Month: January 2005

Java Junkie

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      I love coffee, I love tea,        I love the Java Jive and it loves me        Coffee and tea and the java and me,        A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!        — Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, Java Jive Hi I’m Karl Elvis, […]

      I love coffee, I love tea, 
      I love the Java Jive and it loves me 
      Coffee and tea and the java and me, 
      A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup! 
      — Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, Java Jive

Hi I’m Karl Elvis, and I’m a Java Junkie.

It’s true.

I love coffee. The smell. The taste. That buzz from the first sip of the morning. It’ll never feel that good again the rest of the day.

I wake up craving it. The thought makes me salivate.

I’m talking coffee; black and hot, with sugar and no other flavor. No nuts no vanilla. No milk. No syrups, no cinnamon, no chocolate. Just coffee. Strong and black, black black.

I make espresso. I make french press so heavy it’s hard to lift. My friend Amie Sue describes it as chewy.

I don’t fuck around with coffee. If it’s not strong, if it doesn’t roar coffee at you, I don’t want it.

When I go to a coffee bar, I usually drink espresso if they’re really good at it, or a multi-shot short (or tall at that place but we’ll make that a tirade for later). No lattes, no fuss. Once in a while a macchiato if they do it right, espresso with a little dab of foam.

The modern trend of kiddee-coffee that tastes like soda pop disgusts me.

But I am a junkie.

Read more “Java Junkie”

The best hold music ever

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This is one of those tiny things that can make a day better. I do a lot of weird tool support at work. I’m the guy who gets the weird problems when the other support people can’t figure something out. So I’ve got one now with Adobe FrameMaker on Unix. The problem’s irrelevant, but I […]

This is one of those tiny things that can make a day better.

I do a lot of weird tool support at work. I’m the guy who gets the weird problems when the other support people can’t figure something out.

So I’ve got one now with Adobe FrameMaker on Unix.

The problem’s irrelevant, but I called Adobe support. And got put on hold.

…And there’s some of the best goddamned jazz I’ve heard in days. Bass that simply has to be Paul Chambers – I’d know that bowing style anywhere.

I didn’t know the song. It might be Miles Davis, or it might be someone earlier. Even Dizzy or someone like that; but some blistering trumpet.

Put me back on hold I wanted to say. Please.

Damn. That’s some good fucking jazz. I need to get my jazz CD’s organized (this will help, it should get delivered monday or tuesday. It’s currently in Fort Worth, TX according to the fed ex tracking site. I like the fed ex tracking site way too much). I’ve not been listening to jazz enough lately because my CDs are outta control and I can’t find anything.

Jazz makes my day better.

Turn Your Back

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I have somewhat mixed feelings about the specifics of the protest. But I support the idea. http://www.turnyourbackonbush.org/ He’s not my president. He stole one election by fraud, and then another by a combination of fraud and the advantage of holding an office, which he does not legally hold. George Bush is not the president of […]

I have somewhat mixed feelings about the specifics of the protest.

But I support the idea.

http://www.turnyourbackonbush.org/

He’s not my president. He stole one election by fraud, and then another by a combination of fraud and the advantage of holding an office, which he does not legally hold.

George Bush is not the president of the united states. I don’t care what lies we’re being told; the united states has been without a president for four years now, and will continue to be without a president for four more.

I’d like that to be the issue we’re flogging.

But I like the idea of a gesture tomorrow to un-commemorate this fraudulent inauguration.

I of course have my own counter-culture gesture to make tomorrow. I’m getting tattooed.

Ya’ do what ‘ya gotta do, right?

…and they use too much vermouth.

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

Quotes on Drinking from http://cocktails.about.com: “When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have the second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there’s no holding me.” William Faulkner “One martini is alright, two is too many, three is not enough.” James Thurber “Do not allow children to mix drinks. It […]

Quotes on Drinking from http://cocktails.about.com:

“When I have one martini, I feel bigger, wiser, taller. When I have the second, I feel superlative. When I have more, there’s no holding me.” William Faulkner

“One martini is alright, two is too many, three is not enough.” James Thurber

“Do not allow children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth.” Steve Allen

“Whenever someone asks me if I want water with my Scotch, I say, “I’m thirsty, not dirty”. Joe E. Lewis

“Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication.” Lord Byron

“One can drink too much, but one never drinks enough.” Edward Burke

“The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful, and a snootful at the same time?” Gerald R. Ford

I love me some martini quotes.

100 best novels

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From Darrell at The Realist: Modern Library 100 best novels list. It’s a funny list, and I’m unsure if I much agree with it. Damn good conversation starter though. And if you’re a big reader (and you know you are, yeah, I’m talking to you), take a look at Darrell’s site which is dedicated to […]

From Darrell at The Realist:

Modern Library 100 best novels list.

It’s a funny list, and I’m unsure if I much agree with it. Damn good conversation starter though. And if you’re a big reader (and you know you are, yeah, I’m talking to you), take a look at Darrell’s site which is dedicated to books and reading.

Work is the curse of…

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Good old Oscar Wilde said “Work is the curse of the drinking class.” Work seems to be the curse of the blogging class as well. I keep thinking of things I want to write about here but I’m so fucking busy. That’s what I get for spending the last several weeks before the holidays mostly […]

Good old Oscar Wilde said “Work is the curse of the drinking class.”

Work seems to be the curse of the blogging class as well.

I keep thinking of things I want to write about here but I’m so fucking busy. That’s what I get for spending the last several weeks before the holidays mostly fucking off.

I’m not just busy — I’m busy on a whole bunch of tasks all at the same time. I’m task-switching so fast I don’t seem to be actually doing anything, and yet I’m spinning all day and can’t seem to carry on a conversation with anyone without dropping the thread.

I would not mind if I were doing work I liked, but right now it’s mostly housekeeping. Soon, I’ll get down to some tool development or some installation, test and configuration of new tools. For now I’m in the where the hell was I phase on everything I was doing two months ago that I’ve been ignoring.

So writing, and blogging, are back-burnered for a little while. Which frustrates me because I’d rather be writing.

Actually I’d rather be drinking, or fucking, but I can’t do either of those at my desk, at least not until later.

Holidays I don’t get

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All in dreams, I can dream now oh how I I wanna live where it’s like today I wanna live where it’s always this way I wanna live where it’s always Saturday      -Guadalcanal Diary, Always Saturday This is one of the things that brings out the petty peevishness in me. Holidays that only some […]

All in dreams, I can dream now oh how I
I wanna live where it’s like today
I wanna live where it’s always this way
I wanna live where it’s always Saturday

     -Guadalcanal Diary, Always Saturday

This is one of the things that brings out the petty peevishness in me.

Holidays that only some people get. What’s with that?

Presidents fucking day. Nevermind the fact that we don’t have a president right now, since that monkey in the white house never got elected. Nevermind that. The point is, why do my kids get that off when I don’t? Why does my mail man get that off? Why does my bank get that off?

Martin Luther King day. Huh? What? Postman? Yeah, he’s sleepin’. Banks? Stock Markets? All shut down.

What’s the matter with this country? Look at europe; they get every fucking holiday off. They get months of vacation to our weeks. They get to take a siesta, some places, in the middle of the fucking day.

I get up this morning and it feels like saturday, kids playing and all. I poke around and make coffee and don’t much get moving and then suddenly I realize, fuck, it’s a work day, I’m acting like it’s a day off because it’s a day off for my kids.

Dammit, I want my day off. I have stuff to do. I have housework, I have motorcycle rides on a beautiful, mild January day. I have writing I’d like to do, I have cooking I could do with that big tub full of chicken stock. I could go see a movie with my kids. I could do nothing.

But I go to work, where we’re all looking around going, fuck, why are we here? It’s not like most of us are getting any work done.

Sigh.

Life needs more saturdays and fewer mondays. Something’s gotta be done about that.

rss to LJ

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I’m testing how the RSS feed of The Moronosphere works on LJ. You can ignore this posting, or if you’re Fredlet and love test postings, show me some love.

I’m testing how the RSS feed of The Moronosphere works on LJ. You can ignore this posting, or if you’re Fredlet and love test postings, show me some love.