I think of the minimum acceptable pantry stockage of coffee as a sealed can of good quality coffee, and a drip cone with filter. If you don't drink it yourself, a machine seems like overkill.
The style of coffee you provide should be commeasurate with your space/wealth of your kitchen
I have to hope you're trolling.
A French Press is what, $25? And not very big? I don't see why everyone (including coffee drinkers) doesn't just get one of those.
I subsist entirely on a single-cup drip cone and filters.
2: I admit that the speller kept flagging that "c" word. I tried a bunch of combinations and gave up. I didn't bother to look it up.
What 3 said. Tea, coffee, milk. Stuff everyone has in their kitchen, no?
3 is what I do (did); I think I got mine for under $20 and it doesn't take up hardly any room. I had a coffee grinder that I used for spices and some whole beans in the freezer. Altogether, seemed to produce decent enough coffee when required.
Heebie's right (TM) that if you're hosting people, you need to have coffee-making-goods on hand, or else you'll face grumpy guests!
keep a jar of instant around
I have to hope you're trolling.
Not just out-of-town guests, either. If you're going to be bringing home love interests, it's only considerate.
If you have guests, they will need coffee. However, if you live in an area with commercial development, it is permissible to give them $2.50 and send them to Starbucks.
I was appalled that we were over-thinking new garlic presses and new colanders
I can't parse this. You mean since you and they were talking about buying various gadgets like that, you don't see why they didn't want a coffeemaker?
We were guests this past weekend, and they had a big comfy kitchen and only these starbucks instant little iced coffee crapcakes. And then the only nearby coffee was more Starbucks. Enough with the stomach-churning starbucks.
Living within a block of several establishments that make coffee gets you out of this requirement, right?
Ouch, pwned at 11.
it is permissible to give them $2.50 and send them to Starbucks.
No! Bad Moby! The kids woke up at 5 and it was almost 10 am before I could get everyone en route to our activities, and could get coffee on the way. Plus Starbucks hurts my tummy. It is not okay.
Are there religious objections to coffee at play here? (In a couple places where I have lived there would have been.) Or maybe political/health objections?
Otherwise, I cannot account for it.
16: O.K. Don't use the squirt gun!
9: keep a jar of instant around
I have to hope you're trolling.
Entry level is catering to the drug addiction, taste is optional.
You mean since you and they were talking about buying various gadgets like that, you don't see why they didn't want a coffeemaker?
Well, I know why my friend doesn't want one. She doesn't want one for herself, for when she returns. But we were seriously poring over indistinguishable gadgets. Which one is cutest. Which one is most functional. Etc. And yet, the one item that the renter already said she actually cared about isn't worth acquiring?
Are there religious objections to coffee at play here?
Like Mormons? These people had diet cokes around, so caffeine was okay.
19 gets it exactly right.
Whatever happened to simplicity and moderation? Regardless of income and space, people have every right not to buy an appliance they have no personal need for.
I don't trust anybody who doesn't drink coffee. Except my mom.
Regardless of income and space, people have every right not to buy an appliance they have no personal need for.
That's what I said, but the health department said it was required to have a toilet installed.
re: 17
There's a lot of bullshit puritanical temperance-arsehole health objections made to coffee. You see it trotted out in a list whenever you read basically anything about diet in the press: cut down on alcohol, sugar, saturated fat and coffee.
16 is silly, someone who doesn't drink coffee isn't going to have better coffee in their house than Starbucks. It'll be stale and 6 months old, at best.
How can you have time to make coffee but not go a block to pick it up?
Come on. If the renter was a tea drinker, would the lessor be obliged to provide them with a pot?
And what if the renter prefers French press or something? Let them manage their own food preparation supplies.
The funniest thing about 5 is that I didn't even notice that. I tend not to notice the letters in the middle of words. I read it as "commensurate".
why everyone (including coffee drinkers) doesn't just get one of those
Because the bottom inch of French press coffee is nasty groundsy sludge and a drip cone costs about $4.
And when the renter moves out, they can take their own preferred type of coffee appliance with them. This is what the concept of personal ownership was designed for.
3: Instant coffee is cheaper than the kind of coffee that uses French presses, is why. The expense of the French press itself is not that much of a factor (though the ones you can get for cheap also tend to break within six months).
Also with French presses you have to make sure that the parts stay together. Which is fine if you care, but if it's just in the back of the cupboard being pulled out every 6 months, there's a good chance at some point they'll end up in the wrong place.
If your host really cared for you, they'd go buy it special. We never host anyone, but when we do we generally buy better coffee.
I personally like the sludge, but I'm not really a coffee drinker.
And I don't make coffee for myself at home because it has a tendency to make me incredibly anxious and it's just not a good idea for me to drink it very often. Other caffeine is fine; I posit that it's either the dosage of caffeine or one of the alkaloids in it that exacerbates what are already tendencies towards anxiety.
28: Then what were you dinging me for?
I think a sealed can of coffee probably stays fresh better than any other drinkable option.
How can you have time to make coffee but not go a block to pick it up?
We were deep in suburbia with lots of babies. It was right outside the neighborhood, but not easily walkable.
36: Active policing of class boundaries, I think.
If the renter was a tea drinker
This is America, dammit. Respect our customs. Only one kitchen appliance gets addressed as "Mister".
38: One of us is misreading "area with commercial development." I'm not sure which of us. But I claim if you live in a mixed commercial/residential area then that covers your coffee responsibility.
40: Goes in the drawer of the night stand, not the kitchen. What if sombody comes over?
41: Some of us aren't capable of getting dressed enough to go outdoors without getting a hit of coffee first. It's got to be available immediately, or there's going to be trouble.
Re: 17 I expect many more people avoid coffee because it gives them the shits than do for religious reasons.
I can understand leaving the choice/purchase of coffee making stuff up to your renter, if you are renting a place out. I don't think anywhere I've ever rented has had a coffee maker of any kind, although a kettle would be standard.
But if I had people to say, and no way of making them coffee (or tea)? That'd be shitty.
Also, a decent supply of red wine and beer. People who don't drink either, not welcome.
Like Mormons? These people had diet cokes around, so caffeine was okay.
I believe that cold caffeinated beverages are fine for mormons, but hot caffeinated beverages are (at least) disfavored.
At any rate, these weren't Mormons.
At some level of addiction, I don't think it's other people's responsibility. If you care that much about a drug that you need it before getting dressed, then you should be capable of providing it yourself.
Here, we have a drip pot, a few French presses, several Mokas, and a fancy-ass espresso machine*. I'm not sure we have a teapot. That's kind of weird.
*We only ever use the espresso machine.
47: In fact, my impression is that the ban is on hot drinks, and that the caffeine issue is an interpretation that what hot drinks was really getting at was caffeine.
If I'm sleeping in your household (a) the courtesy due a guest requires that ordinary amenities, such as coffee, are available and (b) motherfuckers are going to get cut if I don't get my fix.
I can understand leaving the choice/purchase of coffee making stuff up to your renter, if you are renting a place out.
Except that the renter had asked for one, in response to the question "Is there anything in particular you'd like me to have on hand?" That's what I found particularly outrageous.
The question is what "available" means. I think "available without putting clothes on" is a bit much.
In fact, my impression is that the ban is on hot drinks,
Huh. Is there a surrounding rationale?
"Hot drinks" is the literal phrasing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Wisdom
52: Part of the roots of my continuing lifelong aversion to coffee was seeing my father in coffee-deficit mode a few too many times. Animal, caged.
I read a Mormon blogger who serves hot chocolate regularly.
54: It's a good thing we're both married, because a torrid one-night stand is clearly out of the question.
No meals between meals, no coffee: coffee spreads darkness.
I find heebie's position (apparently also ttaM's) totally absurd. Admittedly, I don't have kids and haven't, in the past five years, lived anywhere where one couldn't walk across the street to get coffee if one wanted it.
I don't have a means of making coffee in my home, and I am a coffee drinker.
61: YOU ARE A CONFLICTED COFFEE DRINKER, SIR!
57: That and my mother making the cake for the party when I turned 6 with mocha icing.
||
I like the sound of this.
The New York Daily News reported that the protestors' defense lawyers from the National Lawyer's Guild have asked New York City to drop the charges against the occupiers or they will refuse to settle and bring all 800 cases to court.
Hooray, National Lawyer's Guild!
|>
Other things I do not feel called on to stock in my home: styles of beer I do not personally enjoy; pipes and pipe tobacco; white tea.
If, say, Sifu were a houseguest of mine, I might purchase some crazy hoppy beer because I know (or think, anyway) he likes that kind of thing, not out of a sense of obligation, but because it is kalon to do gratuitously nice things. Nevertheless, this is not something he would be entitled to expect.
59: As you say it's moot, but the solution there is that a gentleman *can walk the block to pick up the coffee and bring it back* for the guest in his bed. Hence no clothes needed for you.
It's a good thing we're both married, because a torrid one-night stand is clearly out of the question.
Some people might think both of you being married would only serve to make the one-night stand more torrid.
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Lemony Snicket is also awesome.
OWS is really flushing out who the awesome people are. Kinda like a reverse Roman Polanski.
|>
Of course, in that scenario anyone expecting a more sleepovers would pick up some coffee-making equipment when buying a toothbrush.
They can just make cowboy coffee by putting water and the grounds on the stove in an old yogurt container and then straining the grounds and melted plastic with a gym sock.
70: but that's clearly a situation beyond "guest" status.
Wait, sorry, that's vagrant coffee. Cowboy coffee you keep the grounds in there.
OT: I saw a college classmate of mine on CNBC this morning. I am amused, to say the least, by the idea of anyone taking investment advice from a man who voided his bowels in the fireplace of his suite's common room multiple times freshman year.
but that's clearly a situation beyond "guest" status.
Maybe for you, son.
Lemony Snicket is also awesome.
I really liked #1 and #8 on the list. The rest of it felt more familiar.
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I love it when Grandma Custodian's daily problems aren't depressing.
From today: Her son was drunk on Saturday, so she told him "That's why your girlfriend left you, because you act stupid."
He said "Takes stupid to know stupid."
She said "I didn't call you stupid, I said you act stupid."
She went on about how she'd be mean if she could, but she can't, but she didn't lend him the car because he called her stupid on Saturday.
This is the kind of story I can handle.
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I see no need to buy anything for a renter.
However, if someone is housesitting for you, then you should supply your house with a couple bottles of wine, some beer, coffee and tea making devices, good coffee, and some tea.
69: He plays accordian for the Magnetic Fields. How could he not be awsome?
For houseguests or housesitters, you should also make sure you have good sheets. Forget the garlic press. Upgrade your sheets.
I see no need to buy anything for a renter.
It was a furnished apartment! And she was commuting 1000 miles, and living there during the week, and flying home to her family each weekend! And all she asked for, in the whole world, was a small solitary coffee maker. I'm sorry there are so many cold-hearted robots on this thread.
This isn't hard. If you have reason to think your houseguests might be coffee drinkers, and don't provide coffee, you are a shitty host. If you provide only instant coffee, in 2011, you are a pretty shitty host, since it is basically just as easy to provide non-instant coffee making equipment.
No one has the right to make anyone take houseguests at all, so in that sense no guest has a right to "expect" anything,but you should take care of your guests. Or else you are a shitty host.
End of story.
And all she asked for, in the whole world, was a small solitary coffee maker. I'm sorry there are so many cold-hearted robots on this thread.
I think there's a big difference between denying someone's request and thinking there's an ex ante requirement to stock a coffee maker.
I agree with HG, that furnished should include some basic coffee supplies.
I still disagree with the implication in 82 that a nearby coffee shop is not providing coffee.
re: 61
If people are guests in my house, I'm not generally expecting them to shell out cash for stuff that I should have.
"Oh, you'd like a glass of water? Well, there's a Tesco about 1 mile away, and I'm sure they've Evian."
Also, I've lived in Glasgow, Oxford, and London for the past 18 years. In none of those places I have lived somewhere where there was a coffee shop within, say, one hundred metres.* I'd guess the vast bulk of all urban human-kind, even the hipster kind, don't actually have a coffee place right across the street.
* in Glasgow we once worked out there were something like 20 liquor stores and about 15 pubs within a 10 minute walking radius. And there were several coffee places, both Seatlle-evil and local/Italian variety, but you are still talking about getting dressed and walking for 5 or 10 minutes.
The houseguest issue is interesting, but different. As heebie repeats, this is someone renting a furnished apartment! The landlord is fussing over garlic presses, but won't get a coffee maker because she "doesn't want to own one." That is super weird.
81: Your friend should buy a coffee maker.
82: Halford is correct.
It isn't. You are wrong about that. It is not the same thing at all to have to leave where you are to get coffee in the morning, vs. having coffee there. But there is no law against being a shitty host.
I also do not believe that nosflow does not have a coffee maker. He must be much younger than he appears.
I think there's a big difference between denying someone's request and thinking there's an ex ante requirement to stock a coffee maker.
I'm okay with this distinction. I was using the story to illustrate how non-coffee drinkers might not be tuned into the importance of coffee, though.
A mile is not nearby.
And another thing. I drink maybe half a dozen cups of coffee a day. If I was shelling out 2 or 3 quid a pop for those, that's getting on for 800 USD a month.
If I was shelling out 2 or 3 quid a pop for those, that's getting on for 800 USD a month.
This does not compute for me. My experience with traveling to foreign countries is that foreign money is play money and does not actually cost me anything. Please do not attempt to convince me otherwise.
If people are guests in my house, I'm not generally expecting them to shell out cash for stuff that I should have.
Yes, the issue, actually, is whether coffee is something you should have. I think glassware and running water are both things you should have.
Plausibly, I might even think that if you have a houseguest, you should buy them coffee—why not?—though if I were someone's houseguest I would be more inclined (if I were paying any attention anyway, which is, sadly, not always the case) to try to buy my host coffee than accept a further favor.
I also do not believe that nosflow does not have a coffee maker.
I hereby invite you to come up to my place and see my lack of a coffee maker.
Of my regular house guests the one who's most into coffee is picky enough that whatever I had laying around the house would not be good enough. (Plus when she's in NY she wants to drink really good coffee.) I guess I have more friends who are coffee snobs than coffee addicts.
Any guests of ours could find shitty coffee within 0.08 miles of our house, but if they wanted good coffee they'd have to go 0.2 miles. It's a good thing we have several french presses.
I hereby invite you to come up to my place and see my lack of a coffee maker.
Worst come-on ever.
re: 94.last
So, you don't drink very much coffee? Or, you are quite rich?
re: 94.1
Tea, coffee, milk, sugar, booze, food of some variety. I'd consider those pretty much non negotiable if someone was coming to stay in my house. They might not want any or all of those, but I'd still think it quite crappy if I didn't have it.
And now I'm going to go downstairs and get a cup of coffee.
Of those I always have some booze. Probably we have some tea (but I'm not sure), we definitely don't have coffee, milk, or sugar. Buying milk just because a guest was in town and then throwing it out afterwards would be ridiculous. People are already getting a free room with a door that closes in NYC, what more do they want?
New Yorkers: objectively shitty hosts?
92: Yeah, I am currently on my third triple espresso.
101.--I would consider a lack of milk, tea, coffee, etc. to be pretty embarrassing, but then I generally don't play host to people I don't like.
Or put another way, if I had to do all that stuff to have a guest, I would have a lot fewer guests.
Also everyone should keep a ukulele on hand for when I come over.
How often do people have house guests? For us it's certainly more than one weekend per month.
Although admittedly he beats us on "room with a door that closes" -- our guests sleep on a foldout couch in the living room. Luckily, the dog is now too old to jump up and join them in bed.
I'm not sure if wolfson and Upetgi are kidding or not. I wouldn't give a shit if I'd just have to throw something away or not. If I had guests coming, I'd get the stuff.
105 is a joke, yeah?
I don't think they're kidding, but I'm bemused myself.
108.--Okay, that's a lot more often than for me.
So, you don't drink very much coffee? Or, you are quite rich?
The former, of course. It is a rare day that sees me have more than one cup/shot. But it is also a rare day that sees me have zero cups/shots, so I think I can still claim to be a "coffee drinker".
Milk is something I only occasionally have and I have to admit, it would never occur to me to purchase it because I had a guest. I wouldn't throw it out after, but it is just not on my radar as something someone might particularly require. (I suppose people put it in their coffee, or even in their tea, though I don't think it would taste very nice in the only kind of tea I have on hand, which is pretty grassy.)
I now want to see those insultingly misogynist 1950s coffee commercials redone with guest and host rather than husband and wife.
(And yes, Halford, I understand the difference between the relationships and why it is not a good analogy. But I'd still like to see them.)
I have a cappuccino maker at my house. When my in-laws came to stay for four days they were horrified that I only had espresso or cappuccinos available for them and said that next time they would bring instant coffee with them. Does this make me a bad hostess for not providing them with awful coffee options?
I guess, if I had a constant stream of people I didn't really know staying with me -- friends of friends or something, who weren't there to visit me, but just because I was in a really convenient location, I might think that letting them use a bed was all the hosting they were going to get. But not people I knew.
Okay, furnished changes things.
On the houseguest front, if you are simply giving someone a place to crash without much notice, you should not be expected to have more than instant coffee on hand, a la 19.
If it's planned and you're trying to make it be a good experience, a cone or French press is probably more polite to have, I suppose.
Admittedly, my coffee-making setup right now makes wretched, wretched, embarrassingly awful coffee.
I think coffee and a coffee maker is way more reasonable than milk. If people really want milk they can always pick it up half a block away.
Although admittedly he beats us on "room with a door that closes" -- our guests sleep on a foldout couch in the living room.
Isn't the traditional obligation in this situation to give the guests your bed and sleep on the couch yourself? Or, I suppose you could also just as politely give them your kids' beds (if they're adult-sized beds), and make your kids take the couch. But one way or another you have to give the guest a proper private bedroom.
re: 108
For me, overnight visitors probably only a few times a year, but it varies. Although when they do come, it's usually for more than just a single night, or a weekend. People coming for lunch/tea/dinner, or whatever, much more often, and the same would apply. If we have friends with kids round, I'd always make sure we have stuff in like soft drinks/juice, which we wouldn't normally have in the house. If my family come round there's biscuits or cake, which, again we wouldn't normally have in the house. That's just being hospitable.
re: 116
If you knew that's what they liked? Yeah. If you didn't know, no. When my in-laws are here, there's a few things I buy that I wouldn't normally, because I know that's what they like.
116: We actually do have instant on hand for my inlaws. Not that they complain about the coffee we drink, but they prefer instant. It doesn't take up much space, and what am I, going to argue with them about how it sucks?
Also, neither Upetgi nor I claims that it's acceptable to maintain a house in which coffee-craving guests just can't get what they want (though again, there are plenty of things people crave that aren't on this list and one would like to know why, kind of abstractly). Nor even that the host should make the guest pay! Far be aneleutheria from us. I would even be willing to fetch coffee for a guest. Doesn't bother me—I'd have to do that to get coffee (if I wanted to drink it in my home) anyway! Why it should be obligatory to have coffee-making equipment in the home is beyond me.
Isn't the traditional obligation in this situation to give the guests your bed and sleep on the couch yourself?
Hrm. That seems above and beyond to me.
I concur that furnished apartments, rentable vacation houses, and the like really should have the necessary equipment for making both coffee and tea. As a houseguest, the point at which I become (quietly but acutely) dismayed is when it turns out that someone will have to drive somewhere before there can be coffee.
125: I make that offer to all my guests—especially when I didn't have a couch at all, but rather merely a sleeping bag and sleeping pad—but no one ever took me up on it.*
*One person didn't take me up on it in that we both used the bed. See what etiquette can get you? Less than you think; we slept with a sword between.
re:124
Again, back to the thing that most of us don't live within 2 minutes walk of a coffee place.
I think coffee and a coffee maker is way more reasonable than milk. If people really want milk they can always pick it up half a block away.
True for every house and apartment in the English-speaking world!
I see no need to buy anything for a renter.
It was a furnished apartment! And she was commuting 1000 miles, and living there during the week, and flying home to her family each weekend! And all she asked for, in the whole world, was a small solitary coffee maker. I'm sorry there are so many cold-hearted robots on this thread.
I don't see any need either, and I'm a coffee drinker and a renter. I get your position based on it being specifically asked for, but that's not the OP. I also don't get the garlic press/colander thing (which to be fair makes your position even more reasonable). Most furnished places I've been in have had minimal kitchenware, if any. Furnished means bed(s), sofa, table chairs, washing machine. fridge and cooker. Anything more is a bonus. Usually not a free one either.
Well, maybe must of us should have coffee-making equipment in the home. I do live within a two-minute walk of a coffee place, and if your shock at my behavior is founded on the supposition that I don't, I invite you to stop being shocked.
110: I'll just have to take that as an invitation. BTW I take my coffee black.
I think coffee and a coffee maker is way more reasonable than milk.
PS. The milk goes in the coffee. Often.
127 is exactly right. You can make that offer, but no one should take you up on it, and the point is that it allows the counteroffer of both people sleeping on the bed.
125: Hmm. Admittedly, I hate it when I'm a guest and people do that to me, because it seems weird. Especially if they don't wash their sheets first--I'd rather just sleep on the couch, thanks. But I don't feel like I can argue. And anyway, you may be right--google suggests that a folding screen for privacy may be acceptable if the only place you have for guests to sleep is a room without a door. So, maybe that's an alternative.
re: 133
Exactly. Some people like black, some subset of those people are puritanical arseholes who disdain everyone who doesn't take it black, and some people like milk in it. Some people even like both, depending on mood/taste/coffee-in-question.
PS. The milk goes in the coffee. Often.
But what if your guest demands cream?!
I have been the houseguest of friends who don't drink coffee, and they all seem to have either a French press or a cone and filter around. They don't always have the actual coffee, but I don't mind bringing/buying some as long as there's a way to make it. I usually buy milk while I'm at it.
I wouldn't complain if I had to get dressed and go out to buy coffee, but I like it much better when I don't. Partly because I like to drink more than one cup and if you are buying them, you either buy a giant cup that gets cold before you're done, or you have to go back for more.
re: 131
I'm still not getting it. But maybe some people are the robust 'let's put some clothes on brave the world' types. Rather than 'let's just sit here for a while with a nice cup of coffee before we do anything' types.
I host the way ttaM does, and also offer up my bed so that guests can have a room with a door that closes.
When I had moved (back) into my house for a couple months, I had guests whose polite requests were the first I realized that I had not a single sweetener in the place. I hadn't missed it yet, but then stocked it that day. I was naturally mortified to disappoint a guest.
When we have houseguests we buy coffee, milk, tea, eggs, bacon, an assortment of fresh vegetables and new towels. We bring by muffins every morning when we come back from the motel room to which we have retreated so that they can have the run of the place, unless they've taken our car somewhere, in which case we hire a taxi so we can bring them muffins where they are. I mean, we're not animals.
Heebie seems to be right about the original post, given the facts, but 49 is right about the general question.
My parents live about two miles from the nearest paved road and about six miles from the nearest store that's open year-round. For them, given how common coffee-drinking is in our culture, having some kind of coffee machine for the sake of guests probably actually would be the polite thing to do even if they didn't drink the stuff. When they lived in a more suburb-like neighborhood just 1.5 miles from a store, though, and everywhere I've lived since growing up, sending someone to the nearest store or offering to go yourself seems more than adequate.
If truly need coffee so bad you get violent, I would suggest clinical detox. It's not healthy to be so dependent on something. (I say this as someone who gets a headache if I go a day without caffeine, but at least I have until noon or later to find the stuff.)
Heh at 'just' 1.5 miles from the store. I'd consider 1.5 miles from the store to be 'arse-end of nowhere'. I suppose I'm maybe 0.5 miles from the shops here, and I'd be pissed off at having to walk there first thing in the morning, before I'd had coffee/tea/something-to-eat.
The other party does not need to brave the world! Though perhaps you're getting at something with that "let's" bit.
It is also true that I don't think anyone who's been a guest of mine has wanted to sit here for a while with a nice cup of coffee before we do anything.*
* since the places I lived for the last six-odd years were absolutely, and obviously, unsuited for that for reasons beyond my control, it is possible that such urges in my guests were simply suppressed. As I now live on my glorious own, that may no longer be the case, but no one who's had the pleasure of being there in the morning has been of that type, that I can see.
144: Real Americans don't walk anywhere.
re: 145.last
Perhaps I'm thinking more of the fact that when we've guests, more often than not the night before has been spent drinking until late. So, first thing, you might want to just sit about and drink coffee, and chat a bit. Before you go and do whatever comes next.
I don't think I know _anyone_ who is an 'up and at 'em' type, first thing, for that matter.
The problem with the host offering to go fetch coffee is that I would feel impolite taking them up on the offer. The reason to have basic amenities in the house already is to keep the guest from feeling as if they were expecting 142-level catering.
144, 146: Heh, true, I was thinking about driving from that house to the store.
Actually, come to think of it, I also generally regard being a 'morning person' as a deep moral failing.
To drive before coffee! UGH. Not to be borne.
152 suggests that what's going on here goes beyond mere etiquette.
148/151 certainly have a point, but really, that's one of the difficulties of being a host in general, and I believe deeply that one ought to be able to communicate that it's no trouble at all to one's guest. (If it is trouble at all, then, again, maybe you should try some other way of caffeinating your guests.) It will be hard to get some extremely sensitive types to believe this, but come on, how do you think those people will react when they see that you've made them coffee despite not taking any yourself? Or that you got milk despite having no use for it yourself?
Mostly, I prefer my guests lounging around with us in the morning.
I guess if I didnt like them I might not stock coffee. But that seems cruel.
I would like to be a morning person. It seems like a wonderful time to do many things I enjoy, such as riding my bicycle. I have no idea how it might happen, though.
Of those I always have some booze. Probably we have some tea (but I'm not sure), we definitely don't have coffee, milk, or sugar. Buying milk just because a guest was in town and then throwing it out afterwards would be ridiculous.
OK, now I'm really confused. What sort of (non-lactose intolerant) household doesn't have milk and sugar as staple goods? I realise I'm something of an outlier in that I drink at least a pint of milk a day, but even leaving that aside it goes into so many other things, as sugar goes into things other than tea and coffee.
Most of our house guests have things they're doing other than just visiting us. The best sort of house guests are the ones who hang out with us for a whole evening (where the let us know which evening in advance) and then take care of themselves the rest of the time.
I have no idea how it might happen, though.
Children tend to turn a household into morning risers.
157: We never have milk, much to my chagrin because I often like to eat cereal for breakfast, and I have to eat it dry.
re: 157
I think this comes back to the 'Americans are weird' thing.
re: 154.1
Well, morning people are evil, no? Think of any evil bastard you like, and they were always an early riser.* Quasi-trolling, of course, but I still don't 'em.
* by choice, I mean. Most of us have to get up for work.
Wait, 160 is confusing. If you often like to eat cereal, why don't you have milk?
Children tend to turn a household into morning risers.
There's a very big difference between a child-driven "morning riser" and a "morning person", as that term is commonly understood. Many non-morning people resent the fact that their children have made them into morning risers.
You know, increasing my hippie friends are on some sort of diet that makes it 1. very hard to feed them and 2. entirely likely that they have neither milk, sugar nor flour in the house.
If I'm training and trying to focus on protein, I won't have bread or cheese in the house.
I do stock up for guests, because I dearly love hosting, but more and more I'm not surprised that people are foregoing something traditionally considered a staple.
157: Well, lots of people don't cook much, and if you don't cook or drink milk yourself, or take it in your tea or coffee, I can see not having it generally.
160: But this is just strange. Have you considered buying milk, possibly at the same establishment that sells you the cereal?
What is with all the people who don't have celiac disease going gluten-free? What did gluten ever do to anyone?
We cook sometimes (one or two days a week, trying to increase that), but basically never bake. Also we don't actually have room for baking supplies, unless we wanted to keep them in the guest room.
We try to keep some extra Whey protein in the pantry, as well as some hgh in the fridge.
If I'm training and trying to focus on protein, I won't have bread or cheese in the house.
Bread and cheese I can understand (again, outlier - I don't usually have bread in the house, though my flatmate does). But even on a protein diet, you need milk for decent scrambled eggs. Vegetarians/vegans obviously excepted.
I had decent scrambled eggs this very morning, even though I forgot to add milk. I did however shred some nice cheese in there and slater it all with mole, so that may have covered up any inadequacies of milklessness.
A splash of water will make fine eggs -- the milk isn't really providing much flavor, it's mostly turning to steam to fluff the eggs up.
slater it all with mole
Tee hee, said the person who imagined Mario Lopez saying, "It's mole!".
Oh goody, we're back to asking urple questions about his eating habits.
162: I don't shop for groceries that often, and if my wife buys milk I may not look in the refridgerator often enough to see it before it goes bad. And she won't use it for anything other than coffee, which won't use up a gallon fast enough. It could be months before I notice it, by which time it's long gone bad. And even if I know it's in there, if I happen to skip breakfast for a few weeks, suddenly it's gone bad. I've tried powdered milk to get around this problem, but I don't like it in cereal. The basic issue is that cereal keeps much longer than milk; it's the same sort of fundamental product mismatch you have with hot dogs (10 per pack) and hot dog buns (eight per pack).
the refridgerator
I'm telling heebie.
So very thoughtful, Will.
On gluten, there have been times when my diet didn't include gluten, and though I'm not celiac, I thought that I could tell a difference. My energy was a little better; I was less gassy; I was a little less bloated. Now, I'd trade a piece of bread against all of those combined, since the effects were pretty minor for me. My friends swear to a bigger effect, and it would have to be, far as I'm concerned. Gluten-free is a pain in the ass.
175: buy half-gallons? When you eat cereal, check the fridge?
I have a french press for guests, but I'm not at all sure that I have the right kind of coffee for it. The are so many kinds! And how is a non coffee drinker to know which is most suitable? Luckily, I live across the street from a 7-11 and one block from Safeway so I try to raise this before bed.
But, I sort of like it when guests go out for coffee in the morning, because talking to people in the morning is not my strong suit.
It could be months before I notice it, by which time it's long gone bad. And even if I know it's in there, if I happen to skip breakfast for a few weeks, suddenly it's gone bad.
See, this kind of thing just doesn't get old for me. Urple is my hero -- every single morning is a new adventure, reinventing life from the ground up.
I drink a gallon of milk a week, if it's there. When I recently spent a couple of months guest-room-surfing, I noticed how much nicer it was to be at the house whose regular occupants also drink tons of milk. There were usually 2 or 3 gallons in the fridge! One time we almost ran out, but Nate went to the store at 10 pm because he thought the remaining half-gallon might not be enough for the next morning's cereal and coffee.
Staying with people who just have a pint makes me nervous- what if I use it up? How much milk do normal people use anyway? I don't want to be a milk hog! I usually just don't drink any, out of anxiety to be a good houseguest.
The are so many kinds! And how is a non coffee drinker to know which is most suitable?
It says on the packet.
Maybe urple should buy those little juicebox singles of UHT milk.
We never have milk, but will pick it up when people are coming to stay. SO THEY CAN PUT IT IN THEIR COFFEE.
The basic issue is that cereal keeps much longer than milk
You could get UHT milk. Also, the not UHT but somehow extra pasturized organic stuff lasts over a month. None of these last so long if you open them, but it comes in small containers. Pints even.
That's not entirely fair, Ginger Yellow. It took me a very long time to understand the different labels for coffee. It is pretty formidable at first. Roasts? Origins? Grinds? That's before you even start thinking about fancier drinks than drip.
186: Well, when this is my job, I do in fact buy half and half. CA is under the impression that most people don't want that. But he is never right.
Half and half isn't cream either! You should be buying cream and milk.
That's not entirely fair, Ginger Yellow. It took me a very long time to understand the different labels for coffee. It is pretty formidable at first. Roasts? Origins? Grinds? That's before you even start thinking about fancier drinks than drip.
I don't know what US coffee labels are like, but over here they say "filter", "cafetiere", "espresso". I'm not sure how it could be clearer.
Half and half has more cream than quarter and quarter and quarter and quarter.
BUT WHAT IF THEY WANT CREAM
The difference between coffee with cream and coffee with milk is far littler than the difference between black coffee and coffee with some sort of dairy product in it.
Which is far littler than the difference between coffee and no coffee.
That is to say, aren't most people satisfied with milk (or cream) even if they would have preferred cream (or milk) in a perfect world? I certainly am.
What if your guests want pee in their coffee?
A pint of milk wouldn't last very long for regular cereal eating, though. That's part of the problem. So I'd run out on day 2 or maybe 3, and then be stuck with dry cereal through the next trip to the grocery store. Now, I may have no idea when that next trip will happen, so unless I'm checking the refrigerator every single day I might miss the new milk. Or, what's also likely to happen is that after a few days I'll get tired of the dry cereal and start eating something else or not eating breakfast at all. Meanwhile, the milk will be replaced. But then it will just go bad, because I'm not thinking about it. Or there's the times when my wife reminds me that we have milk, because she bought it special for my cereal (she's prefers cream for her coffee), but then I see that we don't have any cereal in the house at the same time. And it could be weeks before we get that, and then the milk is bad (or on the verge of it.) All these different moving pieces have to line up together just right to actually have fresh milk and cereal together at the same time, and it's usually just not worth the mental effort. And my wife doesn't like buying it because most of the milk we buy gets throw away because it spoils.
Because if you don't need milk, you have no reason to open the refrigerator?
urple, I don't want to shock you or anything, but I check the fridge multiple times in one day.
Do you and your wife just not communicate with each other? Is it like, you only know what she's done by observing that certain changes have taken place in your home? When you're out of cereal, couldn't you put it on a shopping list?
The domestic economy of the urple household is a greater mystery than superluminal neutrinos.
Couldn't, in fact, you swing by the store and just get milk and cereal????
But then it will just go bad, because I'm not thinking about it.
And your biscuits will suddenly become stale as well
so unless I'm checking the refrigerator every single day
This really doesn't seem like much of an imposition. Do you have people who check the fridge for you or something? What do you do if you, I don't know, want a drink? Or food?
I open the refrigerator regularly for beer or cheese or whatnot, but I don't usually bother to inventory its contents.
What if your guests want pee in their coffee?
I keep a jar in the fridge for just this eventuality.
So I'd run out on day 2 or maybe 3, and then be stuck with dry cereal through the next trip to the grocery store.
As opposed to being stuck with dry cereal all the fucking time.
"Cereal ... and milk!"
<Fist Pump>
Do you generally know whether you have beer in the fridge?
209: yes, but I buy the beer. And it doesn't go bad as quickly.
I open the refrigerator regularly for beer or cheese or whatnot
Obviously the correct solution is to just start eating your cereal with beer or cheese on it instead of milk.
If you buy growlers, it goes flat very fast.
206: A decent host provides fresh.
209: yes, but I buy the beer.
*sputter*
It is now occurring to me that, when my father or sister visit us and offer to walk down to the bakery in the mornings for pastries and coffee for everyone, they may be subtly rebuking us for not having coffee on the premises.
Look, I'm not claiming this is an unsolvable problem; obviously there are plenty of ways to make it work. For me, it's just not worth the mental energy (and, often, wasted milk) that's required. Just accepting that I'll have to eat the cereal dry gives me one less thing I have to worry about. But it does make the rare ocassion when I'm someone else and I get to have milk with cereal feel like a real treat.
the rare ocassion when I'm someone else
How rare are these occasions really. Are you sure you remember them all?
ocassion when I'm someone else
"someone" s/b "somewhere"
Do you and your wife just not communicate with each other?
You're single, right? The politics of food, laundry, and domestic order are incredibly intricate, with mutually exclusive domains of interest and influence being a pretty common solution.
Sealed UHT milkbricks for the urple's seem like a step forward, though.
But it does make the rare ocassion when I'm someone else and I get to have milk with cereal feel like a real treat.
Is anyone else picturing Urple like so?
216: Is the bakery Seven Stars? Because NOM and I want that too.
I've never heard of UHT milk, although googling now, that does seem to be a decent potential step forward. But even those seem like they go bad quickly once they're opened, right? So, I'd have to commit in advance to eating cereal every day (or close to it) until the milk was gone, and make sure I had enough cereal on hand to make this possible?
What I really need is something like UHT milk in single-serving packages.
They do exist - they're lunchbox servings of milk. It'll have a straw stuck to the side, but that shouldn't be a problem (oh, how can I tell. I suppose it could be a problem.)
most of the milk we buy gets throw away because it spoils
Huh. My kids drink milk like it's water. We go through at least a gallon a week, so it never goes bad.
Anyhow, given that practically every hotel room and beach or lakefront rental in America has a little coffeemaker in it, the kitchen mullahs say it is standard and expected equipment. However, I could see a reasonable conversation with a potential renter along the lines of, "I don't drink coffee and don't really understand all the different makers. And I know how particular people are about their coffee, so figured I'd just leave that up to whoever rented it."
Animal, but not that one
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34128568@N08/4428558242/
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My mom is experimenting with printing artwork onto frosting sheets and then putting the frosting on cookies. You need a dedicated printer and some fancy edible ink. Our Christmas cookies this year are gonna win by SO MUCH.
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226: We go through more than a gallon a week with just one kid. I drink some of it, but not much.
I drank a ton of milk when I had a broken arm.
lunchbox servings of milk
Oh, I do know what you're talking about, I just didn't recognize the term. I would feel a little silly squeezing one of those out onto my cereal, though, not to mention that would be a very expensive daily habit.
My kids drink milk like it's water.
One of mine won't drink any at all and the other won't drink any except chocolate (in very small portions).
If I'm somewhere where there is coffee, but there's no milk, there might as well be no coffee. In fact I would rather there be no coffee. Saves on heartbreak.
Little-known fact: urple is a resident of Tlön.
My wife (then girlfriend) bought a single-cup cone and set of filters after we'd been dating for a while, because neither she nor her housemates over the years were coffee drinkers. What really boggles me is that she's also a morning-caffeine person, but decided that hot beverages are entirely associated with warming up from the cold and reviving in the afternoon, not getting started in the morning. So Diet Coke it is.
228: You only need edible ink if you don't want to be poisoned.
Wait, so does your wife drink milk in unpredictable quantities? If not, why not experiment with the quantity bought until you start the week with an amount that will last? Quarts, half-gallons - there's lots of choice.
It's like 224 and 225 didn't even *read* 185. Hmph!
235: it seems rude to give poisoned cookies as Christmas gifts.
Wait, so does your wife drink milk in unpredictable quantities?
It's one of the secrets to having a happy relationship.
235: it seems rude to give poisoned cookies as Christmas gifts.
Make up for it by buying a coffee machine.
Classic urple - it even made C laugh, and he is usually impervious to my claims that Unfogged is funny.
We always have at least 2 litres of milk in the fridge, plus tea, coffee and sugar. Because I only drink tea, and C only drinks coffee with sugar. There's always some sort of chocolate drink, fruit juice, squash, some diet fizz, lager and champagne too. (Well, we've had one bottle of champagne in the fridge for a while.) And a ukulele - k-sky, we'll be expecting you.
I'm not sure I ever rented a house with any more coffee-making equipment than a kettle though.
Children tend to turn a household into morning risers.
Not if you train them right.
238: Right, but given the occasion, they can hardly not let it go.
So, I'd have to commit in advance to eating cereal every day (or close to it) until the milk was gone?As commitments go, that doesn't seem like much. Especially for a married person. Milk comes in various container sizes, including more or less just enough for a bowl of cereal. And, you know, if the cereal isn't enough to get rid of the milk, you could drink it. Milk's flexible like that. I'm really struggling to come up with a non-crazy scenario in which having dry cereal is less of a hassle than having milky cereal,
I'm not sure I ever rented a house with any more coffee-making equipment than a kettle though.
The irony being (I stronly suspect) that American rentals would almost never have a kettle.
"I think it's that early CGI movie with Jeff Bridges," he 'sTronly suspected.
I just want to voice support for Urple in his travails with cereal and milk. I have similarly incomprehensible things I do because for me the cost exceed the benefit, despite the fact that for most people the analysis works out overwhelmingly the other way.
And, you know, if the cereal isn't enough to get rid of the milk, you could drink it.
I actually love to drink milk, but if I get started I'll easily drink a whole gallon within a few days. And then my cereal is dry again. And dry cereal when you just had some milk, and were hoping to ahve some of it with the cereal, is much, much worse than cereal that you bought while fully resigned to the fact that you'd be eating it dry.
Beer on cereal is supposed to be pretty tasty.
I think urple's system breaks down at the point where he doesn't detect milk he would otherwise enjoy in the fridge (on cereal or drunk plain), even as he's reaching past it for the beer and cheese.
Urple, would you notice it if it were front and center, in the dominant spot at eye level?
Unless you have one of those evil old fridges with the freezer on top, wasting all the good eye-level shelves.
Maybe he needs some kind of robot milk detector.
Milk, along with other bottles, goes in the door of the fridge, right? How do you miss it?
And dry cereal when you just had some milk, and were hoping to ahve some of it with the cereal, is much, much worse than cereal that you bought while fully resigned to the fact that you'd be eating it dry.
Again, I'm struggling to understand the concept of buying cereal in the expectation of it eating it dry, when the only obstacle to eating it with milk is apparently a stubborn refusal to buy milk and put it on your cereal.
So did you ever build your robot, Sifu?
Milk, along with other bottles, goes in the door of the fridge, right?
Milk is purchased in cartons and goes on the top shelf.
Some of us find that many sorts of household shortages can be mitigated through some combination of purchasing shortage items at nearby retail establishments and communicating with other household members who are planning to visit such establishments.
I don't have guests overnight very often, and this thread is really making me appreciate it. "OK, I can scale up our usual breakfast for more people easily enough. If you want to go out to eat, there are plenty of options within walking distance. What, you're saying you need coffee to even put pants on? OK, I guess I could go to the Dunkin Donuts across the street tomorrow morning. You say they burn their coffee? You always drink one espresso and one small cup of Sumatra blend from a French press? Do you prefer milk, cream, half and half, sugar, or honey? OK, how about breakfast, what would you like to eat? You're allergic to onions?"
Apparently everyone is either really, really inflexible in their morning routines or, like urple, has no such routine at all.
Here's a simple flowchart for urple.
Cereal?
If no, buy cereal and milk.
If yes, milk?
If yes, enjoy!
If no, buy milk, enjoy!
I generally don't have coffee or tea at home and I'm lactose intolerant. That said, I've started having cereal with lactose-free milk fairly regularly, on account of it requiring almost no effort, so I often have milk. I don't host guests, so it doesn't matter.
If I had milk, I could have cereal with milk, if I had cereal.
253: not yet. Got distracted. I might start working on some stuff that's not entirely unrelated soon.
Oh my god. Generosity is a virtue and the opportunity to exercise it in your own home is a gift. The default state of humanity is solitude in an indifferent setting; be glad there's someone to lift a finger for.
Guests who complain that something's not right don't get it either; maybe if you're there repeatedly and your hosts are impractical, fend for yourself by bringing coffee in a baggie or whatever, but don't be a shit about it.
Am I lecturing while everyone else is joking? Maybe if you all added smileys when relevant I would understand more frequently.
Urple's objections, as I've understood them, switch from under-use (I don't notice it for weeks, so it goes bad) to overconsumption (I use/drink it so fast that I am left with my original condition of dry cereal, so there's no point). Both seem to be strong barriers to buying milk.
Maybe if you all added smileys when relevant I would understand more frequently.
They have 'em down the way if you're desperate.
Milk, along with other bottles, goes in the door of the fridge, right?
The door is subject to greater temperature fluctuations than the interior of the fridge; spoil-likely items such as milk should not be kept there. Wilson and one of his exes argue this out in a S6 House episode.
What urple really needs is a milk goat.
266: they'd compete for the same food all the time, though.
Urple's objections, as I've understood them, switch from under-use (I don't notice it for weeks, so it goes bad) to overconsumption (I use/drink it so fast that I am left with my original condition of dry cereal, so there's no point). Both seem to be strong barriers to buying milk.
Nah, I don't buy it. Overconsumption doesn't work, because I overconsume. The consequence of overconsumption is that you buy lots of milk, not that you don't buy milk for ages. If you overconsume, milk never goes bad.
The door is subject to greater temperature fluctuations than the interior of the fridge; spoil-likely items such as milk should not be kept there.
Not an issue if you overconsume. Any quanitty of milk that can be stored in a fridge door will not go bad in the time it takes to consume.
252: And if one buys the ultra-pasturized half & half, the stuff lasts forever. Even I can manage to have it available for the cereal.
Re French presses: The filter in a Bodium fits my discontinued Krups Moka gadget for which there are no more paper filters available. So, I'm good until the electricity fails during whatever apocalypse Bob is finally correct in predicting.
215: "Logistical Difficulties in Meeting Sporadic Demand for a Composite Material Comprised of Two Constituents with Differing Storage and Spoilage Characteristics: A Case Study."
I'm sure we can formulate this as some manner of optimization problem.
And we rushed to the thread of no consequence like unto men dying of thirst rushing to an oasis.
Before we had kids, we had milk in the house basically never.
Maybe the problem can be broken into:
1. Milk detection, and
2. Erratic morning habits.
But overconsumption is at issue in 247.
258: if it was as easy as that, sure, it wouldn't be a problem. But "buy cereal and milk" and "buy milk" are not trivial, especially since usually the only time I'm thinking about this is in the morning, when I'm trying to get ready for work and get the kids ready for school, so it's not like I can drop everything and go run to the store and grab some milk.
That aside, part of what's going on here is that I don't like to put myself in positions where I'm the only person to blame for my failures. Spoiled milk is definitely a failure. And if I buy milk for myself, knowing that no one else will drink any, and the milk spoils, there's no one else to blame. So if I buy milk under those circumstances, it stresses me out until it's all been drunk. Which is part of why it ends up being drunk in two days, because it's on my mind all the time. And then I feel like I've accomplished something, in finishing the milk. But at that point, it's not worth the additional stress involved in going to get a new container and starting the process all over again. Especially not just to have milk in my cereal. I have enough stress in my life without having slowly-spoiling milk nagging at me all the time.
276 is why God gave us Pop-Tarts.
Truthfully a robot isn't the right solution; what we need is a head-mounted camera that urple can wear, that will automatically detect the presence of milk when he opens the fridge for beer. If there is milk, the device will set a timer to give him a small electric shock when he comes into range of an RFID transmitter attached to the cereal, to remind him that he can put milk on it. If there isn't milk the device will automatically leave his wife a voicemail saying "will you buy me milk please so I don't have to pathetically eat dry cereal?". To ensure compliance obviously it would have to be mounted in a relatively permanent way.
So nobody in the urple household ever needs milk? Not for eggs, not for bread, not for macaroni & cheese?
(I'm afraid of the answers but compelled to ask!)
Which is part of why it ends up being drunk in two days, because it's on my mind all the time
This is not a bad thing. At the risk of sounding slightly weird, my milk gets drunk in two days all the time. So you buy some more milk. And drink it. Because milk is nice.
Once upon a time, there were people who would bring milk to a person's house on a regular basis. They drove white trucks and wore natty uniforms. Accordingly to folklore, one's children might come to resemble them.
I don't like to put myself in positions where I'm the only person to blame for my failures.
This, exactly. This is why I begged Mrs. K-sky to buy me a bicycle floor pump for my birthday -- because every other purchase I had made w/r/t the bike had resulted in some kind of failure, and I really wanted not to shoulder all the blame if the floor pump didn't work out. (She ignored me, I waited two months and bought it, it's fine.)
Interesting that under-use and overconsumption are simultaneous deterrents.
How about putting applesauce on your cereal? I like applesauce on my cereal, if I don't have milk.
Basically, living with a crippling milk shortage out of fear of having to drink milk, which you like to drink, is a bit nuts.
This thread is definitely a classic. urple is really delivering on this one.
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OT: This debate just posted by Ezra Klein is great. It's very different than his usual styles, and contains a couple clear statements about his vision of politics (which you can agree or disagree with).
But I want to be really clear here. My answer [of how we actually solve these problems] is super unsatisfying. It is horrible. It is depressing. It makes you think nothing will happen for a long time. But that's because that's true. I mean, when you say what's your answer, I don't have an inspiring answer. I don't have a something easy to get up and give a beautiful speech on. I've heard politicians give beautiful speeches. And I am sure -- I've now looked at the literature to back this up -- I am sure that those speeches are not going to bring change. Not the sort of change that you want, not the sort of change that I want.
... People in this country have different roles in the political process. And you and I have a particular one. And our particular one is to inform people, to try to explain to people how things are working and how they're not working, and to give them a realistic idea of why. I talk to business leaders, too, and I talk to a lot of people in American politics. I talk to a lot of politicians. I talk to pundits. I talk to cable news people. I talk to all of them. And I almost never meet the structural pessimist, actually. All I meet, as far as I can tell, are people who think we just need more "leadership." We need a president willing to stand up and fight. We need a leader who will finally take advantage of the moment and push this country forward. We need somebody willing to make the tough choices. And I find it borderline irresponsible.
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He doesn't seem to be crippled by eating dry cereal, though it isn't his first preference.
288: He's dying inside, but he's too brave to say it.
My answer [of how we actually solve these problems] is super unsatisfying. It is horrible. It is depressing. It makes you think nothing will happen for a long time. But that's because that's true.
This sounds a lot like my analysis of the Eurozone situation. I read a great interview with former German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck a month or so ago. And he had a refreshingly clear eyed diagnosis of the problems, especially for a German politician. But his prognosis was, basically, it'll all work out in the end because it has to. Which ended up being incredibly depressing. Anyway, we were talking about milk?
Interesting that under-use and overconsumption are simultaneous deterrents.
Well, it's the irregularity that's the problem. It means I can't just plan to buy a gallon a week or whatever. To make it work, I'd need to consciously match my milk purchases to my planned near-term expected milk consumption. That's what my wife does--she doesn't like to drink it, so (other than buying it for me on occasion), she only buys in when she's going to use it in cooking or something similar, and she buys just the quantity she needs, or something close to it. But that almost by definition makes it a planned special purchase, not a staple item.
To make it work, I'd need to consciously match my milk purchases to my planned near-term expected milk consumption
But urple, if you buy the milk, you can buy cereal at the same time, eat the cereal with the milk, and if you find yourself skipping breakfast, just drink the milk, then when you're out, buy more. And if the problem is that you only think about milk in the morning when you're eating breakfast, you can WRITE A NOTE and buy more on the way home.
292: It's as if you think this is easy.
Well, it's the irregularity that's the problem.
Aha! We may have a shelf-stable option for you.
Nosflow's recommended approach would then re-set your default condition to having milk in the fridge. You wouldn't have to remember whether there is milk in the fridge, because there always would be. That would help with the milk-detection aspect of the problem.
How often are you willing to let milk spoil? If it went bad a couple times a year, would that be a shameful failure? Or would that be a basically fine system that let you have delicious breakfast cereal with milk most of the time, as God intended?
How often are you willing to let milk spoil?
Doesn't almond/soy milk last longer, after opening, than dairy milk? Perhaps that would be a good alternative.
182: every single morning is a new adventure
As Urple Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. And the insect wanted cereal with milk.
Megan, are you actually trying to solve this??
There should be a very good solution available soon. Right after I get my jetpack.
If it went bad a couple times a year, would that be a shameful failure? Or would that be a basically fine system that let you have delicious breakfast cereal with milk most of the time, as God intended?
That would probably be fine, but recently I'd say something more like half the milk that's bought goes bad.
299 is genius. Why hasn't this been done?
Another potential solution but probably needs investors (unless this is what is in 299--link not working for me).
Cereal Later is a portable single serving of milk and cereal in a disposable recyclable pouch. The pouch will stand on its own and will serve as a bowl once opened. It is composed of the plastic pouch as a whole, and two separate pouches on the inside that contain the milk. The milk pouches will run along the two long, rectangular sides and can be opened by a tear strip that will release the milk into the cereal. The exterior pouch, which contains the cereal, can be resealed if necessary. The pouch will be made with an aluminum support material on the inside and coated with Polyethylene on the outside. There will be a plastic wrapped HDPE spoon attached to the back of the pouch for compete convenience.
If you're not going to have coffee at home you have to warn any guests well in advance. I'm willing to bring a moka pot and coffee with me, but if I wake up with no coffee in the house I'll be nagging the hosts to drive to the nearest coffee shop and then someplace I can buy a coffee maker. And no, instant doesn't count as coffee.
THe problem is when you have two other caffeine addicted house guests who desperately want a big dose of coffee in the morning.
Miller just seems so completely clueless, like so many Villagers. It's really shocking that someone could write such tripe and be taken seriously on any topic ever. And yet there's a million of them.
And on the other hand, Klein is almost always reality based in the thing, but veers into Village-think when he talks about a grand bargain to get rid of the filibuster: Senate rules get re-adopted every session. Today's Senate can't bind the incoming Senate of 2019 or whenever.
Talking about a Grand Bargain is usually my clue to stop reading, and not bother reading anything by the person again.
297: Urple's domestic anecdotes do have a certain flavor of Leave it to Beaver as re-imagined by Kafka.
Senate rules get re-adopted every session
Wow, seriously? So the first, say, year of every session can be taken up with adopting the rules.
Obviously, the filibuster rule can be changed, and has been a couple of times. What does it take? A faction big enough to do it, motivated strongly enough by some particular short run goal to take the long run risk. Of course the risk of complete elimination is different from just shrinking the supermajority to a place where a determined minority still can have a blocking position.
I can see why Walsh et al thought WWI was worth it, and why the post-Watergate class wanted to do it a reform. And I guess I won't be surprised if Majority Leader McConnell gets abolition so he can better enact President Romney's bills, and confirm his Thomas clones all over the federal bench.
Miller just seems so completely clueless
I came away with that impression as well.
308 -- It doesn't take a year to adopt the rules. Simple majority is enough to do it (as Walsh and his buds established when they wanted to get into WWI).
re: 228
One of our work projects reached some milestone or other recently and one of the partner organisations provided cupcakes, all with 17th century engravings from, iirc, Hooke's Micrographia on them. Done the same way, I assume.
308 -- It doesn't take a year to adopt the rules. Simple majority is enough to do it (as Walsh and his buds established when they wanted to get into WWI).
It could, though, with the way the senate seems to operate lately, couldn't it?
228 -- The art of EM's mother is objectively terrific.
I keep practically no food or drink of any kind in the house for myself because I cook so rarely. So there's no milk--I haven't drunk a glass of milk in at least ten years--no coffee, practically nothing. If I were to be a good host when people do stay with me, I guess I would have to go out and spend rather a lot on the basics.
Fortunately, I guess, people almost never stay with me*. I live in one smallish room, and the couch is 1) not as long as most people are tall and 2) a few feet from my bed with nothing between them. It is simply not a good apartment for hosting people I am not sleeping with--not comfortable for them, not comfortable for me--and I advertise this fact. (In New York, if you don't want houseguests, you have to be fairly proactive about not having them.)
I perhaps sound like a complete asshole now.
*except for my boyfriend who does drink coffee but who, I think, is just as happy to go out and get breakfast and have it there. Perhaps I will get an email if this is a misapprehension.
Are you a skim-milk drinker, urple? If so, I've found that cold water substitutes well in desperate circumstances. (Looks a little weird, but tastes almost exactly the same.)
312- I feel like there are considerable possibilities for ridiculous projects here. You can also print (mirror images) onto rice paper and then transfer onto non-frosting food surfaces.
(314: aw! I'll tell her you said so)
317: since skim milk is basically tinted water, sure.
318.2 -- Please do. We had to leave her gallery opening early the other day, and I didn't get to gush half as much as I wanted to.
I'm slightly amazed at urple's fridge-blindness.
321: Maybe a fridge with a window in the door would help.
306: Miller just seems so completely clueless, like so many Villagers.
I occasionally comment unkindly about Yglesias and E. Klein and their ilk, but among the pundit class, who is better than they?
And you've got it just right regarding Ezra. He is depressingly on-target in all of his pessimistic pronouncements, and only veers onto dubious ground when he offers a small bit of hypothetical optimism.
321: Maybe a fridge with a window in the door would help.
Uh, you can't put a window in the door, it would spoil too fast.
Or like this one. A cow would probably be cheaper, though.
I'm going to buy milk on the way home from work tonight, just to prove all of you wrong.
326: Combining the two thoughts brings us back to this , which I'm pretty sure has been posted here before (or something like it--I thought actually a bigger window).
325, 326: So compromise and put the window in the cow.
I was expecting a porthole-style window in the cow.
The link in 222 is great.
The consensus here is that having milk and sugar is essential when having houseguests? Are people really that dedicated to sugar in their coffee? Can't make do with, say, chocolate sprinkles (a dutch thing we have far too much of in this house, as my housemate's father is dutch and sends him a box of the stuff each Christmas).
I don't know; I'd have thought sugar was more optional. I actually don't know many people who take sugar.
I'm pretty sure that's been posted here before, apo.
I'm not really sure why anyone would add sugar to coffee, but I'm especially not sure why anyone separately add milk and sugar to coffee. Couldn't you just add whipped cream instead, and be done with it?
BUT WHAT IF THEY WANT CREAM
No problem. I drink a gallon of milk a week easily. I also add heavy cream to my milk when I drink it and when I use it for cereal. So that I have in stock. I have lots of tea (the kind made from tea plants) but, alas, no coffee. For guests I should get a coffee thingamajig.
334: Hell, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who posted it before.
333: Sugar is essential among those of us who are all about teh casual sex.
335: so you are unable to keep milk I the house, but it's not clear to you why people wouldn't have a whipped cream supply?
Dammit, I wish I'd seen the whipped cream tangent before I posted 338.
338 mystified me. I'm not sure the whipped cream tangent is clearing things up. About the sugar, I mean.
I wanted to make hot chocolate this evening, but I'm out of cream. Why can't I use butter? Is it for the same reason we can't get rid of inequality by running the economy backwards?
I've put sugar in coffee with no milk or cream. It takes too much sugar to have a noticeable effect on a full cup to be worthwhile, especially since no matter how much you stir at that point, the last part of the cup is going to be really too sweet. I've come to the conclusion that I don't like the taste of coffee without some kind of sweetener and have sort of started moving to trying caffeinated teas.
Klein = Ondt, Miller the Gracehoper
The Ondt, that true and perfect host, a spiter aspinne, was making the greatest spass a body could with his queens laceswinging for he was spizzing all over him like thingsumanything in formicolation, boundlessly blissfilled in an allallahbath of houris. He was ameising himself hugely at crabround and mary-pose, chasing Floh out of charity and tickling Luse, I hope too, and tackling Bienie, faith, as well, and jucking Vespatilla jukely by the chimiche. Never did Dorsan from Dunshanagan dance it with more devilry!
My in risible universe youdly haud find
Sulch oxtrabeeforeness meat soveal behind.
Your feats end enormous, your volumes immense,
(May the Graces I hoped for sing your Ondtship song sense!),
Your genus its worldwide, your spacest sublime!
But, Holy Saltmartin, why can't you beat time?
In the name of the former and of the latter and of their holocaust. Allmen.
...
There is what, an ontology, epistemology, phenomenology? A Protestant work-ethic? That can only see the world, can only fucking interpret history as a slow boring of of hard boards,
yeah, sure Lenin at Finland Station, but Lenin wouldn't been shit without 500 years of patient groundwork...sorry, where was I
Woks not fates, you heretics! Sorry.
Self-flattering to say that not only is my bourgeois work ethic the source of all good but reality itself agrees with me in comments.
Ezra is a trip. May watch Kurosawa's Ikiru tonight.
341: I was just riffing on a recent thread for no particular reason. The whipped cream tangent would have provided better... material, I guess.
In any event, what you stock for houseguests is surely a function of how long they're staying, how well you know them, how far they've traveled, why they're staying with you, and so on. If someone I haven't seen for two years is visiting from 500 miles away for 4 days, sure, I'll stock milk (which is not always in the house, though coffee and tea are staples) and maybe sugar; someone crashing on my couch/spare futon overnight just because he's going to a concert in the area and doesn't want to drive all the way home at 2 a.m. isn't going to have sugar stocked. He can use the chocolate sprinkles.
For 3-4 day long houseguests, I tend to bring them on a stocking-up shopping trip once they arrive. Sometimes I request this from people I'm visiting. Because I can be *picky* about ... things.
I have only coconut milk, and sugar is banned. I would no more give a houseguest sugar than give him arsenic. Ok, maybe that's not quite true.
Coconut or almond milk would solve all of Urple's problems with milk, as NickS suggested.
Also, milk and sugar in coffee is an east coast thing, and therefore bullshit. Coffee should be black, as the cowboys drank it, and no one should add white sugar to anything.
More on-topic: I'm surprised to find there are people who don't think milk and sugar, coffee and tea are basics of a civilized home. In the tradition I'm familiar with, they wouldn't even be things you stock for planned house-guests; they're the things you have so that, if someone drops by, you can offer them a coffee or a tea.
349 gets it exactly right. And it seems like the primary object for some of you in hosting a guest is making sure you won't have to do it again.
345: Continues to go over my head, after I tried envisioning sprinkling sugar on your casual lover, which seems kind of gross and sticky ... oh. Like 'gimme some sugar, baby'? Sorry. Standpipe's other blog is taking forever to load.
coffee and tea are basics of a civilized home
But really it depends on the kinds of people who are likely to drop by. At my mom's house, yeah, milk and full-strength coffee was always stocked for possible visitors, though she was lactose-intolerant herself and drank decaf. At my house, it's not a problem not to have milk/sugar, necessarily (maybe I will, maybe not). Coffee and tea, yes, though, of course. Herbal teas as well, because not having herbal tea available for guests is like, well, assuming everyone wants a hunk of steak for dinner and a pound of bacon for breakfast.
[N]o one should add white sugar to anything.
Racist.
I keep a bunch of herbal tea in the home, for the ladies, but every day I give it a harsh look of contempt.
I was able to end my diet coke addiction by switching to loose leaf tea. mmmmm. So good. Now we prepare a bunch every morning before we go to work.
Much better than soda.
One nice thing about living like a feral animal is that no one expects you to have anything (coffee, coffee maker, clean mugs, furniture).
I am cutting down on soda by buying an occasional iced tea (iced coffee didn't work out, and sweetened cold coffee drinks beyond iced coffee are way too expensive to buy regularly), but I really should be moving towards making my own.
Coffee should be black, as the cowboys drank it
If cowboys knew anything about coffee they wouldn't have boiled it in a tin saucepan and strained it through a bandanna. Cowboys are lousy role models. If it weren't for cowboys you could be out hunting bison with a spear right now.
Also, coffee with heavy cream and sugar is delicious, and whipped cream doesn't work because it's mostly air so the proportion of cream to coffee is never right.
If it weren't for cowboys you could be out hunting bison with a spear right now.
I bet we could work something out with Ted Turner if you're really interested.
When I hunt bison, I like to use the stampede method.
As I stood in line to buy my bottle of sparkling water this afternoon, the fellow in front of me ordered a "cubano." Sounded pretty good. Maybe I'll have one in February (after the low carb thing I just started).
356: but I really should be moving towards making my own.
It is so easy it's not even hard, fa. I'm tempted to say that Urple could do it, but caution is warranted on that.
Pretty much the only things you need are a kettle (a pot will do, to boil water), a preferably glass jar, and tea. Or you could make cold iced tea -- no kettle, if that's an obstacle. I do this in the summer: an empty old but clean wide-mouth bottle/jar, fill with water, put tea bags in. A little bit of care needed depending on what kind of tea you're using, so as not to oversteep, but otherwise so simple. Coming up with the jar is the hardest part.
I'm not much for black tea myself, much less sweetened. Far be it from me to agree with Halford about anything whatsoever, but things calling for white sugar are not so much, er, my cup of tea.
If I'm drinking tea for tea, not as a substitute for soda, it's probably going to be of a Chinese variety, no sugar, no cream, and also, hot.
351.2: But really it depends on the kinds of people who are likely to drop by.
Fair enough, but aren't people who take milk or sugar more or less randomly distributed among almost any population of "people likely to drop by"?
Not if you associate exclusively with the paleofaithful.
I suppose the feral animal equivalent would be scuttling past?
Don't tell me you don't even have a salver for them to put their carte de visite on, Flippanter.
Actually 362 is not quite accurate. When I buy hot tea from a coffee-style establishment, I usually get green tea and add nothing. But I actually think of that as a hot chocolate substitute, which was my default choice before starting to try out coffees and teas.
Schloss Flippanter is salverless.
367: That would seem to be essential. How else would you be able to receive the card while announcing: "The master is not at home."
In hospitably, we're out of everything to drink except sweet vermouth. Stupid PA liquor laws.
370: Yes, well, you just can't get the help these days.
363: but aren't people who take milk or sugar more or less randomly distributed among almost any population of "people likely to drop by"?
People who take milk or sugar, sure. People who would like coffee or hot tea when they drop by, and would expect the offer, not so much. At least not in my current experience. (My mom's milieu was different; she'd be making coffee for a dropper-by at 5:30 p.m.)
I really don't think I know much of anyone who would want coffee past mid-morning, unless we've specifically arranged to have brunch or something. I can think of occasions on which an offer of: Hey, iced coffee, anyone? at 2 p.m. would go over well. And I can do that maybe half the time, having milk on hand, and usually some packets of so-called 'sugar-in-the-raw' which I have stolen from diners. But nobody's going to think I'm being delinquent in hosting if what I can offer instead of the iced coffee is iced raspberry tea.
Yes, well, you just can't get the help these days.
Mumble income tax mumble Gladstone mumble silver cow-creamer mumble Anatole mumble Dahlia mumble Milady's Boudoir.
The British knee is firm! The British knee is muscular! The British knee is -- hrrrm. Um. Erm. Yes. Well, good day, Wooster.
372: I just make the announcement myself. I don't want to be rude.
Even if I'm out of milk, I usually have some ice cream in the freezer. Ice cream in coffee is pretty delicious too.
OT: The trailers for Immortals look like the long perfume commercials that artsy movie theaters would play before European movies in the '90s.
If I'm drinking tea for tea, not as a substitute for soda, it's probably going to be of a Chinese variety, no sugar, no cream, and also, hot.
I've recently given up adding milk to my hot black tea (in my case, usually Twinings Irish Breakfast) and am not regretting it. Also, I've taken to performing (not, admittedly, on every occasion) an impromptu 'tea ceremony' before sipping (steeple fingers while muttering "excellent" in Mr. Burns-esque manner, contemplate steam, etc.) which has likewise heightened my enjoyment of the beverage. Am contemplating incorporating a fist-pump.
379: So it's Last Days at Marienbad?
(Egoiste!)
These days I'm very contemplative.
You should get the new tonsure-mullet: Contemplative on the top, party in the back.
|| Oh, person whose brother I knew in high school who wants to be FB friends, your "people who inspire me" list consists of Reagan and the Nazi pope. It's not going to work! |>
Schloss Flippanter is salverless
You've decamped from Festung Flippanter? That's encouraging!
I'm really lazy in the morning and use one of these. I don't use the pre-made pods. We've got an attachment that lets us use real coffee.
You all just seem to have a lot more things normally around than I do. Ice cream and whipped cream are not usual, and while I have a partial bag of white sugar around somewhere, it might take an ice-pick to get at it.
Well. I can say that I have a french press, a drip coffee-maker, an espresso/cappuccino (if there's milk) machine, a plastic cone thingy with filters, and one of these gorgeous things. The middle picture there, of the one with the wooden corset around the middle, 'round which to place your hand. I have a gold-toned filter that can go in that, though I believe it's downstairs with the camping gear at the moment.
If people want milk and/or sugar, we can arrange for that. I don't see what all the fuss is about. I'm not going to buy you Maxwell House in a can, though.
Point is, it's really easy and doesn't make the mess that a pot of coffee can.
Also I hate hot coffee served in glass mugs.
they're the things you have so that, if someone drops by, you can offer them a coffee or a tea.
But if no one drops by, then you can not have those things and still be civilized, right? [smiles earnestly]
Also I like my coffee with half and half and sugar in the raw. But I will drink the mailroom coffee at school with white sugar and powdered creamer.
I have a Krups Moka brew. It got discontinued (much too complicated for the Murrcan public) and the paper filters aren't available. However, the permanent/replacement filter from a Bodum French press fits perfectly. A slightly coarser grind than I used with the paper filters eliminated the sludge problem.
I'll be descended upon soon by lots of people determined to cheer me up for the holidays. I will take them shopping for what they need in the place, I see no point in guessing.
Somewhat related, my favorite coffee mug at work is pinkish with two kittens playing nicely.
I'll be descended upon soon by lots of people determined to cheer me up for the holidays. I will take them shopping for what they need in the place, I see no point in guessing.
Biohazardogged 2011!
Why are there boatloads of new things at goodwill ?
Actually, a typical hotel kit with cone paper filter, plastic funnel/cone filter holder and kettle will work fine
and cost less than a STBX run. (running water or kettle not included).
Also good etiquette: no blended scotch in the decanter.
Actually, there really are boatloads of new items at goodwill, but it tends to be overstock from Target and a couple other stores I can't identify by brand.
The kitchen supplies aisle is always packed with excess of the kind of kitchen gadget that people ditch even thought the item is very sturdy, ie garlic presses, utensils, colanders, measuring cups, etc.
392: I will take them shopping for what they need in the place, I see no point in guessing.
Yes. This is by far the smartest way to proceed. People even appreciate it, I think. It adds a kind of togetherness to the proceedings. A joint project that makes it clear that you want them to feel at home and welcome, so what would they like?
It's so good to see you around here, Biohazard.
I love Splenda. If it's not available, I mix sugar and aspartame or saccharin. I hate it when people don't have artificial sweetener, and yet, I know that nobody should have to have it and people probably shouldn't eat it.
(If I had a diabetic visiting, I'd make sure to have a low-calorie sweetener of some sort.)
Also good etiquette way to avoid lead poisoning: no blended scotch in the decanter.
384: Sometime around the, uh, coronation or whatever you call it, I would get this refrain stuck in my head:
Nazi Popes
Nazi Popes
Nazi Popes
FUCK OFF
(What, I occasionally listen to something besides La Muette di Fucking Portici.)
399. Thanks. I will also let them figure out how to make their beds since I don't have the foggiest idea of what's in the linen closet.
This will force a dusting, and the cleaning of assorted magazines and papers from the dining room table. The rest of the place is in pretty good shape.
403.1 made me laugh. With family and close friends, that's about how it works around here: Here are some blankets and sheets, mix and match, would you like help? Shall we do this together? Or no? You're okay?
You don't want to be pushy at people, after all, is what I think.
Beer on cereal is supposed to be pretty tasty.
I dunno about beer, but the bourbon/cornflake ice cream (aka "Secret Breakfast") at Humphry Slocombe is fucking awesome.
As usual, Josh is wrong. Secret Breakfast is totally underwhelming.
You're on crack. Now the salted caramel at Bi-Rite, *that* is underwhelming.
(Hey, when did the server get set to Pacific time?)
When we changed hosting companies a while ago.
i keep dehydrated milk around for my tea, since i only use enough to cut the astringincy, not enough to actually taste it.
411: How does that work? Dehydrated milk is just used to make regular-ish milk, right?
Top tip: if having milk on your cereal is a problem (either because of urple style sourcing problems or just because you're allergic), why not try what a friend of mine swore by and use diet coke?
"I don't keep coffee in the house, I just go to a cafe" is as bizarre to me as to ttaM. What next? "I don't have a toilet, I just go to the public washroom?" What about if you want to have coffee after dinner?
In addition to a full coffee infrastructure I have FIVE TYPES OF TEA in my kitchen right now because I like being able to offer guests a choice, also different types are better at different times of day. Lapsang Souchong, Oolong, Fujian, English Breakfast and Keemun. Oh, and some jasmine somewhere but I don't think that counts. And some green tea, but that doesn't count because it's in bags.
But no sugar. I'll get some this evening.
many of you here are nuts. there is always milk and sugar and coffee in my house. not always uht cream but usually. there is flour and whole wheat flour and cake flour and capers and tins of good anchovies and harissa paste and quinoa and canned tomatoes and chilis and lemons and limes and cilantro and italian parsley and olive oil and fresh berries and more or less every fucking possible food under the sun. If you have guests, there has to be coffee, and your rental has to have a coffee maker. I rented a cottage on martha's vineyard last summer; it had a mr. coffee. if it hadn't I would have been shocked and offended. as it happened I broke the pot and had to buy a new coffee maker.
separately, I put so much fucking sugar in everything it is unbelievable. junkie habit which cannot be undone. I used to know one guy who added sugar to his coke. when I have guests over for coffee on short notice I naturally have my maid make my blueberry muffin recipe, because I am a trust-fund scumbag. who may be about to busted for her semi-illegal sublet of her dream home. god they will have to pry that lease from my cold dead hands. wish me luck even though I'm an unsymapthetic character, people.
Re 414
Yeah. We've English breakfast (two kinds, but no other standard teas as not been to the tea shop recently), decaff tea, green tea, some kind of black chinese tea pressed in little blocks, mint tea, camomile, a couple of different fruit teas, plus various coffees, caff and decaff. And ground up proletariat, in case Bob visits. Lumpen, for taste.
There are sweeteners in the cupboard too, for visiting oddballs.
haha, I have more types of tea than ttaM. Who is an academic and should therefore have it in stock by the keg, crate or bushel. I gloat.
And ground up proletariat, in case Bob visits. Lumpen, for taste.
One lumpen or two?
Which SF book is it where the villain is always drinking "pulped minion"?
I HATE Stanford for some incomprehensible reason. Don't judge me.
You know what my favorite movie is? TANK, with James Garner. They try to fight him but he has a TANK!! So they can never win because HE HAS A TANK!!!!
I like the book where the villain is regularly eating its "breakfast head." appleseed, I think.
We arent tea purests. We drink a lot of a mix called Russian Earl Grey. We also love oolongs. Mmmm. I buy lots of green teas, but they sit in the pantry bc I need the caffeine.
I also love earl grey tea. my mom drinks PG tips, those are good.
Somehow, I escaped Argentina without drinking mate. I regret not drinking it there.
I am drink my tea like water. I tend to gulp it. Must slow down the tea drinking.
412: I think it's the other way around.
re: 417
I wish I was an academic. I'm an ex-academic who now works in an 'academic-related' job [nominally systems development, but basically stuff to do with academic computing/imaging]. Although I suppose it's still an elbow-patches and tweed sort of working environment.
I was able to end my diet coke addiction by switching to loose leaf tea. mmmmm. So good. Now we prepare a bunch every morning before we go to work.
Me too! Though now my teeth are getting tea-stained, which bothers me, but I tell myself it's camouflage for life in Britain.
413: Strong black coffee works too. Actually, raccoon piss would work as long as it's before the coffee, so it really makes no difference what one puts on cereal.
I used to know one guy who added sugar to his coke.
This may be the worst thing I've ever read.
The only way for me to stock all of that stuff in my house would be to buy a cupboard and put it in the guest room where there's currently a bed. I assume no guest would rather have hot drink supplies in the house than a bed.
What does Dan Brown taste like?
Come on. If you have a kitchen, even a galley kitchen, there's room for a can of coffee and a drip cone. You don't need to stock your kitchen like Alameida to be hospitable.
Just coffee would be doable. Coffee plus coffee maker plus several teas plus milk plus sugar takes up space!
You put them inside the guest's pillow.
422: A drip cone is the size of a coffee mug. Milk goes in the refrigerator. And a box of tea isn't big at all. You could fit everything in a cubic foot-sized box.
I love that LizardBreath calls it a cubic foot-sized box.
That looked weird to me as I wrote it. How would you say that if you were a normal person?
well, spherical foot-sized boxes are really hard to stack.
It just looks like you're a conehead describing a shoebox, even though I know you meant something of dimension 1'x1'x1'.
"cubic-foot-sized box", if you insist on putting it like that, or even, "you could fit everything in a cubic foot".
The first option isn't really right, though, because you couldn't fit everything in a box whose volume was a cubic foot, if it were, say, six inches by three inches by eight feet. You mean that you could fit everything in a cubic box, each of whose sides measures one foot.
In fact the shortest, while also most rigorously accurate, thing to say might just be "box one foot on a side"*. You don't need to specify "cubic" in that case, because if it's one foot per side it's automatically cubic.
* where the "a" indicates arbitrariness, so it actually means one foot on each side.
Actually, I assert that I described it in an even shorter way.
How would you say that if you were a normal person?
Less well.
440 demonstrates that you also might say it less well if you weren't.
"box of dimensions 1'x1'x1'" would take longer to say, though.
I'm sure if we add in aesthetics my way will come out on top.
It just looks like you're a conehead describing a shoebox
Come to think of it, a cubic foot-sized box would be considerably smaller than a shoebox, pretty much by definition.
I mean, even if your feet were really big, thus making a foot-sized box really big, your shoebox would be bigger.
Let's be very clear: a normal person would have mentally pictured, and used the same word, "shoebox".
447 leads me to conclude I must be highly abnormal.
A shoebox isn't even close to being cubic, or to having a volume of a cubic foot.
Wags who read 448.1 are hereby invited to shut it.
A shoebox is less than a cubic foot, isn't it? Maybe 14"x6"x4"? I don't think that'd do it.
Right. If a normal person were describing what Upetgi should use to hold a few small items, they would have said "shoebox", not gotten dizzy with the dimensions.
People keep their kitchen supplies in shoeboxes?
But I was trying to be tight but realistic. A shoebox wouldn't do it. Two might, but not one.
Now me, I would have said it all fit in a milk crate, or possibly a minecraft block. Or possibly a unit cube.
I would have said plastic Halloween pumpkin.
Milk crate is good. Bigger than you'd need, but a sane image.
I would have said kitchen cabinet. Or possibly the freezer, for a bag of ground coffee beans.
Banker's box? I guess they're more like 1⅔ cubic foot.
457: milk crates are close to a cubic foot generally (actually slightly smaller, I think).
464: Huh, I haven't used them in ages, but I'm picturing a foot-and-a-half cubed.
Speaking as a man with a ton of 12" singles, no, normal ones are smaller than that.
I think they're something like 14x11x10.
Wait. Why wouldn't a drip cone and box of tea fit in a shoebox?
Here's one that's 13x13x11, or 1.07 cubic feet.
472: I put that in there just to make it hard.
It does, yeah. I found some that are 13x13 at the container store.
472: Add a can/bag of coffee, and even though the milk is in the refrigerator, I'm counting it in the space. A shoebox doesn't quite do it.
You're counting the milk that goes in the refridgerator against the space provided by a shoebox? Sure, why not.
415: I used to know one guy who added sugar to his coke
Do you mean the soft drink?
Well, a sheet of paper like for a printer is 8.5 inches by 11 inches. So lay three pieces overlapping so that they make a square (you could do it with two, but then you would have to just eyeball how much to overlap them on the short sides), and that's a little less than a square foot. Tape some more together like that and hold it up at a right angle to the one lying flat, and then you have the third dimension. It's clearly taller and wider than an average shoebox, but probably slightly less long.
A normal person with good presence of mind would find a milk crate to be an acceptable shorthand, but presence of mind isn't really all that normal.
Start by visualizing an embedding of RP^3 into 3-space, and then restrict it to a unit square.
There's also filters, which take up a good bit of space and are annoyingly proportioned (and really annoying to find). I think I'd much rather go French press than try to deal with filters.
At any rate, we have two shelf cupboards and one no-shelf cupboard. One of the shelf cupboards holds all the dishes (well, most of them, the ones that don't fit are on one of the tiny counters on top of the microwave), and the no-shelf cupboard holds the pots and pans (except the ones that don't fit and live permanently on the stove). That leaves one medium-sized cupboard for all non-refridgerated food supplies.
It is true that we could have a box of coffee supplies stashed on top of the corner of the hall that's boxes of things that we don't have room to unpack.
482: Coffee and milk live in the freezer and the fridge respectively, so that's two down.
Has everyone but me figured out who LORD CASTOCK is?
Keep in mind we only have 4 plates, 4 bowls, etc. We've chosen to have a *guest room* instead of room for extra kitchen supplies. And I'm pretty sure our guests prefer it that way.
485: No, I think it's an anagram but I'm terrible at them.
I think Upetgi lives in a shoebox.
NY apartments are small. But I also think he's exaggerating how hard it would be to have this stuff around.
I think we have 600-700 square feet, so you could actually fit a lot of shoeboxes if you tried.
We also have a dishwasher, which is unusual for NY, and eats into kitchen space.
I just had to stop a colleague halfway through his explanation because I can't follow all this talk about 5-dimensional vectors. I asked him to talk about n-dimensional vectors instead. Much easier to follow.
491: You could do your dishes by hand, store them in the dishwasher, and free up a cupboard.
485: Sorry, it's an anagram of what used to be DS' (my) full pseud. I've always hated both versions of that pseud, their use was just habitual. So I'm trying out a little transition.
That's one possibility. The other is that my full name is Percival Lord Castock of the Chicago Castocks, world-class fencer, debonair secret agent for Distinguished Restaurants of North America, and heir to what until 2006 was the world's largest aglet-manufacturing fortune.
488: I live in about 750 square feet (we're, ummmm, having Castock Manor refurbished), and 489 sounds like it's probably right to me.
494.last. Does that 750 square feet include a bathroom and two bedrooms?
Also, if I had more room I would use it to have a bike, not to have extra coffee supplies.
(496 was me. This transition thing isn't going very well.)
Of course when dealing with a small apartment, a lot depends on the efficiency of layout.
600 sq ft is quite small, yeah. Googling a flat for sale in our building, ours is 900 sq ft. Which is reasonably large for a 2 bedroom flat, I suppose, but not out of line with similar sized places in Glasgow.
Consider all my usual snarling at pseud-changes as read.
497: I honestly can't imagine any way in which coffee supplies would be competing for space with a bike. A couple of filters and a pot, or a French press, or just some instant and a kettle to boil water in. How hard can it be?
500: I'm sorry, LB. I just felt like I was a snooty aristocratic pseud trapped in the body of a fake medical pseud. I had to get free.
I was totally misremembering. Looking at my old tax form it's under 500 square feet.
The kitchen/livingroom/diningroom/storage area is something like 6 feet by 25 feet, with a bay window making a wider living room for part of it (say another 5 feet by 10 feet added on).
No, no, I just snarl because I think omitting the snarling would look like favoritism. As long as I know who you are, it's fine. (Although it's weird -- I don't really hear people's voices when I read comments, but there is a tone or something associated with a name. Even knowing who you are, you 'sound' different.)
494: Ah, that makes sense. I would have gotten it if you'd stuck to anagrams of your more current pseudonym.
Yesterday afternoon's discussion on this thread was normaler than this afternoon's discussion.
Consider all my usual snarling at pseud-changes as read.
Holy shit, read is LB's alter-ego? Like, when she gets angry she turns into a snarling Mongolian? Consider my world officially rocked.
507: Unfortunately the range of possibilities there is more limited.
506: I know what you mean. I 'feel' different commenting, too, it's weird.
You could just shorten it to "LORD COCK."
For instance, my mental image just lost a lab coat and gained a horsehair wig.
Which would arguably be quite blasphemous.
512: Shouldn't that be LORD MOLE COCK?
512: ROD COCKLAST occurred to me, but... no.
Oh come on. Let's live a little.
"OLD STARCOCK" is actually pretty good. If I were commenting on a blog with fellow-commenters named, say, "Fey Wetsuit" and "Flatbed Horror," I could probably make it work.
I have FIVE TYPES OF TEA in my kitchen right now because I like being able to offer guests a choice, also different types are better at different times of day. Lapsang Souchong, Oolong, Fujian, English Breakfast and Keemun. Oh, and some jasmine somewhere but I don't think that counts. And some green tea, but that doesn't count because it's in bags.
Now I want to get me some pure varieties. It's all blends here at the moment. Most of it being the aforementioned Irish Breakfast. Though I'm slurping Prince of Wales as I type this. IYKWIMAITYD. And, I've got some (of what some like to call) 'Bolivian Minivan' around somewhere.
I'm a big fan of Lipton's Yellow Label.
I'm a big fan of Lipton's Yellow Label.
See, this is why America has an aggregate demand problem.
I'm afraid I keep reading LORD CASTOCK as LORD CASTOFF.
524: All the better jumping-off point for my many tales of nautical adventure!
526: I daren't take the name of Ireland's Patron Saint of Lube. That would be improper.
You're going to lower-case yourself at some point, I'm hoping. I mean, you need not. You alone know how this change makes you feel.
Is the uppercase too much? I could go for something a little lower-key, like this.
I don't think I'm going to be able to stick with it, anyway.
I don't think I'm going to be able to stick with it, anyway.
Oh, well, I dunno. Haven't we all wanted to change pseuds at some point or another? I aver that we have! Practically everyone who has seems to have changed voice-feel* as well; kind of interesting.
* If this isn't a term, it should be.
For the record, I like "Lord Castock" just fine.
530: Unless, of course, he wanted to embrace it and become LORD CAPSLOCK.
Moby has the right of it, of course. Capslock hardly befits the station of a Slapcock, much less a Castock. I'm sure I've no idea what I was thinking.
It's going to take me a while to get used to this.
maybe he could post as "lorD caStock" for a little while until you get used to it.
I'm a wee bit jealous as I don't have much in the way of anagrammatical options. "Rime", maybe.
I feel your pain, emir. "JAYA" ain't exactly a radical change of look for me.
538 and 539 could team up, as Mr. Yaajerim and Mrs. Yaajerim.
the sugar went into the coca-cola, yes.
I still prefer SCROTAL DOCK, but then I would.
