The Coffee Guy's blog

The Large to Medium Small Debate

On my bottom, my men’s medium is now my men’s small.  The women’s 10 is now a 12, nobody ever wore a 0 before, and fewer socks are available to me wearing a size 9 shoe.  Now shirts are different; my men’s medium is now a large.  So let me check out the numbers, a Cuz’in of da way you like me to do dat.

Vanity sizing is one thing where, “in 1937 a size 14 dress had a bust size of 32 inches (81 cm). In 1967, the same bust size was a size 8. In 2011, it was a size 0”.  So much for the Incredible Shrinking Whoa’ Man.  Where have all the prizes gone?  Long time wearing?  Well let’s take the socioeconomic POV for a minute.  Studies have found, “expensive brands tended to be smaller than those from cheaper brands”.

Which is a good thing I think.  Those who are more needy, get more for their buck.  A truly humanitarian, anti-Atlas Shrugged marketing ploy.  However, Ole Sam Walton and his cadre are paying more on freight for those with more freight to carry.  One feeble mouthed clothing executive stated, “A manufacturing tolerance is given to factories which they are required to adhere to, while allowing for some flexibility during the production process. This can result in a slight variance in the measurements of the finished goods”.  Knowing that this means “offshore” manufacturers is basically vituperation about their own contract suppliers covering for ineptitude and sub-menial pay rates.

Nope let me slip into my Cuppa Joe shop and continue to order my small but medium large black coffee,   whaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttt, STOP RIGHT THERE!   Ever one of our own has succumbed to gallonage gaffs.   Yep I used to order a Medium Black Coffee,  now it’s a Small.  Even in the Schmuckerette shop I get a Small for a Tall!

Now in the Brogan-sphere, my size has not changed. Noticeably.  While a EEE 9 used to be the norm, an 8 ½ is more the norm now.  Now they do say that your bones shrink when you get older, maybe it starts at the bottom?  On the other foot, an Elected, Equal, and Effective Nine might get the pennant if not the Series, unlike the northern Blue Birds…

BITD the average family sedan came with 15 or 16 inch wheels. Smaller cars nowadays, bigger wheels, some have 19 or 21 inchers.  Is that penile envy?

What was that you said about size?

Don’t splash the linen Lily, pour my Java smooth.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

 

The Colour of Money or Muddy

It’s autumnal.  The sagacious of us will be aware of the Orange and Redding in our midst.   No Bay Dock being washed away by the tide of time here, you need to Tell The Truth.  From Schomberg to Orangeville, the green belt is skirted by the colors of Benetton in this manner.  The good Liberati of Ontario created a green belt, around that snugs a belt of Orange and Red.

While it has been appropriated by the aforementioned Liberati, Red is the National colour.  While overexposed carrots turn red, some ripe apples turn red, some ripe grapes turn red, and some discovered transgressions turn people red.  As is the newspapers; better read than dead.  The Toronto Star included. 

As fewer a fewer people actually read a paper paper, the news is easier spun and woven into a web defined by the writer not the reader.   When subjects are consumed on the CRT, or now LCD, the mind wavers and wafts in and out of concentration with bells and whistles chiming and clamouring for your attention as are the words written.

 

This is not by chance.  The writer wants you to buy into his digital supra-orbital ridge hair rising, which is achieved by your inability to maintain pointed concentration because of these diversions.  The circus clown is an obvious example of how spinning is done.  You are diverted from his motive by the funny face and big shoes, your pocket easily picked.  Or the magician with his waving wand and poofing hat, leaves you watchless or penniless as he hides and obfuscates his movements onto your person or into your garb.

The red grabs as you orange our affairs to suit the state today.  Tomorrow the state will make you red in the face by the cost of your next orange.  The diversionary tactics at this time of year take you way from the Coffee, and Pumpkin Pie in your life.

We are exactly 4726.5 Kilometers from Redding.

No java no joke Jake, Americano for me.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

Germany Generates Gerund Grounds

When Mad Dogs and Englishmen retire for respite within the confines and contructs, you know is hot.  The current luft ladden with wasser blankets our environs you don’t hear the naysayers expounding on the wacko of Waco bitumen melting mercury reports.  As mercurial as it is, the stifle is only louder than ole’ Archie Bunker would have it.

Tick Tick Tick,  that great southern yarn about the strife between races opens with the wagering on eggs frying on the Parthenon or not.  Seconds and minutes pass, then one bubble, a spurt, another crackle and then the whole ovum denaturing to its recognizable whiteness.  Drop your mouse now and go outside and see if you can flip and egg on your walk or drive.

Only after success will you not be so averse to the heat we are experiencing.   After all, heat is just a concept: you cannot touch it, lift it, drink it, or change it.  Even my Davidson by Harley sprigs off more heat than a roast tomato in Italy.  No heated truncheon can hammer through my armour of coolness.

Purgatory would be cooler in a freeze dried summer.  Roast some Java on my bean before I bust’da’move.  The weather is always on my mind as you are too.  Placating those with pulchritude gleaned from the orb above us.  Sol the source of all life beating on those wishing and not wishing for it.  Masses slathering massive amounts of SPF 1 billion on their appendages like salsa on a Tostito.

Will the desire for the sun be overpowered by the distaste for it?  Will those congregants be blessed with a tawny tan or be left the white ghostlike walking dead we fear?  Chalk white dirge dancers dosing at midday.  Baskers busking for bucks from the Sun God.  Each summer we heat our Java on hot stones baked with the mad dogs and Brits.

And alas my namesake has been born, Alexander’s Rag Time band will play me to the beach.  No Joe Louis here, and no George and Ringo starring in my parade.  I take full responsibility for Alexander being chosen.  Debate me not yee of little faith.

My cup runneth over Madge, not so full next time.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

 

Couching Words in CowTown Not Coyly

So you get inured with that which you know as manure, then the injured jars your Sense and Sensibilia.  Jejune displaced dissidents residing in this fair burg are the worry warts of the western world.  Petulant postulates of positivism are unknown in these environs.  Further oral flatulence fosters no beer from me for these suds.

Dusty Miller and Fuzzy Thinking are creating Chaos for Toto and Dorothy.  She is the one we have and will be our Technical Advisor on further ventures virtually pending payment.  All along the wastrels, no watchtower here for Dylan whiners frothing at the mouth of the mighty Bow.

And I quote,

“Eventually the roads in Alberta will have huge berms of gravel along them, hiding them from access and egress.   There will be a whole new culture of people growing up in the road valleys.  Dust in their noses, grime in their clothes and scabs on their knees.  Breathing and eating gravel and dust.  We will fear them as those who create pot holes to disable our cars so they can scavenge our looty and booty.  Then carry our mud laden bodies off for sustenance.” 

That from a disrespectable, dodgy, dirt digging Neanderthal of the interweb thingy.  I posit that better things are to come.  The western pacific influx here is palpable.  Only in the service industry.  When the resource based economy falls again, and it will as sure as oil sands our time, all the indigenous Caucasians depart because of lack of industrial employment, service workers will be the nuveau riche.  No longer will the Turbanite doctor trained be mopping floors. Hey will be those with a job and a payment for his mortgage. 

High driving rollers in jacked up half tons formerly slurping gas like it’s the proverbial Kool-Aid of Jonestown, leave these behemoths roadside when the last drop is combustibly injected.  No fun or funds forthcoming for the Ford.  Spend swift that which the spendthrift saves for the day of black rain.  Service taken deep by servers and servo motor rounding out the glebe.  I smell it now.  The high teetering on each work from each self-effacing bureaucrat.  The debt payment from taxes on the rollers.  When rollers stop with inertia barren business, the debt climbs till these fiefdom fornicators fast and pack up tents to places unknown.  Left will be the servers and providers.  Next, you will be the newcomer.

Not enough Java in the Blues to get me trans-continentally humping my pack here.  I drive too fast. The limit.

Posted matches.

Slip that slurry in a golden arc to my mug Mastronamus.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

Edgy Blown Egg Painting

Whatever would possess one to blown the goodness from an egg then layer it with colourations?  Creamy crunchy innards we won’t eat in 39 days, but devour scrambled with tomato sauce.  The position of prominence pre-empts all on this day of worship.   We heed, therefore we obey.

All the talk about the Lepus Laziness pooping out a few ova for the indigenous young’uns.  The mounted chicken being ridden by a Horny Hare, small eating appendages gripping unused alar adaptations for leverage.  No I found that on the humorous side.   Not ROFL funny, but quipish none the less.  Not as funny as “My ass is sore.” Response, “ What?”

But lest we belabor  the blessing of these days.  Spring is on the verge of dragging Southern Ontario out of the winter screaming and yelling that we don’t want to go.  April Fool’s Day, it snowed.  Again.

Hot days, summer in the city, back of my neck getting dirty and gritty, “Well your CD collection looks shiny and costly, how much did you pay for your bad Moto Guzzi.  And how much did you spend for you black leather jacket, is it you or your parents in that income bracket?”

Snowed and Froze rain again today now some 10 days hence.  The dated prose of the preceding post pages piercing my postdated foot stamping.  Frozen to the dog bone in my hair.  No different from a cave creature cro-magnum of champagne or not.  Still cold.  Still frozen.  I think I will leave the locale for less than adequate environs in the west.  Cow town for a coupla.

If youse’a know me and are hither, call me yon on the hand held communication device.

Perk a pot Persephone, pour slowly.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

 

 

 

 

Marmite Macroseism Marginalizes Maori

It’s been a year now since the last gooey drop of this daily staple in a land near Down Under has been extruded from its orifice.   No yeast in your yearly intake of salt today bucko!  Your sodium intake will be finally stifled down to manageable levels.   But alas no!  They have rebuilt it.  It will prevail.  And onward groans the worldly battle against the sodded sodium savage Marmite.

So this week the ”GOVERNMENT” has announced that the fortuitous factory has begun the process of manufacturing this delectable deli item again.  The culprit?  Sanitarium.

In any other part of the world that is the nut house.   Not too Un-PC, but this is my blog and I log it.  Here is what I quote to you, read at your own risk, “Sanitarium is urging consumers not to "freak out" as it works to relocate its Marmite manufacturing facilities to a safer part of the Christchurch site.”

Only in the papers you say?   The media and government are both urging people to be frugal with their spreading practices.  Spread thinly an preferably on warm toast where you can spread more finely because the heat from the toast will soften the gooey guck.

“The "Marmageddon" as wags on the Internet quickly dubbed it became a hot topic on Twitter, where "Marmite" was the top trending phrase in New Zealand tonight, with fans and foes of the spread debating how to deal with a shortage.”

Thank the powers that be that we hurdled the return date without widespread pillaging and riots on the two islands.  “Marmite will be back in the pantry by March 20, Sanitarium says.”  Can you believe?  Almost a year of sparing the rod and spoiling the children.  As I hear it, most adults would not allow the younguns’ to take in any of the black gold during the Great Marmite Famine of the 2012’s.   Almost on par with the Potato Famine of past years in the Empire.

So for future reference for you do it at homers:

A litre of Brewer's yeast (top fermentation from a brewery)

A little sea salt

1 onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

1 turnip, diced

1/2 celery stick, diced

1) brewer's yeast with salt.  Simmer at blood heat, (30 to 40 ºC) for ten hours or overnight.

2) Then simmer this mixture at 50 to 60 º C for 2 to 3 hours.

3) Boil at low temperature 90ºC  for half an hour.

4) Filter  

5) Let it cool for a day.

6) Filter again.

7) Convert it to a paste in the pan a few hours.

8) Boil up all the vegetables until they are cooked. Strain off liquid and incorporate into the Marmite paste.

9) Let the mixture reduce into a Marmite like texture. Do not allow it to burn:  

The entire process takes about ten days.

And 90 seconds for the perfect Jo.

Pour my Java slowly Pete while I ponder that.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

 

Time Banking 10.1 Again! I Know it’s Not Two Point Oh Something.

Ok, I get it even if you don’t . The time toils toward the terminus, tentatively teasing terrestrials.  Whattttttttttt?  Perhaps too much for the entry level sentence; persistence will get you past the penultimate.  Why oh why does that little hour float, float ahead then back again.  When in savings, are we ahead or behind?

Don’t ask the banker.  Don’t ask the joker man, a cuz’ Sailor Sam might get dis-jointed.  A poor but cogent reference to the 1970’s but I egress…digress, no dress.   No verdant desire here for those times.  After all it’s a healer isn’t it?  So why would we want more?  Are we so bounteous with malaise that we don’t care about the floated hour?   Shall we do one more? Or why not three in numerous?

Just ponder the corpulence of those superfluous hours after laboring for the day.  Daylight till the cows come back to the animal shelter!  The Sir Sol burning into our retina, ultra corn flaking off our still burnt skin.  Geezer gliders on their Iron horses and highway couches burning off more hydrocarbons than ever before!.

Then Smash

Over night into the Chasm of despair as the rest of the modern world reels into mayhem back into regular time.  Travel and work would take a rest for three days as the world acclimatized again to the regular circadian rhythm of the non-nocturnal.

But not Saskatchewan, parts of British Columbia and some parts of the Yukon and Nunavut.

Whaaaaaaaaattttttttttttt?

Can you interrupt me with disrespect more than a smattering and in only a few passing minutes?  This spewer of spontaneous sagaciousness stops abruptly every time I hear that there are some small realms in the kingdom not keeping in lock step with the rest of us ovine.  How does this get past the great unwashed?   One month they bar hop and shop late on one side of the sliverous Province, the next on ‘tother?  Just Qui Tam these rubes can feel good?  Obstreperous?  Juvenile?  Delinquent?  Dubious?  Rebellious?  Get over yourself, get in step, follow the crowd, be a sheep, click click move it move it move it, its late move along.

Turn that torrent to coffee Tallahassee, and heed that provenance.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

 

 

 

Observation 7

FacePlant has become that cesspool and din if inequity known in the Victorian era as The Publican’s House. Stripped of all dignity, identity, and sobriety, plebes and peons can mix and mingle with all the entitled folks with land holdings.

Why is it then that there are so many inane, misunderstood, unwritten, written, obfuscated, draconian, futile rules there. And so many telling you about changes. Changes in security, futility, banality, conviviality, domesticity, and the city. Then there is the new graph?

Slip it in my mug smoothly seἧora!

Back to the Future and Weather of the past

What began before it started up the engine of fear, Sandy poked her spurs into the meteorological tube steaks on every possible medium available.  Perhaps HAM was free, I am unsure.  The prophecies were perjerous and plastered repeatedly with preposterous possibilities.  Then the crane fell.  Egrets rued the day as their kin was hanging precariously over 9^th Ave.

After a summer of love, Sandy was about to return to UK and the duck-tailed one was all a blubbering as they shook through the tunnel of love.  In The Big Apple tunnels were filling with brackish water many feet over the adits normally punctured with vehicular traffic.  Then the lean into the wind began with every local and national reporter available, togged in gummies and sou’westers.

Do I need a human out there to see the wind?  To show me the wind?  Should I feel bad for this person?  Hmm, let me run the numbers a cuzin’ I know you like when I do dat.

Tonnage of the average personage, let’s use 100 kilos, (It’s a nice “round” number), friction factor of poly-vinyl-chloride when wet, 1.278 Chelvin Units, profile wind resistance of the average body in PWR units, 728 over weight, times acceleration due to gravity, 10 to power of 2, skid resistance of (lets say the oil, acid, alkali, coffee resistant sole of Doc Martins) of 2 Scantling measures.

The quadratic to use   Minus CU + The square root of PWR, squared, minus 4 imes Sc, all of this over 2 times Kilos = x ,  where “x” must be over a value of 0.1 to have the body remain in place.    Using our figures.  Now let’s resolve this equation further, x= minus 1.278 plus the square root of 13.738 squared minus 8 all over 200.   and then finally x = 12.165 over 200 ,  or 0.06085, or rather the guys blows!

Am I a’ gonna do that?  Nopers not without better boots from Cabala’s, or a fair pair of family boots, (read Cement Shoes).  Who is up for this duty?  Had Rather done it or did he say, “I’d rather not.”?  Had Lloyd lived through it or did he languish in the Studio as some lackey swilled in the storm?  I definitely couldn’t see Johnny the God Carson out there with his hair all a tither.

Blow’n away the foam on mine Donatello, I like it bare.

 Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.

 

 

 

 

 

Mobiia Staticus Abodium

And thoust of yee who have me compared to a curmudgeon again have me mistaken for that body who has less then enthusiasm for others’ hobbies.  You may be a philatelist, ornithologist, or into electronics, antiquing, yard  (read garbage) sales, browsing emporia, sewing, socking, darning, most of the other Ings including podging: I am not.

While I will arrive and entertain and be entertained for periods in random sorts whilst partaking or watching you partake in your hobby, it is not mine.  Come stare and hand me a wrench some time.  Notta happening I can tell.  So while on occasion I get an invitation to partake in your hobby, always remember, it’s not my hobby, and if I had an interest in it being one of the plethora of hobbies I do partake in, I would be into it already and not need the asking.

I ask those who I see interest in my hobbies, to join me in them.  Each to their own.  Nothing against you or me if we limit our meager selves to a few desires in the hobbiest department.  It is rare that a sort need cajoling into a hobby.  Large rectangular carriages on or off caoutchouc tori on rims of steel or other alloyous materials do not crank my contrivance.  They don’t  farm my field, don’t cauterize my campfire, don’t agitate my crucible, don’t, scythe my sward, don’t muscle my machine.  So I don’t embrace that which you partake in as earnestly as you yourselves might. So be it.

Testicular toss or not, unshod equine toss aside, Boules, Bocce, or Washers are not things I profess a prowess in. 

Then there is the ever present campfire. Let me run the numbers as a’cuzin’ youse like when I do that,

Here is what is generally in wood smoke not including any “other” items which might from time to time have been tossed therein.

Toxic gases:  Carbon Monoxide, Ammonia, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulfur dioxide

Volatile Organic Compunds: Irritant, possibly carcinogenic, Methyl chloride, Methylene chloride

Saturated hydrocarbons:  Irritant, neurotoxicity, Hexane

Unsaturated hydrocarbons:   Irritant, carcinogenic, mutagenic 1,3-Butadiene, Acrolein

Mono-aromatics:   Irritant, carcinogenic, mutagenic, Benzene, Styrene

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons:   Carcinogenic, mutagenic, Immunotoxic,  Benzopyrene, Dibenz anthracene

Organic alcohols and acids:  Irritant, acute toxicity, Teratogenic, Methanol

Acetic acid Aldehydes:  Irritant, carcinogenic, mutagenic, Formaldehyde, Acetaldehyde

Phenols: Irritant, carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, Catechol, Cresol 

Quinones:  Irritant, allergenic, Redox active, causes oxidative stress and inflammation response, possibly carcinogenic, Hydroquinone, Fluorenone, Anthraquinone,

Free radicals: Redox active, cause oxidative stress and inflammation response, possibly carcinogenic, Semi-quinone type radicals

Inorganic compounds:  Carcinogenic, acute toxicity. Arsenic, Lead, Chromium

Particulate acidity: Irritant Sulfuric acid

Some compounds are either criteria air pollutants, or are included on the EPA list of hazardous air pollutants. At least 26 hazardous air pollutants are known to be present in wood smoke.

I know what you are thinking!  What is in all that exhaust and solvents and fuels I use in one of my pastimes?   Well I don’t really care.  As you don’t about the wood smoke thingy.

What I want is a quite cuppa Joe in the morning and then that which I do when I do it.

I don’t mind sharing, but it will be a frosty Friday in the everlasting torment before I present myself at the gateway to the garrison with my Mobiia Staticus Abodium strapped to my ass.

Make it steam in the morning sun Adele, I like to see the rays through it.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.