This afternoon, on the corner near my house, I noticed a homeless looking guy with a hand cart covered in black plastic bags holed up in the bus shelter in front of the corner coffee shop. Something didn’t look right, and on second glance I saw a cord hanging down from the bus shelter connected to his cart. At first I wondered if he had one of those intravenous bags on wheels. But it turned out he was getting online.

That’s right. Five minutes later, on my way back from the store, I took a closer look. He had plugged in to the light fixture inside the bus shelter with an extension cord, and he had a terribly beat-up flat screen hanging off of his cart. A keyboard lay on his lap as he sat cross legged on the concrete inside the bus shelter. Another keyboard stuck out of his cart. I can only assume he picked that spot because of the free wireless from the cafe behind him.

He also had all the stereotypical hallmarks of a homeless person — beat up clothes, dirty hands, scruffy beard, disheveled hair, tanned skin, and a cart wrapped in ripped black trash-bags. I couldn’t see what was on the screen — it was too bright out. I guess everybody needs their MySpace fix.