Reunion Project: Cowpie Throwing Game

Dear Family,

Next time we have an event that involves various projects, please tell me to cook, or roast coffee, or do just about anything that does not involve either a glue gun or paint.

Lisa, you are going to be transporting one Cowpie target and ten Cowpie Frisbees.

If, when you set it up, you think I am a complete nutbar, please remember that I did the best I could, for someone who has never actually engaged in this particular "sport".

When we cancelled our plans, I had to come up with a target design that would not take up too much room in Lisa and Chris's van. I was willing to take Matthew to Tamingville so they could take the original design, but I somehow thought that both Chris and Lisa would reject the idea of leaving their only son with a person who spent a day making Cowpie Frisbees.

In anticipation of questions you might have, please note the following:

1) I am aware that if I were going to paint hot pink Frisbees some other cowpie-ish colour, that colour should have been brown, not burgundy. You can tell other members of the family that where I come from, we feed cows beets. The truth is that the plastic adhering spray paint does not come in brown.

2) I am also aware that it would be terrific if the Cowpie Frisbees would sail through the air. What can I say? Stand closer to the target.

3) I have a sneaking suspicion that ideally the target would look vaguely like a cow. Get over it. I thought about attempting to make one look like one of the guys, but this was the best I could do. And yes, I ruined a perfectly good $4 tablecloth to make it.

4) If, after seeing this project in person, you think that I did a truly terrible job, please don't tell me. I sacrificed a manicure for this.

taming

 

posted by taming at 16:01 | link | comments (2)|
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Big Business Wins (almost) Every Time

Yesterday, on a segment of the CBS "Sunday Morning" show  (a rebroadcast from 2005) entitled Coffee 101, they cupped a variety of coffees, and then sampled them after brewing them in some sort of little one cup drip toys. I couldn't see what those samples were brewed in. They then went to a mall and had folks do blind taste tests between super market ground coffee, and specialty coffees. There was no hint as to how the coffee was roasted, when it was roasted, or how it was ground.

Surprise surprise, they made it seem like specialty coffees are a marketing ploy, with nothing really to recommend them.

The "expert" was Ted Ersky from McHenry County College outside of Chicago. He seemed to understand coffee "shtuff" but the piece was designed to prove him wrong. The reporter was Steve Hartman.

Call me a nutjob, but I think it is all part of the overall plan to get us to settle for mediocrity in our day-today lives.

I'm particularly enamoured with coffee, but, this is not just a coffee phenomenon. We accept, without question, major appliances that irretrievably and inevitably break down after ten years. We toss out smaller ones every couple of years, because they are not worth repairing. Much of our food has been processed into bland nothingness. In restaurants, we accept poor service as de rigueur, and tip handsomely, as a matter of course, even when we can't get our water glasses refilled. 

Returning to the coffee angle, I found out yesterday that the Presto Scandinavian, one of the few coffee pots designed to brew at the right temperature, and disperse the hot water in the right way, is being discontinued. It seems that the things that made this coffee pot both good and, at about $40 US, a real bargain, just couldn't be explained to the general public, and stores were not willing to give it shelf space. The average shopper, raised on Maxwell House or Folgers brewed in a Mr. Coffee, never learned that these things make a difference. More than that, they have come to believe that charred beans a la Starbucks represent good coffee, so the concept of looking for (much less expecting) subtlety in their cup never even occurs to them.

Score another one for big business.

 

posted by taming at 06:33 | link | comments (1)|
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You get what you pay for

It's now time to sell our old car, the one the BBC replaced. Mebbe I've watched too much Judge Judy, but I want to be very sure that whoever buys the car completely understands what he or she is getting. For that reason, I've created the following written statement, which as a devotee of not just Judge Judy, but also Judge Joe Brown, and Judge Marilyn, I will have the new owner sign, before driving it away.

The car you are buying is a 1993 Nissan Altima with almost 180,000 kilometers on it. There is no warranty, guarantee, or even a vague promise that comes along with the pieces of metal, plastic, and rubber that together form this car. It really is 14 years old, and it really is a high mileage vehicle.

The car has been reasonably reliable daily transportation for those 14 years. A couple of months ago, the alternator failed, and we replaced it with a rebuilt one. Last month, the muffler died, and we got a new one. Last winter, we had a whole lot of work done on it including new shocks and struts. I'm pretty sure we are still paying for that.

You might drive it for a fairly long time before you have to put anything in it but gas, or some part--maybe even an expensive part--could break five minutes after you pay for the car and pull away from the curb. We're not having any problems with it at the moment, but with a 14 year old high mileage vehicle, you just never know.

The car has lived outside for most of its life. Those reddish brown spots on it really are rust. Cars that live through 14 Alberta winters tend to get rusty. The car was never abused, but neither was it driven by a little old lady who made one trip a week to the grocery store and another trip on Sunday to church. It was babied (as most cars are) when it was new and under warranty. That time is long past. We've had the oil changed more-or-less regularly, but it's been years and years since everything recommended in the new car book was done to this car. 

If you're smart, you have had a mechanic look at the car before handing over your money.

We hope you enjoy the car (as we did) and that it lasts until you can afford to get a car that is hot and new, or at least better than this one.

 

posted by taming at 04:35 | link | comments (1)|
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Eventually, it all boils down to coffee.

The 2006 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results were announced on July 11 by the Dept. of English & Comparative Literature
of San Jose State University. This annual event is based on the premise that everyone deserves a chance to write a truly terrible first sentence for a book, even if the author stops after that accomplishment.

The author whose work inspired the competition was Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who in 1830, wrote this one:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Jared Andersson, a home roasting list guy, posted the 2006 winner in the romance division for its obvious appeal to list members.

Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine. ( by Dennis Barry of Dothan, AL )

As a woman over 50, I'm rather fond of the runner-up in this category, though I am a bit afraid that if I were to show it to RT, his grin would be too damn big.

Sex with Rachel after she turned fifty was like driving the last-place team on the last day of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, the point no longer the ride but the finish, the difficulty not the speed but keeping all the parts moving in the right direction, not to mention all that irritating barking. (by Dan Winters of Los Altos Hills, CA )

 

posted by taming at 09:01 | link | comments (5)|
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Finally, A Post About Coffee

With all the car hoopla over the past few days, I haven't posted much about coffee. I've been drinking the Carmen Estates 1800 for the past few days. I roasted it to a City+, and have not blended it with any other beans. It's good coffee, but it hasn't knocked my socks off. Now that I have tried it this way, I'll play a bit with the next batch, trying a little darker roast, and also blending it with some other beans. In fact, later today, I'll probably take the Carmen I have left, and throw in some Mandheling that are ready and see how that goes.

My sinus/dental problems are back, and I'm on antibiotics again. It may very well be that  this has affected my sense of taste. I'm ready for this reoccurring  nonsense to stop. I can deal with the pain, but when it starts to decrease my enjoyment of coffee, well, that cannot be allowed to continue.

I decided on the iRoast-2 roaster, for several reasons. One of the big things it has going for it is that it is easy to vent it, using a dryer kit, to the outside. Coffee roasting creates a whole lot of smoke, and our fan over the stove, oddly enough, is not vented to the outside. When we do a remodel of the kitchen, we will remedy this situation, but until then, being able to throw the dryer contraption out of the kitchen window is a plus. Many people roast outdoors, but in Central Alberta, that really isn't an option for a good part of the year.

I was concerned because the maximum you can roast in the IR2 is about 150 grams (that's 1/3 of a pound for you Imperial types). I'm finding though that with the relatively small coffee consumption around our house, and my propensity to either blend different beans or create a mélange of  the same beans at different roast levels, this is not a real drawback. I often will roast 150 grams of one bean, and then roast a second batch of some sort of different bean or variation of the same bean, and combine the two when I am grinding and brewing.

That being said, I am intrigued by the roaster mods I see. Yesterday, Jason Montgomery (from the Sweet Maria home roasting mailing list) finished building his SC/TO roaster. This is a modification of a Stir Crazy popcorn maker and a table top convection oven, known generically as a Turbo Oven. He has posted a pictorial of his mod that is comprehensive and easy to follow by mousing over the images. Good job!!

Now, I don't know that I need something that can roast 3/4 of a pound of beans at a time, but I long to try something like this myself. It's silly really, because I am totally un-handy, and RT is worse than I am at such things. We also couldn't use it for six months out of the year, until I deal with the ventilation issue.

It's still, to my coffee addled brain, a thing of beauty.

 

posted by taming at 04:58 | link | comments (1)|
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