Coffee with Mister Sloppy

When I dropped by Mister Sloppy's Centretown lair the other day to wish him a belated happy new year - or whatever passes for "happy" among elite-level evil geniuses - he was frenetically stuffing mailer boxes with gift coffee mugs. Given the guy's "It is Better to Swipe Outright than to Give or Receive" schema, it seemed out of character.

"No, no. Not really," he grinned, blue eyes bright with merriment and the usual insanity. "Didja read that news item the other day? The one about the transatlantic flight making an emergency landing because the pilot spilled coffee?"

Suddenly wary, I eyed the stacks of mugs sporting myriad famous high tech logos, and reached for the Rolaids. Sloppy was up to no good again.

"You, ummm, had something to do with that?" I asked.

"Not a thing! But it gave me a great idea! Every major lab in the world is fueled with caffeine. Heck, I've even been known to abuse the stuff slightly myself, on my own projects! So I just figured, you know, anonymously send all the researchers gift coffee cups with their company logos on 'em."

"Aaaaannnnddd?" I asked. When Mister Sloppy is happy, there's always an "Aaaaannnnddd?"

"Of course there is," he said impatiently, apparently reading my thoughts.

"Creepy," I thought. "I might need to check into that."

"No. You don't," Mister Sloppy said out loud. "It's a whole other thing. Nothing to do with this. Lookit, I'm proud of these. Every science guy in the world takes their coffee cup everywhere. These mugs are my new memory-enhanced nanoceramic. They're programmed at the atomic level to scan nearby computers or test equipment, then transmit a quantum-burst packet of all their data to my stealth server farm. Oh. Then they spill hot coffee on everything and short it out."

"So you're actually stealing...?"

"The sum total of the world's latest research. It's all good!

Maybe for evil geniuses. I declined a complimentary gift mug on the way out. And behind me, Mister Sloppy's laughter echoed like cats fighting in an alley...

Announcement

The Elgin Street Irregulars are pleased to announce* the appointment of the Independent Observer as Director of Italian Affairs. The IO and Audrey, ESI Cultural Liaison Officer, have spent the last few months establishing the blog's world headquarters in Florence.

"My goal is to raise awareness of the ESI brand in Italy," the IO said. "Currently the blog gets three or four hits a month from Italian visitors, most of them winding up here by accident, or attracted by one of Aggie's recipes. With some sustained effort, I can help double or even triple those numbers by the year 2011."

Working from the historic San Lorenzo district, the IO has been busily conducting outreach activities at Osteria Pepo's trattoria and the nearby Dublin Pub.

"It is demanding, difficult work," added the IO when finally reached this week. "But make no mistake, demanding and difficult are my middle names."

* Pending approval at the next Emergency Meeting

Photo: Visits to the resting place of Galileo, also handy with a telescope, will prove inspirational to the IO as he assumes his new duties.