Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

Ahoy There Mateys!

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day!  Cute button, huh?  I stole it from the Wikipedia Pirate page.

For more information and lotsa good links about International Talk Like a Pirate Day, check my last year's Piratey post.  There's links for making grog, and plenty of other pirate stuff.

Arrrgh, swash my buckle, and shiver me timbers, it's hard to believe it's been a whole year. 

And stay away from my bootie!  Errr, booty.  Heh, but stay away from my bootie too.

Speaking of booty, you gotta see this video clip: Pirate vs. Ninja.  It's a mighty chuckle-fest and appropriate for the day.

To help you make it through the day, Jack Sparrow's Coffee is a must. 

And be it known that moderate doses of RUM help yer ability to talk like a pirate.  So get ye out there and celebrate, pirate-style.  Avast there!  Shove off and heave to.  Or something like that.

Kopro Shrumak

Any Myst-ers out there?  Got Uru?  Get a chuckle out of this: Kopro Shrumak, a rare and gourmet coffee from Teledahn that is made from spores passed through the digestive system of shroomies.  Read the details here.

For those who haven't played URU, a shroomie is a sort of sea creature that feeds on spores and oversized mushrooms on one of the "worlds" in the game. 

This is, of course, a nod to the rare and famous (or infamous) Kopi Luwak coffee that costs an arm and a leg (if you can even find any) because it passes through the digestive tract of a small creature called a Luwak. 

If you haven't played Uru, it won't be as funny, so ... whaddya waiting for?  Go get the game!!

ChocoFriday: Oddz-N-Endz

It's been a while since I've done a Chocolate Friday!  Bad Christine.  I shall punish myself with a chocolate voodoo doll.  Heheh, what fantastihorrible torture. 

Or maybe I'll torture myself by sending some virtual chocolate.  Seriously, I don't know if sending one of these would be considered a friendly act or really truly torture.  These are some mouse waddling pics!

Some other oddball chocolate stuff I found:

• Apparently somewhere in the Phillipines you can get chocolate toothpaste.  Heh, that's one way to get yer kids to brush.  But doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?
• Kooki Sushi - Chocolate made to look like sushi.
• Chocolate Cheeseburger and Chocolate Spaghetti from Creative Chocolate.
• Chocolate Cigars - now here's an idea for Father's Day!
• Chocolate Condoms - What?

That's all I have time for today, I'm off to the store for apples and latte!

Improving Espresso, "Tim the Toolman" Style

Heheh, if you've never seen "Home Improvement", or Tim Allen's standup comedy routine, you won't get the joke here.  Ed Needham applies manly traditions for improving anything -- just add more power -- to the task of making better espresso.  [Insert Tim Allen's macho sound effects here "augh augh AUGH!"]  The result is ... ummm ... explosive. 

CelebriTEA News

Some interesting tea-ish oddities from FemaleFirst:

The Dangers of Porcelain - Sliced by a teacup?  Lindsay Lohan purportedly cut herself on a shattered teacup.  She fell on the stairs, dropped the cup, and cut her leg bad enough to need 10 stitches!  That's quite a fall.  I hope she got back on the horse and made herself another cup of tea, pronto!  Maybe in a safe plastic cup this time.  Or at least stay off the stairs.

Tea with the Queen - an intruder entered the Scottish Royal Palace, apparently after a night of heavy drinking, and when caught, told the guards he just wanted to have tea with Lizzy II.  What I'd like to know is how he got as far as he did before being caught.  He had climbed a fence, crossed a carpark, waltzed in through heavy doors, crossed a courtyard and climbed two flights of stairs, where he finally stopped to rest.  The guards found him sitting outside doors leading to a museum dedicated to Mary Queen of Scots on one side and locked apartments of the Queen Elizabeth on the other.  Good thing her apartments were locked, eh?

Tea Rose Lips - I don't think I would be tempted to buy a product just because it was used by Kelly Clarkson.  But I would like to smell this lipstick. 

Caffeine Makes You Wanna ...

At least, so this study shows.

Ok, now, wait.  Before anybody goes and tries to make caffeine pills the new "date drug", you should know this applies only if you're a rat.  More precisely, if you're a FEMALE rat.  They don't know yet if this translates to humans, although I could give an educated guess and say, yeah, probably. 

The rats with the highest return-for-more-sex rate had the caffeine equivalent of a couple shots of espresso for a human.  But then, they'd never had caffeine before.  It might take a bit more for those of us with high caffeine tolerance. 

Suddenly I feel the urge for a latte.

via WebMDBlog
Related: Sex and Coffee?
              Can't Get Enough Caffeine?

Sunday News

I used to enjoy the Sunday paper for one reason and one reason only: the comics.  Once I realized how much my puny preference was contributing to the vast quantities of paper waste and killing of trees, I stopped subscribing.  I now no longer have anything to wrap my fish in.  Plus, no more Sunday comics. 

Thankfully, there are online comic strips now.   Visit ineedcoffee.com's comic section to see regular installments of Inanimate Objects by Todd Zapoli, WYSIWYG by Jym Annear and Best in Show by Phil Juliano, plus a smattering of others.  We all need a chuckle now and then, and these are on one of my favorite topics.  Now I just need to find a tea comic strip.

CoR #74
In other news, the Carnival of the Recipes is up at The Common Room.  They've done a great job on this, the 74th Carnival, with lots and lots of yummy recipes for your tasting pleasure.

Mark the Date!  Get Yer Recipes In!!
I am really excited to be hosting the Carnival this coming week!  The theme will be coffee, tea and chocolate, and the recipes can be drinks or foodstuff made from coffee, tea or chocolate.  That doesn't mean other recipes will be left out in the cold, so please don't feel restricted by the theme.  But if you want to follow the theme and need some ideas, check out these sites:

Coffee Recipes (drinks and food)
Coffee drink recipes
Tea Chef
IMBB 17: TasteTea Roundup Part I
IMBB 17: TasteTea Roundup Part II
IMBB 17: TasteTea Roundup Part III
Holiday Recipes a la Java
Espresso & Coffee Recipes, from homecooking.about.com
Essence of Emeril, Cooking with Coffee episode
AllRecipes.com Tea Recipes
AllRecipes.com Coffee Recipes

There, that ought to get you started, at least give you some ideas of things to try.  Don't forget to post your recipes by Saturday noon, either by email to recipe-dot-carnival-at-neversendspam-gmail-dot-c0m, or you can use the Conservative Cat's Carnival Submission Form. 

More Music!
Lastly, for you music lovers, I'll be updating my coffee/tea music chart, adding more songs, mp3's and album links.  Kat  has been kind enough to help me fill in the blanks and add to the list, so I'll be sending her a little thank you.  I gave her the choice of old dog toy, a lifetime supply of dust bunnies, or coffee.  Guess what she picked?  Heh.

National Hot Tea Month

I had to post these, in honor of January being National Hot Tea Month (according to American Food & Drink Holidays) AND today being the birthdate of Louis Braille, the creator of the braille alphabet.  (After the recent derth of posts here, two in one day! Well, I had to do something to avoid working...)

Feel free to borrow/steal/use these, and if you post them somewhere, let me know and I'll link us all up as members of the National Hot Tea Month Club!  Oh, and please don't link to the images here, just right-click, save-as, and then put the icon onto your own blogspace.

UPDATE: Check here for a list of folx who have joined the National Tea Month Club!

New Year's Resolutions

I'm not ready for it to be a new year already.  I think we should adopt the Mayan tradition and celebrate the new year in July.  Did you know the French used to celebrate it on March 25, until 1582, when they finally adopted the "reformed" calendar? That would be fine with me, I'd have another few months to slouch around.

Oh well.  It's here, whether I'm ready or not.  Time for looking back, and for planning ahead.  A time for making fresh starts.  I wondered who it was that started all this New Year's Resolution stuff anyway.  According to infoplease.com's New Year's page:

It is believed that the Babylonians were the first to make New Year's resolutions, and people all over the world have been breaking them ever since. The early Christians believed the first day of the new year should be spent reflecting on past mistakes and resolving to improve oneself in the new year.

Lord.  A friend of ours declined to join our New Year's gluttony and debauchery this evening.  She's going to spend the night all by herself, reflecting, ruminating, revising and resolving.  Criminy, what a waste of a good Saturday night.

Ok, ok, I'll do a list.  But this year I'm going to be realistic about it.  I usually set impossible goals, try to climb ginormous mountains, and give up after a few weeks.  Why set myself up for failure yet again?

My 2006 New Year's Resolutions
1. Drink more good coffee
2. Drink at least one new flavor/kind of tea every month
3. Try a new decadent chocolate recipe at least once a month
4. Have a splendiferous fancy schmancy tea party once a month
5. See one new release movie each month
6. Do some exercises and yoga ... sometime or other
7. Eat something healthy ... once in a while, when I feel like it
8. Stop judging myself or comparing myself to others
9. Spend more quality time with my inner child
10. Do something creative - often

Now, there's a list I can live with. 

So, my friends and relations, here's a tip of the cup to you and yours.  I wish you all the best of all possible futures, and the warmest possible memories, for "auld lang syne".

New Year's History & Traditions:
   * http://www.fathertimes.net/traditions.htm
   * http://wilstar.com/holidays/newyear.htm
   * http://www.infoplease.com/spot/newyearcelebrations.html

Tuesday Tidbits

Think those coffee pots with timers are new and inventive?  Check this article, showing there truly is nothing new under the sun.

To the woman who thinks my Jingle Ball humor is sophomoric: Sophomoric vs. The Giggle Monster, or How I Found My Christmas Spirit.

Hadta laugh, speaking of sophomoric humor, when I stumbled across this blog: Darjeeling in the Teapot.  Is it just me or does that image look like a diaphragm?  I was hoping for more teastuff here but couldn't find any.