Long days, tall orders of coffee.

Tomorrow the school year officially starts. Back to university and all the toils that this implies. Luckily the government grant (for me as a student) just went through and I finally have  some funds on the old  bank account. After the bills are paid this will of course be whittled down to a mere husk of its former cashy glory. But there is at least enough left over for me to be able to enjoy a hot cup of coffee outside the confines of my home, whenever I choose. And I choose to quite often.

I've said goodbye to a few friends this summer. They're moving away to far-off lands and brighter futures and better prospects than this town could possibly offer. I hope to be rejoining them soon. So that we can once again discuss random bullshit on topics of which we know little. while at the same time imbibing in the joys of "life". They'll know what I mean. Hopefully.

Good luck to you all. But mostly to my bromance partner Sven. Who is traveling to The Great White North. A place I myself enjoyed immensely. Tell them Patrik sent you..

Daydreams and Sugar.

Sleeping too much or not enough seems to have the same effect. A fuzzy halo on reality, amplified by sugar. And caffeine. The first cup of coffee in the morning kicks the entire thing into overdrive. Blurring my consciousness just enough so that I gloss over the little details that annoy me to no end. At the same time it's refreshingly weird and crisp. Ramping up my perception so that I may notice the daily patterns and occurrences that I find cute.

Platitudes aplenty.

When that first whiff of beany goodness hits my nostrils and spirals into the old olfactory bulb I know the day will have at least a base level of enjoyment in store for me. Sugar, caffeine and the odd dose of nicotine in the form of a cigarette may not be terribly good for the body but it does wonders for the mind. It's fan-fucking-tastic, with a dash of self-destruction thrown in. Making you feel a tad more alive.

Pucker up.

The game Lips. Holy Jumpin's Jesus has that piece of digital entertainment given me pain the past couple of days. It's a rather girly karaoke game containing tracks of a popish nature. Which I have nothing against. Too each his own, and so forth.

What annoys the hell out of me is the little snippet of music (and I use the term so loosely here that I dare say it has lost all of its damn meaning) that plays between the bouts of singsong. It's monotonous. Not just monotonous, but short. Shorter than the average sneeze. Without the joy of neurologically resembling an orgasm, or so the urban legend goes. Anyhoo. A couple of thumps of bass and then the thing starts over. Ad infinitum.

Was it too expensive to extend the length of this turd to a whopping 10 seconds? Let's say, the duration of a protracted yawn. Breath in, shape your mouth and exhale a little ditty. Whatever comes to mind, no longer than 3 seconds. Record it and play it back to yourself on a loop for about 2 minutes, with 3 minute intervals, for the next 10 of your waking hours. At the end you'll be jamming your housekeys into both ears. A pierced eardrum or two being a small price to pay in order to escape such an auditory hell.

Sidenote: A little bit edgy today. No coffee in the mornings here,  badly missing my sweet cup of Swedish java. And my sunny vacation time is drawing to a close. How are you?

A Grande Gesture, please.

Take a gander at this ad from Starbucks. I think it's just swell! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkC5qYH0ln0] So you're telling me that 5 cents from every espresso-latte-truffle-mocha-thingy is going towards some sort of charitable AIDS-related action? Holy jumpin' coffee bean Batman, that's like 2% of every order! Rather than acting like human beings the people at Starbucks, like every other corporation it would seem, manage to morph charity into commerce. Brilliant. Instead of just buying more of the produce (which the company's very existence depends upon) at reasonable and fair prices, they're going to perform a public relations stunt. Another alternative would be to just give AIDS foundations in Africa a lump sum of money, but would that get the same amount of media exposure? I would applaud their impressive dedication to callousness if only my hands weren't angrily clutching and shaking my keyboard. Underpaying poor farmers in the third world. Overcharging the working class in the first. No java in either world is as dark as their souls.

The Man, part 3.

Shitty coffee, at a shitty café. He couldn't quite figure out why she insisted on coming here. There were plenty of good, or at least half-way decent, places in the same neighborhood. Ones that didn't smell like day-old coffee and mold and grime. Sure she had a thing for the guy who worked here, but was that really an excuse? The stuff they served was just rancid. Brown weird tasting liquid. Coffee in name only. As he stared down into his cup at the old curdled cream that had gathered up like an alien cocoon at the bottom he caught himself day dreaming. Mostly of nonsense. Bunnies fighting each other with Uzis, women he knew and fantasized about regularly, having an apartment that wasn't a joke. The regular stuff. But somewhere in there, at the back of his head and mind he also held a thought of her. An idea. In an idealized form. The one he remembered from when they were kids. The one he had modeled every other encounter and impression of women after. The archetype that was faulty, wrong and nonsense. Other people had their mother to blame, he had her. None the less she had at least thought of him and taken the time to call. Things were going better. As they sat there the same old conversation they had had a thousand times by now unfolded with tedious inevitability. She lamented some man. He supported and complimented her. Listening to the details and making suggestions along the way. Then it was his turn to discuss some part of his private life, at this point she usually switched off and started drifting in and out of the conversation. Commenting instead on how unfulfilled she felt, her needs and ultimately her desires. - I'd just like a really good fuck right now. She blurted out. - Well that's not exactly hard to find...when you're a reasonably attractive woman... He shot back as soon as he heard it, with an annoyed urgency creeping in to back it up. - Whad'ya mean? Like I can go out and have sex at any time? As she finished the sentence she uttered a loud "Pfft" so hard she almost shot saliva all away across the table. - Of course you could. Walk into any bar, club or grocery store and you can find a dozen non-deformed young fellows, primed and ready to go. Minimum effort required. I however have to scope the situation, put in a lot of effort and at best have a slim chance at the end of the night. He punctuated his phrases with intense hand movements, it seemed as if he was doing a performance. In a way he was, he had mulled over this idea in his head many a time. Considered the exact wording and intonation. This was The Idea's grand gala opening into the real world. And it was going great. - I guess you're right... I'm gonna go ask him. She pushed her chair back with a loud scraping sound. The worst kind. The sound of dry wood against a stone floor. All he could do was sit there and watch her walk over and talk to this guy, another anonymous guy. Had he been anywhere with her where she had not met some guy? The sounds from the street outside and the few other customers drowned out what they were saying. Things were not going well.