At 9:00 PM I drank a nice cup of coffee at Coffee Bean. At 5:30 AM I am still feeling the effects of said coffee and am wide awake. Perhaps it was the size of my dinner, which was rather small (not due to lack of food but due rather lack of desire to consume copious quantities of said food) which caused the caffeine to be absorbed through my relatively empty stomach, causing present effects. Perhaps it was our raucous chat room, which had me riled up saying such silly things as “OCD OCD OCD OCD OCD OCD OCD” (I’m big ‘OCD’; thanks little ‘ocd’ for all the inspiration). Perhaps it was the nap I took between 7:30 PM and 8:30 PM, shortly preceding powerful percolated product’s procurement. All I know is that I’m sleepless in Los Angeles, and before I forget, I will share this:

I ordered my cup of coffee. The cashier said, “for here or to go?”. I said, “What’s the difference, if it’s to go then do I ha ha get an extra napkin or something?” In response he mumbled something into his nonexistent beard, and I didn’t question it further, thinking it was just something silly anyway. I asked my friend Mike (I am Michael, thank you very much, though I forgive graciously those of you who call me Mike) what the difference was, and he said he thought “for here” costs a little more. Like a charge for the table, or something. We figured out that it was the tax, and that “to go” probably doesn’t have the tax. I said that’s silly, from now on I’m ordering “to go” and as far as they’re concerned you never know, I could change my mind and on my way to the door decide to sit down at a table (with some friends I just noticed were there, perhaps) and sip my scaldingly sweet sleep shunning solution socially or singlely, but at a table nonetheless. I mean (in terms of the extra charge), what if I’d ordered a cup of water? Hot water’s a good free coffee house drink, and it comes in a cup that looks like you’ve payed for something; useful I suppose if anyone’s glaring at you for eating a sandwich you obviously got somewhere else.

Last time I discussed this, by the way, was when I met a nice girl (who had a nice curl) and we had a nice conversation about all sorts of random topics, such as chicken nuggets. (Subtext: “nugget shaped pieces of chicken”, as ever-so-helpfully explained on a bag of these my roommates and I once got from Costco.) One of us brought up that someone ought to make chicken nuggets actually shaped like chickens. I mean, like animal crackers, but only the chickens. Chicken-shaped chicken nuggets, now how about that? Or what about other shapes? Personally I favor geometric shapes. Tetrahedrons. Reuleaux triangles. (‘Reuleaux’ has got to be the hardest word to spell, ever.) Interesting, check out the Reuleaux tetrahedron. Triangular manhole covers. The Wankel engine (fascinating). Business card cubes. Someone who is creating this out of business card cubes. Oh, the Web is such a wonderful place, there is more to read about and learn here than I could accomplish in a hundred thousand lifetimes. Which is why I want to live forever, you know.