MLK, Jr. Library, February 13

This week, The Modern Times Coffeehouse has become the first coffee shop in the District to throw down the gauntlet at Wi-Fi loafers: The management has covered up some of the electrical outlets in an attempt to herd its laptop loiterers toward communal tables, where they can still plug in.
This particular gambit was first seen [...]

If you are just tuning to this new WCP series on Internet cafes around the District, let me introduce myself: I am the Wi-Fi loafer on assignment, your faithful correspondent on wired café culture.
Since this is a confessional column I figure you might want to know how I became a Wi-Fi loafer, a café idler [...]

Just in case you missed the inaugural post yesterday, this is the second installment in a new series about “digital nomads,” who wander the District setting up their laptops wherever they can find free Wi-Fi and coffee drinks. Before we delve any deeper, let’s define some basic terminology:

It’s an early Saturday afternoon inside the cozy basement café at Politics & Prose bookstore on Connecticut Avenue NW. I’ve been here awhile – a good long while.
I arrive with my laptop and a yellow legal pad before 10 a.m. and install myself at one of the little tables along the wall that leads to [...]

Don’t you just love it when you get your own anecdote to back up a news story?
Today, an unusual offer arrived in my inbox: a sales pitch for swine flu vaccine. All I’d have to do is send in my contact info. and a major credit card and the cure would arrive in the mail. [...]

Somebody just told me that today was a Federal holiday.
If I had a regular job, I would've spent the day doing this (warning: that's me in the spandex):

Can't watch it? Click here. And for the love of Allah, don't tell me what you did today.

The short answer is "yes."
But first, a disclaimer: I love Slate. Everyone I know loves Slate. I wouldn't be surprised if there were editors out there who used a writer's opinion of Slate as a litmus test for employment. Working in online media demands awareness of the gotten patriarch of web writing (hell–City Paper plugs [...]