No real blogging today. I'm out here in Pasadena for a contract interview, and the interview ended at about 12:30. Hungry. Breakfast was one of those little biscottis at Coffee Bean, and lunch, so far, won't materialize. So I need to drive to the Kosher District.

Now, I know where the Kosher District is. It's at the intersection of W. Pico Robertson. Only I'm in Pasadena, which is practically on the other side of the planet, and have no real sense of LA driving geography. Sure, Pico-Robbie is southwest of here. So is San Diego, and I've got an 8:15 flight home. And I'm hungry. Plus, LA has fabulous kosher restaurants that serve things other than cut-rate Mexican and pizza. Normally, I'm organized enough when I travel that I've got all this sorted out, but this time, no time. I'm doing all this on the fly.

Ten, even five years ago, this would have been annoying beyond belief. Find a place with a phone book. Make change. Make a call to AAA to find out where their local office is. Get directions. Go there and get the map. Ask to use their Yellow Pages, look for "kosher" under "restaurant," call one of them in the area, get their address, and then ask the AAA guys for directions. It's hot, I'm hungry and thirsty and have just spent 3 1/2 hours answering questions about databases and debugging code. I might have been able to stay this side of yelling at the AAA guy who doesn't know the directions.

Ah, but we live in the Internet age. So I plop down, open the wifi, go here to find a restaurant, here to get directions, and I'm on my way. Calling the restaurant on the cell phone to see if they're open seems so passe. And being the optimistic, impatient American that I am, I'm wondering why I can't plug the laptop into my car and have it drive me there.