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I drink so much coffee, ‘til I grind it in my sleep
I drink so much coffee, I grind it in my sleep
And when it get like that, you know it can’t be beat.
To quote an friend who is an old Marine, if the coffee can't sit up in the mug and slap you, it isn't really worthy of the name of coffee.
I want it to float a ship. What kind of ship depends on my mood that day. (Actually I drink tea. No sugar, strong.)
Anybody here ever been to a press check? Ever had printer's coffee? That stuff needs to be CHEWED. Plus, it has lovely notes of ink in its heady aroma...and it is best quaffed at 3 a.m.
Good times. Kinda.
Aaahhh, coffee.
As long as this is an Open Thread: Safari and Vanity Fair Do Not Play Well Together; I've had to use Firefox. (For those of you interested in Mob Studies, there is a fascinating article on Arnold Rothstein by Nick Tosches; I will dredge up the URL once I've pulled up Firefox.)
One time, way back when, my family went off on a week's camping vacation, and no one remembered to unplug and empty the electric coffeepot that still had a good half-pot or more simmering away.
Got back from vacation, and found that the contents had condensed down into a thick syrup, about a cup's worth. Waste not, want not, so Dad poured it into a cup and added a splash of evaporated milk.
(This was before Coffee-Mate or other artificial creamers, so in lieu of real cream, one used evaporated milk, from a can punctured on the far side with a church key to make a pour spout.) (The topic of "church key art", using a can opener to cut cans into decorative or useful items, is one for another post.)
That splash of milk hit that coffee, sank briefly, then floated to the top, curdled into a twisted lump.
But since Dad had been a Navy guy, he drank it anyway.
Speaking of Vanity Fair, D @ 4...
Every time my wife goes to James Wolcott's site (*) from her computer (which runs on Windows XP), it starts displaying its contents then it shuts her Internet Explorer session completely. I don't know if there's some IE setting that needs to be changed. Or maybe it's something in her Norton Internet Security. This started when his column moved back to Vanity Fair's site.
Any ideas?
(*) http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott
OK. Here it is.
The Wolcott piece (see previous post) was pretty good, too. Vanity Fair's long essays would lead me to subscribe, if the rest of the mag were not instant recycling--several months ago they ran an article on the early history of surfing; there really was a Gidget.
I like my coffee black. Like my humor.
Thanks, D... I'm curious about whether or not that link will make my wife's Internet Explorer act up too. Now on to yet another cup of coffee.
"Real programmers drink real coffee."
Serge @ 6:
I suspect some kind of weirdness in their HTML, but I haven't looked at that yet (it doesn't shut down Safari; it just mucks up the screen display). Security software might be the problem, though.
One thing I noticed, D, is that, while I have no problem getting to Wolcott from my own computer, I can't cut/paste the text into an email for later reading.
Can I cut you a slice of coffee, Sergeant?
Steve... Remember Ava Gabor's coffee on Green Acres?
#9: You're welcome.
#5: I had to laugh. (I remember evaporated milk and the wadded-up wedges of waxed paper one inserted in the church-key holes, but the last time I used it [not counting Vietnamese coffee], it was Not As I Remembered.)
You're not drinking enough coffee, if you can still sleep.
OK, so when I pull up "View Source" I get what I would get if it were displaying properly.
Perhaps the Javascript (pardon the pun) is creating the problem.
Oh, and #8: *Snort*
Serge, as I remember it was somthing akin to sludge. But it's been a while.
D (#4), I can read Vanity Fair just fine with Safari. What happens when you try?
Steve @ 17... Eva Gabor's coffee was indeed akin to sludge - with cool molasse thrown in, I'd say, from the way it reluctantly crept out of the coffee pot.
D @ 16... "view source"? Forgot about that. I'll try it tonight.
The first cup of coffee recapitulates phylogeny.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine only I set my mind in motion.
One variant, at least.
As long as you don't get it in the Forbidden City: Chinese brewhaha: Campaign to oust Starbucks from Beijing's Forbidden City is heating up.
Avram @ 18: I get the Vanity Fair banner in mid-page with the page's bottom off to the right. There's an east/west scroll, but no north/south. If I play with it, I sometimes get more, but that's always the screen I get.
(In William Kienzle's mysteries, Father Koesler's coffee repelled hardened policemen.)
Just wandered over to the break room to do some research.
There are six airpots there, of which only one or two (Sumatran and Columbian) are filled on a regular basis.
Occasionally someone makes a pot of Decaf; a little less often, someone gets bored and brews one of the flavored coffees.
There are three types of "pre mixed" non-dairy creamer, plus one or two types of the powdered stuff. This muck is essentially edible tempera paint; fortunately, there is a dispenser with one of those little buckets of Half & Half.
Three types of sweetener.
A dozen types of tea. Hot cider and hot chocolate mix up in the cabinets.
Two posters asking people who've emptied a pot to make a new one. I created one of them:
If you use up a pot of coffee, please make a new one.
Or we send the clown after you
(This is a decaffeinated post.)
I'd like to spend Saturday at Boskone with a small group of local friends that includes a 3-year old. The logistics of commuting to the con all look workable, except for the problem of "where can the child nap in the early afternoon?" Are any of you Boston fans with young children (or limited stamina) facing similar problems, so this is a solved problem I just don't know about? Or are you traveling from afar, and you have a quiet hotel room, part of which you can lend or sublet to a small napper and a supervising adult?
We can offer baked goods, a soft sculpture dragon, or cash. Without the nap, we don't expect a halfway-civilized preschooler in the late afternoon and evening, so this is really important. We're trying to avoid the level of profound exhaustion that lets a person fall asleep in a crowded consuite or elevator lobby, because this particular child goes through hours of being short-tempered and unhappy on the way to being that tired.
Stefan @ 25: I may need to borrow that image for a sign exhorting my offspring to clean up their room. Perhaps simply printing and framing it would do--then I could threaten to bring it out and hang it on the wall whenever their living space slips below minimal hygienic standards.
*residual shudder*
Redmolly, if you want to scare the kids into cleaning up, get a poster of Tim Curry as the evil clown from Stephen King's "It".
About 3 weeks ago my body started reacting really strongly to my one morning coffee (true, it was Peet's French Roast)-- jitters, etc. I tried half-decaf, half-caffeinated -- same old, same old. So I switched to decaf. I miss the caffeine, I gotta say, but it's not too bad. And it means that I can now have a cup of java in the evening without worrying about whether or not I'm going to be able to fall asleep...
Flavored coffee is an abomination. I say this having recently tried Godiva chocolate coffee.
15 years ago I worked for a local coffee roaster/manufacturer. We sold a ton of flavored coffees (chocolate, macadamia nut), but we occasionally misfired. For a while there we had a pallet of Lilikoi-flavored coffee sitting in the warehouse. Worst taste imaginable.
What the heck is Lilikoi? Koi, like the fish?
Another decaffeinated comment: a friend of mine was looking for genre titles that deal with or mention what philosophy/social theory/etc look like in the future, and I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head. Does anybody have some ideas?
Looking for a picture of one of those old evaported milk can openers, the ones that made a spout in the old round-edged cans, I found instead a company that sells post-WWI reproduction military rations for re-enactors and historical displays. Apparently, they contain real edible food. The WWII instant coffee ration contains about 1 ounce, which they claim is "enough to keep caffeined up for an entire weekend." Don't know about that. I think one ounce of instant makes about 5 cups, which is not enough for me on a weekend.
Still haven't found the spout-making can opener (though I could go home and find mine), but I found a number of other styles on e-bay.
Now I think I'll open my fresh can of Jittery Joe's coffee (sundown blend, ground Friday) and inhale. Ahhhhh... It's off to the coffee pot.
#26: According to Boskone's list of area hours, their babysitting facilities are available from 12:45pm to 5:15pm on Saturday afternoon. I've never been to Boskone. (This will be my first year going.) So I don't know any more than this. Sorry.
If you're planning on getting a Boskone membership for your child though, this looks like an option.
"...Marvel Studios announced today that it has signed on Academy Award® winner Gwyneth Paltrow to join the cast of the highly-anticipated summer 2008 event film Iron Man. Paltrow will take on the role of Virginia "Pepper" Potts, personal secretary and confidant to Tony Stark aka Iron Man. The film is slated to hit theaters May 2, 2008. (...) Paltrow joins a star-studded cast for Marvel Entertainment's first self-financed and produced feature film, which also includes Oscar® nominees Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and Terrence Howard as Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes, Stark's best friend. Jon Favreau is set to direct..."
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark? What's next? Will Ferrel as Captain America?
Xopher, it's a fruit. Yellow Passion fruit, to be exact. Tastes good on a plate with mango and papaya, tastes awful as a coffee flavor.
AH. Thank you. Yes, coffeeizing that sounds like a waste of good fruit. *ducks hail of Starbucks™ cups*
I tend to have expensive tastes where it comes to coffee. On our honeymoon Marilee and I bought a pound of Wallensford Estate Blue Mountain from Capricorn Coffees in San Francisco -- for $30. This was more than 25 years ago when the quality of Blue Mountain had not been affected by the push for quanitity to ship to Japan. We stretched that pound for months and gave the last bit to a friend who opened the first coffee house of some quality here. He brewed it for himself -- and we never had to pay for coffee again at his shop. (Capricorn had been the only source of the real stuff on the west coast for some time. To their credit they stopped importing Blue Mountain once the quality dissappeared. They are worth a visit south of Market, especially if they are roasting at the time.)
On the other hand, my ancestors were merchants, ranchers and railroad men in and around San Antonio. While railroad coffee had a strong reputation (as thick and black as axle grease) boiled trail coffee is what I heard about, and finally experienced. (Drink seems inadequate.) Fill up the traditional four quart tinware coffee pot with cold water and place on the fire. When it boils dump in a level double handful of ground coffee, and bring back to a boil. An eggshell is a traditional addition at this point as well. (The traditional brand of course is Arbuckles Ariosa and there is a company that claims to have brought it back, but you can use the corporate descendant of Arbuckles -- Maxwell House.) Move to near but not on the fire, throw in a little cold water to help the grounds settle, and wait a couple of minutes. Powerful stuff.
Remember, pour carefully so the grounds don't get stirred up, and you don't want to drink this to the last drop. The last cup or so in the pot is perfect for helping put out the cook fire, or for taking the hair off cowhide.
#27: Go ahead and use the picture for personal use.
I'm seriously thinking of doing a little photoshop work to make it look like the stuffed clown in actually gripping the knife in its hand, then making a commercial "make the coffee" poster.
I have another version of the poster using a different photo, one that used to be up on Lilek's newspaper photo archives site. It shown an OLD clown. A really scary wrinkled decrepit clown of the sort that makes wee kids challenge the carrying capacity of their Huggies.
Decaffeinated, I think: the current Google ads I'm seeing on the front page, and where else could you find this set?
Top Agents Seek Authors
Hottest New Sock Yarn
Premium Russian Yarns
Usborne-Books.com (USA)
Free Sam Hamster Cage
and the 'see more ads' ads:
Self Publishing
Publish My Book
How to Publish a Book
Sock Yarn Patterns
Alpaca Yarn
re @23: a picture of The Forbidden Starbucks. 'at least there is not one at the Cappusin Monastery. Yet.'
Lizzy L @29,
Consider switching to decaf. tea, or a low-caffeine green tea: it is darn good for you. (look up EGCG or Theanine in Pubmed. Coffee just doesn't have results like "Green tea extract reverses the despair behaviour in reserpinised* and diabetic mice")
* depressed mice, given the depressant reserpine.
If you haven't looked at Chris Clarke's Completely Innocent Photoshop™ Tutorial, honest, you really should.
@Mark (#33):
A.E Van Vogt's The World of Null-A ?
Assimov's Foundation ? (I'm thinking psychohistory, but it's been so long since I read the thing I don't really remember)
Barjavel's The Ice People ? (I'm stretching a bit here, all right, this is a past futuristic society)
@Claude Muncey (#39):
Woohoo ! A way of making coffee I haven't tried yet. Thanks a lot for that.
Anyone here besides me ever been diagnosed with caffeine overdose ?
Caffeine overdose, MD(squared)? I know I get a slight headache if I go without caffeine over the weekend.
Serge @ #36 re: Iron Man
At least Robert Downey Jr. can act. And Jon Favreau is enough of a geek that I am inclined to trust him. For now.
I'm still wondering about the Star Trek XI rumors. Here's the latest blurbs, if you're interested.
Diagnosed? No. Up all night grinding my teeth and listening to my heart gallop wildly, convinced that I was going to die to the point of writing a farewell letter? Yes.
And yes, I have a four-pack of Red Bull and a four-pack of Rockstar Juiced in my fridge...
While living in southwestern Louisiana, I worked in an office that employed a mix of native Louisianans and out-of-state transplants like myself. I could always tell when one of the natives had made the pot of coffee that morning: even if held up to a strong light, the brew would be opaque. Transplants made translucent coffee, much to the disgust of the natives.
The only brand I ever drank while there, whether in the office or in homes or in restaurants, was Community Coffee. I don't know why the grocery stores bothered selling any other brand. It was good, though; I missed it after I moved away.
Thanks for the Star Trek links, Tania. From the looks of it, it won't be a reboot of the whole thing. I'd have prefered if they had take that approach. It certainly didn't hurt James Bond any.
As for Downey Jr.... You're right. Let's see what he does As for Favreau, he is a comic-book lover so he's less likely to screw up. If he does, that won't be on purpose. (Must have been interesting, having him, Ben Affleck and Michael Clark Duncan together in Daredevil, what with all three being comic-book people.)
Oh, and coffee. I'm not the greatest coffee drinker. Love the smell, but I don't drink it very often. What I don't understand is the mocha appeal. Blech. I like chocolate. I don't dislike coffee. But together - yuk. I know I'm in the minority here, but does anyone else experience this?
Coffee and mocha, Tania? I'm with you.
Yup, diagnosed. Trembling + Nausea + Slight aural hallucinations + Inability to stop thinking. At first the doctors tought I was on (other kinds of) drug. It seems it was just the result of lack of sleep/insufficient eating and lots, lots and lots of very strong coffee over a very short period of time (that's where trying to get an education when you have two jobs can get you).
I just realised the "²" character isn't on qwerty keyboards. Damn... talk about pestering people without realizing.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moves "Doomsday" clock forward by two minutes to 11:55.
Coffee + a pinch of chocolate made in a depression coffee maker with Evian water can save some arabicas if they've been held on for too long and have become a bit too sour because of oxidation.
Anyway, I wouldn't really to mix the two in any other way to tell the truth.
Generally, toying around with different type of waters can be pretty rewarding (very strong tar pit like robusta + Hepar via an espresso pot is an experience in itself, though I wouldn't necessarily recommand it)
MD² #52: but they can type it with ²
MD² (44): New ways to brew coffee, eh? Have you tried the Toddy Cold Water Coffee System? I got one for Christmas. Basically, you combine a whole pound of ground coffee with nine cups of cold water and let it sit for 12 hours. Then you drain off about five cups of highly concentrated, low-acid coffee extract. To make a cup of coffee, you combine three parts hot water with one part extract.
Because the extract is so low in volatile acids, it'll keep up to two weeks in the fridge with no loss in flavor. It tastes better than automatic drip (IMO), and it's great for coffee-on-demand, a cup at a time. It's so low in acid, I notice I no longer get the sour stomach that lets me know when I've had too much coffee. Sure, it can't compare to, say, real espresso, but for the morning eye-opener I really like it.
The actual process is a bit more involved than brewing a pot in the Mr. Coffee, but you only have to do it once a week or so.
Stefan Jones @25: [I created this poster] asking people who've emptied a pot to make a new one:
If you use up a pot of coffee, please make a new one. Or we send the clown after you
This reminded me of this BoingBoing post where posters were placed to remind people to contribute to the coffee fund. When the poster had eyes, contributions went up.
I'll confess to flavored coffee here, which I just made. You see, somebody left some Godiva Vanilla Hazelnut coffee on spouse's desk sometime during the holiday festivities, and it made its way home before anyone figured out it was coffee, not chocolate. So I, who can occasionally tolerate such stuff, am using it for afternoon coffee during this icy period, accompanied by panforte. (Normally this time of afternoon would find me at one of several coffeehouses, medium-size latte at my side.)
I get bulk Italian Roast coffee and use it in the expresso machine (the type Starbucks sells but not bought from them) for breakfast lattes. I tend to make them a bit strong (quantity of beans, *and* amount of coffee vs milk).
On the mocha front: nothing better for studying Latin than a large mocha made with Guittard chocolate and lots of whipped cream. Too bad the purveyor turned into a Diesel store some years back.
I cannot believe I actually typed "expresso". The fact that the x is just below the s is absolutely *no* excuse. And then that I missed it on preview. (Abases self yet again.) Espresso, espresso, espresso ...
Howard Peirce (#56):
Rooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhh ! I need to get myself one of those. Just for the insterest of experimentation, of course.
Thanks a lot.
joann (#59): "expresso" is what American tourists abroad ask about when trying to get on a faster train. (I'm re-watching Amazing Race 2 on GSN while waiting for All-Stars to start....)
Joann: You were being influenced by the French construction "café express." Weren't you, now?
I haven't been on the Drag in too long--I don't remember what turned into Diesel. Then again, I've never forgiven Strfcks for destroying Les Amis.
TexAnne: Quack's. As to French influence, the Italian is supposed to be a *lot* stronger these days.
Coffee. Ugh. Only in the past couple years have I been able to walk into a coffeehouse without immediately wanting to hurl (which is a good thing, since my job now involves sitting in coffeehouses for hours at a time, several evenings a month). To me, it smells like a skunk just let go right underneath my house.
I can't eat or drink anything that has even a hint of coffee/mocha flavoring in it ... and woe to the person who ever tries to serve me tea made in a receptacle that was ever used to make even half a cup of coffee.
(Yeah, kinda sensitive here. I wish I knew why.)
But tea ... ah, tea. Preferably Earl Grey. Hot. And don't try to put anything in it, either. Steep it until the spoon starts to dissolve.
*sips day's 5th cup of tea*
My stepdad says, "Expresso." When I called him on it, he challenged me to look it up. Every single dictionary I've found lists both "expresso" and "esspresso" as being correct. But he's the only guy I know who says "expresso."
Useless coffee rambings:
I was amused to learn that the Dutch term for cafe latte is koffie verkeerd, which literally means "wrong coffee". They like it darker. (Though, more and more, it's just "latte" now, apparently.)
If Latin studies are aided by mocha (and I agree with joann that they are - I made it through a BA in Latin on Sufficient Grounds mochas), then Greek is only possible with strong espresso. I tried both, and disliked both.
And this thread reminds me of the year that my mother gave up coffee for Lent. None of the rest of us in the house gave up anything - we were suffering enough.
Joann: Ugh. I knew Quack's was closed (O their black beans and rice!) but I didn't know what the space had become. What a cryin' shame.
Sock yarn pimpage!--Blue Moon gave their sock-club subscribers a free skein in the December shipment. One-offs, irreproducible accidents, small lots...I got cabin fever today and started Yet Another sock with mine. It's gorgeous. They couldn't have picked a better colorway for me if they'd known me personally. I'm doing a plain old round-and-round, no fancy patterning to take away from the beautiful colors. (Join ussss, Tereeeessssaaaaa...joiiiiin usssss....)
A moment of silence for my dad's coffeehouse, Roadrunner Coffee of Lockeford, California, which closed its doors December 28th after a nine-year run.
On the bright side, though, my parents now have sufficient custom-dark-roasted coffee beans stashed in their kitchen cabinets to see them through a year of two-pots-a-day drinking habits.
the list of sidebar ads reminds me of what Froogle (Google's mail-order-search thingy page) does. It gives you a randomly generated list of things that can be searched for.
So when I read it it gives me visions of dangerous Rube Goldberg contraptions involving fleecelined ferret hammocks, creme brulee torches and explosion-proof refrigerators.
Funny how the Google sidebar comes up with amazing non sequiturs sometimes.
(Identification tags for fish)
Coffee.
Sigh.
Back when I was young and strong and found sleep to be a waste of time, I started the day with the entire contents of a seven-cup stovetop espresso maker. Drank office drip all day. Had another pot of espresso with brandy (or, in summer, mineral water, milk, and brandy) after work.
I'm told these habits are not unconnected with my current regime of anithypertensives, but it was fun while it lasted.
always follow the ways of Zen and have another expresso.
--Shel Silverstein
Meredith (64): I'm with you on the coffee. I hate the smell, and I don't like coffee-flavored *anything*. (Coffee-flavored ice cream is the only kind of ice cream I won't eat.)
We part company on the tea, however. I can't stand tea, either. Makes it hard to be social sometimes.
Abi #66: And this thread reminds me of the year that my mother gave up coffee for Lent. None of the rest of us in the house gave up anything - we were suffering enough.
Good heavens. Shouldn't there be some complementary church festival in which you assign yourself additional (non-papal) indulgences? I would have recommended double celebration that year for all concerned.
RedMolly, I think I may have been in your folks' pplace. Either way, a damned shame.
TexAnne #67:
They held off closing Quack's until two months after I'd handed in my diss, so there's that in their favor.
If you were ever even able to get a cup of coffee at Les Amis, you're clearly luckier than I ever was. Stuff just did not appear for me, be it waitstaff, what I ordered, or anything else.
I used to drink so much coffee. Then, about 18 months ago, I gave it up. I've never felt better, and my driving has markedly improved.
Coffee? Not if there's proper tea available. Which there rarely is, because proper tea is theft.
Joann #75: I went with long-established regulars--they may have started going in the early 80s. But Quack's was where my heart was, for obvious geographical reasons.
Aw, now I'm all homesick!
in the pale light no shadows can be seen
the sun is densely wreathed by a thick cloud
only the music seems alert and keen
with little wind the thin trees do not lean
against each other in their little crowd
in the pale light no shadows can be seen
this weather is the kind that aches the spleen
we pass each other with our bodies bowed
only the music seems alert and keen
not noble but submissive is our mien
on this dull day a fool could not be proud
in the pale light no shadows can be seen
even the grass has turned a pallid green
this day we feel was made to wear a shroud
only the music seems alert and keen
the lethargy's not abolished by caffeine
constricted are the limits of the allowed
in the pale light no shadows can be seen
only the music seems alert and keen
And many thanks to the Viable Paradise folks for providing morning coffee-and-bagels-and-Danish at the Arisia consuite on Sunday. I got to meet Jim McDonald in person, yay!
I recently ran across an old Hills Brothers can in my garage with the corporate-logo-guy wearing a turban. I'd forgotten about the walking turban guy, even though I remember him well from my childhood because my parents were loyal Hills Bros. drinkers. I buy whatever's on sale, and that, many times, is Hills Brothers, sans turban guy. Any idea when he left the building? I've speculated to my wife that it was around 9/11, but can't say for sure because that that time, Folgers was usually on sale.
Also Tania @ 46 brings up something juicy with the Star Trek update. Though glad to see a return of the franchise, I was hoping they'd bring back my buddy Picard and the Next Generation crew.
NYaAAAHHHHHH! Please, give me strengh!
Last week, in a moment of weakness, I reinstalled Civilization III & various upgrades and patches on my PC. It hadn't been there for over a year.
Started and quit several games before getting a really good set-up. Worked things up to a really strong position over the course of several days, until last night, when the Indians invaded with overwhelming force. Spent an hour conducting the first turn of the war, which didn't go too badly, but after saving my position for the night realized I could do better. (Using my Knights to destroy his rail lines and roads to prevent reinforcements from coming over the border.) Of course I had saved at the beginning of the war, and could play it over again...
In a fit of resolve and self-disgust I un-installed the game, erased the directory it was in, and emptied the windows trash file. Went to bed feeling good.
Now I want to play again.
F**k.
There really needs to be a 12 Step meeting for these things:
"Hello, my name is Lyle G., and I'm a 4xAholic."
"Hello Lyle!"
"I once spent fifteen hours playing Masters of Orion II. I wore adult diapers and went through three two liter bottles of Diet Mountain Dew and a box of Little Debbie Chocolate Star cakes."
"I hear you man. We've all been there."
ChrisClarke--thanks. Times are rough for ye olde coffeehouse just down the highway from ye olde Starbuck$. Makes my heart hurt to hear my dad--a small-l libertarian and big-C Contrarian--declaiming on the absolute right of large corporations to come in and squish his business if they want to.
Mark @ 33
Try Cory Doctorow's Down and out in the Magic Kingdom or Eastern Standard Tribe
, Charles Stross' Accelerando, or Elizabeth Bear's Carnival or her Jenny Casy novels, or maybe Sher S. Tepper.
To make a cup of coffee, you combine three parts hot water with one part extract.
I'd be tempted to chug the extract, especially first thing in the morning.
Then I'd die horribly of the ensuing intestinal complications, since I love coffee but it does not love me back.
I could never get the hang of coffee. Some time ago, I had to go to Israel for work and it turns out that Mountain Dew hasn't civilized that part of the world yet, and the only stuff they had at the office was an automatic coffee machine that can make a bunch of different coffee flavors, so coffee it was. All the text was in Hebrew. Every time I needed caffeine, I'd go push a random button. Even if I dind't like the first sip, I'd try to finish the cup, just in case the flavor "grew" on me. The fourth button down from teh top wasn't too bad. No idea what flavor it was. But when forced into the situation, I can do coffee.
I switched back to Mt. Dew as soon as I got back, though.
Oh, and could someone explain what the "tragic" knowledge was and what the "farce" was? Maybe I haven't had enough Mt Dew.
Ah, at last, a new Open Thread.
Back on Open Thread 77, as 2006 was winding down,
Bruce Adelsohn at #294 introduced us to the terrors of the Planet Rock Album Quiz
A few of us here (I see Tim Walters, Rikibeth, abi, otherdeb, and myself) kicked it around a while, but then the thread moved on to other topics, and then it died out, as all threads must.
Well, I told my old college-radio buddies about the Planet Rock Album Quiz.
And one of my friends ran with the idea:
All the people I work with got hooked on the Planet Rock album quiz, but they all had the same reaction: too much Heavy Metal, and not enough ’80s bands. I took this as a challenge, and so here's the 1980s (give or take a few years) version of the quiz. See how you do:
Danny’s New! Improved! Version of the 'Album Quiz'.
I found it to be even more maddening than the original.
Okay, Fragano. It's on.
My fuel is coffee, made in Cuban style.
The Cubans start their coffee-training young,
With sugared milk (we're also sucro-philes)
And just a drop of kaff to train the tongue.
Then, as the years go by, the drink is changed.
The milk decreases, dwindles, and is gone.
But with the milk more coffee is exchanged,
Increasing in its darkness and its brawn;
So dense that even light cannot escape,
So rich that old King Solomon would blush,
As strong as Kal-El in his scarlet cape
And smooth and pure as is the driven slush.
The training ends. Thus are the Cubans made:
With azucar and cafe, weapons-grade.
Stefan Jones (#82)There really needs to be a 12 Step meeting for these things.
Greg London (#87) Oh, and could someone explain what the "tragic" knowledge was and what the "farce" was?
From what my meager english could gather: Tragic = B. Senior's realisation, farcical = B. Junior's (non)-raction.
Hum.
I am curious to know how long it will take the assembled company to recognize the source of the following set of instructions:
Don't oil the escapements. The oil will surely get on to the matrices.
Don't put oil in the magazine. In other words, don't be foolish.
Don't attempt to remove a magazine without first inserting the locking bar. If you do, the matrices will spill on the floor.
Don't forget to close the cover on the lower magazine before starting to remove it. The matrices may run out.
Don't force the first elevator when a tight line prevents its dropping out enough to release the vice automatic. Ruined matrices will result, and a "squirt" is bound to follow if you do.
Don't abuse the machine when it balks or stops or fails to function properly. It is because you have neglected something, or something has broken. The machine is the most reasonable thing in the world, no matter how unreasonable it may seem.
Don't forget that the machine always does the best it can, in view of the treatment it receives.
Will A #89: Tomo nota de tu café cubano y, aunque mi te es chino, mi respuesta se escribe en inglés:
Bach sang of coffee, for he music made
and that swift jangly rush hit a right note;
I write of tea, for my less urgent trade
allows me on the slow warm rise to dote.
Caffeine's in both, we know that to be true,
and in both gives us that aura of power,
but tea is better, that's the honest view,
although its making takes up half an hour.
Teas that are green, or black, or even white,
teas full of flavour, teas with tang and nerve,
teas with an attitude, teas with a real bite,
these from my regular course will make me swerve.
I hold that we can't judge a people free
unless over harsh coffee they praise tea.
Stefan - that's a coincidence, I found my copy of Master of Orion II while tidying up yesterday. In fact it's right behind... sorry, it's calling me. I'll be back when I've found out what it wants.
I played CivIII once. I started sometime about mid-morning, figuring I'd get started and then get some breakfast. And then I was going to get some lunch, after the next turn. And then it occurred to me that it was a bit late for lunch, but I really should get some dinner pretty soon. That shifted to thinking that I really did need to eat dinner at some point, and I think it was somewhere well past midnight that I came to the conclusion that I needed to get something to eat, get to sleep, and never play Civ ever ever again.
Brooks Moses@91: a linotype machine?
Stefan Jones:
In Re the Clown - Photography lesson #8. When using a flash, be thou aware of reflective surfaces behindeth the subject that will bounceth the flash back into the lens and make thee sore angry after the film cometh back from the processor.
:-D
I don't like coffee. I'm not fond of chocolate. But Darjeeling tea, that I love.
Awesome Lies @ 95:
I think you're right.
Awesome Lies (#95): Well, that was certainly rather fast!
Yup. I picked up a copy of the Linotype Instruction Book (1925, Mergenthaler Linotype Co.) at a used-book store a few days ago, and have been gleefully reading through it to see how all the various bits worked. It's simultaneously considerably more complicated and considerably less complicated than I had imagined.
And I keep tripping over bits of writing in it that I want to quote at people, too. For instance:
The mold is made of special steel, very carefully case-hardened and ground. It has to be made with very great accuracy in all its dimensions. Screwdrivers, or other instruments of the kind should never be used around the mold, except to tighten or loosen screws.
Tea may also have anti-ovarian cancer properties. (Very important to me.)
I like plant coffee. I used to travel to chemical plants for work, and there was always coffee available, even if it had been sitting on the warmer for hours.
And Community Coffee is awesome! We're coming to the end of the 3 lbs. from 1999....
Two Septembers ago, I watched from a distance as the calamity in New Orleans unfolded. I read with horror the posts here about that awful event, and I still feel sorry for the displaced and stricken residents of that city.
***nevertheless***
Go Bears! I hope they crush the Saints Sunday.
And now, the low road...
There once was a cuban named Will,
Whose Spanish was virtually nil,
Though his verse was alright,
And with it he did fight
O'er his favorite caff'nated swill.
His opponent was worthy Fragano,
And their poems went mano a mano.
It was leaves vs. beans.
It remains to be seen
When the gorda will sing in soprano.
Because tea is a blessing, it's true.
It's contemplative. Raises IQ.
But when deadlines arise,
Then there's no compromise
And I needs me some stronger voodoo.
Your drink may have powerful chi
It is virtuous stuff, I agree.
But I will not be swayed.
Coffee must be obeyed,
And I'm just not as loyal to tea.
Bill (85): I'd be tempted to chug the extract, especially first thing in the morning. Then I'd die horribly of the ensuing intestinal complications, since I love coffee but it does not love me back.
Bill, I hate to be a gadget evangelist, but the Toddy coffee extract has next to no oils or acids in it. That's the stuff that rots your gut. The first time I made the extract, I thought the coffee tasted so good, I had more. And more. And more! Finally it dawned on me that I was bouncing off the walls talking a mile a minute, and I realized it was because I usually stop drinking coffee when my stomach starts to turn.
The little booklet that came with it has a recipe for "Toddy espresso," which is basically the extract, heated, served in a demitasse. So it probably won't kill you. But I'd rather hold out for a real espresso with a nice crema.
I looking forward to summer, and pouring it over crushed ice with a bit of cane syrup -- and maybe some rum.
With apologies to the Memphis Jug Band--
Caffeine habit's mighty bad
It's the worst old habit that I ever had
Hey, hey, come and take a sip on me.
I went to Mr. Kroger's on a spree
Saw a sign on the window says, "No more tea."
Hey, hey, come and take a sip on me.
If you don't believe caffeine is good,
Ask Alma Rose back in the woods.
Hey, hey, come and take a sip on me.
I love my whisky and I love my gin,
But the way I love my coffee is a doggone sin.
Hey, hey, come and take a sip on me.
Since caffeine went out of style
You can catch 'em drinking Red Bull all the while
Hey, hey, come and take a sip on me.
It takes a little coffee to give me ease,
Strut your stuff long as you please.
Hey, hey, come and take a sip on me.
xeger #22: I can't get the image of Brad Dourif reciting your lines out of my mind.
Will A #102:
Tea is the drink that more than merely cheers
but doesn't make you drunk or falsely proud,
it speaks in whispers but its voice is loud
yet unlike coffee does not end in tears.
To win approval of one's friends and peers
never requires the plaudits of the crowd
but a strong sense of what should be allowed,
and mugs of tea till it comes out your ears.
Coffee made strong will give men heart attacks,
its bitterness could rival that of gall
and heartburn is its truest consequence.
So give us tea, and be neither slow or lax,
for coffee's pleasures are so quick to pall;
tea is the drink for all folk of good sense.
I was listening to the BBC World Service show "The World Today" while driving home from work tonight. They had a story about a phenomena in rural India of having theaters produce plays about current news. The play they were covering: "Saddam at the Gallows."
Unfortunately, I can't find the exact story on the BBC website, but I'll summarize. Saddam is played as a folk-hero and martyr. Apparently the actor playing him has a remarkable resemblance. They did a bit of an interview with the actor. One line that jumped out at me:
"Saddam was ruthless. He killed and tortured. But he did it for the good of his country. Just like George Bush."
There are apparently three different theater companies touring with "Saddam" plays (that the BBC knew of), this one started the story way back when Saddam first took power.
#90 Civanon.com is, of course, a clever marketing site by Firaxis.
#96: We were not in "professional photographer" mode when we took that photo. I have a variant made with the clown peering through pebbled glass that is even scarier, but the knife is hard to make out. And another, made without a flash, that shows the sillhouette of the clown behind the pebbled glass. What I linked to was best for my purposes.
Fragano #106
I sing of drink that vim to vigor gives,
Its dark substance the stuff of arete
And drinks of lesser strength must now give way
For none can this oppose and after live.
I sing of coffee. It came first to earth
Rectangular, out of the frozen void,
Its influence among the apes deployed.
The caffeinated obelisk gave birth
To this world's howling band of sapiens
Who bonked the lesser apes upon the head
With reimagined bones as deadly tools.
Pay heed to this, dear citizens and friends.
Less caffeinated apes were left for dead
By those the coffee-obelisk did school.
wrt the Coffee Toddy gadget, in posts 103 and previous: the gadget itself is not strictly necessary for the process, though it does simplify the filtration. Every so often, though not recently enough for me to remember the proportions offhand, I buy a can of ground coffee (or bag of whole beans if I'm feeling energetic enough to feed them through my small hand-cranked coffee mill) and promptly submerge the contents in a pitcher of cold water for some introductory stirring and an overnight soak. The next day, I decant off as much liquid as possible without disturbing the grounds, and then pour the whole mass of grounds into a jelly bag or a cheesecloth-lined strainer to drip dry.
(Wring out the jelly bag or cheesecloth with some water beforehand. Also, it can be a good idea to filter the initial supernatant anyway, before the entire mass of grounds dumps in.)
The concentrate is wonderful as a minor addition to a glass of cold milk. Or to a glass of ice water with some condensed milk stirred in. (Mix the condensed milk with a small amount of water first, before adding the ice and filling the glass.)
Strangely, it's made me think of coffee as a mainly summer beverage; in winter, masala chai concentrate is more the thing. Definitely time to make another batch of that.
Feast on wine or fast on water
And your honour shall stand sure
God Almighty's son and daughter
He the valiant, she the pure;
If an angel out of Heaven
Brings you other things to drink,
Thank him for his kind intentions,
Go and pour them down the sink.
Coffee is the Arab's pleasure,
That the Prophet has allowed,
Drunk with quite excessive leisure
While the talk gets wild and loud.
Coffee-house discourse is bitter,
Like the liquid, sharp and hot,
Acid, frothy, dark. Is it a
Happenstance? No, I think not.
Tea is like the East he grows in,
A great yellow Mandarin
With urbanity of manner
And unconsciousness of sin;
All the women, like a harem,
At his pig-tail troop along;
And, like all the East he grows in
He is Poison when he's strong.
Tea, although an Oriental
Is a gentleman at least,
Cocoa is a cad and coward
Cocoa is a vulgar beast,
Cocoa is a dull, disloyal,
Lying, crawling cad and clown,
And may very well be grateful
To the fool that takes him down.
As for all the windy waters,
They were rained like tempests down
When good drink had been dishonoured
By the tipplers of the town;
When red wine had brought red ruin
And the death-dance of oour times,
Heaven sent us soda-water
As a torment for our crimes.
- Chesterton, with additions.
Julie (110): I can certainly see where you're right, but I probably would never have attempted the process without the rig and the written directions. When I first saw it online, I thought it was fairly cheap, but when I actually got the device, I realized it was a bit overpriced for what you actually got. My inner engineer began redesigning the thing as soon as I got hold of it. (I'd like a ball-cock spigot instead of a rubber stopper, and a permanent gold-plate-on-nylon fine mesh strainer instead of that nylon scrubby filter that comes with it, at the very least.)
I wonder if you couldn't put moistened coffee in the damp cheesecloth, tie it off, and immerse the whole thing? Then you could remove the mass of grounds in one go.
Also, I have learned a new word -- supernatant -- for which I thank you.
The proportions I'm using are 9 (8 oz) cups of water to 1 pound of coffee, although I find you have to adjust that for dark roasts, which weigh less per unit volume. I'm having tremendous fun with it right now, but I suspect that with time I'll go with different preparations for different purposes.
OTOH, my sister's Christmas present was one of those hideous coffee-pod one-cup brewers, which are an abomination, even worse than cartridge razors.
I wonder if you couldn't put moistened coffee in the damp cheesecloth, tie it off, and immerse the whole thing? Then you could remove the mass of grounds in one go.
I think tying off the cheesecloth might compact the grounds enough to significantly reduce their combined surface area. Not that there's all that much convection going on overnight anyway, but it probably needs all the help it can get-- it's a deliberately inefficient extraction, after all.
A preliminary tie-off presents other problems as well-- you'll either have to scrape a nasty, gritty, messy pile of damp coffee grounds onto the also-damp cheesecloth to start with and then wrestle the entire mass into your container of choice, or neatly tie off the dry grounds inside dry cheesecloth and then hope the cheesecloth doesn't rupture as the grounds expand from liquid absorption.
I suppose the natural extension of this method would be to line the pitcher/bowl with cheesecloth before adding anything else, so the grounds are loose and swimmy overnight but in the morning, the cloth's sides can be gathered together to pull out the grounds in one go. (Potential drawbacks: capillary action wicking up liquid and dripping it out around the edges, or losing the edges down inside the container.)
However, you still end up with a final phase of waiting for the grounds to finish dripping out. It's jelly bags for me; they're fine-meshed, washable, and have cute little tripod stands. (Illustrative link mainly chosen on the basis of Google topness; I bought mine from Orchard Supply Hardware.)
Madison Guy @ 23 & Katharine @ 42 - I bought a coffee in that very Starbucks. It's really odd seeing such a thing in the middle of the Forbidden City. I have the receipt in my photo album because it really does have "Forbidden Starbucks" printed on it.
Greg (87): Others may have different views, but here's my take. Jeb was the great hope of the Bush dynasty. George junior was not originally being groomed for the presidency -- he was the black sheep up until Neal started screwing those Bangkok hookers -- but one thing led to another in 1999, and meanwhile Jeb was ensconced in Florida. When Jeb lost the gubernatorial election in 2006, it essentially meant the end of the Bush dynasty. Bush was crying because because Jeb, the good son, accepted defeat with equanimity, while George Jr, in the White House on his second term, is a petty, vindictive father-hating prick and the most reviled president in the history of the Republic. G. H. W. Bush's tears were his public recognition that the House of Bush is done for. That's the tragedy.
The farce came when the audience started to applaud Bush's emotional outburst -- farce because he wasn't crying out of pride for Jeb, he was crying for himself out of self-pity. Jeb stepping onstage to say, "There, there, it's all right," took the whole thing right off into the realm of abject humiliation. I found it painful to watch, yet fascinating, like the fourth act of a classic tragedy. It's like something out of Aeschylus*.
But that's just my take on it, perhaps because I'm trying to fit it all into a dramatic narrative that ends with W. in a psych ward in chemical restraints.
* I know we're all SF fans here, but I googled "Atreides" to get the correct name and spelling of Aeschylus, and all I got were references to Dune. I find that disheartening. Also, everyone should read Aeschylus's House of Atreides trilogy. And then post about it, with lots of links.
Sorry. The House of Atreides trilogy is more properly known as The Oresteia. Stupid, unreliable memory. Everyone go read it. You'll never misuse "Cassandra" again.
@ Howard Peirce & Julie L.(100-112-113)
I was actually contemplating experimentations with a French press to try out that process.
Julie L. (#113): It's not just actual surface area as such; having the grounds closely packed together means that it only requires extracting a little stuff to get the water next to the grounds up to a fairly high concentration, and that inhibits further extraction while the stuff slowly diffuses out into the outside water. You end up with an "effective surface area" that's less than the actual wetted surface area of the coffee grounds.
I go to bed feeling wrecked, and wake up to this? Here is a tripartite answer, three forms of the same poem:
The two contenders joust with poetry:
A caffeine-fueled SF sonnet slam.
Fragano takes the part of honest tea
And Will is coffee's advocate. Hot damn!
The verses fly. Will has the grounds to show
His drink produces forceful, urgent verse.
Fragano's meditative sonnets go
To prove that tea makes poets none the worse.
Now me, I drink them both, but take up arms
Against the two as well, if they're not bought
From sources where the people on the farms
That grow them are rewarded as they ought.
So write your verse and drink your drinks, you two,
But just make sure it's Fairtrade when you brew.
- o0o -
You're talking of coffees and teas
And missing the wood for the trees.
Whichever you choose,
The growers still lose
So make it all Fairtrade, guys, please?
- o0o -
Both coffee and tea
Taste much better without the
Salt of tears added.
I've recently discovered that my sonic screwdriver does a dandy job of charging up anything glow-in-the-dark. One second's application gets a nice bright glow.
Howard Peirce@115: I read the Oresteia in translation some years ago, and I agree: wonderful stuff. I plan to read it in the original sometime moderately soon. (Not this year, though; this year is for the Odyssey.) Also excellent: Euripides' The Bacchae.
The eighth line of the sonnet above should be:
"To prove that tea leaves poets none the worse."
Time for more of one or t'other to get the brain going.
Brooks Moses@99 - as it happens, I was reading our host's musings on linotype machines just the other day. I got to the bit about them squirting hot lead everywhere and suddenly felt very grateful to the inventors of Quark XPress and RIP processors.
If I can be presumptuous enough to add another blues, this one is an adaptation of one of mine called Vanilla Pudding Blues (which was just a lumping together of a string of clichés, but never mind) and the move from something you eat to something you drink robs it of some of the obviousness...
Sweet Black Coffee Blues
I can drink it in the morning
I can drink it late at night
Your sweet black coffee, baby
Sure does taste just right
I can drink it in the bathtub
I can drink it on the Stairs
Your sweet black coffee, baby
I can drink it anywhere
Sweet Black Coffee, Sweet Black Coffee
I got the Sweet Black Coffee Blues
Well, you can keep your herbal teas
Your milkshakes and colas, too
The only beverage that I'll drink
Is sweet black coffee made by you
Well I like to sip it real slow
And roll it round my tongue
And when I've finished drinking
I've got to get me another one
Sweet Black Coffee, Sweet Black Coffee
I got the Sweet Black Coffee Blues
Your sweet black coffee, baby
It don't taste like any other
Even though you know I know
You got that recipe from your mother
Well I can drink it from a mug
Well I can drink it from a cup
I'll drink it off your body, baby
That coffee really gets me up
Sweet Black Coffee, Sweet Black Coffee
I got the Sweet Black Coffee Blues
You can cover it in whipped cream, baby
You can sprinkle on Chocolate too
I'll just spoon them out the way
To get to the coffee made by you
I drink it all the time girl
I can drink it by the pot
But if you ever run out, baby
I'll find someone else who serves it hot
Sweet Black Coffee, Sweet Black Coffee
I got the Sweet Black Coffee Blues
As tea is but glorified hot water,
Coffee must be had, for real programmers.
I'll say, for me
I blame abi
For this converse
Only in verse
Comments on Open Thread 79: