I always get so disappointed when I walk past a Starbucks and see someone working on an Apple laptop. I mean, I just naturally assume that Mac users have better taste than that.

Now, I don’t mean “how can they patronize such a multi-corp coffee house?” Though some of their practices as outlined in Naomi Klein’s No Logo sound just atrocious. I don’t know enough about the business practices of other coffee chains*, or Apple themselves to make that comparison.

No, I’m talking about the taste of the coffee itself. When it has any, that is. Cause my experience with Starbucks nationwide is that when the coffee isn’t burnt, it’s flavorless. I can see if you are really desperate and there is no other coffee in a twenty mile radius, but good lord! This is the land of coffee shops! And many are oh so good.

In fact I am moved to go get some coffee goodness right now. From Torrefazione, who, yes, Starbucks has bought, but haven’t ruined yet. Their unsweetened mochas are the best.

*Except Stumptown, who are coffee gods and always my first choice when possible.

Kip has begun the second episode or “fit” of City of Roses. Never before seen material folks! Complete with a snazzy new picture.

His also been posting a little more than he has, including one entry about the the photography of Edward Burtynsky and the matter of shipbreaking. Kip found out about both from one of the nifty magazines we subscribe to called Granta. Some of the others we get delivered are Gastronomica, McSweeney’s, Nest, Cabinet and, naturally, the New Yorker.

Now, as I have already bitched about not having time to read said magazines, I will resist doing so again. Most of these magazines have websites that are very worth while, as do Bitch and Colors, which I try to buy at Reading Frenzy. But in particular check out Cabinet’s this month. it has some fun online writing plus the “Out of Site” links are particularly good, including Maps of the London Underground from 1889 to present, the Sound Mirrors of Greatstone, Kent and Adult Movie Posters of the 1960s and 1970s.

Earlier today I went a-huntin’ (or a-googlin’) online for pictures of modern Chinese funerary paper goods. This was sparked by a passage read in Dancing on the Grave which talked about these items and how the paper representations of everyday items made for the dead had moved from being simple cutouts of servants and say, pots, to elaborate three dimensional paper servants, motorbikes, CD players and so on. These items are purchased by the family of the dearly departed and burnt so that these items can make their way the underworld to the departed in question for their use in the afterlife.

Pretty much no luck. Except for an online article about Hell Money by, of all people, cat yronwode.

For those unfamiliar with cat, she was the editor-in-chief for the late comic book company Eclipse, which used to publish Zot! among many other fine comics. It seems ever since I started trolling the internet, I will time and again stumble over cat’s site an its myriad of article including Freemasonry for Women. I find this constant re-acquaintance with cat’s web presence oddly comforting.

Well! I dropped into Freddie’s to pick up pitas and coconut milk and was greeted with the sight of Christmas decorations. Not some discreet beginning display of some lights and bulbs, but full on artifical trees decoratated and blinking, wrapping paper, the Singing Bass and so on.

Just as well Kip wasn’t with me: he would’ve been reduced to sputtering fury and disgust. And I in turn would’ve had the overwhelming impulse to pat his arm and lead him away as I turned to smile apologetically at people and explain about his condition.

Not that he is without his point. I was raised by the rule that the Christmas season did not begin until the end of the MacyÕs Day parade. When Santa officially came to town. Until then, no Christmas decorations in any shape or form. I like that really, it made Christmas seem more special as opposed to tiresome. Besides, who could think of Christmas until Thanksgiving had been successfully executed?

But today was the the first time I saw Halloween decorations so thoroughly mixed amongst the flashing Christmas trees. And I felt a small glimmer of approval.

I mean, here were our country’s two holidays of death co-mingled in cheerful display. Because though Christmas is the birth of Jesus, the main message I get is “Hooray! The blood sacrifice is born!” For I learned that Christ died before I ever heard he had been born. After all, until I was six, Santa dominated December.

As I find most U.S. news reporting painful to endure, I tend to go to the
BBC website to get the scoop. And since I usually
don’t have time to read it all, I listen to the audio
programs.

Unfortunately for a while I couldn’t because of some conflict between Real Player and some other program or extension on my computer at work. But the BBC has a new web interface radio player that works splendidly.

Just in time too, for I got to hear President Bush reassure Indonesian Islamic leaders in Bali that the U.S. is not anti-Islamic, that the war against terrorism is not a war against Islam. Even better was the slight involuntary chuckle for BBC correspondent Rachel Harvey when reporting the surprised reaction of one of the Islamic leaders: “Did you know President Bush took detailed notes? I think this is a positive sign.”

I just love the BBC’s formal delivery and stellar word choice, doubly so when they break form.

But anyway, Norway. When I went the BBC’s front
page one of the factoids I gleaned, beyond the fact that some
yahoo went over Niagara Falls, was that Norway
has awarded a resident witch a business development grant so she can “
tell fortunes, teach magic tricks at corporate seminars, and offer potions and
creams to cure for problems ranging from sleeplessness to bad habits.”