16 January 2009

Coffee is keeping me up at night...

Not in the expected way. I rarely drink coffee, simply because I can't. I'm only wired for minimal amounts of caffeine, which makes me the ideal tea lover.

The past few days something coffee-related has kept me up well past midnight, despite never having entered my digestive system. Two nights ago I finished the book "The Coffee Trader", which is an historical novel based in Amsterdam during the 17th century. The main character, Miguel, is a Portuguese Jew who fled the Inquisition and has had recent reversals of fortune in the trading industry. He gets involved in the developing coffee trade, so this story is more about the selling of coffee as a commodity than by the cup. Nevertheless, coffee lovers will enjoy the descriptions of those new to the practice of drinking coffee and its effects on them. Normally nothing bores me more than something relating to stock market-type adventures, but there was enough intrigue and redoubtable characters running through the book to make me unable to rest until I'd finished it.

In a related story, I found out about an online game called "Coffee Shop", in which you are the owner of a coffee stand and must try to make as much money as possible and keep a good reputation for 14 days. I'm not a video game player per se, but anyone who knew me during the Tetris years knows that once in a while I get hung up on a game long enough to obsess over it for hours on end. I actually did make some progress, but wasted too much time in the process. I have to say, though, I had a few good laughs. If you make a bad cup of coffee and overcharge, the cartoon buyers will either pour the cup out in disgust or vomit on the sidewalk. The seller in the stand just sits there and holds a finger over the cash register like nothing happened.

I will try to do something tea related tonight; perhaps this will counteract the trivial vigils of this week.

2 comments:

Marie said...

LOL! I enjoyed that post. Especially about the coffee online game thing...I must try it!

ana dane said...

that reminds me of a computer game i was addicted to as a child. it was called "lemonade stand" and you made about $2.25 on a good day- it was endless, and the only thing that really changed was whether it was sunny or cloudy.

computers were a bit less sophisticated back then. but so was i.