvis Costello. I wanted to stand up and say i thought it was Frank Zappa.

I spent another weekend mostly cleaning, partly for Matthew and Dionne's visit as they were heading to a wedding in Pleasanton. The kitchen is now immaculate, and the living room is much improved as well. The kitchen even has food in it now, as V and i stocked up at Safeway on Saturday night after an ultra-quick but excellent Japanese meal at Naomi Sushi in Menlo Park. Last night i washed the majority of Veronica's surplus stores of clothes, and will complete the job with another couple of loads tonight. It was fun hanging with Matthew and Dionne, despite the fact that i got completely housed by Matthew on Winning Eleven 8 International. Apparently my tactics that work so well against the computer fail miserably against human opponents. Back to the drawing board. Matthew has the opposite experience, he can't beat the AI but had no trouble with me. Ah well. The real Chelsea is preparing to close out the Premiership and to tackle domestic foes Liverpool in the Champions League, so i'll just have to focus on that.

We're heading down to La-La land this weekend for Michelle's 30th birthday party. As such, we have had to find someone to take care of our little troublemakers (ha ha ha haaaa ha) Tara and Pepe. I didn't think much about it at the time, but we didn't go on any weekend trips the whole nine months that we had Cobi. Our lives can't go on hold forever though. My parents, fearful of feces about their house and the dogs' interaction with their cats Milenko and Petri, politely declined, and my sister Hilary is occupied. So off to a kennel they go. Having spent the better part of 3 years in shelters, i'm sure they're used to the kennel environment, but i'm fairly certain they're not overly fond of it. It's only for two days, so i think they'll manage. I've decided against accompanying V to Coachella the following weekend so that the dogs aren't left behind again. While in LA i'm hoping to get my new Alpine stereo and iPod adapter unit installed at Geoff's old car audio shop, so i can play with it during the drive back. Geoff da man, booyakasha.

Half Life 2 is still blowing my brain wide open. So pretty, so fluid, and so gripping. I've so far resisted the urge to run out and buy a PSP, but i don't know how much longer i'll last. The fact that a new Ape Escape installment was one of the launch games isn't helping.

Back to sipping my now-cold tea and casting judgemental glances at Starbucks customers.