This is my first review of a coffee pod.  We have tried many of the common pods.  We are forever searching for the one that packs the most punch with the least amount of bitterness.  We have settled mostly on two flavors.  The one I will cover in this post is Coffee People’s BLACK TIGER.

Black Tiger is by far the strongest we have tried to date.  You can feel the caffeine kick in almost immediately.  I am not up to speed with the lingo on how to review coffee so please forgive my ignorance.  I enjoy Black Tiger on those days when you wake up really tired.  The label on the front of the pod already sets the tone for what you are about to taste.  A bold looking Tiger stares at you as you place it into the machine.  And when you take the first sip bold is what you get.  I would describe the taste as heavy earthy or tobacco like. It holds it’s taste regardless of what flavored creamers you add.  In closeing Black Tiger is so far my morning fuel when the day starts rough.

I have started a new Blog over at squarespace.  I even purchased my own domain name.  MYLIFEHAPPENS.COM This is an experiment in discipline.  I will try to post at least something daily for all to read.  Wish me luck and come do some reading!!!

Hurray !!! I got my first donation from working on homeworkbug.com. A teacher was nice enough to give me a Starbucks gift card today. This may be my favorite kind of donation next to cash of course. I am sure teachers have many unwanted gift cards from Christmas lying around. I will definitely accept these for my efforts. Walmart, Home Depot, iTunes all of these are great. I will update my donations section to list these as options with a mailing address.

as of August 30, 2008

So I happen to look at my blog stats today and I see a HUGE jump in my readership. This blog was meant for me to practice my writing, and give me something to do on those sleepless nights where the kids were up with a fever or I just can’t sleep.

I really have no purpose for this blog except as a place to post things that are longer to explain than a twitter post or Facebook entry can handle.

It is great to see that I am nearing an average of 1000 unique hits a Month.  Most of the hits have to do with the article I wrote comparing coffee makers. Seems like Google likes me too, as I am one of the top hits when you search any of the major pod coffee machines.  The comments on that post are great also, “keep the coming”.  So thank you all for reading my ramblings.  Maybe I will post more stuff now that I know people are reading.

~Tony

Although my iPhone is loaded with tons of apps my favorite or most used apps on the iphone are:

FaceBook
Using this cuts down on sitting at the computer at night.

Twitterific and Twinkle
Both of these are cool if use Twitter “still trying to get more people on”

Evernote
I can’t even begin to explain how useful this is. All my notes, screen shots synchronized on all my computers PC & MAC & iPhone. .

Zenbe
Simple todo list. I sync it, so Sharon and I can keep up with all the crap we need to do around the house.

NY Times
Since I have to keep up with all the stuff going on, this app allowes me to sound somewhat smart during small talk at work.

Bloomberg
This app is the best looking if the bunch. I can watch the stock plumit where I work and read news for my company. Go ahead and google where I work and see the horror show.

Weather Bug
This is nice app. Only use it to look at radar fir storms. The iPhone app for weather is for every day.

Pandora
Cool way to listen I music basically you enter the name of your favorite song or artist an it makes a playlist of similar sounding songs. I find lots of new stuff to listen to this way.

Remote
This app controls everything you have on iTunes. Really amazing actually. I still can’t believe this even works.

WordPress
I am able to update my Blog from this app directly. I posted this while in the movies waiting for the movie to start.

Web short cuts
The rest of my iphone is littered with web shortcuts. These get me to my favorite sites fast. Woot and DIGG ate my favorites.

Games
I am trying lots of games. The coolest games are “Tap Tap Revenge” and Labyrinth.

As you can see from the photo I have 7 pages of applications, games, etc. You can take a picture of the screen by holding the bottom and top buttons together.

Trying out tons of apps on the iPhone. Today I got a hold of an app for my favorite blogging tool. So far so good. This is my first post using it.

I will try to add a photo of the main screen and post this to see what it looks like.

So it works pretty well. I will maybe write reviews of some of my favorite apps this way. I have to practice my writing some how.

I am standing in line for the new iPhone. I normally don’t stand in line for anything but I really didn’t feel like waiting for it. I do have a really bad “early adopter” complex. Generally this causes me to pay more for things that get cheaper over time. I also end up dealing with buggy issues that all later adopters get to miss.

Well wish me luck I am about 75 in line and I just heard they are running out of stock already.

You hear about it almost everyday now. The headlines are popping into mainstream news. Coffee is being hit pretty hard by the economy. Even the giants like Starbucks are losing money. But how is this possible? I thought coffee drinking would be up. Traditionally during down swings in the economy it’s the addictive habit forming bad stuff that usually does well, like cigarettes, alcohol and yes our favorite drink Coffee.

I love coffee in good times and in bad. Lately times are a bit rough, gas price is up, the fear of recession is looming, many are unemployed. I guess the idea of going into a really nice store with wood floors and nice couches and buying a cup of coffee with a name like “Venti Caramel Macchiato, with Whip Cream, Extra Hot with a shot of Espresso” just doesn’t sound like the right thing to do during these times. So what are people doing for their coffee fix?

I think people are going to places where it feels right. For example at Dunkin’ Donuts, coffee is just called coffee. You have a choice of small, medium or large. You can have creme or milk and what ever sweetener you like. If you work at it you can make you coffee taste anyway you like. Sure the cup is made of Styrofoam and it doesn’t have a cardboard sleeve. When thrown away the cup will never decompose and that’s bad for the environment. You don’t get someone called a “Barrista” making your coffee. But you feel good about that Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. You didn’t overspend or splurge. You are drinking with the common folk. I have noticed a lot less staring while carrying my Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup than when I was toting around my Starbucks coffee cup.

I think even McDonald’s is getting the hint. They are offering coffee where people buy comfort food. There is nothing like getting up early and heading into McDonald s for a Sausage McMuffin and Hash browns. In the past I would never think to get coffee at McDonald’s but now they have the same large cups and raised lids that make you feel like you have a good cup of coffee.

So I think Starbucks needs to become more socially acceptable during good times and bad. Here are some ideas for Starbucks to get me in the store.

• Free WIFI: Nothing is better with coffee than some free internet use.
• Inexpensive “make your own” coffee with free refills: I normally just get a regular coffee at starbucks so why does someone have to pull the handle on the coffee urn for me, when I can do it myself. The free refills would keep me in the store eating more banana nut loaf.
• Coffee lessons: have the Baristas teach us common folk how to make a good espresso.

When the times are good and you want to feel like a treat goto Starbucks. When your dealing with day to day just surviving in this crazy economy go where it feels right.

Inspired by:
Pressed by Economy, Starbucks Lowers Its Forcast – New York Times

I thought I would take a moment a write down my thoughts about these new instant coffee machines. Over the holidays I was lucky enough to get a gift that allowed me to purchase one and by chance I also won a different free one by filling out a survey. We didn’t know much about these machines so hopefully our research and this post will help you get to your choice quicker than we did.

So lets first look at how I chose the one we bought. We looked at the three main players in this space. Keurig, Tassimo, and Senseo. We thought we wanted the Tassimo which is touting that they are the only one that has Starbucks coffee, so that is what we looked at first.

The Tassimo was small and compact, and upon reading reviews of the unit, people seemed to like it. They just said it was loud. (Loud isn’t good at 5:30am with sleeping children in the house.) Anyway when we went to the store to look at it we were not impressed. Strike one, the unit was small and it didn’t seem to fit our tall travel mugs. Can you imagine filling a smaller cup and then dumping the coffee into a larger one. For the Martinez Family efficiency is key, more dishes didn’t make sense. Also the water reservoir was on the back of the unit so if you place it on the counter you need to move it forward to add water. each time. Strike two, all the stores we visited didn’t seem to have any of these new Starbucks discs for the Tassimo. And strike three, the unit seemed made of light and cheap plastic. Seems that with daily use it would start to break apart. The Tassimo uses T-Discs. The price of one cup of coffee with a Tassimo was $.56 per cup. This is the most expensive single cup option. Lastly we did not try the coffee since all the issues prevented the purchase of the machine.

Next we researched the Keurig. The Keurig was tall enough to fill our tallest travel mug. At first it looked too tall. “Would it even fit under our counter?” We took a chance and it fit really nice. The large water reservoir was detachable and hangs on the side of the unit. This makes it easy to get to and refill. Although there wasn’t a Starbucks option we always found the pods available in all flavors in all the stores we went to. They even have an assortment of Tea’s. The unit itself was solid and durable looking. You insert the K-cup into the top and pull down a nice chrome handle to start the process. The noise level is moderate with a light hum while brewing. Once brewing is done you open the handle and through away the pod. There is nothing to clean or rinse. No extra trips to the sink. The machine is solid. It doesn’t feel like your going to break it. The pods are sealed so the coffee doesn’t get stale. The Model we chose has a small computer that we set to auto shut off after one hour. The coffee tastes great, and only costs $.40 per cup. You will need to try the different flavors that come in the included variety pack to figure out the ones you like. This one is a keeper.

So after 2 weeks of using the Keurig a free Senseo machine arrived at our door. If you goto their website and fill out a survey (and they like you) they will send you one free. I was exicted because now with another machine, I can take one to work for my office. The coffee at work has been dismal. After unpacking the machine and setting it up I found it to look really cool but it felt light and “plasticy”. The water reservoir is on the back and has this annoying piece of plastic that falls off. The coffee comes in these tea bag like discs and are open to the air not sealed. This leads me to think maybe they will go stale sooner. There is also an extra disc holder that lets you pile 2 discs together so you can make 2 cups of coffee at the same time. Yes you can fill two mugs at once, side by side. I thought that was it’s only cool feature. The noise level is OK. So it shouldn’t bother anyone at work, since that is where this unit will end up. After brewing you need to remove the soggy disc and throw it away and rinse the disc holder. This means more trips to the sink. I will have to try the different flavors because the one sample that came with it tasted a bit bitter. So since it’s free and the price per cup is only $.20, I will use it at work and enjoy my own coffee rather than the horrible stuff we have there.

Needs discovered along the way:

• Must fit tall travel mug.
• Cost per cup must be reasonable.
• Noise maybe a factor.
• Durablity

Price Per Cup:

Tassimo T-Disc = $.56

Keurig K-Cup = $.40

Senseo Pad = $.20

prices from : www.singleservecoffee.com

So the Keurig is the best for us but I hope this information helps you decide or narrow down what your looking for in a single cup machine. Let me what you chose by leaving a comment.

Some follow-up tips from using the KEURIG for a few weeks.

Here are some more tips to get to good coffee.

- All the coffee we use is the extra bold type. That really helps with the flavor.

- To fill a large travel mug press the small cup setting twice to fill the cup. That will leave a little room for milk and stuff.

- My favorite pod so far is made by “The Organic People” Extra Bold. Sharon’s favorite is “Green Mountain” Extra Bold.

- Set the temperature setting to the highest setting. For us it is 192 degrees

Please Digg this artical if you enjoyed it.

This Blog is powered by Coffee and is completely Free, so if you like this what your reading, buy me a Cup of Coffee. This will allow me to continue to post into all hours of the night.

You can send a small donation

to me using Paypal to netbooee@gmail.com

Time to start thinking about next years goals. Maybe I will try to lose weight, save money, be happier? All those things sound great but I say I am going to do them every year. What will I try this year? I have been thinking about this for a while now. I guess what I need to do first is take inventory of what I have.

• Family: is Healthy
• House: Needs work but it is ok.
• Work: I have a job, that’s good
• Stuff: I have too much stuff
• Me: I am ok

So now that I took inventory I still can’t see what I need to do in 2008. Maybe it means I need to do something for a cause. I really don’t know what I care about. Animals in trouble, the environment, the homeless, orphans? All these have a really good support systems already.

What can I do that is unique and still make a difference? This is what is on my mind today. I hope to have this better thought through before the 1st. If you have any ideas let me know by commenting.