Randomness, or Chillin' in Boston

"Bob Dylan makes William Shakespeare look like Billy Joel." -George Harrison

That made me laugh a whole lot. It's an interesting juxtaposition of tastes. Anyway, it's cold here. Real cold. Like 7 degrees with a wind chill of 17 below. That normally would not faze me too much (just pile on those layers), but yesterday was incredible in terms of the variety and amount of stuff that came out of the sky. First there was about five inches of snow. After that, pure ice started falling. Seriously, just ice crystals. Then there was a little more snow, followed by sleet and freezing rain and a smattering of hail (which only seemed to fall when I stepped outside to periodically clean off my car). This lasted a full 24 hours. The net effect of all of this was that 1) the initial snow became very dense, and 2) everything else on top of it froze. So now the side streets around Boston (as I'm sure is the case around NY and NJ) are basically ice slaloms. My driveway has a 3-inch-thick layer of ice... perfect for hockey, not so perfect for taking the trash out.

So on the way to work this morning (left an hour and a half earlier than normal), I decided to treat myself to some coffee at Dunkin's. Felt I deserved it after forty minutes of digging my car out and thawing the windows (and I still had to pull over twice to clean my windshield because my wipers refused to thaw). Now, even when it's cold outside, I like iced coffee. When I ordered it, the guy at Dunk's said, "that's iced coffee, right?" And I responded in the affirmative, figuring that he was just being a nice guy and double-checking. However, when I got to the pickup window, there was a nice steaming cup of coffee. Hot coffee. I explained that I had ordered iced coffee - twice - and the lady looked at me as if I had six eyes. "Really?" she asked, to which I replied, "Yes, really... ask the guy who took my order." She did so, and then proceeded to talk to me - nay, lecture me - about the dangers of drinking cold beverages when it's cold outside. She did so while not preparing my iced coffee.

I drove away. I don't need random Dunkin' Donuts employees giving me crap about wanting to drink their product. Especially at 7:15 in the morning. I just wanted some iced coffee (and it's warm in my car and in my office, dammit!). But I can't complain too much - I was able to get my car out and not go stir crazy. There are a whole lot of people who are literally iced in. I worked from home yesterday (ever accessed the ftp site and updated the temp/active list in your underwear? it's awesome) and was a little loopy from sitting at home all day. I didn't really have the option to go anywhere, and that's what made me stir crazy. But I did realize that Steven Seagal hasn't stopped making movies, that the light in my living room is very pretty around 2:30 pm, and that my Asian neighbor on the third floor actually speaks.