The elixir of life...

[alexpgp]

...or thereabouts.

The French have a slang term to describe coffee made in the American style: jus de chaussettes, or literally, "sock juice." After having become used to drinking coffee made in the Italian style here in Baikonur, I can only assume that such a pejorative assessment is not the result of any anti-American sentiment that has become fashionable in certain European circles of late, because it's true: generally speaking, American-style coffee is undrinkable.

There are several very convenient coffeemakers located at various strategic points. During a lull in the action, I arranged the critical parts in an illustrative pose for the following photo:



Operation of the unit is simplicity itself, which is very important (to me). Coffee comes prepackaged in cartridges about the same diameter and about half the height of an old-fashioned film can. This cartridge is inserted into an opening on a swing-out holder, which when swung back into the unit causes hot water to flow through the cartridge into whatever container one has positioned below the spigot. The strength of the brew can be controlled (within limits) by hitting a red button to stop the brewing process. Left unchecked, the unit will force one (coffee) cup of water through the cartridge and stop automatically.

The result is delicious!

* * *I have just signed up with Skype, which is a peer-to-peer VOIP service that lets folks converse over the Internet. Although the basic service is free, they also have an intriguing capability of calling folks on their ordinary land-line phones at fairly low cost (2 cents per minute if the called party is in the U.S.). However, before I buy time and try to do this, I think it's prudent to check out the quality of the connection. Are any of my LJ friends signed up with this service? Any comments?

Cheers...

Comments

[brenk.livejournal.com]

Yep - Chris and Charlotte both use Skype - Chris mainly to converse with Junior when we're away and Charlotte... I dread to think. They say the quality's fine - Chris' ID is crkubler, if ever :) But he doesn't plug his headphones in while I'm working unless he has special permission *g*. But yell at me on AIM sometime and I'll issue permission despite the avalanche of work.

On coffee machines... yep, great stuff. But the 'capsule' systems cost a fortune, as in up to 5 x the price of those working on the more usual Swiss coffee-addict system. Ours, if you remember, just takes-a da beans out of da bean part, adds water out of da water part, and makes-a da perfect espresso - also by pushing one button (choice of 3 - small (espresso), medium (bigger, weaker than espresso but strong to US tastes) and large (sock juice).

For the anecdote, the Americans installed some of the capsule-system machines in our offices during the Salt Lake Games (on request from HQ in Lausanne). After 3 days, we weird Europeans had used up the supplies they'd got in for 3 weeks, to their utter amazement. Getting fresh, plentiful stocks was then a major priority, and one way more important than, y'know, other Olympic matters :)

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Yes. As a matter of fact, I asked one of the French guys how much a unit such as the one pictured might cost. Since he bought it, he knew pretty exactly: about 1300 euros.

Yikes!

Thanks for the info on Skype. I'm still looking for a decent microphone around here. (I jerry-rigged something together using my voice recorder, but it's a real kludge.)

Cheers...

[brenk.livejournal.com]

1,300 Euros? Sheesh. You can get the all-singing, all-dancing machines like ours for about 400-600, and they're TOUGH semi-professional affairs (highly necessary for two work-at-home addicts). And of course you can use 'em for hot water for tea, etc. as well. Definitely the most essential item in the household (apart from the heating, right now...)

Just checked out ours (Saeco) on a US website and oh my... they're twice the price over there. Wish I could beam one over to you, complete with 110V adaptor.

[papoose.livejournal.com]

I just switched to a Senseo coffee maker - same principle. It's a wonderful thing.

[kf6gpe.livejournal.com]

A good pod-based coffeemaker like that is heaven itself.

I have one for making espresso, and the only thing wrong is that I'm not supposed to drink coffee anymore. *sigh*

Haven't yet tried Skype --- no broadband here --- but Rachel's bugging me about it or Vonage as soon as Comcast finishes running the lines to our neighborhood.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, supposedly Skype works acceptably well over a dial-up line (which is what attracted me in the first place... Internet access around here is 128 kbps divided by anywhere from 20 to 50 users.

Cheers...

[kf6gpe.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's tempting, then. I should look into it.

Theoretically given today's codecs there's every expectation that they should be able to deliver on that. GSM-based cell phones get by with less.

Yow, yeah, I hadn't really thought about it, but where you are it's not like you're sitting on the back of a T3 line.