I keep going back to Seattle Cycle, as they've kept me generally pretty happy. Call first and ask the mechanic if the '68 is out of their scope; if it is they'll recommend somebody else, perhaps either Jim's Southend or Twinline Motorcycles, though I don't know either well. Vallantine Motor Works just north of the Aurora bridge is worth checking out -- nobody seems to talk about them much but they've been there for years.

It's good to hear you're feeling frustrated about things, Bailo. Naturally, I deduce that you must be a pretty miserable guy, but don't we all too often take other people's feelings for granted? It's nice to hear you say the words.

With regard to the recent public relations campaign by some atheists, there are those who whine that they're just a little too strident. If only they were 3% less combative, things would be fine. Others say, no, they're too polite. The need to dial the rhetoric up about 3%. And some have written books and articles that are 3% or 5% more strident, and others less so.

So what is the best mass media strategy here? Given that few if any of these people or their followers are actually card-carrying members of anything, and wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would admit them? Who knows? I suppose time will tell.

Are you talking about the technical arguments against religion and/or the existence of god? Refutations of the ontological argument and so on? These things are centuries old. Dawkins and Hitchens and these guys haven't broken any new ground. No academic philosopher is going to keep beating that dead horse.

There are contemporary arguments about whether IRA terrorists are just as much "real" Catholics as Al Qaeda terrorists are "real" Moslems, but that's not actually a philosophical question.

But if anyone does know of an argument for or against that wasn't moldy and stale in the 17th Century I'd love to hear it...

The Australians had sex on the beach waiting for the radioactive fallout to come kill them. Not all Australians. Some planted gardens, some took a class... everyone bides their time in their own way. Some had sex on the beach.

I disagree with all the comments on the supposed advisability of trying to make good espresso drinks at home. Even if the dollars and cents math says you could have equivalent or better drinks at home for less total cost, sitting at home alone having your daily drink is missing the point, and a little depressing.

Pointing out the feelings you get from the ritual of walking to the coffee shop or bakery, interacting with the staff, talking to the other customers, and then enjoying your Americano is not a shitty coffee commercial. It's exactly the kind of authentic experience that advertisers are always hoping to stuff into their commercials. What's shitty about it is the way they cheapen it, by trying to tell everyone that a social ritual can be created artificially with a mass market product, like for example, General Foods International Coffees.

If you feel like the daily cost is getting out of hand, you should save money by going less often. Every other day, or every third day. Drink ordinary coffee (or French press) at home for your caffeine fix but continue to go out for something good, both the drink itself and for the time spent getting there and the process of buying it. Going less often actually heightens the pleasure, since it's less mundane. This is what I've done for the last couple years.

(If we were talking about buying an espresso machine for an office setting, or for a home where you host large fancy dinner parties, that would be a whole other matter...)

It's worth paying $26/year (or $6 for one month) for a subscription to get past the paywall at ConsumerReports.org. They have an extensive buying guide and comparison of dehumidifiers. In particular, the electricity consumption of some models is much higher than others, and you have to select one that is large enough to handle the job.

It's sort of like Seattle's answer to Sully Sullenberger? Only not so New York, with all that East Coast style, you know, not smashing into things and whatever those people do there.

Avoiding hitting the dock altogether is the kind of showoff heroism that those New Yorkers go in for but here in Seattle we like our heroes more... more... Er, what's the word? Not so much more anything, as, less. Yes. Less.