Archive for April, 2008

Posted on April 20, 2008 - by deCadmus

April 20, 2008

• The Green Issue: Why Bother?
• Encyclopedia Britannica: A Little Bit Free
• If It’s Broke, Fix It

Posted on April 19, 2008 - by deCadmus

I Love The Whole World

I could watch this all day…

[via Mefi]

Posted on April 18, 2008 - by deCadmus

It’s a Fabulous Eco-Friday

The birds are singing, the trees are budding, and the snow is all but a dirty-white memory. The crocuses that herself planted last fall which are not blue or purple, but yellow — Yellow! Scott, I blame you – are blooming. By golly it must be mud season Spring. And if that weren’t sign enough of the change of seasons, the dance-card is full of ecologically-minded events, many right here in Vermont.

• Earth day is Tuesday, April 22nd. This year — in the face of looming climate crisis — it’s important to not only act locally (you can find an Earth Day event near you) but also to make some noise.

  If you’ve been following the seemingly endless string of political debates (don’t even get me started on the recent ABC debacle) you may have noticed something missing — the climate crisis. That’s not an accident. Most all of these debates have been sponsored by front groups for Big Oil, and they’ve been excruciatingly effective at keeping global climate change out of the conversation. Let your elected representatives know that you haven’t forgotten the climate crisis.

• Vermonters will want to note, too, that Small Dog Electronics is once again doing their Earth Day affiliated electronics recycling event. It’s free (recycling fees are being picked up by Small Dog’s sponsoring partners) and it’s a great way to keep heavy metal “e-waste” out of Vermont landfills. Be sure to note, too, that it takes place Saturday, April 19th.

• Green Up Day is, as always, the first Saturday in May — this year, May 3^rd. Green Up Vermont is in its 38^th year, and this time ’round more than 12,000 volunteers will be lined up along the state’s highways, byways and streams, bagging and hauling off junk and garbage revealed by the snowmelt.

So get on out there and get your green on!

Posted on April 15, 2008 - by deCadmus

April 15, 2008

Indoors or out, no one relaxes; In March, that month of wind and taxes, The wind will presently disappear, The taxes last us all the year.
—Ogden Nash

• The Caffeine Dehydration Myth
• Titanic Theory: Blame the Rivets

Posted on April 14, 2008 - by deCadmus

The Coffee Scene, Pittsburgh Edition

In the wake of the Starbucks’ public makeover, and with the SCAA show rapidly approaching, there’s a bevy of coffee-centric ink (’lectronic and otherwise) flowing at the moment. Lots of publications are taking a look at their local coffee scene, trying to figure out who the players are — and discovering that the coffee shop just ain’t what it used to be. (Hoorah.)

Here’s a take on the Pittsburgh coffee scene (featuring the fine folks at Aldo Coffee, among others.)

“Our goal,” offers Rich Westerfield, genial co-owner with wife Melanie Westerfield, of Aldo Coffee on Mt. Lebanon’s Washington Road, “is to raise the level of conversation and appreciation of what coffee can be.”

You go, Rich!

Locally, upper-end coffee shops “have become a central place,” Westerfield says, for many the magical Third Place – after home and work. Priming the French press, Aldo, for example, brings in ska bands and steel drums. One church actually meets there monthly. “Coffee houses bring people together,” he says. “They’re oases of community in a city.”

Ska, steel drums and church groups. Nice.

Posted on April 14, 2008 - by deCadmus

April 14, 2008

• An Engineer’s Guide to Cats (via)
• Awww… It Sucks to be Gonzo (see also)
• Cthulhu Prepares to Rise from Sea

Posted on April 14, 2008 - by deCadmus

Coffee Notes from All Over

America’s Best Boutique Coffees. Forbes offers a glimpse at some of the best indy coffee shops around.

Even though Starbucks, in its fight to retain customers, today unveiled a new brewing strategy and an inaugural blend called Pike Place Roast, most coffee snobs argue that the best java is found at small cafes where each cup is painstakingly crafted. Often tucked away in neighborhoods outside of a city’s financial district, these shops can be difficult to get to for a business traveler, but aficionados say it’s a worthwhile trip.

So where are these boutiques? Well, the article is rather sketchy in that department but if you dig enough you’ll find a link to a spiffy photo gallery of a number of the usual suspects, and some you may not be familiar with.

The SCAA gets its green on. The 20th Specialty Coffee Association of America Conference, this year in be-skywayed downtown Minneapolis, Minn, is making its 2008 conference its greenest ever. Sure, it’s easy enough to collect carbon-offset fees in the conference pricing… but the list of earth-friendly efforts with a more immediate impact is pretty impressive, and includes:

• The elimination of paper hand-outs for more than 100 lectures and labs.
• Food and beverages served with re-useable dishware and cutlery, as well as recyclable cups, whenever possible.
• Metal scraps and light bulbs recycled and 100 percent “green” cleaning products utilized.
• Food and beverages locally grown, in-season and organic, whenever possible.
• Food waste sent from the convention center to a hog farm for use as animal feed, and nonperishable, unopened food products donated to a local homeless shelter.

That’s leading by example. On paper (recycled, natch) I’m impressed, while it remains to be seen how it all works out on the convention floor. I’ll keep an eye out. And maybe I’ll see you there!

Posted on April 10, 2008 - by deCadmus

Your Politics Don’t Mean Beans

It was inevitable, really, what Farm Coffee has done:

THEY’RE ROASTING presidential candidates on Bill Hill, which is not nearly the same as grilling them.

Ashlawn Farm Coffee has introduced an Obama Blend, a “sweet, balanced” combination of “dark and light roasted coffees from Kenya, Java and the Americas,” and American Hero Coffee, “a light-roasted, highly caffeinated” brew that’s “edgy, strong,” made from beans grown in Vietnam. The latter’s redolent, you might say, of Sen. John McCain.

But what about a Hillary Brew?

That, says Carol Dahlke, Ashlawn co-owner and roaster, is … uh … in development.

In development. Hey… they aren’t trying to find a civet cat, are they?

Posted on April 9, 2008 - by deCadmus

What’s In A Name?

You can send out the press releases. You can stage million dollar opening-day events and sampling programs. Still, some folks just won’t get it right…

• The modern chain is “going back to its roots” and launching a house coffee called Pike Place Blend.
• Yesterday marked the company’s coast-to-coast free tasting, but I got a taste of Pike Place today.
• Pike’s Place was blended to have a smoother, cleaner finish than Starbucks’ other blends.
• Starbuck’s new Pike’s Place roast drips out early in Gold Coast.
• On Tuesday, April 8^th Starbucks launched its newest brew, “Pikes Peak Roast…”

For the record Starbucks’ new blend is called, Pike Place Roast™.

P.S. I really don’t intend to turn this space into yet another Starbucks-watching venue, but — much like a seventy car pile-up on the freeway — it’s just hard to tear your eyes away.

Posted on April 9, 2008 - by deCadmus

What Makes Me Stop Reading

James Alan Gardner at SF Novelists offers a nifty list of boneheaded things writers do that force him to just put the book down and walk away. I find I have a lot in common with his point of view:

… a boring book doesn’t make me mad; my interest just dwindles until I never pick up the book again. On the other hand, there are some books I’ve been reading along with pleasure, when suddenly, sometimes at an exact word, I stop and say, “No farther.” I’m not the sort of person who hurls books across the room, but I’m definitely the sort to remember and hold a grudge. How can a story that’s going along well plunge so abruptly down the tubes?

I’ve only ever once actually hurled a book across the room. That one occasion was the result of one of the items on James’ list:

A diabolus ex machina is the same as a deus ex machina but with a devil instead of a god. I use it for those times that an author artificially pours crap on some character’s head, just to make a situation more dire.

I accept that characters always have to face obstacles; characters usually have to suffer; characters sometimes go through gut-wrenching ordeals. But I hate it when the pain happens arbitrarily. Nothing turns me off faster than the author trying to squeeze out more pathos by piling up flukes of bad luck.

In my case, the book I was reading (and I admit this somewhat sheepishly) was The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, and the author had just heaped one too many troubles upon the head of the very likable and empathetic character, Michael Curry. I’d like to know what happened to him some day (or maybe not… he was clearly being set up for still more troubles down the road.) But so far as I’m concerned, Rice broke the boundaries of our reading relationship that day and — while I’m really not the sort to hold a grudge — I haven’t read a word of her work since.