Allow me to recommend Perfecto Coffeehouse, Grilled Cheese and Co; also, allow me to re-recommend Catonsville Engine and Transmission.

I have had a very stressful past two days, what with the death of my car. Yesterday, as a self-care activity, I went to Perfecto Coffeehouse, which is within easy walking distance of my house in Mount Clare, Baltimore. It's a new place, and I think they're still working out the kinks. I had ordered an iced mocha and a waffle. The waffle was a stunning deal at $3; it wasn't a huge Belgian waffle, but it had a delicious batter. I got mine with fruit (strawberries and mango) and whipped cream. I also got an iced mocha, but it wasn't very mocha-ey; the mocha syrup pump had gotten clogged. As an iced latte, it was fine; the mocha syrup pump was the same Ghirardelli syrup that I'd seen elsewhere. Seating was limited; there were only six tables: four inside, one on the patio, and one on the sidewalk. There wasn't any competition for my seat at 7 PM; I don't know what it would be like at other times of day. I had a great time reading while bohemians from Gallery 788 (warning: tacky MySpace site) bohem'ed through. I stopped by Gallery 788 on my way home; they have an opening the first Thursday of each month. I thought the art was pretty boring.

Warning: Do not go to Wilkens Service Center at the corner of Wilkens and Monroe. They completely misdiagnosed my engine problem; I hereby cast aspersions on their professionalism and insight.

I wanted a pleasant break while waiting for a diagnosis from my trusted mechanic. A mere block away is Grilled Cheese and Co, which opened a mere three months ago. It's a grilled-cheese-centric sandwich shop. I got The Fresco and I was delighted. I have had to have my car towed twice, my schedule had been completely ruined, I am out of fruit, and I had left my MacBook in the lab, so I couldn't work on my research. The sandwich helped me forget the suffering. I also had shoestring fries, which were pleasant. Grilled Cheese and Co was founded by Vic Corbi and Matt Lancelotta; Vic Corbi is related to Joe Corbi of Joe Corbi's pizza, so I guess it's a cheese thing. Jazz music is played; I was delighted to hear "Baby, It's Cold Outside" on a July afternoon.

I would like to remind you of my recommendation of Catonsville Engine and Transmission, an excellent, trustworthy mechanic. They confirmed that my car is dead, but have been great sports about helping me make burial arrangements.

Allow me to recommend Markdown

John Gruber and Aaron Swartz's Markdown is a plain and open tool for making blogging and other webby things easy and fun. It lets you represent the most common HTML tags that would be used in day-to-day web writing as intuitive punctuation. For example, instead of linking to Markdown by writing

<a href="http://daringfireball.net/
         projects/markdown/">Markdown</a>

I write

[Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/
           projects/markdown/)

I think the simplest way to use it on a Mac is to copy Markdown text to the clipboard, then run the following script:

#!/bin/bash
pbpaste|~/handyscripts/Markdown.pl|pbcopy

A marked-down copy of your text will then be on the clipboard. I pop up Launchbar to call the script in a jiffy, and using a clipboard with history helps manage the whole mess.

SizeUp

Allow me to recommend SizeUp. It's a Mac app that lets you manage your windows without using a mouse. It's super-cheap, you can name your price, as low as $3 for a license. There's a free demo. I use two monitors, and use SizeUp to bounce windows from one to another. This is very handy when I'm writing on my primary screen and have a reference or figures on the secondary screen. I love being able to put windows side-by-side, pixel-perfect, in just a couple of keystrokes.

I think the most pedantic use I have for SizeUp is that I don't want my maximized windows to go all the way to the dock, I want to leave a strip of exposed desktop so that I can bounce files around easily. I don't like thinking about where to save files when I save them, I save everything to the desktop, and then file everything a couple of times a week. This way, I don't hit speed-bumps with thinking about organization when I'm doing creative work.

Also, I keep my dock on the side of the screen. Rows of about eighty characters are optimum for readability, so I prefer tall, narrow windows. Most apps don't respect that, but SizeUp obeys me and beats unruly apps on my behalf.

SizeUp lets me resize and position windows automatically so that I don't have to fiddle a lot.

Goggles4u.com

Allow me to recommend Goggles4u.com. A week and a half ago, I went to my physician to follow-up on my Lexapro experiments. I mentioned that I'd had problems with headaches, she suggested that I see an optometrist. I went to the nearest Wal-Mart vision care center, put down $65 and got a check-up. I'd thought I'd had above-average vision, but it turns out that I have astigmatism in my right eye.



Ever since then, I've been winking my left eye to see if my vision gets blurrier. I was amazed that I'd not noticed before, I look out of these eyes every day, and I think it's crazy that I couldn't notice that the right one was fuzzy. I'd heard that I could get glasses for super-cheap on the Internet, so I asked the optometrist for a prescription and for my pupillary distance (PD). The cheapest pair of glasses from Wal-Mart would have cost $40.

I checked out Glassy Eyes for reviews and headed to Goggles4u. After some fashion advice from my image consulting group, I chose a pair, took a picture of my prescription with my Palm Centro. A week later, my glasses arrived in the mail. They only cost $29, and have anti-scratch, anti-UV, and anti-reflective coatings, included for free—Wal-Mart would have charged extra for those. All frames are $13. I opted for the cheapest lenses, $17 for your choice of plastic or glass, but fancier lens materials are available, too. Shipping is free.

I am absolutely delighted by these glasses and will likely never purchase glasses from a brick-and-mortar store.

Tips:

1. If you get headaches a lot for no obvious reason, go to the optometrist. It's worth a shot.
   
2. If your optometrist prescribes classes, ask for the prescription; your optometrist is required by law to give it to you.
3. Also, ask for your pupillary distance. You can measure it yourself, but optometrists have a special gadget for this that's easier and more accurate.
4. Use the "GlassyEyes" promo code when ordering from Goggles4u for a 5% discount.
5. If you wear glasses, measure your old pair to get a good fit on a new pair online. This is my first pair of glasses, so I measured my favorite sunglasses, and am delighted with the fit.
   

Catonsville Engine and Transmission

Allow me to recommend Catonsville Engine and Transmission, at the intersection of Edmondson Avenue and Harlem Avenue in Catonsville, run by Rose and Matt, a wonderful married couple. They're a remarkably good mechanic, they understand that it's better to treat a customer well and have their happy business for years than to be shady to get a quick buck.

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One time, by mistake, I was triple-billed for an oil change. (I was there when the mistake took place; the person who normally works the register wasn't there, and the machine was clearly not working correctly.) Even so, a month later, when I brought the problem up as I was going in for a major repair, they took a hundred dollars off of my bill instead of just the forty-five dollars I was owed.

Another time, my gear shifter wasn't working quite properly. Matt told me I could either have the problem fixed perfectly for one price, or I could have a jury rig that was still perfectly safe, just less pretty, for one third the cost. I went for the proper repair, but I'm glad to know that I'm not going to wander into their shop only to have them invent three more problems to get a bigger bill.

Whenever I bring my car in with a problem, they take the time to show me what parts need replacing and to explain how they work.

They sometimes give discounts to students and regular customers. They're on the UMBC Shuttle Catonsville line, so they're very accessible for UMBC students.

I have friends, a married couple, who take their cars to Catonsville Engine and Trans as well. They've been given complimentary towing. They thought that Rose just managed the books, until she rebuilt the transmission on one of their cars.

When my roommate drove me to Catonsville Engine and Trans, I was telling him about how much I favor them. When we actually got there, he was surprised, because the place looks run down, the parking lot is crowded and poorly paved, the garage is an old warehouse. I'd forgotten how off-putting the appearance is, because the quality of service is so good.

I'm not generally in favor of keeping mom-and-pop businesses in business. Yes, Barnes and Noble has less character than a local bookstore, but I am more likely to find what I'm looking for there. Aside from restaurants and coffee shops, Catonsville Engine and Trans is the only local business that I would miss if they were put out of business by a chain.

You can call them at 410-744-4822.