The great unanswered coffee question

As I related a couple of months ago, I bought a used Keurig single cup coffee maker for use at the Shop. My home percolator is not yet happy with me but our relationship is thawing, albeit slowly. You can read about that here if you like: http://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2018/05/lazy-coffee-jealous-percolators.html
Anyway, I was surprised at the cost of the coffee pods, those little plastic cups with a single serving worth of ground coffee which are used with the Keurigs. My daughter helped me on that question by buying me refillable pods (thanks Sweetie!). Still, I can't pass on a good sale when I see one, and I saw one yesterday. It was forty filled pods for ten bucks. So I bought a box.
My only issue is with the flavor: it is listed on the box as 'donut shop'. But which blasted donut shop is it?
Around here, when I think donut shop I think Tim Hortons's. But it's not Tim's flavor at all. Far too weak, and not the least bit robust. Nor does it seem to be Dunkin's or Biggby's or, thankfully, Starbucks (which in my mind is overpriced and tastes burnt). The newfound coffee tastes fine, but I can't associate it with any particular donut shop at all.
I think truth in advertising ought to compel them to simply call it coffee. That's what it is, and they should say as much. Curmudgeon rant over.

Wide world of chessboxing

Okay folks, I am now officially proclaiming that we have gone too far. The sports industry, and sports are an industry rather than a diversion (they have been for a long time and I for one will argue that that is not good), is out of control to the point of having become a joke upon itself.

Things such as frisbee and cornhole now get airtime on ESPN. Really? These are games which are fit for little more than recreation at family reunions. I won't even get into competitive eating...all right, I have, and will further. It's an affront to all things good in the world and an insult to poor and hungry. Quite bluntly, it mocks them. Now added to all this inanity is the up and coming 'sport' of chess boxing, or chessboxing.

I had to look it up; it just seemed too thoroughly oddball to be true. Even though I caught a few minutes of it on ESPN2 yesterday, I wondered if perhaps it was a joke. Perhaps ESPN and the Onion had formed a faux sports entertainment business. Yet apparently it's, uh, well, I hesitate to say legit. But apparently it is popular in some parts of Europe.

You box a round, then play a game of chess. Then you box again, then play chess again. Somehow results are correlated and one or the other, I guess athlete, wins. Honest. You can win instantly by knockout or checkmate, by the way. Describing that as strange undercuts the definition of strange, methinks.

I believe that prizefight boxing is immoral anyway (as the direct intent is to actually hurt a fellow human being rather than prevent him from obtaining a goal of some sort) but still; chess boxing? It's the world turned upside down. It does not speak well of our human capacity for decadence. I ask seriously: why do we need such bizarre entertainment?

No more pencils, no more books

It's August, and that means one thing for parents of school age children: it's time to buy school supplies.

The ads are everywhere, for clothes and backpacks and pencils and notebooks and all those items on all those lists helpfully supplied by our teachers. If you've got one schoolchild it can be a daunting task. If you've got several it can seem too high of a mountain.

I'm past all that and I don't mind at all. Rushing from store to store to get the best prices on different items was simply a chore, especially factoring in all the other parents doing the same thing. It wasn't long before the school supply aisles at Office Depot and K-Mart looked like bombed out cities from the Second World War.

Then there was always that one item which, somehow, became impossible to find. Erasers; I remember one year when we could not find an eraser anywhere. Well, yes, on pencils, but you know how quickly those wear down. You needed actual hand held erasers. Yet there were none, as though the erasers themselves had gathered en masse and decided, nope, we're not having anything to do with this madness this year. You're on you're own; bye!

I don't miss it at all. I pity the folks still dealing with it. I have absolutely no sentimentality for the school day preparation of my children. We ran the race, we fought the fight. And I like the feeling of switching channels the instant a back to school sale commercial appears. It is empowering in ways beside which fighting the crowds at Target pale.

Joe and the art of the sale

Joe Cosgriff is not for sale. Or he doesn't sell things. Or something like that.
When my kids were young we traipsed down the street and visited Grandma Cosgriff and Grandpa Joe quite often, usually once a week. Grandma would often begin such visits with a small list of things available to us: cookies, coffee, candy and the like. Grandpa Joe would quickly stop her with an abrupt, "Don't sell them on it! They know they can have what they want." Grandma would purse her lips in mild anger, and that would be that. We'd get cups of coffee or cookies and go on about a conversation.
But interestingly, if by some chance Grandma was not nearby, Grandpa Joe would launch into a litany: there's coffee on the stove, and cookies in the jar, and cake on the table (plates on the shelf, forks in the drawer) and so on. Then he would realize what he was doing and add, "But I'm NOT selling you on it. I'm only telling you it's there if you want it."
It was merely a variation on a theme. But it may have been my first experience with what the politicians would call 'spin'. Grandpa Joe could certainly put his spin on things.

Start up issues

I've noticed something lately, and I'm not sure why. Is it a habit that's been around for years and I've simply missed it? And is it actually worth the effort, I wonder. But to the point: four times in the last month I've noticed drivers cutting their engines while stopped at traffic lights, then turning them on when the signal hits green.

Does that save that much gas? I can't imagine that it does. I would also have to believe that it leads to greater wear and tear on the engine. A driver might theoretically stop and restart his car dozens more times a day through the practice. Further, I've long understood (although I concede that I may be wrong on this) that engines use the most gas at start up. Is this true, has it ever been true, or am I simply mistaken? And why would you want to take the admittedly unlikely chance that your vehicle wouldn't restart?

I dunno, but it strikes me as a waste. Its certainly innocuous anyway you think about it. Still, I have to ask, is it really worthwhile?

Friday moanin'

Nothing will make me click off a web page faster than the words, begin slideshow. I'm not sitting down to click from one page to another for ten minutes while ads load.

I get it: the sites have to make their money, and I'm not entitled to their content. But neither are they entitled to my time. They lose it immediately with the dreaded words, begin slideshow. And all after disappointing teasers anyway.

Rant over. Have a nice Friday once you've clicked me off.

The reading disease

While it has cost me time before, it has never cost me a night's sleep. This reading bug I've caught has gotten a tight hold on me and seems to be squeezing harder all the time.

The immediate cause is the book I finished about twenty minutes ago on the tribulations between President Truman and General MacArthur, The General vs. the President. It's a very good read which, for the record, really didn't alter my thoughts on the issue. I still have sympathy for MacArthur's worldview yet agree that Truman did exactly what he had to do, things as they were. It was exactly what I believed before this book came into my hands. Still, one must feel differently, more enlightened, more deeply understanding of a subject after reading a balanced and entertaining take on it. But there is no particular call for reading to change a mind, really. Broaden it, I would say, yes. Yet abrupt and compelling change of mind isn't necessarily the point of reading or writing. Nor must it be.

That is however a sidebar point just now. As I've said before, books snowball for me. I read more quickly as I get further into a story and the further into it I get the more compelled I am to finish it post haste. So it happened yesterday evening. I sat down around 9, without even the TV on (I am less interested in TV the more I read) to read for only a bit before going to bed. Then, with the admitted exception of a couple of catnaps perhaps a half hour long each, I kept reading until done at about 7:15 this morning. I began at sunset and ended at sunrise, if you will.

Enlightenment and understanding are good and fine things. Yet they won't help me get the day's practical work done. They won't help me get them snakes repaired or those calls made (though I certainly will get the day's work done, there being Bill and Joe Cosgriff in me bones and on my conscience). It certainly won't help that part of my day will be left to wondering what book I should launch into after work. It won't help that no matter how tired I might be I will start another book and perhaps read too long tonight when I ought to get some real sleep. I simply never imagined contracting the reading disease so profoundly. I do hope it at least makes some positive difference in me.