October 29, 2005
When, driving home from work the other day, I noticed that downtown Baltimore’s first Starbucks (well, not counting the ones inside Harborplace, Barnes & Noble, the Radisson, and the convention center…) had opened just a few blocks from my apartment building, I was admittedly excited (while I don’t drink coffee, I am addicted to Tazo passion tea). The next day, though, I was even more surprised that the long-advertised-never-opened coffee shop that’s had “now hiring” signs in the windows for months has finally opened their doors. Peace and a Cup of Joe is small, cute, and very friendly.
I stopped by on Saturday morning around 10:30, and the tiny (but cozy) lounge area up front seemed relatively full with four people in it. The benefit of being small, of course, is that not many people have to stop by in order for the joint to look positively hoppin’. The inside was better-decorated and a lot more put together than I was expecting. And fortunately for my dopamine levels, but unfortunately for my waistline, there was a small display case full of sweet things I have no business ordering, along with pre-made sandwiches, salads, juices and everything else you’d expect.
The folks at Peace are pretty smart; they’ve used Starbucks’ tactics in order to compete with them. While Starbucks completely aped the trendy coffeehouse vibe, Peace copies the things you like about Starbucks (right down to sizing the drinks “tall,” “grande” and “venti”) while staying totally competitive on price. My grande Café Mocha and a blondie (I never said I had willpower) totaled $5 and change, about what you’d expect to pay at That Other Coffee Place Down the Street.
The people working behind the counter were really, really friendly, albeit just a little bit tentative working with the checkout. No worries; they’ve been open less than a week. They’ll have it down in no time.
I noticed the shop has an upstairs, but I didn’t ask about what’s up there. It may be storage space, it may be more seating or even a meeting room. It’s fun to speculate.
All in all, while unfortunately parking in the area is a little bit rough, if you live in the Ridgeley’s Delight area, an unfortunate resident of the Sail Cloth Factory, or you spend your days at UMB, definitely stop by Peace and give them a shot. The coffee’s hot, the sweets are sweet, and you get the smug satisfaction of not buying your caffeine delivery system from The Man.
October 22, 2005
Those unfortunate enough to be regular readers might recall my previous problems with Wachovia Bank. When we last visited this sadistic corporation, I had dealt with inept customer service reps, bogus fees, and charges for services I didn’t order. After sorting all that out, I attempted to close my account, but was told that doing so would incur a $20 “early cancellation” fee for closing my account less than six months after I opened it.
The bigger problem, I’d think, is having customers that want to cancel their accounts so quickly after opening them—but that point would likely be lost on our friends at Walk-all-ovah-ya.
At any rate, I resolved to withdraw all the money I could from the account and just let it sit there until I could cancel it for free in February. That was the plan, anyway, until I received this today:
Ostensibly because I hadn’t used the thing in three months, Wachovia took it upon themselves to close the account for me, and take every last cent I had in it—fortunately, only 704 cents—as a “loss management research fee,” what the fuck ever that is.
I hope my $7.04 really contributes something to Wachovia’s bottom line, because it will be a cold day in hell before I ever use their banks or ATMs again.
Update: There’s really nothing more fulfilling to me than seeing the entries from wachovia.com in my visitor logs. Keep ‘em coming, guys.
October 18, 2005
It happens. This lady sounds really nice, though.
Mattcast 051018: “I’m sorry…”
October 18, 2005
It’s both contextually misleading and grammatically incorrect. I salute the team at WMAR for their ceasless1 pursuit of excellence in journalism.
1 That was intentional.
October 12, 2005
I love my friends, but I don’t know if I’d love them as much if they didn’t treat me so bad. Mattcast 051012: “Jon, don’t call him that!”
October 8, 2005
Podcasting is all the rage, and it’s hard for me to imagine a significant, or at least trendy, technology getting started without myself on board. I hate the sound of my voice, and don’t particularly have anything to say anyway, so I’ve decided I’ll let others do the talking for me.
Introducing Mattcasting, in which I publish my saved voicemails, as well as any other audio my friends send me, whether they’ve authorized it or not, to my web site and XML feed. Here we go.
Mattcast 051008: Shep Thinks We’re Good People
October 7, 2005
The woman who boarded the green line train I was riding on Saturday afternoon seemed like a perfectly sweet older lady. When she pulled out her coffee and danish, I supposed to myself that she was probably a diabetic and therefore earned herself a special, if not legal, dispensation to eat and drink on Metro. If she hadn’t seemed so nice, I probably would have taken pleasure out of hating her when she dropped her coffee, got up to retrieve it, and then held it over the man sitting in front of her, not realizing that coffee was pouring out of the styrofoam cup and onto the man’s windbreaker. Usually I really enjoy loathing people who do things like that, but when she did it, I could only feel bad that she’d lost her breakfast.
* *
Last night, there was a fairly loud accident outside my building. With the intersection as formidable as it is, I was surprised that I hadn’t seen or heard many wrecks. There is a lot of horn-honking and tire-screeching, but few wrecks. In the past two weeks, I have seen a completely overturned van, a surprisingly-not-dead bicyclist hit by a car, and this latest fender-bender all in what seemed to be nearly identical accidents. I have stopped using that road on my way home.
* *
When I e-mailed MTA two weeks ago regarding an opening date for the Woodberry light rail stop, I was quoted a date of November 1 (pushed back from the original “early fall.” The MTA Web site now promises “mid-December.” I am beginning to think I’ll be lucky if it opens before my lease runs out in April.
