the full and terrible price of a disorganized lifestyle

I have days where I spend 6-7 hours at my desk, typing reports, talking to vendors on the phone, running simulations etc. One of my favourite ways to keep the mind alive during these stretches is to have some music in the background, but I generally stick with Baroque and Classical stuff as it is not too distracting.

The three or four disks I had at my desk were getting a bit stale (I can't keep mp3's on my work machine 'cos the player robs too much processing power from my stats and modelling work, ayup) so I grabbed three CD cases from the living room shelf this morning.

They are all empty, but I did not discover this until just now. I can locate them in my mind to a high degree of accuracy: Haydn in the kitchen mini 5-spinner, Mozart in the LR stereo, Vivaldi in the car.

Dammit.

a new twist on addiction

Anyone who's been paying even the slightest bit of attention knows I have an unhealthy love for coffee. Dark roast, served hot and black.

We have coffee at work but it's awful, awful shit by any standard: old style glass-carafe-hot-plate, packets of Mother Parkers. At best, it tastes like burned dirt, becoming more tar-like as it ages.

So, I usually bring some from home in a thermos. This is great for the first cup, okay for the second cup, bleh for the lunchtime cup, and the afternoon cup / dregs really starts to raunch.

Well, I've just discovered that the contract office at the back of the building has this little single serving machine that takes small sealed cups of coffee concentrate (think an outsized creamer, or maybe a salad dressing package from a fast food restaurant) and serves up a personalized cup of coffee or tea from a range of 8 flavours, all lined up in a colour coded row of display boxes on the table.

It's twice the cost of office coffee (50 cents a cup) and probably 3-4 times the cost of coffee from home, but oh, my, it's FRESH and GOOOOOOOOOOOOD. They've got a South American Dark Roast that I'd smack a close relative for. Not my grandma...maybe a great uncle or 2nd cousin.