What does it mean? That 14-digit number stamped on the bottom of most paper cups deployed at this place of work? The number is always the same, but not always present. A fresh batch of cups is numberless on its buttockular surface. Why go to the trouble of stamping every single one in one batch when the number appears naught in other batches? Why have it at all if it’s not always present?
Eh, I don’t care. Just putting that number up for grabs in case searchies still find this site and someone else asks the question about the mysterious serial number. In fact why don’t I look it up right now. Maybe there is a cult of fascination about this number, and maybe its meaning runs deeper than identifying which machine at which facility produced the cups, which is likely all it means. Is there greater meaning? A message being sent? A question for the ages?
Interesting. The big G has nothing for that number. Let the cult of 14229042720556 start here, then. I can already read a message that might be intended for me, the beginnings of a message. 1422, which opens this string of numbers, was the room number of my first solo accommodation in New York. Room 1422 at the Parc Lincoln, where I stayed for few weeks or maybe months before taking the cheaper and less luxurious 317.
From there I find a 904 area code, reminding me of the friends and payphones I used to call in that and other Florida area codes.
From there it peters out. I don’t know about 2720 or 556.
…
The morning sun messed up my routine. Does this mean it will be dark early? I guess it does. I prefer going to work in the dark, as the sun rises. Today, after the daylight savings time switcheroo, it was all the way daylight before I even got into the shower. I’d become happily accustomed to showering in near total darkness, with light coming from a lamp in the bedroom across the hall. Light also came from the so-called “Disco Spigot,” a light-emitting tchotchke I got at a 99-cent shop. It’s a regular filter type thing you put on the sink but it glows with multi-colored beams of light, providing enough light to let me navigate the darkness.
But that’s wasteful of water and, surprisingly, I found that leaving it on for a minute or longer could cause the spigot to make honking noises and other strangenesses. I don’t even know what is in that thing that causes the light but I don’t need it blowing up on me. It’s all fun and games until the Disco Spigot turns into a flamethrower.
I spent some of yesterday touring the Times Square and Port Authority subway complex, confirming that all but one payphone has been routed. Big surprise. Only surprise is that it took so long to get rid of those non-functioning eyesores. Their only purpose was to hold my Payphone Radio cards.
Word is also out about the Link5G beasts, now that the NY Times has written about it. I should post to the payphone site about this, but no one really cares about what I say on that site, so I don’t bother.
A key point they skipped about Link5G is why, exactly, do they have to be placed so prominently on the sidewalk? Why couldn’t they stuff them on rooftops or on top of streetlights or telephone poles?
The answer is because the franchise agreement requires that the devices provide free phone calls and other services through the tablet device. Further to that, if initial designs are followed, it will also be necessary to slap advertising panels on some of these towers, making them even uglier than they already are. You can’t really do all that, with the tablet and the ad screens, by simply placing a transmitter on high.
The Times article also seems to gloss over the complete failure of LinkNYC, but then what difference does it make anyway? Failing up knows no limits. Fail to the skies.
…
My silly flirtation with the cute Asian cashier failed to materialize this AM, but the lunch hour encounter awaits. On Friday she caught me looking around for her. She thought it was cute, or at least that’s my interpretation of how she smiled at me.
I have another prospect, closer to home. Maybe too much for me, though. Too perfect. I’ve tried to be present at times I know she normally would be, and it’s worked a few times but not lately. One shocker found my fearsome ex-gf sitting at the bar. I had not seen her in person for years.
I did not know when I started frequenting this place that it has a reputation for being safe for women. Safe to sit alone at the bar. Not all bars are like that, especially the older ones, where a wise man once told me “Beware, young man, of a woman who sits alone at the bar.’
That is some pretty old school advice, I think. But it still applies in some establishments.
But it makes sense the fearsome ex would gravitate to a place with that reputation. After our breakup she was a regular at the gay bar located basically right across the street from where she lives. Straight women like gay bars because they feel safer there. Or so I’m told. I don’t go to gay bars because when I do I always get fucked in the ass.
Speaking of getting it in the ass I finally get a colonoscopy next week. I hadn’t exactly put it off, but with Covid it seemed like a procedure that could wait. They still require a negative Covid test from the day before.
It turns out a friend of mine has been the local colonoscopy escort of choice. I’ll be escorted by a veritable professional. I’m not sure the escort is required. I don’t think they put you out as thoroughly as when I had the teeth pulled. That was memorable.
