2355 Modern Whines

There are things about modern times I'm not sure I'll ever adjust to. That's saying a lot coming from a guy who once endured the battling behemoths of Meatloaf and Leslie West of Mountain. We had rock-and-roll huge-i-tude long before the Three Tenors were more than 295 a piece.

Take Amazon's new Fire Stick. It's Amazon's competition for Google's Chromecast thingy. I guess thingy isn't the right word. Technically, both of them are "dongles" that you plug into the HDMI port on your modern TV. 

What I'm not sure I'll get used to is saying that Amazon and Google are having a battle of the dongles. 

Another thing I don't think I'll ever get used to is coffee shops that make a fetish of the perfect single cup of coffee. Especially when it's to go. 

Case in point. The other day I was at this place and the barista guy was making a to go order for what eventually amounted to four 8- ounce lattes. Now, I'm a guy who looks for efficiency. If I were making four 8-ounce cups, I would use one of those double espresso spigots, heat up 32 ounces of milk and pour 'em off like beers from an open tap at an Oktoberfest.

Not so Mr. uber-coffee fetishist. Each cup was painstakingly crafted; a single shot extracted, separate milk steamed, with a perfect leaf pattern presentation beautifully poured. 

Net result. The first cup was on its way to tepid by the time the last cup was poured, and all of the leaf patterns got mixed up and blobified on the ride back to the office anyway. Meanwhile me, a customer right there, who could appreciate such good service, had yet to order. 

I felt old-fashioned and outmoded. Cast aside like a discarded dongle. 

America, ya gotta love it.