Linkstew

The "Linkstew" in the title of this page randomly alternates between being spelled "LinkStew" and "Linkstew".

Wanna know something else silly? I decided that it's spelled "LinkStew" at the beginning of a sentence, and "Linkstew" everywhere else.

Yes, I'm a silly boy.

"What does he get if he gets them all right?"
"An iced mocha."
-- two of my co-workers

And with that began the "Iced Mocha tour of Berkeley" in the office today. Six of us went forth and each acquired an Iced Mochas from a local coffee house. This endeaver was inspired by the fact that R., our resident Iced Mocha expert, was leaving for Grad School at the end of the week.

Iced Mocha expert? Yeah, you see, R. averages about three Iced Mochas a day, and even owns iced-mocha.net. When he travels, he always comes back with a report about the availability of Iced Mochas. Really, R. and Iced Mocha are pretty much synonymous.

So the purpose of the Iced Mocha tour was actually two-fold. First, it was an attempt to spread around some of R.'s knowledge of local coffee shops in general, and Iced Mochas in particular. And Second, it was an opportunity to see how well R. knows his Iced Mochas in a little blind taste test.

So we gathered our Iced Mochas, returned to the office, poured each Iced Mocha into an anonymous cup, and let R. try his mouth at the cups. R., unfortunately, only went 1/2 for 6. The Iced Mochas were:

A. International House
B. Strada
C. Coffee Source
D. Wall Berlin
E. Sufficient Grounds
G. Intermezzo (R. picked the first five, and this last one was chosen as a "mystery mocha" to stump the expert)

It's important to note that random anomalies frequently occur with coffee, and sometimes you just get a bad mocha. R. most frequently gets his Iced Mochas from Strada, Coffee Source, and Wall Berlin, and amazingly, our samples from both Strada and Coffee Source were sufficiently bad to throw off R.'s taste buds. (I drink Iced Mochas pretty regularly, and I agree that they were both ... abnormal)

This, unfortunately, totally threw off R.'s ability to pidgeonhole which mocha was which, because he couldn't identify the mochas he drinks most often. So in the end, the only mocha he (half) identified was the Mystery Mocha, though he guessed that it was from Espresso Experience rather than Intermezzo. R.'s first, and pretty much only, comment on that Intermezzo Mocha before declaring it "bad" was "Ilch!"

In the end, the assembled tasted ranked our Iced Mochas in the following order:

1. Sufficient Grounds - This is one of my favorites even on a normal day, but today's sample was unusually milky and sweet, which made for an especially pleasing experience for all the non-regular mocha drinkers in the office.
2. Wall Berlin - They tend towards sweeter, but very strong, Mochas. Todays was actually a little less strong than usual, which I didn't personally mind.
3. International House - I'd never had an Iced Mocha from here, but it was pretty typical for what I expect from an Iced Mocha.
4. Coffee Source/Strada - Once again, I note that these were both "bad blends," and should not be discounted just based on this one bad experience.
5. Intermezzo - Christo this one was bad. Ilch indeed. But Intermezzo is more of a salad/sandwich place than a coffee house, so I can't complain too much.

For reference, my favorite three Mochas on a normal day are Sufficient Grounds, Coffee Source, and Wall Berlin. I don't get up to Strada very often to drink there enough to develop a taste for it. From todays taste tests, though, I realized that I actually like my Iced Mochas slightly watered down (or less strong, if you prefer looking at it that way), but definitely Iced. Cold cold cold is a must.

Lessons learned? If we do this again, we should get two samples from each coffee shop, remove the ice and add it back right before tasting (to keep them from getting watered down until the samples are poured), and mix vigourously before the taste tests begin.

The final verdict on the Iced Mocha Tour?

"I think drinking iced mochas like this is like drinking several different kinds of hard liquor."
-- R., on "that funny feeling in our stomachs"

Oh, and here are a couple pictures.

I don't write very many checks, but bills have slowly but surely eroded the few checks that I had in my checkbook. And tonight, I ran out and needed some more. I knew I had them... somehwere. And I knew I hadn't come across them the other day when I'd been purging some of my boxes of stuff. So I started in my other closet of boxes. And I checked in a box here. And another box there. And then the rest of the normal boxes. And then I got to the top of my closet, where I looked in all kinds of little random boxes I have, and found no checks. And then I pulled down my printer box, and started looking through the boxes in there. And inside a motherboard box, I found another box packed right inside. And inside of that box inside of the motherboard box inside of my printer box at the top of my closet were my checks... Packed neatly inside of a little box that said "Bank of America" on the side.

My family recently bought a couple of used jet-skis, and today we hauled them the half a mile down to the lake (yes, my parents live about half a mile from a lake) and took them out for the first time.

There are two, but one is significantly more powerful than the other. Naturally, the red one is more powerful one, because "red goes faster." Unfortunately, the powerful one seems to have a bad habit where it's engine dies if you let go of the throttle -- so it made it really hard to idle out of the dock area. The less powerful one is yellow and idles beautifully, and in general is more responsive on the throttle because there's less of a range of speeds to deal with.

Rmmm BrmmmmmmmMMM wap wap wape wake hopping splashing slow and turn turn turning splashing into the wind, hair blowing back and 55! the water stings my face and my cheeks are filled with wind wap wap smack! smack stop.

It was very exhilarating, to say the least. With it's extra power, the red one handled better with the wind and wakes, so it was easy to get up on top of the water. The yellow one could get going as well, but it just wasn't quite the same. For taking tight turns, the yellow one was much nicer, because you could let the throttle completely off for a second without the engine dying. With the red one, I had to take wider turns for two reasons -- I was going faster in the straightaway, and with no breaks, I can't actually decelerate, so I had to take an easier turn. And I couldn't just idle the engine in a turn with the red one, forcing me to keep at least a little gas going.

The yellow one doesn't have a speedometer, but I got the red one up to 55 mph -- I was hanging on for dear life, because it felt like if I let go, I would fly off and hit the water and die. And if I let go, I certainly would fly off, and it would probably hurt like hell when I hit the water, but hopefully I wouldn't be permanently injured... Thankfully, I didn't actually fall off, and for sanity, I kept it between 30 and 40 most of the time. It's a heck of lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to going out again later this summer.

gratuitous - 1. Not called for by the circumstances; without reason, cause, or proof; adopted or asserted without any good ground; 2. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Predictably, going to Bakersfield resulted in me seeing a movie with my cohorts. And in my motivation to make no decisions this weekend, I just shrugged and went and saw Tomb Raider when it was suggested. It was either that or drive around trying to find something better to do than sit in an air conditioned theater when it's 105 outside.

Honestly, the movie wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It really could have been much, much worse. Sure, for the first fifteen minutes I was shaking my head at things that seemed irrelevant, and made no sense in the context, and were obviously there solely to show off... But after about fifteen minutes, I realized that the situation wasn't going to get any better, and if I kept shaking my head it was going to fall off -- so I gave in to the sillyness and just accepted it all.

And once I gave up on making any sense of it, I found three things: Neat-o sets, Angelina Jolie, and incredible action scenes (focusing on Angelina Jolie).

The sets were neat. From Croft's mansion, to the jungle temple, to the icy temple -- it was all very well done. And they were nice to look at and all, but thanks to some questionable cinematography, the architecture was frequently obscured or neglected. The crew was probably distracted, and the editors probably figured it didn't matter, because the audience would be distracted as well. It was all by design.

You see, the film-makers knew what their chief asset was. No, not the Tomb Raider license, but rather, Angelina Jolie. And her assets were exploited to their fullest in this role. She was stuntorific, shooting, dodging, running, and bouncing (in more ways than the obvious one pair) her way to victory. She had a whole range of outfits, all of which were intended to do one thing: Show off Jolie's body in every way possible. And all of her outfits met that goal admirably.

The story was average. No better and no worse than The Mummy Returns, for example. The difference between Tomb Raider and The Mummy Returns is that people who went to see Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider got to see a lot of Angelina Jolie, while people who went to see The Rock in The Mummy Returns didn't get 1/10th of what they paid for.

And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I didn't object to seeing the movie because the prospect of watching Angelina Jolie be shown off sounded like an entertaining way to spend my time, and I was right. 3/5.

At some point in my coding marathon last night (well, tonight, depending on your definition), I ordered some Thai food. When I went to the restaurant to pick up my order, it wasn't quite ready yet, and so I used the toilet. So there I was in this unknown bathroom, when I noticed that I was staring at a poster....

This poster had instructions on it for doing "One Handed Urinal Push-Ups." It even listed a five step procedure for doing One Handed Urinal Push-Ups:

1. Put your free hand on the wall.
2. Lean towards the wall.
3. Push yourself away from the wall.
4. Shout "I AM SPECIAL"
5. Repeat Steps 1 through 4.

It also had diagrams demonstraiting what muscles you should be stretching when you're in positions 2 and 3.

I shit you not.

As I walked between seven and a half hours of class today, I saw a flyer for eOdin, "The only online source for readers". Now, how does advertising help Odin exactly? Seems to me, they need to go for the course instructors to get readers at Odin, and once the readers are at Odin, then they'll make money because students have to buy their readers. Whatever.

YourCoffin.com is apparently selling, well, coffins. The front page is especially amusing, with the animated gif of what you can use your coffin for. Let's see... Stereo Cabinent, Wine Rack, Girls in Bikinis... Uh, yeah, anyway.

Golden Silly putty has a little less utility than the Golden Slinky noted yesterday, though it's significantly cheaper. Then, of course, there is this insanity which passes for Silly Putty's web site... "Silly Putty University"? At least Slinky doesn't have a web page that I could find.

So I got myself a nice springy metal Slinky today. Playing with a Slinky is a very meditative act. Great way to distract oneself, too. Then, of course, there is the 14 carat gold plated slinky, or, if you want something that still looks gold but is more durable and cheaper, there is the brass slinky