Month: November 2007

Not a lot of words

I wrote 205 words this morning on the Metro.  That’s not too many.  Although, it’s more words than I’ve ever written before during my work commute, so that’s cool.  It’s tough to stand and write, especially since I had my normal bag plus my work laptop this morning.  But I don’t usually bring my laptop home, and if it really gets to be a problem, I can probably get a seat most of the time.  I tend to not sit on the Metro that often because I don’t really like sharing a seat with strangers, and anyone who gets on the train probably needs the seat at least as much as I do.

But if I’m going to be writing, and it becomes too difficult to do standing, then I’ll sit more.  Let those elderly and disabled people stand for a change.  They shouldn’t be riding Metro at rush hour anyway.

No one can stay away

I went back to Starbucks this morning, despite my claims to the contrary.  I had gone the other day just to break a $20 and found that the grande coffee was back below $2.00.  This morning, I just couldn’t bear the thought of the awful office coffee (black, because the only thing worse than bad coffee is powdered creamer).  And they weren’t busy, so I asked the guy who served me about the price change.

He very nicely explained what happened, and it’s actually an interesting explanation.  Starbucks did, in fact, raise prices back in July.  That pushed the price over $2.  But then Virginia changed the tax laws.  They stopped taxing plain coffee.  They still tax the coffee-like milkshakes, and they tax the food that Starbucks serves.  According to the guy, they will even tax your coffee if you get it with a pastry or something.  I think the distinction is between “coffee” and “food”, and coffee is considered to be part of the “food” category if you drink it with something to eat.

Anyway, very interesting.