Back in BlãK Coffee.

Does anyone remember this headline from 5 years ago? Starbucks To Begin Sinister 'Phase Two' Of Operation? At the time, I (in this case, Lokabrenna) was a member of an MSNBC-sponsored proto-blog (MSN Group) known as Conspiracy Theory. (Okay, it's actually even worse than that - I was a moderator of said site.) Generally, I reserve my stock exclusively for political or economic conspiracies (i.e., collusion to dominate markets and governments according to a monopolistic model). For fun, however, on one occasion I drove a thread based on The Onion's Starbucks spoof with heavy posts about the history of coffee. At first, it seemed to others that I had just lost my mind (when in fact that had happened many years earlier). But all I was really doing was riffing on The Onion's clever humor. The price paid for a few laughs was my learning a great deal of the lore of coffee.

A long, interesting and sweeping story stands behind America's Number One wake-up beverage. For masochists out there who can't get enough of my long-winded writings, perhaps someday I'll attempt to recover all that lost lore (the Starbucks thread no longer exists on the old site). But for now...



First things first. Priorities count, after all. The tilde in this post's title is what is shown on the side of the 8 oz. bottle in front of me. But the good people at Coca-Cola have an official site for this product and call it Coca-Cola BlāK. Which means this Coke isn't "black" - instead it's "blake"?

Non sequitur follows:

During the last two weeks of February, Maurinsky, myself and two stunningly beautiful young girls went on what will be remembered as our version of a trip of a lifetime. We were aiming for Ireland, a place I've wanted to see for most of my life, but an unbelievably cheap flight lured us to Paris instead, and from there we were able to take Ryanair to Ireland. Our two-week vacation became a trip to two countries instead of one: Ireland and France. In Ireland we were blessed with excellent hospitality, and weather to match. In France we were blessed with the kind of weather one usually associates with the word "February," but also enjoyed one or two days of nice weather. We discovered some interesting things about the rest of the world this way. For instance, on our first day in France, we experienced this view:



But a few days later we discovered the first view (already posted above). Non sequitur ends...

Yes, Coca-Cola BlāK debuted in France. We saw it in vending machines at train stations and (once in awhile) in grocery stores (and one time at a restaurant). Hmm, I'm running out of time (must go to work) and haven't said a damn thing about Coke's new drink other than to talk about the silly accent mark over the "a." Looks like this was actually an excuse to talk about our trip and blather on about nothing in particular. But I'm going to hit the "Publish Post" button all the same.

In two minutes.

First, though, the Coca-Cola BlāK we tried in Paris tasted different from what they're selling over here. French food products rarely (if ever) resort to corn syrup. I like that. And the BlāK in Paris was sweetened with sugar instead. It also came with more of a coffee flavor, a bit less of the Coca-Cola. Still, there is a bottle of the stuff shipped from Georgia right here in front of me. It is interesting, it is different, and it does have its appeal.

The rest of this post - about such diverse topics as this new Coke drink, William Blake, and murder in Beverly Hills - must wait for another time. Meanwhile, to make sure this gets the attention it deserves: President; bomb; assassinate; Hamas; terrorists; Iraq; revolution; nuclear device. That should do it.  ¶ 4:45 PM