Caffeine: How much is too little?

NEW BLOG POST!  OMG OMGOMGOMGOMG I'M SO EXCITED. I'M SO EXCITED I THINK I'LL WRITE THIS POST ENTIRELY IN HIGHLY ANNOYING SHOUTY CAPSLOCK LETTERS.  My goodness everyone, just calm the heck down.  Me, particularly.

My current spate of mass hysteria is primarily driven by the fact that I've sort of mostly kind of quit most sugar and I've found something new to replace it with.  Great success.  CAFFEINE!  Yes, caffeine!!!  CAFFEINE!!!  It's probably not immediately obviously to the layman that I've consumed any caffeine at all today, but I have.  

They do say you should replace one dubious habit with another.  It's true; I read that on the back of a KFC (yum, so good, stop judging me, I'll do what I want, you're not the boss of me) bathroom door somewhere.

I probably could have turned to water in my hour of need but it's a clear, pompous little fluid, what with its sanctimonious health properties and its dirty detoxy ways.  No wonder all the other beverages despise it.  Except for when it freezes itself - then it'll go after any drink, the little tramp.

I criticise its shady methods, but I am actually also abusing the watery substance in its natural form right now as well - in the manner of about four litres a day - which is fortunate because I am also drinking about half that in caffeine.  It's like the lack of sugar has sent me completely bonkers.  And sleep... what's that?... is that some weirdo dodgy pastime you people do at night or something?...oh, you crazy kids and your shenanigans.

Mini-Tree Land

I'm not much of a plant person.  Don't get me wrong - I think trees and forests are very green and foresty and flowers smell real pretty for the most part - but I'm just not into the whole gardening thing.  If I had a garden I would hire a Columbian called Jose to tend to my weeds.  And a half-naked pool man called Javier.  They may be brothers, I don't know.

Anyway, gardening for the most part is dirty, spidery and it usually involves an inordinate amount of stinkin' dynamic lifter, which is like sticking your head up a cow's bum for two days or until the wind changes.  And, no, I'm just not into that.  Speaking of green things that don't involve cows bums, I went to Canberra's National Arboretum this morning for coffee.

It was my mum, you see.  She's recently become a lifetime member of the Arboretum cult-like fan club (great - look what happened to Britney and Xtina post-Disney) and it's all Arboretum does this and Arboretum does that, so we went to this mysterious tree place to see what all the fuss is about. 

According to the glossy brochure, which I used mainly as a base for my many snotty tissues that are a result of The Cold That Won't Die, the Arboretum is home to 92 forests of rare, endangered and symbolic trees from Australia and around the world. 

One's mind conjures up a majestic forest of dense, exotic bushland, but it really is just a bunch of hills with a lot of weird and wonderful looking saplings trying to grow, despite the fact that they are supposed to be in the Himalayas or China or Japan or England or any other number of places with unique climates that are perfectly suited to each plant. 

Apparently a lot of the mini-me trees have died since being planted in a place with a climate that is probably akin to that of Mars.  It's like bringing a husky to Australia and being all surprised when he doesn't want to go to the beach and play fetch or sunbake and eat Streets Golden Gaytimes (yum, so good).  Because he belongs in the fucking snow.  But good luck to the Arboretum.

From what I observed this morning, the Arboretum seems enormously popular for the view, rather than anything else.  It certainly wasn't the parking, which is around $500.00 per hour, but all money goes to maintaining the baby forests before they wither and die.  The view, however, is most pleasant.  And free.  Here are some pictures.

Coffee Uprising & Comedify your Life

Coffee Uprising

This is an important community announcement to people who claim to be slightly addicted to caffeine. Slightly addicted? There is no “slightly” in addicted. That’s like saying you’re “kind of” stupid. You’re addicted, and stupid for not recognising your addiction. Deal.

I do believe there is no more important way to start your day than with a cuppa. I imagine Mother Teresa used to have a latte before going out blessing people and saving lives. Well there might be a more important way to start your day, but I don’t know what it is.

No-one knows, not even the Hitchhiker's 42 will provide any assistance to this conundrum, which is why the working class peoples of the world who occupy a house with electricity get up at the crack of too-early and start grinding coffee beans in a sleep-induced haze.

Comedify your life

Another fairly fascinating and titillating titbit from the endless catalogue of excitement that is my life is the news that I was blessed with a Sound Machine for Christmas. A Sound Machine is fairly self-explanatory – it is a gadget that has a selection of sounds for any event that happens in your life, and, more significantly, can be used to exasperate anyone in ear shot. I’m not obsessed with my new gadget at all.

Just so you can share in the inexorable excitement, here is a list of its classic sound effects: clap, audience, canned laughter, unlucky, loser, bomb, gun shot, smashed glass, cash register, drum roll, punch line theme, spring, bright idea, wolf whistle, scream, fart and burp. It is the perfect gadget for incredibly immature people like myself. So I’ve started to comic strip my life, comedify my life, if you will.

Sure, I made up the word ‘comedify’. But the word police are too busy reading the thesaurus to care that I made up one. During one of my journalism lectures, a very sombre journalist (see: a sandal-wearing deep thinker) pontificated that it is best to dream up words when you deem that no other word will do. Hmm, I don’t know about that. Alternatively, some good advice would be to branch out and learn the existing words, which seem to be adequate to the rest of the English speaking world.

I am proposing to carry my new gadget friend to places that need a little cheer, like shopping centres, Parliament Question Time and Afghanistan, to name but a few places that need someone to break the ice through a unsolicited manufactured burp or raspberry.

I imagine I will need to engage in a bit of covert action to get in the door, but then everyone will be all agreeable with each other. Or I’ll be shot in the head with an uzi. That’s the inherent risk when you arm yourself with a fun Sound Machine – you never know what’s around the corner.

Coffee Uprising

I like to call this post - STUFF I DON'T UNDERSTAND.  Coffee futures. Huh?  Stock charts make my head literally explode.  But I do know the cost of coffee is going up, so I have a consulted a masked blogger to find out why.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I received this email in a random Caffeine Induced Rage from masked blogger, and thought I should share what happens when people who understand stock charts are not able to purchase their cup of liquid stress at a reasonable price.  ...And it looks like a bloody good reason for why the price of coffee is going up.

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Check it:
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24djakc

Top left corner. It's COFFEE. Or more accurately, coffee futures. If you change it to a weekly chart from a daily chart and hit update, it will show you that the price of coffee has doubled in a year. Why is that, you ask? The answer is POMO.

POMO ---------> http://www.zerohedge.com/article/wonder-why-market-just-surged-one-word-pomo

The US Fed is printing money, delivering it to day traders in the big US banks, who are speculating on the stock market and driving up the cost of commodities. Coffee is a commodity. As a result, the coffee makers like Gloria Jeans have to buy POMO inflated coffee, and they pass that on to you each morning, in a more expensive cup of coffee.

OMG YOU YELL WHY IS THE FED DOING THIS TO ME????

a) To help get Obama re-elected in 2012 by rigging the markets.
b) To stop the world from collapsing into an apocalyptic dystopian hell as a result of a global market crash, by rigging the markets.
c) To help all their banker mates get rich by rigging the markets.
d) They think ordinary people are too stupid to notice the market is rigged and will put all their money in shares [see reasons a) b) and c) above]
e) They hate coffee.
f) They like Las Vegas. Wall Street should be more like Las Vegas Y/N?
g) All of the above.

All I know is that my coffee went up from $2.90 today to $3.20 and I'M NOT HAPPY JAN.