It Would Take A Heart Of Stone Not To Laugh

So I'm LMFAO over this entirely predictable outcome.

You see, an anti-capitalist coffee shop opened in Toronto, run on good, solid, communist anti-capitalist principles.

It went pretty much exactly as you would expect it to:

The Calgary Sun: Anti-capitalist café shuts down due to lack of capital

Barely a year after opening, an “anti-capitalist” Toronto coffee shop is closing its doors due to a lack of capital.

The Anarchist — a provider of “sweet and savoury” pastries and “trendy” coffees — was founded last April as a “subversive” alternative to what it called the usual model of workers “producing wealth for their parasitic employers.

Instead, it will close permanently on May 30, according to a statement appended with the slogans “abolish work,” “people over profit,” and “land back.” The café was never able to employ more than one person, so the proprietor, Gabriel Sims-Fewer, will be its only layoff.

The Anarchist had featured a “pay what you can” option, but the café’s very lengthy FAQ page explained that the system lost them money, for which the rich were to blame.

Indeed, to no one's surprise, the good socialist nomenklatura patronizing the shop failed to pay according to their ability, and instead exercised their limousine liberal privilege:

“One of the issues with a lot of my ‘pay what you can’ oriented ideas is that the more money people have the less they’re willing to pay. I get people in designer suits paying $1 for a coffee"

Sad that, totes unpredictable, really. 

A definite pity that he didn't get some good socialist government subsidies to keep the whole thing going, or have the necessary and proper communist ability of having force to lock people in the coffee shop until he could make them pay according to his view of their ability.

As is par for the socialist course, everything but economic reality is to blame:

The café announced its demise with a lengthy screed denouncing its various enemies, including “professional class-traitors,” “Libertarians,” “the rich,” and Canada itself, which it called a “colonial death camp.”

Of course. It's always the wreckers and kulaks that are at fault when socialism collapses from its own inherent contradictions, isn't it?  

Everything but economic reality and the owner's inability to manage a business with a proper and realistic business plan is to blame. I mean if you can't get it right to generate sufficient support among the socialists in Toronto, of which their are many, to keep your anti-capitalist fever dream bean shop going,  what chance do you have?

We will note that so far Mr. Gabriel Sims-Fewer, who is clearly now possessing fewer dollars than he started with, is still living in his self-proclaimed "colonial death camp". 

One surely expects him to move to a more socialistic utopia, any day now, one that is more in accordance with his anti-capitalist principles. 

Why You Shouldn't Make Coffee Until You've Had Coffee

So in the early morn I awoke to make the morning coffee as I always do.

I typically put a shake of cinnamon in with the coffee and then kick the machine off.

The cinnamon container looks like this:

Unfortunately, someone put the Kirkland granulated garlic up in the same cabinet rather than back in the lower spice cabinet where it belongs.

It looks like this:

You know where this is going right?

Yep, one does not taste like the other, there was no way to separate the garlic from the coffee so new coffee had to be prepared to be brewed.

This better not be a warning about how the rest of the day will go.....

You will only spill a cup of coffee on your desk when.....

1. It's full to the brim, with nice, fresh, hot coffee;
2. You have impotant papers on your desk;
3. You need to get something else done rather than drop everything and clean it up right now; and
4. There's no napkins or tissues handy to quickly wipe it up.

 Argh.

 On the upside, it was time to sort through that pile of papers and get rid of the unnecessary stack that has accumulated on my desk....

On Closed restaurants, Polish Markets and the Global Economy of Coffee

As mentioned below, we had planned to go to a well recommended Polish restaurant yesterday, but on arrival to it, we found it is closed on Saturday nights. We could insert some Polish jokes here about the business sense of being closed on a major night for people to go to eat but we'll let it go.

Happily, nearly across the street was a Polish market.

I always enjoy shopping at an ethnic market- you never quite know what you'll find and often you'll come across some very tasty products.

Give that Natasha is a Russian ex-pat she had a great deal of experience with Polish products from soviet days and had a blast going through and buying all sorts of tasty treats.

The selection was impressive - a great deli, wonderful prepared foods and more.

We each bought a complete ready to eat dinner there for about $5 each, as well as some very nice deli meats and dairy products.

And there was coffee.

A wonderful thing about this global world we live in is how products can move around and we can be exposed to new and interesting things.

Coffee, being a daily essential here in the house, is always of interest.

The market had a full aisle from floor to ceiling, full of different European coffees. This was good.

Of course, most labels were in Polish or German so this would take some doing.

After careful guesswork, I settled on a label reading "Tchibo Family Intense Coffee" - The name itself sold me.




After all, I have a family, and it gets kinda intense around here, so an intense coffee could be just what the barrista ordered. Interestingly, Tchibo is a German company, with sales to Poland, the Coffee was labeled product of Poland and was made in a roasting factory in Poland, probably with beans from South America, and here it was in Michigan, waiting to be purchased for the bargain price of $4.99 for 250 grams. Is globalization cool or what? (An Interesting article on coffee consumption in Poland and Eastern Europe can be read at teaandcoffee.net)

So this morning we opened the coffee and made a pot, and poured a cup for each of us. Poland does not have a worldwide reputation for great coffee so we each took our first sips hoping for the best.

Intense is certainly a word for this coffee - very dark, bitter and robust, a real eye-opener, not for the faint of heart or those who like their coffee weak. This was a definite eye-opener, not a sipping coffee. Good stuff for a morning wake-up.