Starbucks: Full steam ahead!

• I can't even begin to tell you how elated I am that I have found a comfortable spot to work in London, and how pleased I am that Starbucks is so comfortable all around the world. I used to do a lot of my law school work at Starbucks as a 1L, and I'm sure I owe a rather large chunk of my academic success to their comfy plush chairs and relaxed atmosphere. I love how everywhere you go -- in the entire world -- you can find a pleasant, peaceful, familiar place to "mingle and mix and be."* Critics of corporations be damned; I'm glad Starbucks is taking over the world.
  
  This is all made better by the fact that I signed up for one of those T-Mobile HotSpots, which gives me a reliable high-speed Internet connection at about a billion locations around our Pale Blue Dot. Add Skype and an inexpensive high-quality headset to the mix, and I've got worldwide phone power at about 2.7 cents per minute.
  
  And when I'm done surfing, I can pull out the books and read.
  
  Highly pleasant existence, indeed!
  
  
• JOE (on the television): I sell cheap books. Sue me.
  KEVIN: That's what you said?
  JOE: That's not all I said! I said -- I can't believe those bastards -- I said we were great, I said people can come and sit and read for hours and no one bothers them, I said we stock 150,000 titles, I showed them the New York City section. I said we were a goddamn piazza where people could mingle and mix and be.
  KEVIN: A piazza?
  JOE: I was eloquent. Shit.
  --You've Got Mail