Hurry over to ebay to bid on the only bag of coffee that’s ever been sent into space!

Today’s world is filled with a lot of bad things like wars, famine, pestilence, Paris Hilton and Silver Surfers. That’s why I’m especially shocked that more people are not mobbing ebay for a chance to bid on the only bag of coffee that has been fired into space, exposed to cosmic rays, and then brought back down to earth in a marketing move meant to raise money for the JP Aerospace organization. I’ve written about this Space Coffee before and I told you about how JP Aerospace is poised to become bigger than NASA just as soon as NASA loses all the money, people, technology and bloated budget.

From the press release:

The balloon was flown by JP Aerospace, an independent space program. In addition to the coffee, over 300 student

experiments were carried aloft. Lifting off shortly after dawn, the balloon climbed 800 feet per minute. As it headed

upward, the temperature dropped to 82 degrees below zero, and the sky slowly turned black. When it reached high

enough where the Earth’s horizon is curved, the balloon burst. The coffee and experiments fell together at over Mach

one back toward the desert floor. The parachute opened, and the package touched down ten miles from its starting point.

“This coffee has gone where I want to go,” says John Powell, President of JP Aerospace.

Essentially JP Aerospace sent up a special “Bean Me Up” coffee blend that was roasted by Vista Clara Coffee, a small coffee roaster run by Dave Stewart. JP Aerospace sent the coffee up into space on a giant balloon with a bunch of ping pong balls, waited for the balloon to pop and then everything fall back to the ground. They do this sort of thing on a regular basis, though I can’t say for sure if hallucinogenic drugs were involved in the project plan.

Jessica Alba has powers from cosmic rays which are the same as the rays from this coffee that was fired into space and… umm.. oh, just stare at the picture and drool.

Back to the cosmic rays. By sending things up into space JP Aerospace has been exposing them to “cosmic rays” which as you students of history will realize, are the same rays that turned the Fantasic Four from a group of nerdy good looking scientists into a group of good looking scientists with mostly lame superpowers. Except the Human Torch. That would be a cool power. And the Thing. That would be kind of cool. Jessica Alba and the stretchy guy? Lame! Well, okay, I could watch Jessica Alba sit around and pick her nose all day. So, really, the stretchy guy is just lame. I digress…

Their superpowers are better than YOUR non-existent superpowers. And since YOU aren’t going to be making into space anytime soon you should really consider instead buying some space coffee and then drinking it to see what kind of superpowers you might get.

If you visit Vista Clara Coffee’s website you’ll notice that firing beans off into space didn’t even make their “News” section which makes me wonder if JP Aerospace just stole the beans from the grocery store and then felt bad about it. In fact, there’s really not much to see at Vista Clara’s Coffee site, which is a little surprising considering that their coffee will give you superpowers. Sure, it lists the blends he has, but there is a startling lack of photos of the coffee, recent news about Vista Clara, and no mention of the supervillains he’s hoping to defeat with his cosmic ray coffee.

Heck, maybe Dave Stewart of Vista Clara Coffee can send his web designer up into space and bring him back down in hopes of getting some more for website content.

At any rate, I encourage you to visit ebay and bid this coffee that has been sent into space. I encourage you to drink grind it, drink it and then shun society as the magic of cosmic rays overtake your body. I encourage you to use your newfound superpowers for good and not evil. And I encourage you to remember who told you about this just in case you do decide to use your new coffee superpowers to take over the world.

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Having a baby pretty much assures that you home environment will quickly be cluttered with a vast array of baby toys rivals even the largest Toys Backwards R Us in the world.

And it is because I now live in a constant sleep-deprived world of brightly colored hard plastic and soft stuffed animals where conscious thought is hot black liquid poured out of a coffee pot that I have come up with these observations:

My First Easter Bunny

The My First Easter Bunny is only safe for children ages three and up. Thank-you, Wal-Mart.

A toy from Wal-Mart, this pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with America.

At first glance this little stuffed Easter Bunny seems to be a perfectly innocent little toy for a child to sit and enjoy. It’s soft, not too heavy, seems to be fairly well put together and there are no sharp edges. Heck, the words “My First Easter” are even stitched tightly into the tummy.

The problem?

The warning tag on the bunny clearly states “For children ages three and up.” So this toy is really only appropriate for that rare child that is born and then magically skips THREE Easters until he is ready to play with this toy and celebrate his “first” Easter.

Baby Einstein Book

No political agendas or cultural commentaries here!

Okay, maybe I’m a coffee-addicted paranoid maniac, but I’ve always been a little suspicious of anything with the Baby Einstein brand slapped on it. I don’t really think any of their toys are all any more educational than anything else out there and I think it’s kind of strange to base your baby product company around the name of real person who is generally not known for being warm and cuddly with the babies. In fact, Albert Einstein regularly ate children for lunch, but I’ll save the details of that for another day.

Anyway, my son has a Baby Einstein book that has a bunch of animals in it with some very suspicious names. In a thinly veiled reference to the fast-food burger shilling giant, there’s a cow named Baby MacDonald. Is that some sort of sick joke, or what?

“See this cute little cow, Jimmy? You ATE HIM WITH YOUR HAPPY MEAL. HE’S DEAD NOW BECAUSE OF YOU!”

Baby Einstein clearly wants to raise a generation of vegetarians.

Ahem.

But it doesn’t stop there. This Baby Einstein book also has a monkey named “Jane” which is clearly a reference to world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall. And Jane is sticking her tongue out while making a “supersilly” face, which only goes to show you how much the Baby Einstein corporation despises monkeys. In fact, for every Baby Einstein book you buy a baby chimpanzee is fired into space, but that’s a story for another post.

Fisher-Price Amazing Animals Sing & Go Choo-Choo

Impaled animal hearts make every baby toy more enjoyable.

This last toy is from Fisher-Price and is clearly one of my son’s favorites. It’s an animal train that lights up and makes animal sounds and plays the same songs that are just annoying enough to make mommy and daddy want to jam their eardrums out with chopsticks but just catchy enough to prevent us from actually doing it.

On the top of the train are some little plastic items that spin around and don’t do much else. My wife and I didn’t think much of them at first until we really took a good look at them and tried to figure out what they were. They could be leaves, but they weren’t the right color. They didn’t look like much else until we starting thinking about the strange vein patterns and biological colors…And that’s when it struck us:

The Fisher-Price Amazing Animals Sing & Go Choo-Choo is really a HUNTING vehicle and those little spinning things are clearly the still warm and beating hearts of dead animals impaled on the poles of the train as a sick sort of trophy case!! Or perhaps they’re HUMAN HEARTS that all the fun-loving colorful plastic animals have ripped out of unsuspecting babies.

Aiiieeeeeeeeeeee!

C’mon… I’m clearly not too far off base with this, am I?

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My Coffee Mug

I like coffee. A lot. In fact, I’ve noticed that my every waking moment, and I have a lot of waking moments, is consumed by coffee because I’m always consuming coffee.

Here’s a typical day for me:

6:15 - The timer on my bedside coffermaker goes off, waking me to the sound of sizzling water and smell of roasted beans. I sip half a cup in bed before I open my eyes.

6:25 - I stumble to the bathroom with mug in hand where I turn on my in-shower coffeemaker and use the hot water to brew a fresh cup while I’m washing my hair.

6:40 - I brush my teeth with natural toothpaste made from coffee beans. No minty flavor is going to kill my buzz.

7:15 - I shave, dress and put on a tie all without ever putting down my mug. No, I can’t explain it, either.

8:00 - I arrive at work and put on a pot of coffee.

8:15 - I take the pot to my desk and put on another pot for everyone else in my office.

9:45 - Needing a change, I grab a handful of used grounds and stuff them in my cheeks like chewing tobacco.

10:15 - Decide that really wasn’t a very good idea considering the coffee at work is Folgers.

10:25 - I spit out the coffee grounds and chew on the used filter. That’s better, but it’s still Folgers.

10:27 - I spit out the filter and chew on my shoe. I’m satisfied.

12:30 - Lunch time! I buy a cup of coffee from the snack shop and a coffee power bar.

1:05 - I go for walk around the office while munching on some gourmet coffee beans.

1:30 - Weekly staff meeting! During our Vice President’s presentation I grind some beans and pull out my French press. No one seems to mind.

2:35 - Back at my desk I hear a strange buzzing sound. I spend 30 minutes looking around before I realize it’s the beating of my own heart.

3:50 - I put on one last pot of coffee for the road.

5:00 - I drive home with said pot in hand.

5:20 - I finish my pot of java, but I still have a long commute through traffic. Needing a little “pick-me-up” on the way home I stop and pick up a cup of iced coffee from a local coffee shop.

6:03 - For dinner I have some Coffee Roasted Beef Chuck, with a side of some Sweet Sausage Coffee Ring and a little piece of coffee cake. I finish with a shot of coffee liqueur for fun.

7:20 - I’m in the mood for something sweet so I run down to the local ice cream parlor and pick up a Cappuccino flavored milkshake.

9:00 - I make one more bedtime mug of coffee and slowly slip it for the rest of the evening.

10:15 - I go to bed a little earlier than usual because I just haven’t been sleeping very well.

Maybe it’s time to get a new bed.

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