October 2007

I had to explain to Indian software developers recently that Western Australia is not in Greece, and Alaska is not in France.

We had asked them to put some headings in on the pages of a new web site, so that users could tell where they were in the site. The headings were generated automatically, and this was fine, except there were some anomalies in the data.

Here are some examples of the type of headings generated: “Top Attractions – Greece – Western Australia” and “Accommodation – France – Alaska”.

Naturally I raised this with the developers: “The headings look good, but this one says ‘Greece – Western Australia’ …” and so on.

They responded as follows: “Can you please explain what the problem is?”

Apparently it wasn’t obvious to them, so I helpfully explained:

“Western Australia is not in Greece, Alaska is not in France, etc”

Priceless.

Of course, given that there is a Paris in Texas, perhaps there is an Alaska in France. Who knows?

I can’t think of any posting ideas, so go and read A Biblical Guide To Dating now. It’s funny.

THERE’S NO INTEREST LIKE SELF INTEREST: Cops Writing Cops is a site by cops complaining about other cops giving them speeding tickets. Fine, but on the What cops want you to know page, they have the gall to write “Here’s how to get out of a ticket. don’t break the law.”

THERE’S NO DELUSION LIKE SELF DELUSION: the Communist Party of Australia describes the 100 million murdered under Communist regimes with the phrase: “Many mistakes were made”.

I met my sister and parents recently and we did a tour of Albury, Beechworth and the surrounding areas. This mainly involved a lot of eating and drinking, including, but not limited to, five types of wine and four varieties of beer, plus coffee to excess.

The coffee highlight was definitely the Electra Cafe in Albury. You can see why:

My dad was particularly impressed.

SaRz, who is a regular around here and also knows me in real life (you know, what you do when you’re away from the computer) was recently at the burgeoning metropolis of Bonny Hills in NSW when she spotted this:

Yes, that sign does say “Sexy Coffee”. I’m not sure that sex and coffee really belong together. It just doesn’t seem to be a natural fit, don’t you agree? I’m sure the proprietors of this shop get a good laugh out of it though. Much like the previously mentioned Sexie Coffee establishment.

But this does give me an excuse to blog about a weird trend that’s hit the U.S. lately: sexy coffee shops! Establishments such as Cowgirls and Sweet Spot have injected some spice – or tackiness, depending on how you look at it – into the market, by having their female staff dress in bikinis or lingerie in order to drum up business.

Sounds like a bad soft porn flick, does it not? They could call it Bikini Cafe, or something. (Not that I’d know or anything.)

Anyway, I know you want a pic so here it is:

Yeah, that’s tasteful. Not.

Sure, I’m a heterosexual male, but I am also a coffee purist. I like the atmosphere and good vibes of a decent cafe, and this is too tasteless and tacky for words. And since I don’t like it, this trend must stop.

Plus, typically these places are drive through only. How many indicators of wrongness does one need?

Hopefully this trend won’t make it to Australia.