Oct 05, 1998, 7:00pm

Hola folks, well the count now is 14 people like the little "Holden-esque" thing I've been doing the past two rants, and 2 don't like it. My brother is one of them! :-) and at least the other person was polite about it! So I guess I have to continue the serial, which is now completed on my hard drive.

Actually I have two copies of it on my hard drive. A generally "raw" version which is being serialized here, and another version I'm prepping for a webstory layout. The latter is very different from the former, because I kind of got off track with what I wanted to do. I won't get into that, except to say in my rewrite, I'm developing a story that ends up being quite different from what you're reading here. As for which one is better, neither is - they just take a different flow and have quite a different set of details.

Before I get into that, I've been reading van.general again (sigh!) and yet again there seems to be a growing backlash against that evil empire of retail stores, ©®™Future Shop™®© (notice the trademark!). I can't repeat here what was said because the ©®™Future Shop™®© lawyers like to sic on me whenever I quote verbatim any criticism someone might have about the store, and I bet I can't even talk about my own feelings regarding this store without them jumping on me, but fuck it, I'm going to practice my freedom of expression.

It is my opinion that ©®™Future Shop™®© is a cult. Their sales people are in a secret cult. That's just an opinion of course. I also have yet to meet a single employee of the store who actually knows something about the computers and equipment they sell, other than what their own commission and profit margin on the item is. They could very well exist! But I haven't seen them. I've also had personal experience with ©®™Future Shop™®© in the past where they fought me tooth and nail to honor their own price guarantee policy. I've had their salespeople pronounce obvious and bold-faced lies, right to my face, to avoid honouring their price guarantee.

Shopping at ©®™Future Shop™®©, for me at least, was always like entering a warzone. Fend of the evil plague known as the CSS (their crappy extended warranty BS); batter away the leech-like salesguy who wants to attach his name to that piece of software you found by yourself, at least before you reach the cash register; roll your eyes in amazement at the combination of guile and stupidity you see when you ask for a specific cable or specialized item (actual FS quoted statements to me: "Yes sir, this 12x CD-ROM, though a 'Value' brand name product, is actually built by Sony!" "Yes, all these cables are bi-directional (while pointing at about a dozen cables that include a lot of oldstyle parallel cables)", "Oh, this is not like the other WinModem PCMCIA card out there, USR has built one that will run on any system without any slowing of speed (said to me while I read on the box requires at least a Pentium computer)" and so forth).

I feel like I was running the gauntlet everytime I shopped at ©®™Future Shop™®©, and I do admit I got a thrill out of buying stuff occasionally under cost, or pissing off another stupid salesman. But it got tiring after a while. Add to that the fact that FS sic'ed their lawyers on me for simply practicing freedom of speech (which as many of you know only exists if you have the money to pay for lawyers), and the fact that my buddy David got on my case so much about still shopping at the scummy store - well, to finish up this run on sentence, I stopped shopping there over a year ago.

So why am I writing all this now? Because I found out buddy Dave shopped there last week. The bastich traitor hypocrite!!! (just be thankful I ain't linkin' to ya bud! :-))

Okay, enough of this on to the third installment in Mark's Excellent Catcher Adventures in the Rye of Life. If you missed them, part one is here, and part two is here. Boodah!

The rest of that summer I got kinda juiced over the idea about goin' to University. I visited my high school near the end of August to check out the Uni books, which were in the counseling offices. Conners was manning the fort and let me tell you, the guy was surprised.

"Mr. Prince, you're interested in Universities? Why the change?"

I didn't exactly tell him, mainly 'cause the guy was such a nosy buddy. I let on I wanted to get into art or writin' or something. He was still surprised, and I guess he was even suspicious of me, I dunno. He did lend me the books from some of the local Universities though, and I brought them home to devour them page by page. Once I get excited about somethin', I am veracious 'bout reading all there is about it.

Elyned was a great help too. She had her own books, havin' sent away for them on her own already. Elyned was sort of accelerated at school, taking some courses in a grade higher than what she was in, so it was a natural that she'd already be decidin' on what school she was gonna attend. But that's not how she helped, me, nope. She helped me learn how to be a good student.

She taught me three things that she thought made her the student she was, getting' the grades she got. The first thing was takin' good notes in class. She had this color coded thing happening, with her main notes goin' in her books with black ink, important stuff underlined, and a summary kinda thing in the side margin. Gee, I always wondered all my life why my lined paper had this line goin' down the left side of the page! She used it to put further notes in, after she got home that night.

Now note takin' is something I rarely did in school. I was one of those fake note takers, y'see. I used to pretend for the teacher's benefit that I was writin' stuff down like a madman, when in actual fact I was doodlin' here and there, writin' notes to the girls in class, or writin' notes to pass to Elyned in between classes. I did a lot of that, you know. I was the note writing king when it came to these little love notes passed in the hallway. I was famous for them. I'd write little bits of poetry to impress the chicks, or when the mood struck, I'd write down some funny little joke I invented or I'd write a story.

Yep, I'd write stories in note form. Kinda serialized, if you must know. I'd start the story in the morning, and usually finish it by late afternoon. My fave character was Bob the Eunuch. Poor Bob had his penis cut off when he was about my age because he was sorta destined to be part of Cleopatra's guard, but government cutbacks eliminated his position just as he finished his training for it. Man, was Bob a pissed off Eunuch, lemme tell you.

I'd write about Bob and his adventures all over Egypt and Greece and Mesopotamia and even Rome. Bob fightin' the Duke of such and such, and Bob getting' drunk with a buncha Jews just of the rowing detail, and Bob goin' to a party at some Greek atrium and getting' hit on by some chick, but havin' to tell her he had no dick, and stuff. Poor Bob.

So I was really famous for these things. One of the yearbook geeks heard about my Bob the Eunuch series and wanted to put them in the yearbook, but there was two problems with that. Old man Turner, the teacher advisor for the yearbook, felt that Bob was a bit too racy for the yearbook. And besides, I didn't want to be in the stinkin' yearbook. Only the geeks and stuff wrote for that thing.

And that's how I spent my time in classes. I wrote notes and I doodled. I musta wrote my signature out a million times in the front and back covers of my binders. I always liked practicing my signature, let me tell you.

Elyned said I had to take good notes if I wanted good grades. I would need them to study, she said. I guess that made sense. I always sorta relied on my memory in the past, but in my old age now, it was kinda faltering. That or maybe there was just so much more stuff remember. So she made me practice the color coded note taking thing, and I didn't like it much, I can tell you. I guess it was because it was her way of doin' it. I figured I'd come up with my own way.

I think I was talkin' about the three things Len taught me to do to get better grades 'n stuff. Taking notes was important, but she was also talking about doing my homework 'n doing my studying.

Doin' homework for Elyned was a mighty lot different than doin' homework for me. For me it was doing all that stuff the teachers insisted on getting' done for the next day. Len did a lot more.

"Every night you need to go over you notes from the class that day and write your analysis of it." She was talkin' about her nifty color coded note takin' system again. Len was tellin' me that every night, she went over her notes and in the margins she would write down what was most important about it. Then every weekend she'd go over those margin notes and make up a kinda crib sheet for the week, outlinin' all the important stuff. Man that sounded like a lot of work. I wasn't lookin' forward to doing it that way.

She was also one of those zealous types who always did her homework when she got home. Okay so not when she got home exactly, but she usually had it done before dinner. Heck, when I absolutely had to do my homework, it was usually after I watched some Carson on the TV, or that Mission Impossible they showed at midnight on that crappy local station. I guess I was never quite right to do it that way, what with my brain slowing down for the night and stuff.

But that's how I probably developed my "quick on my feet" specialty. I can remember one time I had to write an essay on MacBeth, which I didn't ever read fully. I put it off and put it off, until it was the day before I had to submit the essay. I got the Coles Notes for it an' I read that. Then I went over to Jeff's place to swim in his pool. Then I went over to Adam's place to play his Coleco. Then I got home around 11, had some dinner, and then I watched Mission Impossible. At around 1 am, I sat down at my desk.

I was staring at my dinky Atari 1200 computer my Dad bought me. I guess I shouldn't call this thing crappy. My Dad ain't rich and he got this for me last Christmas. I think it cost $700 or so. It was pretty cool to own, what with the floppy disk thing and the ball print printer and stuff, but computers confused me. I didn't know how to program that BASIC stuff, and even though it has a lot of memory for a computer (128K - which is double the Commodore 64 and a billion times more than the Jeff's TRS-80. But computers frustrate me because I suck so much at math and it seems that other than the cartridge word processor I use, the only thing this is good for is math.

Okay, so I am staring at my not so crappy Atari and look, the clock says 1:30 am. I guess I should start this essay.

And that's what I did. I finished my first draft by about 4 in the morning, and got a solid 2000 words, which is what I was supposed to produce. I hit the sack knowing my Mom would wake me by 7:30, when I figured I'd do a final revision and print the damned thing out.

So that's what I did. Except the printer was busted again. I have to tell you, this stuff frustrates me. I cracked open the printer case which I guess I wasn't supposed to do, and set down to try to fix it. I tinkered here and dinkered there, and I guess whatever I did worked because I was able to fix the thing just minutes before my cut off time - the total minimum time I needed to get on my scooter and boot to school. And you know what? I got a decent mark on it. Not bad!

So getting off my digression again, I did homework a bit differently from what Elyned did, but I figured if I followed her process, I'd be getting better marks in the courses I sucked in.

As for the third thing - studyin' for tests, I already did that. But I usually did it by tryin' to remember what I learned in class, reading the textbooks I barely cracked the binding on, and through a little crib note cheatin'. Yeah, I cheated on my tests from time to time. Usually in geography or math or science. Sometimes in French or Latin or English Lit.

Okay, so cheatin' isn't so cool, I suppose. But the way I see it, it had to be done. I'm not necessarily proud of it, but heck, I wasn't the only one doin' it.

Elyned said I didn't have to do that. Takin' good notes in the classroom was a good thing in a lot of ways because she said she remembered stuff a lot better when she wrote the stuff down. An' she explained how doing the rewrites and the weekend crib notes helped further 'cause the most important stuff was a lot more in her brain.

I guess that made sense.

Part four (and hopefully the last part) will be served up later this week. Catcha later!

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Mixelania

Photos from Algonquin Park
Photos from my trip to Algonquin Park this fall with my Mom and two brothers.

War Stories

Making Snow for the Fortress
One of the worst jobs I ever had... till I got out.

Webiffied

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iPod and iTunes Offline

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Fiddlers Green by The Tragically Hip

Around The Bend by Pearl Jam

Here With Me (Rollo's Chillin' With the Family Mix) by Dido

With arms open wide by Creed

truffle pigs by Matthew Good Band

In the News

Burundi and Beyond - NY Times
Great article by Peter Meehan - provided some background.

St. Petersburg Times
Side mention in an article about good machines

AP Story on Espresso
Background and information provided

NY Times - Grinders Article
Especially proud of this one - got the reporter to focus on grinders

Globe and Mail
LOL - showing bad reporting, dude says I'm an American-based site!

The Olympian, WA
Talks about my love for the El Sal Siberia Pacamara

Seattle Times - Clover
Interviewed for comments on the Clover brewer

NY Times - How it Works
Background and information for various espresso machines

Time Mag Article
Just a brief mention, article about roasting beans.

NY Times
Front page article about consumers getting into specialty coffee.

Washington Monthly
Quoted reference to what I wrote in an article at CoffeeGeek.

USA Today - Barista Jam
Intereviewed for my thoughts on what the epitome of espresso is.

WSJ Article
The Wall Street Journal has interviewed me 3 times. This is the first time my name got in a story.

Reuters Interview
Interview with Reuters, Jan 2 - this is the USA Today version.

My Other Stuff

CoffeeGeek
Launched Dec 22, 2001, this is THE online community for espresso and coffee fanatics.

CoffeeKid Website
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WebMotif Services
My company's site - needs an update!

Amazon WishList
Hey, if you feel the need to buy me something, check here!

Daily Visits

enGadget
Great gadget site run by the guy who used to do Gizmodo.

Google News
This is how I get my daily news fix.

DPReview Forums`
The most active forums for digital photography online today.

Daily Zen
Need my Daily Zen fix!

Jalopnik
A blog about car stuff. Vroom Vroom.

MoCo Loco
An industrial design blog. Very cool stuff.

Friends and Family Plan

Beata Blog
Beata's got her own blog! She updates it most days.

Riddla on Flickr
Matt Riddle's flickr account, updated regularly

Irdy Photos
Irdy, my friend from Jakharta, on Flickr

Recent Acquisitions

Canon EF 24-105 f4 L Lens
The best lens I've ever owned. Super sharp and quick.

Canon 5D
A full frame dSLR, with luscious colour reproduction.

Alzo Digital Lights
Some amazing florescent cold lights for product photography

Canon Xsi dSLR
Amazing technology and image quality in a tiny package.

Canon 40D
Latest prosumer camera from Canon - a much better upgrade than the 30D

Fujitsu P1610
Great 2.2lb computer that does most of my travel / writing needs

28mm f1.8 Lens
A great lens for closeup work and full picture photography

Foodsaver Advanced
Finally got the right tools for freezing green coffee.

Canon 50mm 1.4
Most amazing lens I've ever owned. Produces stellar photos.

Canon 10-22mm
Super wide angle (full frame fisheye) zoom for my Canon 20D