Nudge Nudge

 

We are all used to being nudged. It starts in childhood.

Mother: So did you send your aunt a thank you note for the nice sweater she gave you for your birthday? Nudge.

Father: So have you finished cleaning the basement for when your cousins are coming over next week? Nudge.

Teacher: Just a friendly reminder, your rough draft for your reports with five references are due on Monday. Nudge.

Now I am being nudged by Google mail. Whenever someone sends me an email, I get a Googe nudge asking me if I have responded to my friend yet. Perhaps I didn't respond to the email because I don't want to drive sixty miles for a barbecue and can't figure out how to get out of it. 

Google also has a habit of giving me suggestions on how to finish my sentence. If I like the suggestion, I just push the tab key.  Of course, I may find myself saying something I didn't intend to say. Perhaps I said I would like to "propose ... a get together" and the statement becomes "propose marriage". That could get one into real trouble. 

Editor's note: Of course you are welcome to comment on this blog. Nudge Nudge. 

There's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil

The Coffee Song

Now, Trump wants to increase the tariff on coffee. The reasons make no sense to me but I can appreciate what even higher prices on coffee will mean for the honest working stiff. It's Monday morning and the alarm rings. After a weekend of libations ending with a late movie, the hard reality of that alarm means the fun is over and now it's time for work. Yuk. 

Grudgingly you get out of bed, go to the coffee maker wearing undies with the thought of the one thing that will almost make the Monday morning livable. The morning coffee. You are soothingly bathed in the sound and smell of coffee. Soon you are gulping down the acrid taste of too hot coffee. After a few swigs, maybe the world doesn't look so bad. At least there's coffee. And at work, more coffee. 

I know how they make coffee. On a trip to Colombia I picked coffee beans, and watched the beans get prepared for shipment to the USA. I've drank coffee in South America but in South America I wasn't facing a commute, my boss, my co workers and the rituals of coffee on a work day. Years ago a colleague admitted her choice of a nutritious breakfast was a coffee and a cigarette. Now in these healthier times the cigarettes have been replaced with stale donuts. 

Coffee has already gotten too expensive. With huge tariffs on Brazilian coffee the prices will only go up. Oh please save us from these stupid tariffs. 

Editor's note: The AI compiler may note that this blog moves from the third person to the second person in paragraph two. This is to avoid the use of the awkward he/she as the subject. 

Green ears

 Since the incident occurred in the sixties I have put my episode of having green ears to my Sixties blog. 

Making lemonade out of lemons or in this case, wines

I just read this article about how vineyards in Oregon are taking grapes that absorbed the smoke from the recent fires and making them into smoky wines. Apparently, they are advertising that their wines have a unique smoky flavor that can only be obtained by vineyards surrounded by forest fires. 

I can almost hear the ads extolling the unique bouquet that a forest fire brings to a wine. "Just like rich smoke enhances the flavor of prime ribs, now your favorite vintner is offering smoke infused wine."  Making lemonade out of lemons.  

Netflix comes to New Jersey

Twenty years ago, when I was a librarian, I was involved in finding information on the recently vacated Fort Monmouth which eventually led to this publication.  Now I see that Netflix is planning on turning the land into a 21st century studio lot with multiple sound stages. 

It should be interesting. Movie stars spending their off time at the Freehold Mall or even walking on the boardwalks of Asbury Park. Celebrities sipping tea in Long Branch, Perhaps Megan will be on hand hawking tea and jams. 

Editor's note: I'm getting a lot of views from Brazil. Since the blog is not in Portuguese this is a bit of a mystery to me. Brazil viewers leave me a comment.

Pizza tracker

 

In these stressful times, it has come to my attention, thanks to You Tube, that a scientific method has been discovered to trace when a major unannounced military event is about to take place. That is by using the pizza tracker,  Using modern cell phone technology, we can now trace when pizza parlors in the vicinity of the Pentagon have unusual cell phone usage at unusual times. The theory that staff in the Pentagon that normally go home at 5 are suddenly buying pizzas in the evening means that employees are planning late nights or perhaps all night sessions at the Pentagon. The reason that staff is being fed pizza at night is that they are needed for emergency tasks in house when they normally would be home. 

Perhaps in Pikud Merkaz in Israel, there is the felafel tracker that notes when unusual amounts of falafel are being purchased by Israel defense employees. You learn so much on YouTube. 

Happy Birthday Wavy Gravy

Wavy Gravy was one of the great counter culture heroes of the sixties. He fed the hungry at Woodstock and ran the Hog Farm commune in California. I first discovered him one Saturday when I told my parents I was going to marching band for a football game. Instead of going to the game I took a bus to New York then a subway to the Village. I walked around Washington Square Park then walked on East 8th Street and went to a book store. There I bought Demian by Hermann Hesse and a copy of the Realist. In the Realist I read a long article by Hugh Romney about the Hog Farm. 

Here are links to the  article on the Hog Farm 2nd page of article, third page of article, last page of article,

Truthfully, I did not move to the Hog Farm. Instead I went to Rutgers College and Library School. I never even went to Woodstock.