Re: TIB: Another joke for Amy (and Kirsten, and her family)


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Re: TIB: Another joke for Amy (and Kirsten, and her family)




In a message dated 98-04-23 21:00:55 EDT, you write:

<< Kristen:  Read and give to Amy.  Thanks!
 
 This one is real interesting...  I think it was a column in a news paper
 someone typed up.  Its not exactly relay funny, but its kinda weird...  :)
 
 ---
 Decaf Poopacino
 BY DAVE BARRY
 
 I have exciting news for anybody who would like to pay a lot of money
 for coffee that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive
 tract.  And you just know there are plenty of people who would.
 Specialty coffees are very popular these days, attracting millions of
 consumers, every single one of whom is standing in line ahead of me
 whenever I go to the coffee place at the airport to grab a quick cup
 on my way to catch a plane.  These  consumers are always ordering
 mutant beverages with names like "mocha-almond-honey vinaigrette
 lattespressacino," beverages that must be made one at a time via a
 lengthy and complex process involving approximately one coffee bean,
 three quarts of dairy products and what appears to be a small nuclear
 reactor.  Meanwhile, back in the line, there is growing impatience
 among those of us who just want a plain old cup of coffee so that our
 brains will start working and we can remember what our full names are
 and why we are catching an airplane.  We want to strike the
 lattespressacino people with our carry-on baggage and scream "GET OUT
 OF OUR WAY, YOU TRENDY GEEKS, AND LET US HAVE OUR COFFEE!"  But of
 course we couldn't do anything that active until we've had our coffee.
  It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine
 medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently
 view it as some kind of recreational activity. I bet this kind of
 thing does not happen to heroin addicts.  I bet that when serious
 heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they do not tolerate
 waiting in line while some dilettante in front of them orders a
 hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles.  The reason some of us
 need coffee is that it contains caffeine, which makes us alert. Of
 course it is very important to remember that caffeine is a drug, and,
 like any drug, it is a lot of fun.  No!  Wait!  What I meant to say
 is:  Like any drug, caffeine can have serious side effects if we
 ingest too much. This fact was first noticed in ancient Egypt when a
 group of workers, who were supposed to be making a birdbath, began
 drinking Egyptian coffee, which is very strong, and wound up
 constructing the pyramids.  I myself developed the coffee habit in my
 early 20s, when, as a "cub" reporter for the Daily Local News in West
 Chester, Pa., I had to stay awake while writing phenomenally boring
 stories about municipal government.  I got my coffee from a vending
 machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all
 three liquids squirted out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty
 much the same.  But I came to need that coffee, and even today I can
 do nothing useful before I've had several cups. (I can't do anything
 useful afterward, either; that's why I'm a columnist.)
 
 But here's my point: This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far.  I
 say this in light of a letter I got recently from alert reader Bo
 Bishop.  He sent me an invitation he received from a local company to
 a "private tasting of the highly prized Luwak coffee," which "at $300
 a pound is one of the most expensive drinks in the world."  The
 invitation states that this coffee is named for the luwak, a "member
 of the weasel family" that lives on the Island of Java and eats coffee
 berries; as the berries pass through the luwak, a "natural
 fermentation" takes place, and the berry seeds-the coffee beans-come
 out of the luwak intact.  The beans are then gathered, washed, roasted
 and sold to coffee connoisseurs. The invitation states:  "We wish to
 pass along this once in a lifetime opportunity to taste such a
 rarity."  Or, as Bo Bishop put it:  "They're selling processed weasel
 doodoo for $300 a pound."
 
 I first thought this was a clever hoax designed to ridicule the coffee
 craze. Tragically, it is not.  There really is a Luwak coffee.  I know
 because I bought some from a specialty-coffee company in Atlanta.  I
 paid $37.50 for two ounces of beans.  I was expecting the beans to
 look exotic, considering where they'd been, but they looked like
 regular coffee beans.  In fact, for a moment I was afraid that they
 were just regular beans, and that I was being ripped off. Then I
 thought: What kind of world is this when you worry that people might
 be ripping you off by selling you coffee that was NOT pooped out by a
 weasel?
 
 So anyway, I ground the beans up and brewed the coffee and drank some.
  You know how sometimes, when you're really skeptical about something,
 but then you finally try it, you discover that it's really good, way
 better than you would have thought possible? This is not the case with
 Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee, in my opinion, tastes like somebody washed
 a dead cat in it.  But I predict it's going to be popular anyway,
 because it's expensive.  One of these days, the people in front of me
 at the airport coffee place are going to be ordering decaf poopacino.
 I'm thinking of switching to heroin.
  >>

What does this have to do with TI basic?? or TI calculaters in anyway??