Practicalmadness

Regarding the CTA's S-M-R-T card

A few quick, Chicago-related notes tonight. First, Practical reader Ryan writes in to report that the Chicago Card Plus I wrote about this week is not totally, 100% operational:

The CTA hasn't made its employees aware that the cards are already available. My card isn't charged for transfers for some reason. So far I haven't gotten a response from the CTA yet on the matter.

So...are they working, but just not charging for transfers? I would think that that's a good thing.

Three Buck Chuck

Next, for those Chicagoans who've been interested to hear about Trader Joe's line of $2 Charles Shaw wines (known colloquially as Two Buck Chuck), a few tips:
* Here, presumably due to the additional cost of shipping these Californian wines to Illinois, and perhaps also vagaries of Illinois state liquor laws, in Chicago it's more appropriate to call them Three Buck Chuck, as Charles Shaw retails for $2.99. That said, one can buy a bottle of xBC, a corkscrew because you were too dumb to remember to pack one and a jar of unsalted organic crunchy peanut butter for less than the cost of a tiny split bottle of Coppola merlot.
* There are two Chicago-area Trader Joe's stores; the one on Clybourn Avenue in Lincoln Park may be more accessible to some of you, as it is to me. If you want to save some time, look for the elevator which is (I think) just past Bombay if you're walking North(west) on Cly. But if you're looking for an interesting time, and possibly to kill yourself, you can do what I did and run up the parking garage ramp to get in. What I mean to say here is that the only entrance to the store is inside the parking deck, and you can get there the easy way, or you can get there the hard way.
* In addition to cheap-ass wines, you can also purchase real wines, including a Trader Joe's house label which looks promising. (Four Buck Jethro?) Additionally, there is a vast panoply of TJ-branded gourmet goodies at reasonable prices. Now, when I say reasonable, I mean that you could, if you wanted to spend half an hour at Whole Foods looking for it, find a more expensive jar of spreadable strawberry gunk. Or you could just go downtown and buy a jar of Smuckers for $1.50 on sale.

Coffee consumerism

The Bloomingdale's Home Temple¹ won my heart when I first looked at their really frighteningly extensive coffee-equipment department; tonight I finally got a chance to partake of same. In addition to my bed linens, I picked up a hot water kettle (for the consumption of ramen and tea) and, even better, a Bodum Electric Mini Santos vacuum brewer.

Starbucks patrons may recall the Barista Utopia vacuum brewer, which made quite a show of brewing coffee through a process we lovingly liked to call "nuking" it². The Santos is Bodum's name for that coffeemaker, which we sold exclusively under our own brand name until Bodum realized that Amazon.com and Bloomingdales could actually sell the fuckers. The Mini Santos is something I've thought needed to exist for a long time: a 5-cup version, perfect for use in, hmmmmm, a dorm room perhaps?

This is significant why: Vacuum-brewed coffee, at least as made with a Bodum Santos, has all the flavor of press-brewed coffee (which is to say, a hell of a lot of flavor) and most of the convenience of a regular drip coffeemaker.

Combine this with a half-pound of something or other from Intelligentsia and we're awwwwwll goood, baby.