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Italian and American Espresso

We love our coffee and there are so many varieties to try.

Just back from two weeks in Italy with espresso every day in a wide variety of locations: the airport, a hip bar in Fashion Central Milan, busy family run place in Turin (Torino), some touristy places on the Italian Riviera … The coffee was consistantly excellent, even in the train stations.

Today I had my first espresso on returning to the US. Waiting to pick Jennifer up from work I dropped into a to remain nameless but highly respected coffee bar for a get me through the jet lagged afternoon espresso. How did it compare? Very unfavorably. Compared to the Italian coffees:

It cost twice as much. What? I had coffee in the most tourist dense part of the second largest city in Italy and paid half the price? How can this be?
It took an incredible amount of time to get a simple coffee. The barista futzed with the dispensing and tamping of the grounds and then with the machine. A pro makes things look easy. This guy looked like he was nervously attempting to pass a final exam he hadn’t prepared for.
It didn’t taste as good. This is probably just a result of the chosen coffee bar which prides itself on “fruity” coffees. Where fruity is a very sharp flavor profile.

To be fair about it I’m going to wander around Portland and try a few other places. Results by the weekend.

October 26th, 2009 | Category: Food | Print This | Leave a comment

Jamendo: Open Your Ears

On Jamendo artists allow anyone to download and share their music. It’s free, legal and unlimited. Jamendo has 25,173 published albums with 164,336 album reviews from 623,270 active members.

Looking for something special? Want to listen to something the music maker machinery hasn’t pre-digested for you? Have a special niche you’d like to explore? Here’s your chance. Browse music by tag or rating. All the music is Creative Commons licensed. Download and share, it’s encouraged. The download screen offers you a chance to support the artist(s) with a donation (a tip?) but there’s no delay if you just click the download button.

25,173 albums classified by 500 tags. You can find something to listen to. This post was written under the influence of:

Jamendo Tags:

17sonsrecords 60s 70s 80s 832 8bit 90s abstract accordion acid acidcore acidjazz acoustic acustico adc adrian african afro age alphacore altcountry alternative alternativerock alternativo ambiance ambiant ambience ambient ambiental ambiente americana and antigenre art artrock asian atmosphere atmospheric audacity avantgarde ballad ballade baroque bass beat beats berlin bhajan big bigbeat black blackmetal blues bluesrock bossa bossanova brasil brazil brazilian break breakbeat breakcore breaks bruitiste brutaldeathmetal calm cello celtic chamber chanson chansonfrancaise chansons chant chill chillout chiptune christian christmas clarinet classic classical classicrock club coldwave color comedy compilation computer concept conceptual conscient contemporary contemporaryclassical cool core country crossover dance dancefloor dancehall dark darkambient darkwave death deathcore deathmetal deep deephouse delirant demo demoscene depeche derf derf00 desecrate deutschpunk deutschrock diaz digital dijon disco diy dj djmg djshawan dnb doom douceur doux downtempo dream dreampop dreamy drone drum drumandbass drumbass drumnbass dub dubstep easy easylistening ebm eclectic elecmutec electric electro electroacoustic electrocore electrojazz electronic electronique electropop electrorock elektro eletronica emo emotion emotional energetic energic energy enfants engage english entspannend epic espanol ethnic ethno eurodance experimental experimentale fantasy fast female festif film filmmusic filmmusik films finnish flamenco flstudio flute folk folkrock france franco free freestyle french frenchtouch fun funk funky funny fusion gabba gabber game garage german glitch goa good gospel goth gothic grenoble grind grindcore groove grunge guitar guitarmusic guitars happy hard hardcore hardcorepunk hardrock hardstyle hardtechno hardteck hardtek heavy heavymetal hip hiphop homemade hop horror house humor idm improv improvisation improvised impulse inclassable inde independant independent indian indie indiepop indierock indus industrial industriel instinctive instru instrumental instrumentale intimiste intro intrumental iplusplus irish italian italy jam jamendo jazz jazzfusion jazzrock jazzy jrock jumpstyle jungle kostic la latin latino libre listening live lofi loops lorraine lounge love lyon malevocalists maneval medieval meditative melancolic mellow melodic melodicdeathmetal melodico metal metalcore mexico microtonal minimal minimalism minimalista minimaltechno mix modern moodstarrr movie mp3 mpb musica musical musique musiquedefilm mystic nancy nature neo new newage newwave noir noise noisy nujazz oi oldschool onirique opera orchestral organ oriental original other out paris peaceful percussion percussions performance phyloxera piano pianosolo planant poetique poetry poland polish political pop popfolk poppunk poprock post postpunk postrock power powermetal powerpop prog progresivo progressive progressivemetal progressiverock progressivetrance protest psicotropicodelia psy psychedelic psychedelicrock psycho psychodelic psytrance punk punkrock quebec radio ragga ramrom rap raritaten rave rb reagge reggae relaxing remix rennes retro rhythmus rnb rock rockalternatif rockfrancais rockindependant rocknroll rockpop roll romantic roots russian rythme sad sample saxophone schumann score scratch screamo sensible sexy shadow shoegaze simple singer singersongwriter sitar ska skapunk slam slow smooth soft solo sombre song songwriter songwriting soul sound soundscape soundtrack soundtracky space spain spanish speed sperimental spiritual spoken spokenword stoner strange street strings surf swedish swing symphonic synth synthesizer synthetic synthpop tango tech techhouse techno technoindustrial tecktonik tecno tek tekno text the theatre thematic theremin thrash thrashmetal tracker traditional trance trans trash tribal tribe trio trip triphop triste undefined underground uplifting urban vai valencia variete videogamemusic violin vocal vocals vocaltrance vocoder voice voyage wave weird world worldmusic zen zero zoom

Think you can find many somethings you want to listen to in that collection?

Now, having found that I wondered about other Creative Commons licensed music sources on the web. A quick Google dig found:

ccMixter source tracks, remixes and smash ups
Creative Commons wiki music podcast page
Lots of people privately distributing their music
Musopen for classical music

As the (now defunct) Joe’s Ad used to say, Too Much Good Stuff.

October 4th, 2009 | Category: Music, Web Curiosity | Print This | Leave a comment

Someone Once Told Me

Mario Cacciottolo has crafted the wonderful web site Someone Once Told Me. In his words:

Black and white photographs
A new one every day
Each person writes a message
Something that someone once told them

Somehow I found the site and then spent a Sunday going through the years of history. There’s folklore, advice, parting comments, casual observations. If you saunter through the site you’ll find a diverse selection of humans, each of them with a memorable statement.

When I first saw the site I thought, “I’ve got to do this!” and sent an email to Mario asking if, by chance, he’d be in Italy at the same time I would be. This may sound far fetched, as London and Italy are not exactly close. However, Mario’s photos on the site included India, he’d just returned from a trip to Los Angeles and had a trip planned to southern France. Malta native Mario does quite a bit of traveling. It turned out he would not. Mario invited me to take my own photograph for submission. The result is here. (Yes, I could put the image here. You really should visit SOTM.) Mario suggested, “If you can send over any audio or video then that would be brilliant. I haven’t had any video submitted, would you like to do that?”

You bet. Never mind that I have no video editing software and the video function on my still camera seemed to be broken. No matter. With randonneur like determination I identified and resolved all the issues. Here’s the result:

Certainly someone once told you something memorable. Photograph yourself with a sign and send the result to Mario through the Your SOTM page. It’s a good time.

October 3rd, 2009 | Category: Life, Photography | Print This | Leave a comment

Waning Summer

Saturday morning brought gales of laughter. The first day of the last three day holiday weekend of summer and it’s raining strong and steady. How Portlandesque. Adding to my glee was the prospect of yard work I was to do, my Labor Day weekend was scheduled to be filled with manual labor. This rain was going to make the digging and sidewalk edging much easier. And so the Labor Day holiday went – yard work alternated with hours of cleaning, organizing and sorting in the garage and basement.

By Sunday evening my muscles were so sore it woke me up at night. How was your weekend?

September 8th, 2009 | Category: Life | Print This | Leave a comment

Bike Thought of the Day

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that the Lord doesn’t work that way, so I stole a bike and asked Him to forgive me.

August 11th, 2009 | Category: Bicycling | Print This | Leave a comment

Paying for Health Care

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) just released their paper on health care costs for 2009. You can download a handy PDF summary. This material should be required reading for anyone asking “How will we pay for universal health insurance under Obama’s health care proposal?”

The real question is “How can we continue to afford paying more of our Gross Domestic Product than any other industrialized country?” Consider these points about the 30 member countries of the OECD:

On average countries spend 8.9% of GDP on healthcare
The US spends 16.0% of GDP on healthcare
Second place spender France spends 11.0% of GDP
Among the European Union countries Ireland spends the least, at 7.6% – less then one half the US level

All of the other countries have a form of single payer. All spend significantly less of the GDP than the US. Most have better health (measured by infant mortality and expected lifespand) than the US.

We’re paying more for worse care. How can we afford to keep doing what we’ve been doing?

Bar graph showing 30 OECD countries spending on health care as a percentage of GDP

August 11th, 2009 | Category: Health, Politics | Print This | Leave a comment

Health Care Political Terrorists

Steven Pearlstein is fed up with the nature of the health care debate in Washington.

As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don’t agree. Today, I’m going to step over that line.

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they’ve given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress — I’ve made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.

[many examples of the lies and truth]

Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society — whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform: Read it and think.

August 7th, 2009 | Category: Health, Politics | Print This | Leave a comment

Misinformed on Health Care

At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”

That nugget comes to us from Paul Krugman at the New York Times. Such is our public debate on health care reform. People love an existing government run health care program. People are adamant that government keep its hands out of their health care.

Well, some people feel that way.

This combination of attitudes – a love of Medicare (people on it are more satisfied than people with private insurance) and a distrust or hatred of goverment programs – has complicated the health care reform debate.

Some people would prefer employers to give cash and let employees buy insurance on the open market. That, it seems, is very inefficient in paying for health care.

In the individual insurance market, where people buy insurance directly rather than getting it through their employers, so much money goes into underwriting and other expenses that only around 70 cents of each premium dollar actually goes to care.

If you are an insurance company employee that 30 cents on the dollar keeping you employed is a good deal. [easy for the bank employee to write…]

Krugman concludes with:

To the extent we have a working health care system at all right now it’s only because government covers the elderly, while a combination of regulation and tax subsidies makes it possible for many, but not all, nonelderly Americans to get decent private coverage.

Now Mr. Obama basically proposes using additional regulation and subsidies to make decent insurance available to all of us. That’s not radical; it’s as American as, well, Medicare.

July 31st, 2009 | Category: Health, Politics | Print This | Comments (1)