I Claim This Land...

The building next to the Seed offices is being converted into luxury lofts. It took them forever to get the scaffolding down (at least 11 months), but now the lofts are looking very spiffy. Still, half of the first floor is a wreck. The lobby only takes up half the building, which left a sizeable space filled with boards and building block. I wondered if this was going to turn into the boiler room or a storage area or some functional common space for residents. But this week we found out exactly what is to become of the space. Going into the office on Thursday morning, the building looked normal, but when I stepped out for lunch, there it was on the side of the building, just one sign heralding passers-by: Starbucks.

If you turn the right at the corner from my block to Sixth Avenue, there are two Starbuckses (starbuces?) on that block. TWO! On the same block. But that's not enough. We need one right next to our building. Apparently. I have the image of two guys racing down my block toward the empty lot, one with a Starbucks sign and one with a Duane Reade sign. Apparently the Starbucks guy stuck his in the wall first. Ah, me. At least they're also opening a Café Grumpy in Chelsea soon. If it's anything like the Times described it, I'm psyched.

I just saw an ad for Jeanine Pirro's Attorney General campaign. So funny. The message was theoretically the appopriate "Pirro has more experience than Cuomo." OK, fair enough. But it was really "Pirro: Not THAT Republican." The last light of the ad was something like, "For the last bladiblah years I've been protecting women from domestic violence, children from pedophiles and gays from hate crimes." See!? Pirro hearts the gays. This probably rubs me worse than it should because of my personal pet peeve against nouning adjectives that describe people. Gays? Blacks? Not my phrasing of choice.

All right, back to watching the Wolverines slaughter the Irish. Sounds like some twisted version of Roman entertainment...and it more or less is.