Telecom surprised me again! I was talking with a phone consultant, arranging an earlier move of my phone line. The lady mentioned some things which seemed totally out of context, as though it was not my phone line, we were talking about. A couple of minutes later, I found an invoice in my mailbox, for dsl in my new flat. How handy! I asked for information brochure, and they sent me an invoice for the service, the sum to be withdrawn from my account! And it’s not the first time they play like this.

I called the customer service again, and complained to another consultant. They will cancel the service, she said, and lo and behold, I will have to send them back an unwanted dsl modem, which they already sent out.

Strange, how she cancelled this service, today a guy called my wife “sorry, I’ll have to turn off your phone line for a while, cause I’m installing dsl”, then he called me to tell that the installation was successful. I told him to switch it back off. Stupid thing, I will be ordering dsl, which uses telecom backbone, from other provider, so the guy will have to switch it on again.

If you think of opening an online business, there’s a lesson to learn for you! The future is being made!

Just imagine the possibilities - A surfer browses through your book reviews. And bang! Your invoices land in his mailbox! The books are already on their way! Or better - instead of sending all these false rolex spam that get trashed every time, just send the invoices already! Instead of the old mundane PULL model of sales, why not PUSH? Make everyone browse their post everyday, and spend a couple of hours sorting out the mess. The post will open a new service Spam Invoice Filter, updating the list of invoice spammers daily, for a small subscribtion fee. Success guaranteed!

OK, I exaggerated a bit - there’s just a handful of companies that have been permitted to withdraw from my account. Nevertheless it’s really a downer when you find you can’t trust one of these few…

Update:
It’s 9th of February, the whole dsl story started on January the 22nd. And despite multiple calls with their hotline, I cannot have any dsl, because in their system (specifically - in the system their partners use, as oposed to their internal system) I am still having that damn dsl.

While arranging a flat in NB, I switched to stealth mode - living in a hotel, feeding on junk food, kebabs et al.

In a pseudo-health-conscious move, I bought a caesar salad in Mc Donalds for a change. Not too tasty, with cheese and croutons, and a lot of dressing. Actually I felt as full upon ingestion as though after eating a big Mac.

Sitting there, downing the salad, after a closer look at this paper ad they always put on trays, I made a small “finding” - a small arrow in the corner hints to the adept that there is a table with nutrition facts on the other side (it could be that it’s only in NB, but I doubt it…)

A peek in there - large Big Mac menu and that’s it for, say 14 hours - calorie-wise. No surprise here, but surprising indeed is that their salads are so “heavy” - with croutons and dressing some of them top the big Mac… That’s the whole calorie-conscious Mac Donalds story…

Today I will go and check if they have nutrition tables in Burger King…

Update: They don’t have such tables, just better salads.

Germans like the coffee sour, I knew that before. But my last Kaffeegenuss proved that what I was taking for “sour” is but a mild distaste, the real “sour” going far beyond my wildest dreams.

The other day I was shopping in PEP. I spotted a pralines shop, where they also had coffee. What gripped my attention was Mexico Maragogipe, a mild coffee with large beans, much less acidic than any other coffee. I always enjoyed it.

Knowing the local preferences, I asked whether the coffee is strongly roasted. “It is mild”, was the answer. So I said “I know it is mild, I want to know if it’s strongly roasted”. “It is mild”

Having heard that I should have backed out. Stupid me! Instead, I bought 250g of that troglodyte coffee, and made espresso as soon as I got home. One thing I can tell, this good mild coffee was not roasted, it was as burnt, as an old pot!

I learnt from that experience, that the coffee available in communist Poland in the 80’s, wasn’t necessarily made of low-quality beans, it was just over-roasted.

If you want to try that exquisite taste of nostalgy, come to PEP in Munich.

With such a sensitive approach to the delicate coffee bean, I reckon their pralines must be made of crunchy cockroaches lovingly coated in lark’s vomit.

I read an article in a polish weekly Tygodnik Forum, about unusual foods. One of these was Kopi Luwak - called the world’s most unusual coffee. Owing it’s unique taste to the fact that before this coffee is roasted, it goes through the alimentary canal of civet cats, it is said to be much smoother than the normal coffee.
Civets are fond of coffee, which they swallow in whole, digest the outer part of the “fruit”, and excrete the seeds. They are then collected from thier droppings and (hopefully) washed.

A UK-based company, edible was mentioned in the article as a purveyor of this delicacy with a not-that-edible price tag 24£ for 57 gram.
Their website is a food-freakshow of a kind - baked worms, insect lollies, two kinds of coffee that entered the animals stomach and left it in ehm… two different ways, to cite but a few.

Well, all that being really fascinating, for now, I will stick to the classical approach - digesting my food in the cosy privacy of my own stomach…