Funranium Labs

Guatemala Nueva Vinas and Death Wish

I want to open up with some praise for the folks at Death Wish Coffee. This is not because they sent me a couple t-shirts and coffee mug, though I do love swag. No, this is because the Internet appears to have finally noticed them out there in upstate NY and the link aggregators have commenced to chatting and link recycling. The Internet, being the beast that it is, doesn’t like to read deep but it does like conflict. So, I’ve been getting more than few messages along these lines:

“Dude, these guys say they’ve got the strongest coffee out there. I totally think they ripped you off. You should throw down, man.”

Maybe not in those precise words, but a similar vein. I can only assume the guys at Death Wish have been getting the same about me.

So, for the record, Death Wish Coffee makes a hell of a bean. Their beans are what I use to make the Death Wish BBotE, which is why I’ve preserved their name with their permission and linked like the dickens to make sure everyone knows who roasted this beast. I told the tale of my Death Wish testing adventures and am quite upfront about my flavor preferences. I like Death Wish BBotE in absinthe and that’s about it, but that’s my palate which I’m reliably told is holycrapOMGWTFBBQ weird. No, I’m not stealing business from them nor are they stealing any from me. If anything, they’re probably laughing all the way to the bank, depositing their well-earned zillions for having made a remarkable coffee.

So, that’s that. Ain’t no beef here.

On to happier topics, the folks at Caffe Vita responded to my tears at losing my favorite Guatemalan Mundo Nuvo beans by sending me a roast from the same farmer, just the crop from the next valley over: Finca Nueva Vinas. On opening the bag, it gave me the same lovely bright aroma that Mundo Nuvo did which made me quite excited. As a hot cup, Caffe Vita’s description was spot on: citrus and hazelnut.

As BBotE, the Nueva Vinas kept those same hot cup qualities, which was surprising as that normally isn’t the case, but lead to some variation in flavor reception amongst the Panel of Pallets. Universally, the aroma of the cold and straight BBotE said cocoa to people, with the a primary taste of chocolate-salt caramel . There was a secondary flavor on the front of the tongue that was described variously as salt water taffy, bittersweet chocolate, and “that German bitter lemon drink, you know the one, c’mon guys work with me” that actually blended quite well with the main. Mixed with the 3:1 hot water dilution and and the dash vodka test, the flavors muted but were still present and unchanged.

My final review is that it isn’t Mundo Nuvo, which I will mourn until it’s return at some point in the future, but that it is quite drinkable and tickles my Central American fruity coffee bone. You may grab it here if you’d like some.

Greetings & Farewells

To everyone that just wandered over this way courtesy of Penny Arcade, welcome aboard the S.S. Funranium Labs! Some kindly Browncoat decided that dosing Tycho at SDCC with a vial of Sumatra was a good idea and, lo, here you are. I’m also to understand that vials ended up backstage at w00tstock and everyone survived. You will find that poop jokes often outnumber the tales of adventure, radiation, coffee, beer, and science but I try to keep a happy balance, hopefully all in the same tale.

Of course, all you new folks also mean that BBotE for this run are getting rather depleted. Rest assured, fresh pre-order slots for the next production run will go up this weekend.

In sadder news, my old boss that I mentioned two weeks ago, passed away last Friday night at 11:15pm. He leaves behind a legacy of dozens of people that he trained to be sarcastic, suspicious bastards for the Forces of Good. If you will, please imagine him as Old Man Deadpool sending us all forth in his image. I’m gonna miss him.

BBotE Lineup Changes & A Wounded Soldier

As time marches on, the supplies of single origin coffees start to dwindle on our way to the next harvest. It is with heavy heart that I must tell you that the Guatemalan Mundo Nuvo will be leaving the BBotE lineup. After the next run, the supplies will be depleted for the foreseeable future. I hope it will return soon, but this also means the hunt for a new occupant for the Central American slot is on! I am ever so fond of Guatemalans.

Gravity Victim 665ml FMJ Stein of Science

In other news, while building a giant mess of steins to equip one lucky couple’s wedding, I discovered at the bottom the box a wounded dewar. Not shattered, but a badly dented base. I was able to bend it back out and the stein rests flat, but the cosmetic damage is done. So, if you want a stein on the cheap and don’t mind a dent in the base, here’s your chance. [EDIT: it‘s already been grabbed. Within 20min.]

To those who sent me fine tales of Navy adventure, thank you. I have high hopes to be seeing Mr. Shea next week and look forward to entertaining him for a bit. Never know, he might give me another story to rival the Tale of the Dolphins.

Last, but not least, the next round of pre-order slots are now up. Go and get ’em!

The Tale of the Dolphins

My old wonderful curmudgeon of a boss from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the man who gave me a not so gentle kick and made it possible to be a health physicist, has just moved into hospice care. He said, and I quote, “You’re too damn smart to spend the rest of your life swinging a meter. Get your degree and start telling guys like me what to do.” As if I’d dare tell him what to do without asking his opinion first; it’s a damn fool of an officer that doesn’t listen to the sergeant. Bill is similarly too damn smart to have spent his life swinging a meter but found his joy in being a cantankerous smartass, which is part of why he was made my boss (quote: “He’s an ass who drives people crazy, but he’s a smart ass. You two should get along perfectly.”)

We spent an awful lot of his smoke breaks listening to his stories of the Navy and decades gone by at LLNL. I did my best to absorb them all and I became a font of institutional knowledge that convinced people that I’d been working there longer than I’d been alive. It is time to share my favorite of his stories, “The Tale of the Dolphins”, to honor Mr. Shea. This is a story of Navy traditions, drinking, and attempted drowning in Hawaii. Admittedly, saying “Navy traditions”, “drinking”, and “attempted drowning” in the same sentence is thrice redundant.

Bill was a submariner in the 70s, at the height of the prison inmate enlisted men/frat house officer Navy at the same time that Admiral Rickover’s Nuclear Navy was really coming into its own. He arrived in Pearl Harbor, fresh from Nuclear Power School to be assigned to his boat. As he approached his boat there was a large group of men punching one solitary seaman in the chest, right up until the moment one man picked him up and threw him overboard into the harbor. When Bill saw this he not-quite-quietly said, “Aww man, why did you go and do that?”

The EXTREMEMLY LARGE Chief of the Boat, the man that did the tossing, says “And why shouldn’t I?” in an EXTREMELY LARGE manner to Bill.

Bill shook his head in disappointment, “You tossed him in the harbor. He’s gonna leave a fucking ring around the boat we’ll have to clean off before we leave.” It is important to remember that the Navy area of Pearl Harbor was a goddamn toxic cesspit with untreated sewage at this time. If you’ve been to Pearl recently and think it’s still a goddamn toxic cesspit, just know that it’s much better now. To suggest that the seaman was filthier than Pearl Habor itself…

The COB squints at Bill’s nametag. “Shea. I’m gonna remember you, Shea.”

Bill had walked aboard in the middle of a “dolphin” ceremony where a newly minted submariner is granted their pin with the dolphins on it that denotes that they have successfully completed their training on all the major functional areas of the submarine and, therefore, more useful than mere ballast. When Bill got his dolphins several months later, they threw him overboard twice. Oh yes, the Chief remembered him.

Oh, I forgot. The punching? That was the lucky new submariner’s team punching his pin into his chest without postbacks. For Bill, when the pin was first presented, it was at a bar. It was shown to the recipient, but then quickly taken away. A water pitcher was found. Everyone in the bar poured what was left of their drinks into it. The barmat was wrung out to fill the pitcher. The dolphin pin was then dropped in and Bill was told to chug and come up with the dolphins in his teeth. Immediate vomiting would have been considered unlucky, so Bill had to make it at least through the next game of darts before a strategic chunder was approved.

There you go, The Tale of the Dolphins. If you have a tale of your time in the nuclear Navy you’d like me share with him when I go visit in the next couple weeks, I’m always happy to learn a new story. And I know he enjoys when I spin him a fine yarn.

Project GOAT DEPLOYMENT

The Ineffable Mustachio'd Goat of SCIENCE! - By Molly Crabapple

You may recall that a while back artist Molly Crabapple was overwhelmed by caffeination, the muse slide tackled her, and she politely demanded to be allowed to make a label for Black Blood of the Earth. Far be it from me to argue with her and the “Ineffable Mustachio’d Goat of SCIENCE” resulted. More or less at my whim, approximately 1 in 20 of the 1000ml bottles go out with the Goat label and people seem to have been pretty excited when they get them because, hey look, ART!

But I am taking this opportunity to do a little good by Ms. Crabapple and Laurie Penny. Their fevered brains have come together and hatched a plot to go to Greece and tell the tale of austerity, in the finest traditions of Thompson & Steadman and their various Fears & Loathings. In their DISCORDIA project, Laurie shall make words and Molly shall make images, together it shall be grand tale. Of course, this is not a cheap proposition and I want to make sure it happens.

So, to help kick into their kitty, I am going to do a run of twelve 1000ml bottles that will be made with Molly’s Ineffable Goat of SCIENCE label. The next twelve bottles will, period, amen, have the Goat on them. I will then take the proceeds from these bottles and hand them to Molly and Laurie to help make sure they have the supplies they need to get the story told.

Seriously, this is a project I think has potential to be wonderful and I want to make it happen. If I can help through the power of ultracoffee, all the better.

Your Radiation Safety Conundrum

I have returned from Adventures in Radiation in eastern Washington and a fresh round of pre-order slots have gone up in the store as I finish up the last of the previous lots. I have discovered that I have quite a few emails with questions that aren’t related to enhancing my maxxxximum manprow. Sorry for the delay on getting back to you all, but as you’ll see below, there’s a reason for this. That reason is Science.

This last weekend was consumed with Legos, coffee, manhattans and evaluating a DOE incident report for intimate detail. If you would like your “radiation safety professional for a day” test, please look at this picture and tell me everything you see wrong with it. This is sort of like one of those puzzles from Highlights magazine when you were a kid, stuck in the dentist’s office waiting room, bored to tears, but instead with THE DEADLY RADIATIONS and, unfortunately, from an actual event. BEHOLD!

YOUR KNOWN INFORMATION:

You are going to use this setup for handling ZPPR (Zero Power Physics Reactor) nuclear fuel packages with a lot of Pu-240, Am-241 and their resulting fission products, all of which are fairly beefy gamma emitters.
Gamma dose rates are approx 30rad/hr at 10cm from a typical fuel assembly. As a reminder, in the United States, your annual regulatory dose limit is 5rad per year.
The work operation to be performed involves opening the assemblies to play with the fuel plates within, with the very likely potential for releasing airborne particulates.
The mass of inhaled Pu-240 alone necessary to make a worker exceed the annual dose limit is about 1 microgram, a quantity that is not visible to the naked eye.
Herr Direktor Funranium, without a trace of irony, banged his head on the desk, yelling “NO! You have to be shitting me!” when first shown this picture. The good news is that no one died working here. It is otherwise a “No Pants, Bear” grade bad situation. This should give you some idea of how many things are wrong in this picture to pick out.

(NOTE: the people in the picture are Important People looking at this room before work actually began to make sure that taxpayer dollars were well spent.)

I just want to state for the record that I have shown this picture to a couple dozen people now that have no background in radioactive materials work beyond being “A Friend of Phil” (yes, I do realize that this over-cocktails-background makes them more knowledgeable in the practical matters of radiation than some grad students). On just a glance, every single person that looked at this asked how in the hell anyone thought this was a acceptable/good idea.

The only root cause answer I was able to come up with is that sometimes the profit motive of private enterprise isn’t always the best idea. At some level, I’m uncomfortable with the fact our national laboratories are run by for-profit entities, especially the weapons labs as that’s a relatively new development. It’s hard to remember the mission when you have to focus on the bottom-line.

Where’s Phil Now & How To Get To Antarctica

If you’ve been poking at the store side of things lately, you may have noticed that the inventories of most everything has dwindled down to zero. This is intentional as I want to clear everything out before I put up the next round of pre-orders. “Why?” you ask. Because I am off to beautiful, scenic Richland, WA for a week of Fun With Radiation. “WHY!?!?” you may ask again. Because Richland, WA is where we’ve hidden Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, AKA the Hanford Site, and they’ve accreted various things relevant to my actual career of playing with the DEADLY RADIATIONS™. So, really it’s almost a vacation, if your definition of vacation includes plutonium and talking about regulations. Regular production will resume after Memorial Day.

And you may be absolutely certain that I am going to sample all of the wares of these fine folks at the Atomic Ale Brewpub. In the interest of Science, of course.

Over the last decade (oh god, it has been that long) I have been asked many times people how the can get to go to Antarctica, most recently by Meredith Yayanos. Well, here’s my list of ways down to the Ice:

The typical way people assume you go to Antarctica is to do Science. As I have attempted to tell folks, the vast majority of people in Antarctica are not scientists but this is still a way down. As an American researcher, the first thing you’ll need is a large research grant. You then submit your research proposal to USAP, the National Science Foundation’s United States Antarctic Program (international researchers may feel free to apply, though many of the signatory nations to the Antarctic Treaty have their own programs). If approved, you’ll be granted an event number, which you should hold on to for dear life as absolutely everything you do in Antarctica will be referenced back to that.

For those of a scientific bent, it is far easier to find someone that has an existing event number, try to modify their proposal to include your research, and sort of be a research subcontractor. Or, if you like their research, go down as a research associate under their project. NOTE: this is why Antarctica is full of undergrads, grad students, and postdocs.

Of course you may fabulously independently wealthy, or have such folks as backers, and don’t want to deal with the USAP and feel like having an expedition to Antarctica on your own. You better have your shit together unless you feel like pulling a Capt. Scott down there because without an event number assigned to your expedition, absolutely no one will help you. Or they will help, grudgingly, and an extremely high price that will be taken out of your hide when your sorry, unprepared ass gets rescued and shipped home…assuming you survive to get rescued.

There are a variety of cruises that “go to Antarctica” that you can sign up for but buyer beware. Many of these cruises on converted Russian fishing vessels count crossing 66° 33′ 44″, the Antarctic Circle, as going to Antarctica. Some visit islands south of the circle, some play along the peninsula but I don’t know any that do landfall on the mainland. These cruises are also painfully expensive.

It was only -38F that day. It's a dry cold. — My Ceremonial South Pole Hero Shot & Xmas Card 2002

But perhaps price is no object to you and you want your hero shot at the ceremonial South Pole. Well, there’s always Adventure Networks that for ~$60k will fly you down, let you do a bit of skiing, take your picture and fly home. Honestly, we Polies looked at these flights with some disdain as we contemplated our paychecks and watched 60-70 year olds pile out of the plane, gasping for air at the altitutde, stay for 30min and fly out. That was back when the trip only cost $30k.

If you want to actually work in Antarctica and let someone pay you to be there, there are a variety of contractors that support the USAP mission. The primary support contractor for USAP is Raytheon Polar Services Co (NOTE: this is no longer accurate). Akima Staffing Solutions is also down there as well. This is they way for most anyone else to go to Antarctica if you don’t think you have “science applicable skills” good enough to support the NSF directly as a grantee. Construction workers, cooks, mechanics, custodians, etc.,on average there’s eight people to every one person doing research just to keep the stations running. If you aren’t afraid of scrubbing pans or wielding a shovel, and don’t mind long hours and low pay, you can go to Antarctica. I’m to understand a judge on the federal bench once went on sabbatical as a dishwasher. Of course, you will have to pass the physical and psych qualifications; you have to be crazy enough to want to go to Antarctica, but not too crazy.

Lastly, there is a special Antarctica Artists & Authors Program out of the NSF to promote the creation of works of art inspired by Antarctica. The grant will pay to get you to Antarctica, plus food and berthing once you’re there, but there’s no money for salary or materials. So get your ducks in a row to keep the home fires burning before you go on an inspirational journey. Also, don’t be surprised if you get roped into the odd job or two while you’re there.

BBotE Ambassador Supplies and Approaching Science

Alright, as of tomorrow, resupply cases for all your local BBotE Ambassadors (except for College Station, TX and Dublin, Ireland) are either there or on their way. In fact, Portland may be out of stock again and in need of another. I am to understand the case for Delta City (AKA Detroit) has disappeared into a black hole somewhere between Oaktown and the Motown so a replacement may need to go out. Per Justin, Ambassador of London, that the clouds cleared over his blighted city for the first time in months and angels could be heard singing. That might be a titch of hyperbolic exaggeration, but he sure was happy to get resupply.

And I am pleased to announce that I can finally repay New Zealand for all the kindness it’s shown me for the last decade or so. Next week I will be shipping the inaugural case to the BBotE Ambassador of Wellington, Ms. Meredith Yayanos. Do you not know Meredith? Allow me to acquaint you. Admittedly, this entry needs a bit of an update as she is now a denizen of Wellington, which is California’s loss but New Zealand’s gain.

You see, back in the dawn of BBotE Warren Ellis asked, pretty please, if would I drop a bounty of BBotE on his co-conspirator Ariana Osborne (AKA She Who Turns Warren’s Muttered Ramblings Into Things & Stuff) to see what wonders might result if she slept even less than normal. The story gets a bit fuzzy after that but, somehow, a bit of that bounty made it Meredith’s hands, an edition of Coilhouse was published in record time, new music projects were contemplated, the Pacific Ocean was leapt in a single bound, and other Pythonesque feats as well. So drop her a line, New Zealand!

On a completely unrelated note, my brain sometimes works slow but the background processes are always turning away. Roughly a year ago, I offered to do some science nerding for a friend’s 10yo daughter. He somewhat apologetically waved me off and said that, much like her dad, while she was interested in science, the math skills weren’t really there (much like him) and that music & art were really her passions.

Last night, while enjoying the zen like meditative state of a BBotE extraction, I had a realization and answer to that.

I have forgotten more math than most people ever learn. I feel like a case study of “use it or lose it” as, at one point, I had to shove more or less an entire undergraduate math degree in my head in six months in order to complete my BS in physics. Tensor analysis, bra-ket notation, Legendre polynomials, Bessel & Von Neumann functions…all those things I used to be rather good at in order to do quantum mechanics, GONE. I remember what they were for and why I’d want to use them, but I’d need to spray a whole lot of WD-40 into my brain to free those rusty gears and actually do something.

But honestly, the shape of those things is what was important in the first place. The ability to look at the world, tilt my head slightly to the right, squint, and say to myself “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it works that way.” The math to prove it is an afterthought, the confirmation with elegant numbers & equations that the universe works like you intuitively thought it did. The name I’ve been calling this for as long as I can remember is Physical Intuition; that deep down knowledge of how physics works that changes how you see the world around you.

I don’t see waves on the ocean, I see possibilities of what the ocean floor looks like and wind/water interaction. I don’t see a rock with crystals in it, I see the Earth baking in a magmatic kitchen with temperature-pressure diagrams vs. different chemical concentrations. I don’t see a satellite TV dish out the window, I see the perfect curvature for impedance matching for receiving a electromagnetic beam originating in Low Earth Orbit like the last puzzle piece dropping in place.

This is an artistic way of looking at the wonder of world. The math is just another way of trying to express it. So, don’t let the fear of math, or perceived incompetence, keep you away from trying to find a deeper understanding of the world. The worst that can happen is you learn something new when you’re wrong.

Alright, Game On But New Rules

I have completely cleared the orders spike due to the TWiT Army and turned ordering back on for most items, as some of you have already noticed. However, there has been a significant change. Once upon a time, there was unlimited ordering of the standard six varieties (Ethiopia, Kenya, Kona, Malabar, Panama, Sumatra) and limited stock of the others that might easily run out (Death Wish, Rwanda, Colombia, Peru).

Not anymore.

Because it isn’t fair of me to make people wait weeks for things they’ve paid for. Because my Lovely Assistant complained a bit that she hadn’t seen much of me in the last month. Because I have more travel coming up at the end of May. And because, frankly, I’ve had to consume far too much BBotE to stay awake to make more BBotE in the last month.

Henceforth, there won’t be unlimited ordering on any item in the store, so you may hit “Currently Out Of Stock” now when you go to find something. I’d rather tell you to wait and check back later, than take your money and make you wait while I crank a backlog. Makes me feel guilty and you feel cranky. The expected release dates you’ll see on the item listings are when things should be finished and on the road to you by. It is very likely that I’ll get your order out earlier than that date but may overshoot it by a day or two. I apologize in advance if you go to the store and what you want isn’t there, feel free to drop me a line to ask when the next run is likely to happen.

(Side Note: I have discovered a limitation in my software, possibly in my understanding of it, relating to the expected release dates. If I change that release date, it goes back in time for all orders of that item. So, if I slate a production run due on the 7th, sell it out, and then set a run due on the 14th, when people that placed an order for the first run go check on their order it’ll say 14th. Sorry about that and I expect to answer emails about this on a regular basis.)

On a positive note, throttling things like this will likely give some time to do some experimentation again. The last month of uninterrupted maximum production has taken all my slack to go hunt new tasty BBotE away and that’s got to resume. As proven in the past, even tried and true favorites like Panama can run out and I need to find things that can take their place for you all.

And with that, GAME ON! I’m gonna go play with the Deadly Radiations again now. Bye bye.

PS – BBotE Ambassador resupply for local distribution is in progress. London, DC/Baltimore, Portland, Detroit, and Minneapolits-St. Paul all have cases on the way already. Madison, New York, Seattle, Chicago, and Santa Barbara will be going out by the by.

Dude, Why Can’t I Order?

Because I don’t want to lengthen the backlog any longer than it already is.

Running maximum production since March 21st and recruiting some help to actually get BBotE & steins out the door *AND* have the luxury of sleep has been no small feat, ye tstill hasn’t obliterated the backlog in a satisfactory manner. The fact that I’m going to be on travel April 11th to 19th doesn’t help. On March 31st, looking at where things were going, I dropped an expected release date of May 1st on all items purchased from that point on so that people weren’t sitting around, anxiously staring at their mailbox, when they were 300 or so orders deep in the first come-first served queue.

That didn’t stop the backlog from growing either. Slowed it down, but didn’t stop.

By the time I get on a plane on Wednesday, I expect to have almost all of the orders placed prior to March 31st out the door, with notes of apology to those folks who were at the end of line. Today, I zeroed the inventory on almost everything but steins, because I want to clear the backlog out before I take more pre-orders. Feel free to drop me a line if you’d like an email when I turn pre-orders back on, but for the time being I don’t want to field anymore messages from people who failed to read “pre-order” on the listing, the warning of delay due to a long queue at the top of the description, or the link to the Admission of Defeat. This is an attempt to regain control while a stronger inventory control system is put in place that will more effectively meter orders vs. production capacity.

As I have said more than once, this is for fun. It is a hobby. The moment that it ceases to be so it is another job and, frankly, I already have one of those that I love far more than coffee.

The Black Resume

Been quiet here for a bit as I’ve been running at maximum BBotE production capacity, non-stop, since March 21st and still have quite a way left to go yet. But I want to take a moment to have you meditate upon a thought I had several years back that came back up again today: The Black Resume.

The Black Resume is a term I came up with (perhaps unwittingly borrowed) when lamenting to a friend about the vast amount of things I know how to do, skills that definitely contribute to my being a useful worker and provide keen insights into the human condition, that I would never list on my resume/CV when applying for a job in my chosen field. Things that invariably come up later when explaining how I knew about or how to do something.

For example, a far from exhaustive and non-incriminating list: bartending, amateur rocketry, nitroglycerin/explosives manufacture, amateur demolition, encyclopedic knowledge of “unpleasant history”.

I have to admit, when written down the Black Resume pleases me more than my real one. These are things that make me a more whole, interesting, and happy person which makes me a better worker in my genuine trade…but these are things HR would have trouble quantifying/evaluating. In fact, might make it likely I’d never get hired in the first place.

How about you? What’s yours look like?

An Admission Of Defeat

A few days ago, a visitor made a post that said, “Looks like the TWiT Army takes down another site.” Not quite, as the back-end migration that was successfully completed the week prior to last Tuesday’s Mac Break Weekly has proven up to tackling the full and blistering attention of Mr. Leo Laporte’s audience. Funranium Labs survived the TWiT Army admirably and I give high praise to my web guru and BBotE Ambassador of College Station, Mr. Jason Pulliam, for sailing directly into the heart of the storm.

However…

My 9L/day maximum production most definitely has not survived the attention. I will be spending the next couple weeks trying to clear the backlog and that’s assuming orders stop rolling in. Your local BBotE Ambassadors of Canberra, Dublin, London, Portland, NYC, Seattle, and College Station are out of stock. I have reliable reports that Chicago, DC, and LA still have some, so feel free to drop them a line. It is going to be a while until I manage to restock them.

So, this is a declaration that I’m doing all I can to get BBotE and Steins of Sciences out to you as quick as I can, but the line ahead of you may be quite long. To make it even more fun, I have some travel scheduled April 12-19th and there will be no production during this time.

You’ve won this round, TWiT Army, but the war is not over. Moo hoo ha ha.

Why, Hello There!

Courtesy of some recent kind words by Test Subject Siegel on Mac Break Weekly, just a few of people have decided they might want to try some BBotE.

Did I say some? I meant to say a lot. As in, well exceeding my 9L per day production capacity. So, there’s going to be a titch of delay in getting BBotE to everyone. I hope to have the backlog cleared by the end of next week because I don’t like to leave anyone languishing without caffeinated delights.

Thank you for your patience.

Can I Possibly Be More Of A Nerd?

This is Brian Clevinger’s fault. I thought I’d take moment at the outset to blame him.

In addition to having a physics degree, having been nominated Eternal DM For Life amongst my gaming circle all the way back to elementary school, and a truly compendious amount of knowledge about Frank Herbert’s Dune, I am a geography/history lover like you wouldn’t believe. And, since age 8 going through all the change my dad pulled from the newspaper machines to roll them for the bank, I’ve been a coin collector. Combined, this has given me some odd insights into world history, particularly American, through the lens of our currency. An awful lot of our history is tied up in our money. This, of course, triggers rants that I hope are instructive. I will put them together in my Copious Free Time(TM), but here’s what I think needs to be shared:

Lesson One: HAWAII and Yellow Seal Bills – Once upon a time, America planned for the aftermath of wars.

Lesson Two: Gold – A quick and easy guide to your status among colonies. (Part I: America) (Part II: the Raj, Oceania, and the Canadas)

Lesson Three: Pieces of Eight – The Counter Reformation and 400 years of the same damn coin.

Lesson Four: Andrew Jackson – FUCK YOU, OL’ HICKORY. No really, FUCK YOU.

Lesson Five: Odd Denominations – Exactly why did the US have 3 cent pieces anyway?

Lesson Six: The Nickel – It used to be worth 3 cents.

Lesson Seven: Fast-tracking Statehood – Wanna be a state NOW? Find some gold or silver.

Lesson Eight: Banks – Really. Stop and think about it. What is a bank? What was a bank?

Lesson Nine: Faces – Though I love the Great Emancipator, there was a reason the original Coinage Act forbade the portrayal of actual people on our coins.

A Shift of Terminology

In the dark and unforgiving dawn of the Black Blood of the Earth production and distribution, after bringing an entire ice chest of BBotE labeled only with lab tape to her wedding, my friend Natara asked if she could be the local dealer for BBotE based upon how well it had gone over with the crowd.

Considering the fun doing bottle hand offs at odd hours on street corners for cash, I felt that the route of maximum honesty of likening ourselves to volunteer drug dealers was perhaps not the best choice (no matter how accurate it may feel). Keeping that illicitness in mind. the very limited, not entirely sober, consensus referred to what we were doing as “pimping BBotE” and thus the local distributors became the BBotE Pimps & Pimpstresses.

Last week, I got this message which I received permission to share with all of you:

Dear Phil,

I know you likely get lots of emails saying some version of “BBotE is awesome” and this is only a slight variation on that, but I hope you’ll humor me by reading it anyway.

I was introduced to your too-good-to-be-true beverage in October 2011 and gifted a bottle in mid-January. I’ve cheered about it on Facebook and Twitter and been experimenting with different variations on Black Blood lattes. I was pretty much on the path to being among your legion of lifelong fans and customers. When my current bottle was getting perilously low, I made my way to your site with the intent of exploring my options for local pickup/exchange and there discovered I’d be encountering someone you referred to as a pimp(stress).

I grew up with the stereotype of the pimp: the dude with a long car, long coat and a ridiculous ostrich-feathered hat. I wish pimps were, in fact, cartoonish figures we could all laugh and point at, harmless in their hilarity and outrageousness.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case; pimps are a real thing and they deal in: Human trafficking. Slavery. Degradation. Rape. Coercion. Exploitation.

And just as pimps are real, so are their victims.These people have nothing to do with your product and marketing, I know, but the casual and hip usage of the word “pimp” only serves to erase their very real situation, their very real pain.

Please understand, this isn’t the beginning of some campaign; I won’t be talking about this on Twitter or Facebook or starting an online petition. I’m just one woman saying, “There’s no way in hell I’d meet a stranger who is comfortable calling himself a pimp.” I’m just one woman who can’t hand her cash over to an enterprise that makes light of trafficking, even unintentionally. And just maybe I’m not the only one.

Best regards,

Angélique

She’s right. Unequivocally correct. There is corner of my inner asshole that almost always says “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke” on so many topics, but on this one the inner asshole has to go sit in the corner and await is next chance to play.

So, I polled the collected volunteers as to what how they would like to be referred to. The consensus answer is “BBotE Ambassador”, though many fine suggestions that appeal to a love for alliteration and deeply corrupt vulgate Latin were expressed. Each individual BBotE Ambassador may have a particular appellation that they prefer, i.e. Coffee Consul of Chicago/Cook County (please pity his wife for dealing with his alliterative soul), but you could always call them the thing you and they have in common: “Fellow addict”.

Aren’t we all?

Thank you for taking the time to drop a line, Angélique.