Chemically Imbalanced (espresso-jogged screeds) » bioluminescent cypriot

tale of woe: studio spro gets mo’ and mo’ po’

bz — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:53:24 +0000

it’s come to this: cashew fingers and an aperitif to sandwich the spro down the gorge at the studio of the bioluminescent cypriot.

alas, our favorite mid-afternoon haunt for the kind of spro fixes vital to surviving cubicle land has become a dungeon of very, very dark liquid arts. this blog, of course, has a long tradition of needling the fellow publicly when the spro gets po’. consider this a recommence!

wherefore art thine snobby prideful tastes, sarkis?!

the case of the sycophantic cypriot

bz — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:00:46 +0000

another in a series: tales of coffee woe you, too, could experience were you enough of a self-flagellating masochist.

it was just the sort of gripping social dilemma that pits yourself against someone you love. the cypriot’s brother-in-law had caught the coffee snob’s bug and needed mentoring. of course, he still only had the stage-one malady, not the advanced and elitist variety to which the cypriot himself had long ago fallen prey. he had purchased a small gaggia of some sort, one that made you flip a switch and wait 45 seconds between brewing your espresso and steaming your milk. “what more do i need?” he said, pleading for counsel.

with bemused grins and much private calculation, the cypriot pontificated on the transcending importance of a grinder, plying his eager disciple for signs of his earnesty. he then decided to gift the man with his own fourth-tier model, a white burr grinder of the sort that gevalia may have given away at some point with a coffee-of-the-month windbreaker. you might argue that his mazzer, his rocky or his quickmill might have been a better option, but this was family and the cypriot had to maintain some internal advantage.

ah, but the man was still using the plastic stock tamper. alright then. out came the cypriot’s fourth-tier model (after the espressocraft, the old-school packer and the 30-pound clicker) with a slightly bulbous handle lathed in the studio and a slight weight imbalance that made you feel like you were pressing greased marbles. these tokens winged to california where, the cypriot figured, his relation would become happily absorbed.

this was not quite the case. espresso, it turns out, is profoundly affected by dozens of minute adjustable factors quite difficult to master. then came the family vacation, when the cypriot was reunited with his fourth-tier gear and asked to perform gaggia magic for the family, to enlighten them on the wonders of preeminent brew. watershed moments like this happen to every coffee-ill snob, where you must choose between conforming to some lesser norm that will, no doubt, please the masses, or else completely jumping the shark and insisting on a quality level that the common man is likely to equate with mooneyism.

the cypriot chose personal glory. and who wouldn’t? working the gaggia handles and milquetoast burr and bulbous tamper with an artisan’s flair, he spun foamy beverages and cocktail-shaker drinks and plopping crema marvels for a raving and delighted crowd of kin. one of them, it turns out, is in the coffee roasting business. sarkis was, possibly or possibly not to his own chagrin, the star. it’s doubtful that he even drank his own concoctions.

of course, the pictures showed up on facebook. “At Lucy’s,” the caption read, “when Sarkis made us never want to drink regular coffee. Ever.”

for the troops

bz — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 02:59:37 +0000

the smooth ‘n groovy parts

the not-as-smooth-but-no-less-groovy parts

this blog never said it was a beauty pageant. what it did say is that the memorial day gaggle was a mash of machines, tubing and burrs. also, swim trunks. also, a ne’er-before-experienced highlands sumatra, designed to assault our virgin tongues through each of four dramatically disparate machines and grinders, at the hands of four amateur baristi with dramatically divergent practical philosophies.

it was exhilerating, in that there was so much there to be teased out via paddle-wheel pump or lever or PID device.
it was demoralizing, in that it might as well have been a yemen, a guat, a yirg and a kopi luwak emanating from these groupheads, so wildy across the spectrum did the taste and mouthfeel and aroma present themselves. if there is an essence to a coffee (and there almost certainly is), then who had found it?

my handles of choice: the riviera lever, newly dusted off and toted to this event because sarkis already had an isomac almost identical to my own. the cypriot’s tay-AH, it must be said, it a bit hotter in the boiler and more stable in the pump pressure. the blogbrother brought his catering vetrano from chicago, tricked out with an external flojet pump, monster portable intake and outtake jugs, massive prosumer boiler, rotary internal pump, commercial steam wand and enough tangled, jiggly tubing to present an industrial portion of safety hazard. nate the finger had just installed his PID temp controller, dragged it from northern indiana, and was prone to shouting, without warning and almost every 15 minutes on the dot, “oh my! at what temperature doth mine silvia idle upon now, i wonder? AH HA! it’s STILL TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO POINT ONE OH NINE DEGREES AT THE BOILER, which means an EXACT TWO HUNDRED SHARP AT THE GROUP HEAD!!!!” the boil-brained hugger mugger…

there was toscano. there was home-roasted panama of morning-glory-on-acid stellar brightness. and, of course, there was plenty of the new bling. but most importantly, there was the sumatra, pulled from the machine that each barista knew best until there was a shot he found, well … good. yummy. optimal. the results:

* the isomac at roughly 200 fahrenheit. pulled ristretto. 17-gram dose. carob. thick, pungent, barely liquid pureed carob pod, stripped from the plant and dried in a suitcase. we knew this because the cypriot somehow managed to procure from the bowels of his closet an actual carob bean that he had stripped from a plant and brought home in a suitcase … for comparion’s sake. (barista: quick-n-dirty. artistically inclined. unafraid of crutches.)

* the riviera at the hottest she’d go (top of the boiler cycle, i’m guessing barely 196 to 198). short, old-skool lever shots, which is to say ristretto. smooth, low-crema, lever-like buttery body. bitter chocolate, cherries, cardamom. (barista: finicky. bloviating. prone to minute and arcane adjustments.)

* the vetrano, again pulled ristretto. updose, close to 20 grams. temp unstudied. completely different body — thin but resilient. transparent. wintergreen. (barista: attentive. schooled on a single blend. repetitive.)

* the silvia, at, uh, what temp was that? nate? can you dial in your temp? what does it say? oh, right. 200 sharp at the grouphead. 18-gram dose. ristretto. thicker body than the vetrano for sure. pungent thyme and rosemary. someone added a dash of milk and it became … crabapple candy. (barista: thoughtful. newbie. uber-taste-based.)

* the riviera, again, it being the most finicky of the lot. faster pull, close to a full ounce of volume for the little lady. minty apple. durable dark chcocolate aftertase.

a highly subjective and meaningless exercise? why, yes! also the best rabbit hole this blog can imagine for memorial day meandering. frankly, it left a lot to think about, a lot to practice. and now that it’s over, we might just cup that sumatra. you know, to see what’s really there.

cloy, blinged

bz — Thu, 17 May 2007 03:02:01 +0000

this blog guesses that, no matter how deliriously stoked you may be about those ridiculous hand-spun, platinum-trimmed, plank-thick tulip espresso cups you aren’t as stoked as the bioluminescent cypriot, who not only snagged one in nearly every stunning color, but has taken to photographing them around his house in conjunction with color-coordinated works of art:

it’s true — notable coffee luminary persons have been drooling like teething tykes over these pricey bits of ceramic. and so, this blog bought one for said cypriot’s citizenship bash. upon which he stared blankly at the generosity and said, “i’ve just ordered 12 jillion of those — in individual silk sachets!” or words to that effect.

the artless crook-pated nabob …

UPDATE: he said it: “that bioluminescent cypriot is an animal!” to which this blog adds: a loaded, lucre-bathing animal.

UPDATE: this blog doesn’t blame you for being skeptical — these morsels of beverage containership cost upwards of $30. thus, some photographic evidence that this cypriot is, indeed, a repititively craven man (and these are just the capp vessels):

this blog has no idea what they’re doing on the ~~stove~~ cup warmer …

UPDATE: this blog has it on very good authority that the cypriot ordered eight more today. yes, eight. that makes the total price tag equivalent to a new rancilio silvia … five hours behind the wheel of a ferrari … a 10-pack of veuve clicquot!

UPDATE: the blogmother being alone in paris for mother’s day, we had thought it would be terra keramik to exemplify our global dedication. alas, the u.s. distributor of the porcelain goods seems a completely different beast from the german-speaking swiss producers. how to rush a shipment to france? in a panicky lather, we tried a painstaking, word-by-word translation of the german site for indigenous web ordering and speedy european delivery (say! that “ort” ain’t a request for a gruesome medical catalogue … it means “place”!). still, the site no worky.

back to the ‘mericun folk, then, who swiftly took it upon themselves — on a weekend — to investigate the order, call the european progenitor and place it by telly. the service, we say, has been nothing short of beauteous and gobsmacking. thus, sometime soon in a remote chadian village, a couple platinum tinged spro cups will arrive to complement the blogfamily’s wilderness lever device.

maybe even some native will happen to use them and remark how those massive ceramic sidewalls are like sticking the thick end of a mango between the kissers.

muddy money

bz — Sat, 05 May 2007 19:24:47 +0000

attempts at citizenship took the cypriot to charleston (to the naval brig, you ask? well, no.), where, upon taking the oath, he promptly became a money-centric, eagle-eyed ‘mericun consumer!

his observation outside muddy waters: you know you’re one of those kinds of coffee establishments when the atm is immediately adjacent.

in a world of $9 cups, look for the trend…

CI intrudes on trendy atlanta quasi-hipsterism

bz — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:25:15 +0000

atlanta’s octane is the abercrombie & fitch of southeast coffee bars — where being ignored is part of the ambiance! (note: those people on their web site look downright preppy compared to the playas who mumbled in the general direction of this blog.

you may not address us. you wait for us to slouchily address you, as if you have interrupted our little game of Models-n-Dreadlocks for a cup of … whaaa? a macchiato? yeah, whatEVER. as soon as we get done fiddling with our grinders and making inside jokes to the non-coffee-drinking groupies lolling on the bar.

it’s one of those joints that’s so cool you don’t know WHERE to pay, you don’t know WHO is the barista and you don’t have ANY CLUE whether they act this way because they know soooo much about their coffee or because they’re covering up how very little they know about their coffee. i didn’t mind it so much; the heavily aftershaved cypriot, however, wondered if he was being punk’d.

it’s at the nexus of one of those developing urban centers where the seedy warehouses and low-slung, brick-and-glass new urbanist condos still coexist, albeit uneasily. the radiating metal grate above the bar, sloping up toward the bare rafters, is cool; the cubist black couches draped with indie band lookalikes and their ladies in pigtails still cooler.

saw some of the slowest shots of toscano known to man. this blog was tempted to dismiss the baristi (there were two of them doing some sort of bi-minute trade-off) as crutch-loving pretenders, then came back for a second look. it was their thing. looked like a 16-gram dose to me, ground very fine and under brew pressure probably 10 seconds before a drop of the good stuff appeared. it was, at least, consistent. and thick as toddler schnoz.

two maccs down the hatch, and we agreed they were the darkest and spiciest and longest-lingering versions of this spro we’d ever had, then out the door. not bad, in all. worth a stop … and now the closest option for respectable shottage this blog has in these hinterlands.

props to espressomap for the pointer.

UPDATE: octane impressions from people with actual, you know, access, right here. also: pics, which blog inexcusably failed to provide.

UPDATE: still more impressions today (3/25) from correspondents who say the place doesn’t normally ignore customers or shun enthusiast conversation. guess we’ll have to visit again … which, as noted, this blog planned to do anyway. bottom line for us is taste, and we were intrigued by the intense darkness of the toscano ristrettos. this blog welcomes any more reader-generated excuses to throw a few more down the hatch … e-mail’s to the right.

CI eschews meaty content for e-mailed filler!

bz — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:24:07 +0000

nothing like mindless idle diversions from the eternal fount of inanity that is the bioluminescent cypriot:

find the man hidden in the coffee beans — within three seconds!

if you did it in three seconds or less … you are assuredly hyper-developed in the right brain. if it took up to a minute … congratulations. you’re boringly normal. if it took longer … well, the right brain is sort of ristretto-like — what little there is, is slow to develop! the left brain is your mother.

supposedly, it’s an actual test — which makes this a mercifully brief installment of this blog’s quasi-regular public service tradition.
.
.
.

UPDATE: the assuredly brilliant blogwife finds it an excellent test! yes, this blog scored in fewer than three seconds — intimating a ravenous analytical right-brainedness that exposes all our insecurities about artistry. the blogwife, on the other hand, took longer, she being of a highly developed, left-brained, artistic sensibility.

the genius of it, she says, is this: the phrasing of the question is such that an artist type would immediately look for a larger image of a man’s face made up of coffee beans. this is partly because the single burnt bean just left of the upper center is perfectly situated to be the focal point of such an image.

an analytical chump like this blog, meanwhile, immediately scans the photo for anything unusual, processing sundry bits of random information as quickly as possible. this leads rapidly to the discovery of an actual forehead, nose and eye in lower part of the photo. added intrigue: there are several languages we can think of in which the phrasing of the question wouldn’t work.

question is, which side of the brain makes for a superior barista? this blog reports, you decide. extra credit: guess the origin of that poo.

your idle hot-summer diversion here

bz — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 18:07:36 +0000

just when we thought we were done flogging the bioluminescent cypriot for awhile, he charges directly into the fan with this submission of some seriously aerated latte art reminiscent of a giant back-scratching iguana:

or a leaping lake trout, if you prefer. on the one hand, it represents dramatic pour improvement. on the other hand, sarkis swears he didn’t indulge in ANY etching — not even for the “eyeball.” which this blog frankly finds very hard to believe.

we’re calling for repeatable proof.

coda

bz — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 05:39:29 +0000

“Eef dat coffee was around and Napoleon knew about eet, he would have conquered Russia. Beethoven would have rewritten the feefth symphony.”
– bioluminescent cypriot, adding to the hulking body of esmeralda hyperbole

four evangelistic blind cuppings down, and the image of sarkis cradling a shot glass, savoring esmeralda as espresso and mumbling about something being illegal, sticks out. so does the remembrance of a nameless midwestern friend choosing the charbucks sumatra over the panamanian sublimity, but hey, this blog is doing its best to scrub its brain (and its list of ‘friends’).

there is now a precious fourth of a pound left, and i have put considerable research and development into a routine that ensures nary an oblong bean goes wasted on a poorly distributed shot, a bad grind or an early morning high-temp throwaway. let’s just say it involves a sort of elongated stockfleths move and stunt-double beans. several thousand words into this sojourn, the rest is mine to savor in peace.

the chicagoans drove the night friday, arriving at 9-ish saturday morning, just in time for breakfast and a palate cleanser — the gaggle arrived at 11. next morning, they drove back (by a strange and southwesterly route, but you can ask them about that. i suspect the influence of mesmerelda!). collegiate joel, he of the pricey camera and extreme shunning of sleep, posted a handful of pics here.

regular snarky riffing will recommence shortly.

UPDATE: still more staggering overstatement in the comments!

CI’s morals: always stand next to someone with bigger shortcomings

bz — Fri, 12 May 2006 02:58:29 +0000

the latest sign that the home espresso volume has burgeoned decidedly out of control:

the brew screen, it hath been profoundly compromised of calcified poo. which is of course highly embarrassing — a violation of purist clean-machinery triple-waveism and all that. (“you’ve been doing what for cup improvements? whining about whom?”) yes. i know. this blog is duly chastened, and offers only the meagerest of defenses: that the quarterly replacement schedule had sufficed before; that this blog operates in a soul-sapping peer-review vacuum; and that the removal of screen requires removal of gasket, and the removal of gasket is roughly analogous in difficulty to dislodging a mental patient’s fixadent with a spork.

dare the episode pass without an Inquiry into Broader Theory? why, no! in fact, it occcurs to this blog that it should begin to care about its sub-shower-screen hole patterns, of which there seem to be a surprising plethora. observe the most recent model, the logician’s grid:

and the previous of centrifugal sworl:

and the new, abstractionist concentrism:

‘twould seem the latter might afford fewer nooks in which sludge remainders might collect. it also vaguely resembles the chrome disks common to asphalt-scraping acuras in the projects. and speaking of the projects … this blog being the sort of conscientious advancer of machine upkeep who exhorts less-enlightend home junkies, it trundled directly to the bioluminescent cypriot’s place to order him to look — now — at his shower screen.

which he did:

if this blog were the sort to keep fungus-dwelling pond kelp as a hobby, it would have deposited them directly therein.

this is how this blog advances itself

bz — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 13:46:04 +0000

returning to this blog’s primary pursuit of needling the cypriot, let us take this opportunity to inquire: whose auspicious profile, exactly, were you attempting to portray?

this blog has its suspicions, but hates to name any names for fear of embarrassing the individual. let’s just say it’s a quasi-recognizeable espresso/roasting personality referred to as a something of a hard-charging, reality-challenged purist in a recent podcast. (i know, i know: “how many hours of third-wave self-aggrandizement would i have to wade through to decode that obscure reference?” anyway, being a hard-charging snob itself, this blog did not agree with the characterization.)

never mind. the latte art, sarkis, is improving — if by “improving” one means “the milk foam portends spooky intimations of a person’s head, its cerebellum diseased of tapeworm.” might we recommend bronwen’s swirl-and-thump technique for bubble-free latte art? (scroll down to the cappuccino photos.)

SCAA/USBC: what we risk for palatial fixations

bz — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 05:12:35 +0000

driving home in the bioluminescent cypriot’s jag, an actual yawn was experienced and noted. when you’ve ingested 10 or 11 shots on the day, it’s an encouraging sign not unlike the relief one feels when ducking into the men’s room to discover that the kidney stones, they haven’t started clunking yet! other bulleted talking points from scaa sunday:

* best shots of the day (in order): counter culture’s forte, dosed lighter from yesterday’s installment and served as a macchiato; zoka’s paladino, served straight; batdorf’s dancing goats, served straight from the bga booth; mr. toad’s small artisan roast; and hines’ espresso blend. (lest you think this blog is utterly nuts for that ranking, do read on.)

* near-misses with quasi-celebrity barista persons seems to be this blog’s continual bane. disheartening near-miss no. 1: a certain 2004 usbc champ who shall remain nameless vigorously defended the above-mentioned hines blend despite this blog’s claims of harsh yeasty/barley notes that did not at all jive with what it had heard about the coffee. said former champion posited that said coffee had been pulled a full two degrees cold (or 198), and that if this blog would kindly show up at the gs3 booth in about 25 minutes, said former champ would gladly pull an expert version of the same blend. “ah-HAH,” thought this blog. “all i did was pay 60 meager bucks and i’m about to get a shot at the hand of a former champ on the smoothest machine going today with said champ’s house blend!” you would be correct in surmising that this blog promptly showed up at the arranged booth and commenced taunting the former, less practiced barista that miss ~~bronwen serna~~ former champ was going to teach this chump how to pull some hines at 200 degrees fahrenheit! you would, however, be incorrect in guessing that miss champ person actually showed up, even though this blog continued to check every 15 minutes or so. which meant that this blog had to slink away shamefacedly from the less practiced barista person he had so ill-advisedly taunted.

disheartening near-miss no. 2: a champeen barista trainer, certified usbc judge, 2005 usbc champ and all-around classy person who shall remain nameless appeared to be standing next the the grinder in the zoka booth with her hand on the portafilter handle — or so it appeared to this blog. thinking the jackpot had been struck, this blog casually requested a double macc, after which said 2005 champ stunningly moved away from the bar and — out of nowhere — popped this totally unknown dude who proceeded to fill the order. this blog feels strongly that there should be some kind of rule against this sort of disingenuous method of attracting convention-goers to a particular booth with the suggestive posturing of quasi-celebrity barista persons.

to say that this blog wept bitter, rock-salt tears would be an understatement.

* west-coaster billy wilson’s sig: kumquat, cocoa and sugar — foamed with hairbender in a nitro canister (i think) — and served with a slice of kumquat. easily the most professionally plausible culinary concoction i saw all day.

this blog has friends who toil

bz — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 05:32:45 +0000

the bioluminescent cypriot’s trade being rife with extra wood and exceeding opportunity, it would appear that some recent shop scraps may have become mazzer accessories:

must be nice to run a biz where, you know, a shot is never more than a flush routine away and walnut grinder accents sort of make themselves. it ain’t thor, but it’s classy. matches well. fits nicely. which is more than we can say for his latte art.

actual studious follow-up

bz — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 04:18:07 +0000

the aforeshadowed research has consumed days of data-logging, acute grind-performance observation and vocab-busting soul searches for more apt terms to describe the conundrum of what makes some beans and blends more tangibly “workable” in the shot-building process … yet is still wholly unlikely to satisfy the CG curmudgeons formerly loathe to proffer hypotheses or admit to similar lines of inquiry (speaking here of all but the two who stabbed). on the bright side, we may soon be able to blame this blog’s entire array of consistency conundrums on the bioluminescent cypriot! just five more batches of beans to rest and swill, and this blog will offer its own caveat-laden, bum-protective semi-conclusions in this very space. i know: you could cut the apathy with a pallo tool.

shrouding the pad

bz — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 04:53:49 +0000

the long-promised pics of coffee-oriented window shrouds below. that means fishbowl life has now ended (and, truth be told, crab-walking to the shower with one’s bedding pulled tightly around one’s shoulders was getting old). you’ll recall this is the second set of curtains, the first being brilliantly conceived by my rothko-appreciating wife but ill suited to the classic-salvage decor. having tapped the potential of raw silk, then, we turned to the polar opposite: coarse-weave jute of third-world origins!

also relevant, perhaps, is that this blog has now put in five long years at corporate cubicle land. which means this blog got to pick a nice gift from a glossy catalog bearing the printed congratulations of said corporate parent. this blog chose the digital camera, so as to save readers from the previously insufferable video frame grabs and to satiate the wife’s need to snap close-ups of every dallying moth pulled indoors by the scent of sulawesi smoke. the photos you see are actual still pictures, and bode well for the future of low-word-count blogging.

the salvage-imperial assemblage.

the double windows. closed, the drapes screen the indoors without sealing the verve within, if you know what i mean.

p.s. the rods and finials come from the practiced shop of the famed bioluminescent cypriot.

now: more orderly chaos

bz — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 05:23:10 +0000

some new blog categories, if you care. the long-used “primary chemicals” tagline had become all-encompasing and of no special use, so there are now new subheds: “elsewhere” for riffs on and links to other people’s stuff; “games with fire” to denote roasting discussion; “mad jaunts” to corral all my trips to roasters, cafes and competitions; “riviera refurb” for all levered espresso items; “subjective swillage” to describe matters of taste; and the catch-all “blather” category to describe what this blog propagates far too often — the heftier ramblings on sundry topics of minimal interest.

my favorite new category: the “bioluminescent cypriot” section that allows readers to collate each and every needling post regarding the comically effervescent sarkis and his unnaturally white teeth with a single click of the mouse! note: the new tags are listed on the right. not that you care…

sackloth and chaff

bz — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 04:22:23 +0000

NEWLY ACQUIRED KNOWLEDGE:

a bad idea for living room curtains would be to riff on mark rothko’s canvases for a chunks-of-color scheme evocative of … well, it was evocative of a nursery school. could have been the use of primary colors. could have been the preponderance of yellow that garnished a room of darkwoods and aged books about as tastefully as butter on a meatloaf. so, back to the drawing board, meaning that the 90-minute trek and costly purchase of silk for the first effort left only a cherished stash of coffee sacks from various locales for round two. ripping and sewing will shortly ensue. pics, to be sure, will follow. as long as the result isn’t a library/cafe in burlap mourning-wear.

one unsettlingly ambiguous omen: the bioluminescent cypriot has lent his stunning collection of interior finishes to the job. hey, his latte art evokes slasher flicks, but the finials, they portend expertise! this blog can hardly wait.

an excellent way to rein in an overly bright bean is to maintain the roast level while stretching the profile over a longer period of time. this technique was gleaned from an especially cogent piece in the current issue of barista mag by willem boot — an example of the kind of actionable detail the publication needs more of in order to keep widespread readership. drawing out a variety’s sweetness, roasting specifically for single-origin uses and managing acidity (brightness) were all useful points expounded therein.

so. lowered the temps on my preferred yirgacheffe roast by five degrees for the later stages. for a full city+ roast, it took an added minute to reach second crack plus five seconds. preliminary results indeed show a less bright cup. which, for a coffee that can “beat you with a flower”, leaves plenty of fruity citrus still to be experienced. just an experiment, is all. more intensive results tomorrow. or the next day. the expectancy will kill you!

linkage fixage

bz — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 15:11:40 +0000

for some, the cypriot’s birthday video was not only tasteless and soporific, it wasn’t even watchable! quite literally! apologies. the link is now fixed, at http://ben.szobody.com/sarkisbd.mov. (for those prone to gnawing pinecones and trimming fingernails with a belt sander.)

UPDATE: you ‘missing codec’ people should go get your stupid missing codec if you want to watch it that badly.

celebratory verdure

bz — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 03:47:40 +0000

so this blog went and bought an arabica plant for the bioluminescent cypriot’s birthday, the persistently hideous nature of his latte art notwithstanding. why videoblog it? i don’t know. suffice to say that when you combine haphazard footage, poorly spliced background music, a 45-minute editing time limit, a wretched spate of naked shots from the “backup” expobar machine, the week’s worst latte art and a series of cheesy double-entendres, the result, at best, is a vignette that’s predictably lousy and pedestrian!

i have had a fine day. but this wasn’t one of them. still, this blog does try…
the entire three minutes of bandwidth-gobbling video dreck — six megs of it! — can be ingested here.

UPDATE: the video link, for some, didn’t work. ’tis now fixed at http://ben.szobody.com/sarkisbd.mov

what could be more tedious than calibrating brew pressure?

bz — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 03:05:18 +0000

deftly avoiding past aesthetic horrors, the effulgent cypriot has produced, with the help of szymon the pollock, a bewitching bit of tastefully stitched time-accelerated stills from his back yard. watch it. it makes you want to shimmy. then, when you realize he took a single photograph every minute for, like, hours … it makes you want to work the crick out of your neck.

why post it? because it’s my blog. also: who am i to levy spelling criticism at a pollock and a cypriot? mostly, i think i like the music. and so: “my lilly”