How To Make A Cup Of Coffee: Another Guide For Morons

Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages in the world. Billions of people drink it, and even those that don't are certainly familiar with the beverage. It has been cultivated for almost 1,200 years. Yet making a cup of coffee to order seems to be a task that very few can handle.

Brewing a pot of coffee is certainly simple enough. But my gripe is not with those that are unable to brew coffee. I am only frustrated with the countless many that already have a brewed pot of coffee, try to pour it into a cup for someone (sometimes with cream and/or sugar depending on the person's taste), and screw it up horribly. It doesn't seem like rocket science to me. But apparently it is extremely difficult since so many can't handle it.

Due to the staggering number of people that cannot fix a proper cup of coffee, it is clear that instruction is needed. I will not go into the steps involved in brewing coffee. If you can't handle simply fixing a cup of coffee, brewing would obviously be too much to handle. We have to take baby steps. So we will start the instructions assuming that someone already brewed a pot of coffee.

Step 1:

Ask the person how he/she would like his/her coffee

Step 2:

Now pay attention, because this is the tricky part that most people mess up. I will guide you through several scenarios, and hopefully that foundation will help you to handle a variety of other unmentioned requests.

If the person says:

"I'll have it regular"

This means cream and two sugars. Now to make the cup with cream and two sugars here is what you do. Pour the coffee in the cup. Pour in some cream/milk. Add two sugars. Two sugars would either be two teaspoons of sugar or two sugar packets. Since you are clearly incompetent, let's stick with sugar packets. That way we don't have to go through the task of teaching you how to use a spoon, or the even more difficult task of teaching you the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon.

"Cream/milk only, no sugar"

In this case, you start the same as before by pouring the coffee in the cup. Then you add cream/milk. This may be a difficult concept to grasp, but if the words "no sugar" are in the request, you actually leave out the step of adding sugar.

"Two sugars, no cream/milk"

For this request, you pour the coffee in the cup (hopefully you're catching on that this is how it starts). Then you add two sugars. If you think you're brave enough to learn how to use a spoon, then go for it. Otherwise, stick to sugar packets.

For these scenarios, I am doing something very rare. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt in assuming that you know how to count. If you don't know how to count, learn that first. Then when you've mastered counting up to five, you can start tackling coffee.

I can't go through all of the possible requests, but note that the number of sugars requested can vary. If the request is for three sugars, use three. For one sugar, use only one.

Finally, we get to the most difficult request. This one is almost impossible to get right. For people with intelligence, it seems like the simplest request. But I know from experience that this order is the one that always gets screwed up.

"Black, no sugar"

First off, we have to understand what is meant by the word "black" when using it to discuss coffee. This means that no cream or milk is added. I should point out that the previous scenario could also be phrased "Black, two sugars." Hopefully, this can be learned after reading through thesse instructions a few times.

So for this request, there will be no milk or cream added. The request "no sugar" means that no sugar is added either. So to make a cup of coffee "Black, no sugar" here are the difficult steps involved:

Pour the coffee into the cup.

This is extremely difficult for most people. You do not add anything to the coffee in this case. You simply pour it into the cup. Maybe, with practice, you can master the art of making this most difficult cup of coffee. I've seen people that I thought were intelligent screw it up, so don't be fooled by the one step. Most people get this order wrong.

Step 3:

Finally, we get to the final step. After you have taken the order and made the cup of coffee, there is one thing left to do. You give the cup to the person that requested it. If by some miracle you were able to navigate through the complexities of Step 2, then this final step should be easy for you.

Keep practicing and maybe, some day in the distant future, you too will be smart enough to give someone a cup of coffee.

On Scaffolding

Scaffolding is defined as a temporary structure on the outside of a building, made of wooden planks and metal poles, used by workers while building, repairing, or cleaning the building. Nowadays, this definition does not seem suitable. The main reason being that the word "temporary" should probably be removed. It may be that, once upon a time, scaffolding was something that remained only temporarily. But with today's poor work ethic, lack of accountability, and lack of caring, scaffolding has become quite permanent in many locations.

The appearance of scaffolding is always an eyesore. It covers up the architecture of the building, which is often impressive, and greets the eyes with a pile of blue painted boards resting atop some rusty metal poles. In fact, the only decent thing to say about scaffolding is that it can sometimes serve as a temporary umbrella to protect people from either the harsh sun or precipitation. But this minor attribute is greatly outweighed by the negatives. Personally, I'd rather get wet sometimes and walk down clear streets.

Besides the aesthetic atrocity, there is a negative practical implication-- the sidewalk becomes congested. The sidewalk is suddenly divided into two lanes, and one can only cross over at certain intervals. It's hard enough walking behind slow-paced idiots on a clear sidewalk (see my third rant http://garysweeklyrant.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-to-walk-guide-for-morons.html#links). Now with the scaffolding serving as an impediment, it is even harder to maneuver around these people.

The few that were actually intelligent enough in their youth to learn how to walk now have to suffer. We have to scope out the openings, spot the next one coming up, and then patiently wait for a half hour to pass while the moron in front of us moves ten feet. At last we get to the opening, cross over, move quickly for about ten paces, and then wait behind the mental midget on the other side. This practice used to be semi-bearable when it was only for the distance of one block (one long, slow, tedious block). But now with scaffolding popping up everywhere, and remaining there indefinitely, weaving in and out of metal bars has become the norm.

So if you're using scaffolding to clean a building, then clean the damn thing already! If you're using it to fix a building, fix it already! I'm sick and tired of seeing some horrendous monstrosity composed of boards and poles on every other block. And I'm even more fed up with the physical constraints these structures have on walking around slow pokes. Scaffolding was created to do certain jobs, not to become a permanent display.

On Daylight Saving Time

Most countries have had in the past, or still have today, a form of daylight saving time. Although there are many that support the idea, as a purist I am against it. Changing standard time to some fake time just seems wrong.

There are a lot of sources out there that mention Benjamin Franklin as the first to propose daylight saving time. What Franklin actually proposed was that people should wake up earlier. During his time as an envoy to France, he thought the people of Paris were sleeping too late. But waking people up early is far different from actually changing the clocks.

The true first proposal of daylight savings was in 1895 by an entomologist named George Vernon Hudson. But this was a selfish motive, since it seems his only desire was to have more daylight after work so that he could collect insects. Furthermore, he wanted the clocks pushed ahead by two hours.

William Willet proposed daylight saving time in 1905, and that proposal went to the House of Commons and was shot down in 1908. However, the idea was put into effect only eight years later. Germany started using daylight saving time in 1916 in order to save fuel for the war effort during World War I. Britain then adopted the policy shortly after, and then the United States used daylight saving time in 1918. After the war, most countries simply reverted back to standard time.

During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted War Time which was essentially year-round daylight saving time. It lasted from 1942 to 1945. After 1945, daylight saving time was used without any real rules. Different areas were using it at different times, and so the Uniform Time Act had to be created in 1966 to specify when daylight saving time is used. It was stated that it begins on the last Sunday of April and ends on the last Sunday of October.

Nowadays, we have daylight saving time most of the year! It now begins in early March and ends in November. I think it is ridiculous to have the fake time on our clocks for 2/3 of the year. I don't wish to entertain any of the pseudointellectual philosophical views on what constitutes time, statements like "My time can be just as real as your time," and other such nonsense. Living on a planet that revolves completely around the sun every 365.243 days, we have enough validation in using mean solar time. Changing the clocks to some other time is absurd.

Furthermore, the arguments for actually using daylight saving time are rather weak. Upon analysis, the energy savings seem to be nonexistent. The reduced lighting costs are typically offset or even surpassed by the higher air conditioning costs on hot afternoons. In 2007, the California Energy Commission published a statistical analysis on the effect of an earlier daylight saving time (i.e. changing from the last Sunday in April to early March). This study showed that the change had no effect on electricity consumption. I believe that if the study were conducted for daylight saving time in general, there would also be no real effect.

Besides the argument that daylight saving time achieves nothing, there are other reasons to avoid changing the clocks. The first three weeks after the transition to daylight saving time sees an increase in heart attacks. When switching back to standard time, fewer heart attacks are reported. It may seem strange that pushing the clocks ahead an hour can create that much stress, but the correlation does exist.

Furthermore, sleep patterns and chronobiological rhythms are disrupted by switching the clocks. For the first few weeks after pushing the clocks ahead an hour, work productivity has been shown to go down in most industries. People are forced to get up an hour earlier, and this obviously leads to a lack of productivity.

There are also problems with people using medical devices that have clocks. This is especially relevant to devices that give doses of medication at specific times. Incorrect doses, missed doses, or extra doses of medicine could all result from daylight saving time. This is especially true when the standards for changing the clocks are constantly being changed.

In short, there are no real positives to daylight saving time and a number of negatives. It is time to end this useless practice. Thanks to the increased months of daylight saving time, we can't even use the old expressions of "Spring forward, fall back." We now have to say "Winter forward, fall back," which obviously doesn't quite work. Daylight saving time is not the real time. It's time to end it.