That was then - but something happened the other day.

I was at a music shop, when guess what happened - I found several CDs by my favourite band, including some quite rare and hard to find items, all marked down to ridiculously low prices!

“Wow!”, I thought. “This only used to happen to me in dreams, now it’s happening in real life!”

Then I woke up.

Damn.

There is usually a translation of the original Russian in the comments; sometimes these are just as hilarious if not more so. For example:

Here is Rolcat’s “translation”:

-The air is crisp, like fresh spring leaves.

-Do you know the time in Zurich?

-It is you! no one believed you would survive.

-We have little time, you must get these microfiche of the sub plans to Moscow

A more faithful translation is as follows:

“I see it all in your eyes.
You’re lost. Did someone throw you out?
Come to me, I won’t bite.
We’ll share the cold, the hunger and the pain…”

This appeals to my sense of humour greatly; and as a Russian language learner, I now know how to say “I won’t bite”. Gold!

First of all, wedding preparations for Marjorie and I continue. We are organising bridesmaids dresses, invitations and countless other wedding-related miscellany. But we are not the only ones getting married; my sister was married last Saturday, my brother will be married six weeks after me and my best friend a week before that; so it’s all happening!

Second of all, I am learning Russian! This is partly inspired by my brother, who learned a language himself recently. I picked Russian because of my interest in Russian history. I’d like to travel to Russia one day - and many other countries as well; I just want to travel!

Добрый день to any Russians reading this.

Hopefully I’ll be back blogging more regularly soon. So many times I’ve come across something I’d like to blog about.

Until then, I leave you with something I discovered today: Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Choir performing Stairway To Heaven:

Back in 2006, he got me a job. I was fired in June 2007.

Why was I fired? Because of this blog! You see, in June 2007, there was a work-related disaster that killed 11 people - while I was on shift. Like most employees, this made an impact on me, so naturally I blogged about it. My mistake was mentioning the company I worked for.

The day after publishing the post, I was pulled aside by management and asked to delete it. I complied immediately, and thought that would be the end of the matter. I was wrong.

The day after, at the start of my shift, I was pulled aside again. This time, I was asked to hand in my security pass. I was told that a decision had not yet been made on my continued employment, but that they would call me later. This was a transparent lie, but I didn’t call them on it. I also didn’t feel the need to tell them about the other pass I had that they didn’t know about. (I arranged to have this returned at a later date.)

All in all, it was a rather shabby affair.

Fortunately I was able to find employment shortly afterwards at another company, where I remain today. They shall remain nameless.

It never ceases to amaze me the lobotomising critics.
IE. See below

Café Laurella, Wahroonga
Nice atmosphere, coffee was disappointing

I drink Coffee at Laurella weakly (its local) Yes on occasion (very rare) the coffee is not fantastic. I know the beans are good quality (*that’s why I come here )
So Mr Critic please cease being a monosyllabic fool and tell me when you were at my local cafe was the
Milk to hot, burnt, to cold, the flavor to bitter (head not rinsed) the beans to strong, over / under roasted (maybe you like the burnt starbuks flavor) Did you wate to long or do you owne the cafe around the corner?

Josh
PS you dont get a better feed on the upper north shore quolity, portion/ $

First of all, Josh, thanks for your comment. (Really. I get so much comment spam I appreciate all genuine feedback, whether positive or negative.)

Now, regarding Five Word Coffee Shop Reviews - these are only five words long. Being monosyllabic is the entire point. Part of the challenge of writing them is getting the gist of a coffee shop across with only five words.

I should point out, though, that none of them are written by professional reviewers in any sense. Those that write them (including myself) are interested amateurs. We have been to a lot of coffee shops, we like coffee and cafe culture and we are always interested in finding a good cafe; but many of the finer points a coffee professional could make, we cannot.

Does this mean we like Starbucks or Gloria Jeans? Please do not insult us, Josh! I have made my feelings about Starbucks quite clear, and they are not positive.

As for Cafe Laurella, it was someone else and not me who went there and reviewed it, so unfortunately I cannot expand on the review.

I have found previously that a comment like this means I’ve gotten it wrong (Quikfix being the obvious example). For this reason, I hereby promise Josh and any other Laurella fans reading this that I shall revisit Laurella and give them a second opinion at the first opportunity.

“The first opportunity” might take a little while though; I live in Melbourne, and that’s a long way from Sydney’s North Shore.

UPDATE: I made it to Wahroonga a little while back, but Laurella was shut and I’m unlikely to hit the area again for years.

I’m not surprised they’re struggling here. Unlike the United States, Australia has a long-running coffee culture. Before the arrival of Starbucks, there were already thousands of independent coffee shops, to the point where they comprised 1/3 of retail outlets in some suburbs (or so it seemed). Some of these focussed more on food than they did coffee, but there were plenty of others that served a decent brew. Australia has heaps of coffee snobs as a result.

Not everyone is a coffee snob, of course, so Starbucks might still have made inroads into the market had they moved a bit faster. Unfortunately for them, they spent several years taking over the US first, and while they did so, some enterprising souls noticed how profitable they were, and set about replicating that success here. Soon, Australian shopping centres were filled with Starbucks clones. The most successful of these, Gloria Jeans, now has a huge fanbase that won’t go anywhere else.

As a result, the entry of  Starbucks into the Australian market was met with a collective “meh” from the local population.

They might still have gotten somewhere had their coffee tasted good, but in my humble opinion, they are beaten not only by the independents but most (if not all) the other chains.

The lesson for business owners? If you are successful in one market, make sure to conquer the others quickly, or someone else will beat you to it.

Muzz Buzz has a large variety of menu items, from iced drinks to flavoured coffee to food, ice-creams and energy drinks. Their coffee flavourings are at no extra cost, which is unusual.

I’m not a huge fan of drive-through coffee outlets, but I thought I’d give it a go. Here’s what their coffee looks like - note the straw. Who drinks coffee through a straw?

Unfortunately the coffee was close to lukewarm and a little weak (I ordered strong). My girlfriend Marjorie ordered a flavoured coffee, which was definitely nicer.

They got at least one satisfied customer that day:

Recommended for: Drivers who like the convenience of drinking coffee through a straw. Flavoured coffee lovers.

Not recommended for: People who like coffee that tastes like coffee.

——

Later the same day, I got to try Nespresso.

Nespresso is a novel attempt by Nescafe to market themselves as the high end of the coffee market, although perhaps not high enough for coffee snobs. Basically, the system consists of a very easy to use coffee machine that uses Nespresso coffee pods - and nothing else. There are, I think, a dozen varieties of the pods available. Others have criticised the system for using stale coffee in the pods, plus the proprietary nature of the pods will be a concern for some. What concerns me, as always, is how the coffee tastes.

At their kiosk in Myer, I had a chance to find out. After enduring their marketing spiel, I had a latte using a ‘Ristretto’ pod (the strongest pod available).  So how did it taste? Not bad at all really. The latte was creamy, with little bitterness I thought. The flavour was a bit lacking compared to a good cafe, but still beats a lot of mediocre cafes and about 90% of home setups.

Recommended for: A take-away or similar business looking to sell quick and easy espresso on the side, without serving watery weak swill. Or, someone wanting a semi-sophisticated setup at home, without spending four figures.

Not recommended for: Coffee snobs. Get a better machine, and fresher beans.

Obviously noone told Magic Dirt. Here is their clip Shovel (RSS readers click through to the post if you can’t see the clip.)