An amazing store. Incredible amounts of coffee. Tasty looking dead animals everywhere in chew-friendly bits. Pastries that look like somebody said, "What is this?" "I don't know, but it's chocolate." "Well, hell, just throw some cream cheese icing on top of it." "Brilliant!" There were marzipan little pigs waiting for someone to bite their cute little heads off. And chocolate and cream cups of cappuccino that were little pieces of holy-shit-that's-so-cool-but-I-gotta-eat-it art.

There's only one problem. They sell lots of food and drink that you can take away or consume there…but no public bathrooms. And not even that. Somebody said sure, there's a bathroom, and took Cosette back to where it was, only to startle the store manager who said, no, sorry, no bathroom for you.

At first I thought that this was extremely assholish of him. The proper way to handle that situation is to explain that no, there aren't bathrooms for the public, but because our employee was confused and said yes, be our guest this one time. And oh by the way, employee, what the hell were you thinking?

Then it struck me: this was a young guy, right? It's obvious why he didn't want Cosette going and using their restrooms.

He was afraid of Death.

Think about it. Your predecessor warns you: don't let anyone come back here and accost you. They could be Death. Death is sneaky. Sometimes it looks like a young woman with a full bladder, sometimes it looks like a young Robert Redford. Keep people away from the back of the store if you know what's good for you.

That was the lesson the older manager told his protege, right up until the day that some guy wandered into the back of the store feigning a delivery of some Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, only to rob the elderly man of his life.

So of course you can't pee in their bathrooms. Death could be any one of us. I feel sorry for the guy when I think about it that way. I really do.

The City Bakery has cold hot chocolate. It is the best thing since thai coffee. I saw vapor trails for hours afterwards.

On the way in from the airport, a guy in an SUV ahead of us stuck a red plastic horn out of his window, put the other end to his mouth and gave three jubilant blasts that sounded like a tuba with tolerable heartburn.

And my reaction was simply: well, yes, of course.

As a necessary aside, why isn't there a NYC driving sim? Or is there? And I'm not talking Crazy Taxi. But nothing would put together skills like evasion, racing, and strategy like that game would.

Well, sorry if there wasn't a lot of pics from San Diego, from which I leave today. I was actually pounding the carpet to talk to folks. It was a lot of small and medium press folks, really. Basically I was interested in people who wanted to get their word out. If they actually had a book that looked worthwhile and were nice enough to say something as simple as "Hi" as opposed to stayed locked in whatever book they were reading (no HP6s, though), then I wanted to see what was up. There were some people that were already in conversations and I tried to get back to them, but I didn't always succeed. Because the floor was freaking huge. So anyway. Not a lot of time to take pictures of weirdos for you to gawk at. There's plenty of other sites covering that, regardless.

So while I was here I finished the second pass on Sunday (damn me for my lineation) and also finished compiling Something Else: Season 1. For Something, I was able to fit what I had always thought of as the first season into the format: the first twenty-four episodes, the last of which is the one about oneirophilia, part one of the first two-parter. So that was good.

Should be going to press soon on both. Stay tuned.

Ken tried to sing "Old Man River," and then commented that it doesn't work unless sung by a bass. So I gave it a try.

He said, no, that I'm a turkey bass. So it still doesn't work. I said that I was a second bass, so I can hit the notes.

He said, no, turkey bass = white guy.

As promised, I am posting this revelation for the world to see. Or at least the three people who read this site.

This is the convention center, seen from my hotel room window. Ken insists it's the Kirby Museum. I think it looks like one of the fortresses used on the Secret War World.

You be the judge.