I ran out of coffee in the house yesterday, so this morning I stepped outside to get my cup of get up an' go java goodness. After living five years with Duncan Doughnuts as my corner coffee shop, it is a pleasant change to have a handfull of quality coffee venders on my block. The Starbucks encroachment is a comfortable neighborhood away, which keeps prices down and the roast not burnt.

The closest of these coffee joints is one by the name of LOTL. It is right down the street from my house, but I don't go there because they do not have regular hours. They are always closed in the morning. I have been trying to figure out how they manage to pay the bills if they are not serving when people are in greatest need for caffeine. I finally get it now. The coffee shop is a front. In the back, there are a bunch of journalists making a magazine. That would explain the late opening hours then, wouldn't it?

Come to find out that LOTL, is not a fancy european name like Illy or Tazzo. Nope, it is rather is the name of their magazine. It stands for lesbians on the loose. A good title for a lesbian travel magazine, sure, but it does ring kind of odd as the name of a coffee shop. Would that mean that the employees find freedom by making me a long black coffee? Not to get picky here, but if this is a coffee shop run by a bunch of journalists, I would have to think that some copy editor would have pointed this out. If say, Psychology Today were to have a coffee shop in their office's foyer, wouldn't you expect that someone would be there for you to talk about your problems?

While we are on the topic of coffee shop names, why did Starbuck's name itself after the overly loyal first mate of a ship that hubris and providence sank?