.

"Downtown Buffalo looks like shit," I said.

"Ah, but the women here are beautiful!", he countered.

Born and raised in Buffalo, this dude went to California when he joined the Marines, bounced around the country some, and is now back home, panhandling. We agreed that the economy will get much worse. It was Saturday, so downtown was even deader than usual. I had coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Tim Hortons, the only eatery open for many blocks. The half-dead shopping mall, with its passable foodcourt, was closed. All around us, stores gone out of business.




.