This is sad, but instructive. One week a businesswoman in Riyadh praised the freedom she had as a woman, saying the city had a bad reputation which it did not deserve. The following Monday, she sat with a male colleague in Starbucks, violating a strict law against “public contact between unrelated men and women.” Somehow the contact law doesn’t prohibit the strip search she received after her arrest. Fox News reports:

She was thrown in jail, strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the kingdom’s “Mutaween” police.

“When I was arrested, it was like going through an avalanche,” she said. “All of my beliefs were completely destroyed.”

Ed Levine lists some favored hot chocolate brands. As it usually goes with lists like this, I haven’t seen these products at my local Piggly Wiggly. I haven’t seen any of them beyond Swiss Miss, which is a wonderful product made from pure Swiss-grown ingredients and hand-mixed by beautiful Swiss girls for a few hours each day after school. What does Ghiradelli have on that, I ask you? Those Italians think any food they make is the creme of the crop. Well, there are little Swiss children who know better.

In Greensburg, Pennsylvania, one woman at the Starbucks drive-through decides to pay for the guy behind her too. That guys pays for the guy behind him, and two hours later, people are still paying for the next customer’s order.

Frank Wilson points out a good report on coffee consumption. Drinking a lot of coffee isn’t bad for you, according to this report, but usually people who drink a lot also have other habits which do promote bad health.

Research on eight Boston coffee shops indicates female customers wait as much as 20 seconds longer than male customers for their coffee. Maybe the researchers should look outside Boston. Eight stores? Is that really enough of a sample for this conclusion?

1. Chicago, Tampa, Miami, Phoenix, and Atlanta have the highest percentages of caffeine consumers. That includes cokes and chocolate, not just coffee. Atlanta, by the way, is the HQ of Coca-Cola. Philadelphia and Baltimore were among the “least caffeinated cities.” Perhaps picking up the coffee drinking would help you in your war over E.A. Poe, Philadelphia.

2. Chicago readers who drink coffee (or Coffee-drinking Chicagans who read) may be interested in this round-up of local coffee shops.

Continue reading We Talked Over Coffee →

Ok, Denise, how do you score on this coffee quiz? I got 10/10! Of course, I used the hints extensively, but I had a good idea before I clicked on most questions.

How much do you know about chocolate? Here’s a chocolate quiz. My wife and I got 5/10, so we have plenty to learn.

What kind of coffee do you drink? Whatever is available, sometimes known as “whatevrsthare”? Only the best? Have you clicked through the Boca Java ads which seem to be everywhere nowadays? Or you gambled on the link from your favorite lit-blog and bought something through Chattanooga’s own Rarecoffee.com?

For me, I have Maxwell House at the office, but don’t drink much of it. I sip it regularly and throw out most of my cup. The most coffee I drink comes from home where I grow it in my backyard and roast in my kitchen. Yep. And have you heard that too much coffee makes you an irresponsible liar prone to poor judgment? It’s true! The Nobel Peace Prize judges are well-known for their high coffee consumption.

Anyway, I’m currently drinking something organic from Sumatra which I bought at the Fresh Market. What are you drinking? Or if you’d rather, what would you prefer to be drinking?