Good Coffee, and Plastic

It's nice having excellent coffee again. I buy really good coffee, and I've been cheating myself most of the time the past few years brewing it in a substandard pot. I bought that pot because I thought having a timer on a coffee pot would be cool -- you know, have it brew for you and have it all ready in the morning when you get up.

Well, I've done it maybe 10 times in 4 years. Ran into issues like -- sometimes Vicki didn't want coffee in the morning (and you have to know how much you are going to make at night before you go to bed), and then there's the fact on weekends you may not know when you're ACTUALLY going to get up... and you want your coffee as fresh as possible, so you don't want it sitting a long time (hmmm, coffee pot with a remote control, anyone?)

On top of that, I don't think this coffee maker ever got the water hot enough. It was a $50 drip brewer and it never made as good coffee as my $16 Mr. Coffee drip machine. But I felt obligated to use it since I paid the money for it. Silliness. Folks, life's too short.

The French Press didn't make enough coffee for two, and it was harder to clean... and between that and boiling the water in a separate vessel and all... more of a pain (but really good coffee).

The new vaccuum brewer is great. It's almost an antique and it cost half as much as the pot it replaced (Ebay. My friend.) Plus it looks a lot cooler.

Got my new MP3 player. Pretty cool. Two problems with it -- the latch on the cover opens if you look at it too hard (but not when it's in the carrying case, which it will be almost all of the time) and the carrying case itself -- has a PLASTIC belt clip. Folks, I just paid $200 for a nice portable music device -- honest, if it costs that much I'll PAY you the extra 50 cents for a real live spring-metal belt-clip. You KNOW that thing will break somewhere down the road, and at the most inconvenient time. What is it with plastic everything? I don't have anything in particular against plastic, but some things just shouldn't be made out of it. Like belt clips, or anything else that's going to have to be rigid and flex a lot under tension. Stainless Spring Steel, please!!!!!!!!!