"I want a new drug..." -- Huey Lewis and the News

Caffeine just doesn't seem to do it for me anymore. I just finished up the last few shreds of that precious Italian coffee I lugged back all the way from Casirate, provinzia di Bergamo. That was marvelous coffee, what the experience of drinking coffee ought to be. Never mind that it was decaf. I will be hard-pressed to find anything from the local supply that can equal the aroma, the flavor, and the spirit of that coffee. Starbucks? PFFFFFT!!!! I don't even know why I return to that place again and again. Their daily brew tastes terrible, like burned rubber. Forget the espressos... the horror of sipping a Starbucks espresso is just so indescribable! The frapuccinos are tolerable, but beneath all that froth lurks a chemical cocktail of food coloring, artificial flavors, and a sackful of sugar. And they serve all this garbage in huge cups, as if trying to get you to puke on their shit so you'll know better than to come back.

"I love the java jive and it loves me..." -- the Manhattan Transfer

I'm not that much of a coffee drinker. But I've arrived at where I can tell good coffee from bad coffee. Speaking of coffee, this Java thing has just got me stumped, and good! When I picked up Microsoft's Visual Basic, it took me all of three days to get the drift and become productive. I was churning out itsy-bitsy little programs. After a month I was generating gargantuan, full-scale enterprise applications.

But if Visual Basic were a woman, she'd be a bitch, and a real whimsical one at that. Pretty, and reliable most times, but not quite there when the going gets tough. Like Monica Lewinsky. I'd been hearing a lot about Java. If I were to believe all that's written about it, and if Java were a woman, she'd be a reliable toughie. Like a Demi Moore, maybe, or a Hilary Swank.

So I did what any I.T. person in need would do -- I dove right into the murky waters of Sumatra, and took a go at Java. It's been three weeks now. And I still don't know what the heck I'm doing. I mean, I have a general idea of how the danged thing works, and I can follow the programming logic. But I just can't seem to get enough of a grip on the entire system. I still haven't gotten my little test programs to work! Oh, well...

"If at first you don't succeed -- SUCK AGAIN!" -- Los Tres Pogis de Anos