IT Director for a non-profit in Washington, DC. Man About Internet.
Pics of the SR71 Blackbird taken at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum at the Dulles expansion. I shot 3 exposure bracketed images on my Canon 40D and I then used Photomatix Pro to convert them into an HDR image that has been tonemapped. Quite pleased with how this turned out.
Article here, quoted below:
Espresso, Extra Bitter
Man's Tiff With Barista Spills Onto Internet
By Joe Heim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 17, 2008; B01Who knew a cup of coffee could create such a tempest in a teapot?
Not Jeff Simmermon, whose request for a triple shot of espresso over ice at Murky Coffee in Arlington County turned into a heated Internet squabble, sparked debate about whether the customer is always right and provided a reminder about the intended and unintended consequences of blogging.
The drink request Sunday, said Simmermon, who was visiting from Brooklyn, was denied by a barista who told him that Murky doesn't do espresso over ice. Irked, Simmermon said he asked for a triple espresso and a cup of ice, which he said the barista provided, grudgingly.
Service. No smile.
Then -- and this is Simmermon's account -- the barista scolded him, saying that what he was doing to his espresso was "not okay" and that the store's policy was to preserve the integrity of the drink. The employee said that allowing customers to dilute espresso was not in keeping with said policy.
Coffee-rage moment in 3, 2, 1 . . .
Simmermon, 32, said that he interrupted the barista with an angry blast about how he would have his coffee any way he pleased, thank you very much, and that he told the barista he had his own policy about doing what he wants with the products he pays for. He mixed in a couple of expletives, but that was the essence of it.
That might have been the end of the saga, but Simmermon did what comes naturally to literate victims of perceived everyday injustices in the 21st century.
He blogged about it.
In a post on his Web site, And I Am Not Lying For Real ( http://andiamnotlying.com), Simmermon detailed the encounter, his anger and, somewhat befuddlingly, his order at Murky an hour later for the "strongest iced beverage your policy will allow." He accepted the barista's recommendation for an Americano with four shots "and light on the water." (He said he enjoyed it.)
He also posted a picture of the dollar bill he left as a tip, on which he wrote "[naughty word deleted] you and your precious coffee policy."
Since coffee shops are little more than way stations and IV drips for many bloggers, it's not surprising that Simmermon's post quickly made the rounds in cyberspace. Murky's owner, Nicholas Cho, was alerted to the dispute and responded with an open letter on the cafe's Web site ( http://murkycoffee.com). He defended his berated barista, David Flynn, and ticked off a litany of store policies that would have made Seinfeld's Soup Nazi duck for cover:
"No modifications to the Classic Cappuccino. No questions will be answered about the $5 Hot Chocolate (during the months we offer it). No espresso in a to-go cup. No espresso over ice. These are our policies. We have our reasons, and we're happy to share them."
At his cafe yesterday, Cho explained the policy: "The way we do espresso is different than what people are used to. It's a very exacting technique. . . . When you pour it over ice, it creates a certain acidic reaction that makes the drink sour."
He also said some customers have the audacity to order an espresso over ice, then fill the glass with milk at the dairy bar -- creating their own iced latte, at a significant saving.
In his letter on Murky's site, Cho wrote: "To others reading this I will say that if you don't like the policies, I respectfully recommend that you find some other place that will give you what you want, or select something that we can offer you."
But regarding Simmermon, who said in his post that he would only return to Murky Coffee "carrying matches and a can of kerosene," Cho's anger was undiluted.
"While I certainly won't bemoan you your right to free-speech," he wrote, "I have to respond to you in your own dialect: [naughty word deleted] you, Jeff Simmermon. Considering your public threat of arson, you'll understand when I say that if you ever show your face at my shop, I'll punch you in your [another naughty word deleted]."
Whew. Decaf anyone?
The battle of the blogs escalated, and a cabal of caffeinated commenters soon weighed in.
On a typical day, Murky's Web site receives 200 visits. On Tuesday, there were more than 15,000, Cho said yesterday. His e-mail inbox was filled with messages full of vitriol and praise.
Simmermon said his post about l'affaire Murky drew record hits for him, too -- 100,000, at last count.
But yesterday, he expressed regrets.
"I have mixed feelings about it, and I'm not really proud of the behavior that triggered this," he said. "These things take on a life of their own, and I don't want to be a part of it. He had a bad day, the owner had a bad day, and I had a bad day. That's all."
Cho is also ready to move on, if not exactly back down.
"You have to fight blog with blog," Cho said with a laugh. "That's the price you pay when you throw your words out there."
Cho and Simmermon seemed astounded at the amount of commentary the postings received.
"Ultimately, it's just coffee," Cho said.
Exactly. Can't we all just get a latte?
Furthermore, Cho makes another followup response on the company's blog, claiming that the majority of the comments left on the previous two posts were supportive, but then, the majority of the comments left on the current post appear to be negative. Also - the VAST MAJORITY of the Washginton Post commenters are also negative, all supporting the customer. It looks like this has indeed turned out horribly for Cho, not surprisingly.
McCain camps unveils new strategy of aggressive whining about coverage of Obama's foreign trip. From the NYT ...
The extraordinary coverage of Obama's trip reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first African-American presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.But the coverage also feeds into concerns in McCain's campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the media is imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates, just as aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton felt during the primary season."It is unproductive to spend it worrying about the way Obama is covered," said Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for McCain. "That being said, it certainly hasn't escaped us that the three network newscasts will originate from stops on Obama's trip next week."
News executives say they generally devote the same resources to the candidates. But they do not dispute that Obama has received more coverage this year, not only because of the historic nature of his campaign and his newness to the political scene relative to McCain, but also because of the protracted nature of his primary battle with Clinton, which was at a peak when McCain last went to Iraq.
Let's be honest. Hardly anyone cares about McCain or his campaign. No one's excited about it in any way. I don't think that's an overstatement. Caring or being excited about isn't the same as supporting. Lots of people support McCain -- but as the anti-Obama, the alternative. This isn't to say he can't win; he definitely can. But very little of this campaign is about him. Virtually all of it is about Barack Obama.
Article source: Talking Points Memo.
Yesterday I made a post about how the new iPhone application, Loopt, was causing a lot of angst amongst some top bloggers, and people I admire, about their completely idiotic way in which they handle user invites. The main issue dealt with privacy concerns stemming people getting invites from people they didn't know - people who they hadn't given their phone number out to. The invites were sent, unsolicited, via SMS (a big no-no). Loopt has responded on their company blog, first making a small post that seemed to brush off the concerns without addressing the actual question. Later, when the uproar of complaints grew louder & more numerous, they attempted to quell the anger in more depth. iJustine's intitial post about the problem has now made Techmeme, which should accelerate awareness. This seems to be working already as InfoWeek has just written an article chronicaling the details of the problem.
