Speaking of familiar strangers, I think I figured out who the familiar person at the LIBARRY is. I might never have guessed if I hadn’t heard his voice, which I remember for being very distinctive, even theater-worthy. The physical resemblance between him and another person I used to see around here is amazing, though. I think this person’s name is Louie. We had exactly one conversation, if you could even call it that. Years ago at Sunswick he walked up to me and yelled something like “LOVE YOUR RECEIPTS!” or “NICE RECEIPTS!” I never had a chance to respond. As soon as he said those magical words he turned and left. I’ll bet every time he sees me now at the library he messages all his friends “OMG THE RECEIPT KING IS IN DA HOUSE!” Hah. Yeah, I bet that’s exactly what happens. I do not detect even a glimmer of recognition from him. I wonder if he still checks my receipts. I most certainly will not ask. I also have a foggy memory of him from years ago as being a regular and at times strident presence on some of the Astoria message boards. I rarely look at those any more.

I was thinking of embedding the receipts into a Flash or some kind of HTML5 app. Is Flash even a thing any more?

I met another person at a bar who knew my receipts. We were talking for several minutes before he realized I was that Mark Thomas who posted his receipts to the Internet. It was through a slightly random stroke that he became aware of this. After we had been talking for a while I introduced myself, saying “My name is Mark.” He replied: “Thomas.” I looked slightly startled. I thought something like “How does he know my last name?” We got a laugh out of it. His first name was Thomas. So that’s how he knew my full name from meeting at a bar, where much of the time you never get past first names. If his first name hadn’t been Thomas he might never have realized just what caliber of receipts-based celebrity he was dealing with.

I’m still friends with someone else I met at that bar who, well into our first conversation, asked me “Have you ever heard of a web site called ‘The Payphone Project?'” I swear I did not bring up the subject of payphones, though it is possible I steered conversation to the subject of telephones in general. I do not remember anymore how the conversation led to this person asking me if I had ever heard of my own web site.

Yeah, I’m big time famous.

Another weird coincidence of that sort was when I met a guy who used to work at a company that distributed parts for trucks — stuff like rooftop sirens and conspicuity tape. Even after he told me he had worked in truck supplies it did not jog my memory that I had once built a web site for a company in Indiana that sold and distributed truck parts. This person did not work for that company but he used their web site every day, saying that one particular calculator was incredibly helpful in his daily work. Guess what? I wrote the code for that calculator. That was pretty damn random. This person had moved to New York from Texas to work at a place in LIC that produced and distributed airplane parts. In Texas he lived and worked in a tiny town, and it was there that he used my calculator every day. So strange.

So I left the Broadway library thinking I might follow that old guy a little more. But I did not. I didn’t have to. I went in to the Salvation Army store and there he was. I saw him exit the store and stop at all the trash cans, picking through their garbage. Then I let him go. He seemed to have recognized me at the Salvation Army from our mini stare-off at the library. Nothing surprising about that. If I kept following after him the likelihood that he would notice would increase tremendously. I am not stalking the guy. I was just curious to know something, just a shred of context about this person I’ve seen around and recognized for so many years.

I am at the other library, on 21st Street and 38th Avenue. I might actually make this my regular place, and forsake the Broadway location. As for simply being a library that Broadway location does not seem to have much going for it. Did they get rid of the microfilm machines? I think they did. I used to love wading through old newspapers on those things, though my subscription to newspapers.com pretty well makes up for that. Walking distance from home to here is probably about the same, though I have to go through Ravenswood and/or sketchy stretches of AsLIC to get here. This library seems to be generally less crowded than the Broadway one. It is also relatively squeaky clean and new. Or I could re-establish the mighty Rose Reading Room as my not-at-home place. Seriously would need noise canceling headphones, though, if I intend to spend half or whole days at any of these places. I saw someone at the Broadway branch today wearing Bose. I think I would go with Sony. More expensive but built better.

OK, this is a fascinating text ramble. Hah. I am going home to attack the piano, or something. I don’t like being in my apartment now that I have neighbors who think I am an asshole. If they do not think I am an asshole then they should.