Category Archives: Weirdness

How My Coffee Purchases Border on Illicit Drug Deals

I am a coffee snob. There. I said it.

I fool my students into thinking I love Starbucks. I do appreciate the gift cards, though mostly for their sugary treats. Honestly, Starbucks coffee tastes like dirt lit on fire. You doubt me? Try a cup black. No sugar. No milk. No chocolate. Yeah, not so good. Starbucks isn’t a coffee dealer. They’re a sugar and chocolate dealer.

Over the years I’ve tried all sorts of coffee from all sorts of vendors. Now, I can hardly drink most coffees. I can taste the artificial flavor drizzled over the beans. Yuck. Long ago I loved Kona coffee because that’s what my parents drink. I would probably go back to that if I didn’t have another, if somewhat strange, alternative.

I discovered a unique Pannikins in downtown San Diego. I say unique because it was only Pannikin in name. The two ladies that ran the shop took over the site. They’re actually called Hessian Global Goods. They have all sorts of bizarre tea cups and coffee pots. They have a huge assortment of Day of the Dead knick knacks.

Now the coffee is astounding. They import from all over the world. They even have Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica and St Helena coffee from Napoleon’s exile island. My favorites have always been the African coffee. Typically I get Uganda or Zambia. I know if it’s the coffee or their grinder, but the java is addicting.

Things were going well until the girls closed the shop due to skyrocketing rent. Since then (about a year now), I still by coffee from them. The process looks a little weird. I call the ladies up. (Like I will this weekend. Getting a little low.) We plan a meeting place. Typically this is a park. We meet up and make the exchange. I swipe my card through their phone, and they hand over a brown bag with two pounds of coffee. Yeah, it looks crazy. But the coffee’s worth it.

It may end soon. The ladies are planning on buying another shop. Mostly because all their non-coffee wares are wasting away in a storage unit.

Tim Kane

Wordle Transforms Stories into Art

A colleague of mine introduced me to a website called Wordle. This site allows you to paste text (any text) and it will create a word cloud. The size of the word reflects how often its used in the text. For my experiments, I used a few short stories I’d written and posted on this blog.

This is from a blog post called “Do-It-Yourself Zombie Kit.” No surprise that zombie would get center stage. The story is tongue in cheek about what you’d really need to do to create your own zombie (voodoo style).

This is a piece of flash fiction titled “Selling Your Sister to the Goblins.” I like that Wordle put “teeth” next to “goblin.”

This is a flash fiction called “Beanstalk in a Box” which is a take on a reinvented fairy tale. Here beanstalks and Jack become a nineteenth century advertisement. I love that Wordle made cloud so big in a word cloud.

This is another flash fiction called “C: Terrible Consonant.” This is a surreal story about how the letter C is trying to kill me. I love how the word “ccccccCCCCCCcCCcCCCC” gets tossed at the bottom with a jaunty angle.

Give Wordle a try. So fun.

Tim Kane

Costumes at the San Diego Comic Con

Part of the fun of Comic Con is all the folks dressed up. I snapped plenty of pictures, but not all of them came out in focus. Here are the non-blurry photos.

On my way to baggage check, I ran into Batgirl.

Always great costumes around the Marvel booth. Here we have Nick Fury and Black Widow.

Man. That’s some paint job. But the effect is cosmic. Great Silver Surfer.

This guy had a fantastic Iron Man suit. He even cut his chin hairs to match Robert Downey Jr.

Tremendous steampunk maiden.

Everyone loves a werewolf. They do. It’s scientific fact.

At least it’s air conditioned in the convention center.

Tim Kane

San Diego Comic Con Shopping Spree

Even though I live in the same city as the San Diego Comic Con, I still treat it as a vacation. Thus, vacation spending. I give myself a budget and then spend every penny of it. Here are some stand out items (and where to find them) on the Exhibition Floor.

The first booth I plopped cash down was “Fuzzy Balls Apparel”. Yes, clever name. They were responsible for the hand sewn apple and the “eye” flower (which is actually a hair clip). You can find them at booth 4839. Another of my favorite booths is Conduct Happiness (booth 4832), home of the Pea, as in “pea in the pool” or the “pea pea dance.” I picked up another hair clip for my daughter here. The stuffed Frankenstein was from The Bijou Collectibles (booth C-01). I can’t recall where I picked up the stuffed kitty.

I’m always a sucker for steampunk and no one does it better than Weta (booth 3513B). I picked up yet another fabulous book from Dr. Grordbort. This year, it was Triumph, Unnecessarily Violent Tales of Science Adventure for the Simple and Unfortunate – written and illustrated by Greg Broadmore. I grabbed the last Berry Ninja apron (for kids). I can’t recall the booth, but I do know it was right next to Fuzzy Balls Apparel. Finally, the small book you see is “Wonderland Alphabet” giving each letter an Alice in Wonderland twist. This was from Archaia Entertainment (booth 2635). I just read this book to my daughter. It really goes deep into both Alice Books (Wonderland and Looking Glass).

I’m love T-shirts, but I detest the standard black or white fair. Snap T-shirts (I can’t locate the booth number, but it was near artist’s alley). This guy hand screens the shirts himself. Hard to see in this picture, but the shirt is a burgundy color. The book is called “So Good for Little Bunny” by Brandi Milne. This was from a combo booth with Griz Grimley and other artists (this might be booth 501). Finally the Frankenstein is a “Kooky Kans” from Mixo (booth 4633).

Enjoy the comic con and remember, there are ATMs in the lobby.

Tim Kane

The Seven and a Half Rules Writer’s Shouldn’t Need

Writing is a confusingly simple process of transcribing motives and plot points into physical form. Here are some tips.

Rule 1
You’ll need a pencil or a pen. Perhaps charcoal or crayons are your flair. Something to make the interior screams of your brain visible to the masses.

Rule 2
Paper is the choice of four out of five writers. However, don’t turn a cold shoulder to bark, bedsheets or cave walls. All excellent media.

Rule 3
Fortify yourself with stimulants. All that creativity can drain on your soul. I recommend chocolate and coffee. But that’s just me.

Rule 4
Sometimes you don’t feel like writing. You stare at the paper (or computer screen if you’re the techno-type) and nothing comes. Just pure white. Minutes slip by and your mind reels. Congratulations, you’re meditating. Some people pay big money for that kind of thing.

Rule 5
A diary or a journal can be a tremendous place to let your innermost turmoil spill on to the page. Just be sure to lock that book up. Wouldn’t want any of those secrets leaking into your writerly work.

Rule 6
Don’t forget to add characters. I hear those are important to your writing. Unless you’re genre, then ignore them and plot, plot, plot.

Rule 7
Set your story someplace interesting. Not a bathroom or a school. Maybe a jungle or the DMV waiting line. Those places are always chock full of suspense.

Rule 7 and a half
Be sure to have a compelling ending.

Write on fellow wordsmiths.

Tim Kane