Posts Tagged → low
In defense of Mr Coffee
We enjoy coffee in this house.
Rather, to be honest, coffee is a necessity to get a day started properly.
Just one or two cups, and we are off and running full bore.
The question is, How should the coffee be created in the first place?
One person likes the fancy high-tech coffee makers, with all their automated bells and whistles, timers that people outside your home can set their watches by, nuclear heaters, supersonic filters, and so on. You push a button and things start to whirl, hidden gears begin to spin and interconnect, a promising mechanical thrumming starts, and then you wait a hell of a long time while all of the various moving parts begin to work together to make a black liquid known as coffee.
Me, the other person here, likes coffee made easy.
I like Mister Coffee, the low-technology coffee brewer that is easy to set up, easy to turn on, easy to load, easy to run, and easy to clean and shut off.
Unlike the fancy NASA spaceship – inspired coffee makers, with the flick of the ON switch, Mister Coffee quickly pumps really hot water over the coffee grounds and provides hot coffee faster than I can boil it on the stove top.
There are no moving parts in Mister Coffee, no hidden functions, no tiny gears, capacitors or microprocessors that the NSA can hack into to read your kitchen habits.
So when the umpteenth fancy pants ultra-tech coffee maker dies a sudden and unexpected technologically complex death requiring a full autopsy to understand, you can imagine the conversations we have here…
Me: “Well, your latest contraption died, and now we are back to boiling the coffee grounds in a pot, or drinking yechy instant coffee. What do you say we go with the old tried and true Mister Coffee?”
Her: “But I like all those gadgets! I like setting the coffee maker to automatically begin brewing at six AM, and then finding it in flames at 6:15 when I come down into the kitchen.”
Me: “So by being sarcastic about your own choices, are you finally admitting that these high-tech coffee makers universally suck, despite their equally high prices?”
Her: “No, I am not yet ready to give up. While you were gone, I ordered one and have already sent it back after it failed to work properly the first morning. Then I looked at the online reviews and saw that I should not have ordered it in the first place. Another new one arrives tomorrow, same manufacturer. After that, I have another brand to choose from.”
Me: “OK, so….we have still no coffee maker? And you do realize that for twenty bucks, we could have by now had a simple, low-tech, high-function coffee maker on the counter?”
Her: “But I don’t want a Mister Coffee! It’s so boring!”
And so on.
This same conversation has been had in some version about a half dozen times over the same number of years.
Meanwhile, in my own little domain, I continue to use the same Mister Coffee I acquired nearly twenty years ago. Sure, Tim dropped the glass pot early one deer season morning and broke it, back in 2008, I think, but he easily grabbed a new one to replace it, and it is still going strong.
Here is the truth: a) Simplicity trumps complexity almost every time across life’s landscape, as increased complexity results in greater, more expensive, more “exciting” breakdowns, b) coffee is a simple drink, and does not require complex machines to make it, c) low cost and high function trump high cost and low function.
Perhaps there is some hidden aroma associated with fancy coffee machines, and perhaps this hidden aroma stimulates an ego gland buried deep within the brain, resulting in an enhanced coffee drinking experience. All those lights and computer-driven processes could be stimulating on a amusement park ride, so maybe that is happening with these coffee machines, too.
But as far as I am concerned, by the time my fellow coffee addicts have started and finished their Western version of the Matcha, Chado, Sado, and Chanoyu services, I am long gone out the door, fully charged, ready for the day ahead.
Thank you, Mister Coffee, for your constance, your ease of use, and your rugged, low-cost performance.
Here’s to ya!
Ultimate Prosaic: What The Heck Happened to American Made Hunting Boots?
America made the best hunting boots, a fact known as surely as Einstein was the smartest person ever and Raquel Welch was the hottest babe, ever.
Until now. Now, hunting boots by even the most storied makers like Danner and Irish Setter are made in….where else…China.
Call me confused, but let me ask you, Are the Chinese big on hunting? Do they know how to hunt, what to wear hunting, are they gear hounds, etc. ? My sense, apparently now shared by a lot of other American hunters and outdoorsmen, is that the Chinese really do not know hunting or hunting boots. In fact, the Chinese suck at hunting (although I once watched a video of Chinese soldiers happily picking off gentle, unarmed Tibetans who were walking through the Himalayan snows to escape their China-occupied country, so I guess the Chinese are good at murdering, but that’s unrelated to hunting), if their products are any indication.
The proof that the Chinese stink badly at hunting is that they keep on manufacturing hunting boots, and the hunting boots keep on getting returned by increasingly surly buyers. Label says waterproof. Wallet says you just paid $200 for high quality, waterproof boots. Your wet feet say “These ain’t waterproof.” And back to the store they go.
Some guys (and ladies, too), are returning three pairs of the same model before they give up on either that model or on the entire brand. A lot of people seem to be migrating toward spending no less than $300, and easily up to $375, on a pair of hunting boots that they know will not fail them when they are alone, a long, long way from civilization, and dependent on their footwear to get them around and back home at the end.
Does three hundred and fifty bucks sound like a lot of money for hunting boots to you? Holy smokes, it sounds like a lot of money to me. A pair of fancy dress shoes by the best makers rarely go for that amount, even on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Something is afoot here, friends, and it is not pretty.
On the one hand, a lot of hunters are kvetching about their low-quality boots online and in product reviews. So hunting as a sport is clearly taking a hit. On the other hand, Chinese boot manufacturers are hazing hunters, forcing many of them to spend a small fortune on the only American-made hunting boots, thereby restoring comfort to their feet and honor to our crumbling nation. I am at that point myself, having purchased, worn, and returned several expensive pairs of boots by the most storied names in boot making history.
The question is, with boots this expensive, are guys going to begin comparing boots at camp? That will make me feel quite uncomfortable. The last thing I want is to be associated with effete city slicker behavior. It’s like pollution in a pristine environment. It’s a Chinese plot to destroy hunting, one way or another. God help us.