Cong kisses a guest
 
You ever look at raccoon headlines in the news? They’re often amusing or interesting. Right now on Google News you’ll find the headlines “Raccoon Takes Out Power to Thousands” (Wisconsin) and “Burglary Suspect Turns Out to Be Raccoon” (Florida) and “Raccoon Moved, Twice” (Connecticut).

If you find any of those stories worth clicking on, then you’ll surely be interested in an establishment called Blind Alley in Seoul, South Korea, which counts among its primary features two live raccoons—their names are Cong (male) and Milk (female)—and patrons have the option of staying in the “normal room” (where food can be consumed) or entering the “raccoon room,” in which they can interact with the furry creatures.

The cafe has been a mecca for raccoon lovers for about a year and a half, when Han Song-hee took over the establishment gave Cong and Milk the run of the place. Those who are dubious about the whole concept of a raccoon cafe might be mollified to hear that one of the pair of raccoons was rescued:
 

I adopted Cong from a breeder. Cong’s family has been domesticated from his grandmother’s generation. Since he was alone, I wanted to get him a friend. Milk was one of those raccoons imported to China and destined for pelt or fur coats. I was able to adopt her from one of [the] animal importers.

 
In my experience, there’s not much middle ground on raccoons—either you find them super-cute or you detest them—and that’s If you don’t happen to have a debilitating fear of them. It’s clear who Blind Alley’s target audience is, anyway.

The author of the book on raccoons—literally, he wrote Raccoons, A Natural History—Sam Zeveloff isn’t sure the raccoon cafe is such a good idea: “Raccoons, like other wild animals, typically are not good pets, given that their behaviors are incompatible with ours. ... We should interact carefully with them, from a distance.” Not surprisingly, Zeveloff understands the attraction, however: “Their striking masks, impish faces, lustrous fur, and ringed tails are all aesthetically appealing.”

 

Milk on a walkway
 
More after the jump…

 
I was going to blog about this Aurora Borealis heat changing coffee mug on April Fools’ day. I hesitated though, as I thought it might be an April Fools’ prank. Alas, I’m proven wrong and it’s a real thing brought to you by Think Geek. Experience the northern lights every time this coffee mug is filled with a hot beverage of your choice.

Caffeine. It makes us light up. It excites us. The thought of that first cup of coffee can really get us moving in the morning, literally and figuratively.

Much as caffeine particles pass into our bloodstream and make us bounce off walls, so, too, the particles from solar winds pass through the Earth’s magnetosphere near the poles and share energy, causing a spectacular display in the upper atmosphere. When these particles collide with oxygen in particular at lower altitudes (up to 150 miles), the photon released appears green or yellow, giving a similar light show as to the one captured on this mug when you fill it with warm liquid.

For that coffee or tea lover in your life who needs it.

More after the jump…

 
If you find yourself in South Korea and want a coffeeshop in which you are obliged to meditate on the ... ultimate end result of the coffee you are enjoying, you are going to want to visit the Poop Café in Seoul, or, as it is properly called in Korean,  또옹카페.

The amusing website Seoul Searching posted about the café a couple of weeks ago, and the internet is having quite a titter over it. The café does not serve poop, of course—now THAT would be a story!—but many of its offerings as well as decor resemble cute turds, simply put. Your coffee mug is likely to resemble a toilet.

Here are some highlights from the charming account by Lexi, who runs the Seoul Searching blog:

There is a tree inside decorated with colorful poop-shaped papers. Then, once you are inside, you realize that the poop-shaped papers also have adorable little faces, sneakers and handwritten messages on them from previous visitors.

Inside, the cafe is surprisingly normal. … I suppose I was hoping for more of a shock factor.

Despite the ordinary interior, I began to to find those quirky poop hidden treasures I longed for. A few squat toilets that had been turned into mini gardens occupied some floor space, porcelain cups with poops painted on them lined the shelves and colorful plush coils of “poop” could be found on tables, chairs and in little nooks and crannies. I like to get a little silly with the plush poops.

Poop Café is near Gyeongbokgung Palace, on the 4th floor of the Ssamziegil Mall.
 

 

 
More pics after the jump…......
 

Instant? Ziggy, you surprise me.
 
Whenever some foodie gets snooty about Starbucks, it’s helpful to keep some historical perspective. Before the mass coffee chain invaded every strip mall in suburbia (plus half the truckstops in bumfuck), you were likely purchasing disgusting grocery store mud on your way to work. So yes, Starbucks is a homogenizing blight of cut-throat capitalist banality, but it has raised coffee standards for your average American, who otherwise would still be choking down Folgers.

Apparently during the early 80s young people stopped drinking coffee entirely. Soda was tastier and it didn’t make you feel like an old man punching in for his day at the mill. Okay, I just made that up, but still coffee had yet to hook the MTV generation!

In 1984, The National Coffee Association launched a campaign called “The Coffee Achievers”—trying sell coffee as young and hip. It’s not exactly clear who was a spokesperson for the ad, and who was just pasted in without their consent. I find it somewhat unlikely that NFL quarterback Ken Anderson, Jane Curtain or David fucking Bowie knew that footage of them was being used to promote coffee, but it looks like Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart were enthusiastically on board, literally; note the coffee mug being set down right on the expensive mixing board. Cicely Tyson was obviously a willing participant—and you will note that coffee makes her want to hit someone—but Kurt Vonnegut? Looks like it. The ELO soundtrack isn’t half bad, but I’m willing to bet Starbucks and the exporting of Seattle’s grunge culture did more for youth coffee consumption than the oh-so-hip Jeff Lynne.
 

 
In 2000 Paul Stanley taped a commercial for Folgers coffee that never made it to air—it’s been hotly sought after for video scavengers ever since. Audio of the commercial has been on YouTube since 2008, but not the video. Yesterday, a YouTube user named John DiMaggio uploaded it for all to see. It’s a bizarre commercial set in a big top circus tent that doesn’t play to Stanley’s delirious, voluble strengths—in other words, why is Paul Stanley in this commercial and not Paul Williams? No reason that I can see.

The same year that he shot the commercial, Stanley discussed the commercial in an interview: “Life is strange. I got a call asking if I was interested in singing a Folgers commercial. And, like many other things, I thought, ‘Why not?’ I wasn’t at all concerned with who thinks it is okay or not okay, cool, not cool, rock ‘n’ roll or not. I had a blast doing it, and, like I said, isn’t that what this is all about?”

The word (as related by John DiMaggio) is that “focus groups asked ‘who is the old, creepy guy?’ and the agency pulled it.” Seems plausible enough. The soft-focus business with the trapeze artists reminds me of nothing so much as a Cialis commercial.
 

 
via Ultimate Classic Rock/Thank you Annie Zaleski!

 
Oh my. Unsuspecting Swiss citizens on their morning commute looking to make their coffee more tasty were unexpectedly confronted with the face of the twentieth century’s most iconic representation of evil, Adolf Hitler, on their miniature packets of coffee creamer. A subsidiary of Migros, a Swiss retail behemoth, produced the coffee creamer packages, which had both Hitler and Mussolini on them.

According to the New York Times, Tristan Cerf, a spokesman for Migros, said that “the mishap occurred when an outside company asked ELSA, a dairy manufacturer that is one of Migros’s subsidiaries, to supply a series of 55 coffee cream containers based on vintage cigar labels, two of which featured the dictators.”

“I can’t tell you how these labels got past our controls,’’ Mr. Cerf said. “Usually the labels have pleasant images like trains, landscapes and dogs—nothing polemic that can pose a problem.” As the Times reported, “In coffee-loving Switzerland, labels from the mini-cream containers are cult collectibles, and producers often seek new and inventive ways to enhance their appeal.”

On Wednesday, the coffee creamer packages caused a minor sensation on the Internet. The Migros immediately parted ways with Karo Shipping, the company responsible for them. After the existence of the dictator portraits was broken by the Swiss commuter newspaper “20 Minutes” Migros immediately apologized and referred to it as an “unforgivable blunder.”

The designs should never have been shipped, said Migros spokesperson Luzi Weber. Chosen by Karo Shipping, they were adopted before anyone had examined them closely. “In future, we will tighten our controls for these products drastically,” Weber said. A total of 300 boxes, each containing 200 coffee cream portions, were sold. However, the two dictators would recur only four times per package.
 

 
Because the Karo Shipping managing director Peter Waelchli described the coffee creamers in various media reports as “not a problem,” Migros immediately broke off business relations with the company, which is located in Bern. “The image is one of many in the series of cigar bands, which is on the collectors’ market for two years,” said Waelchli. The picture was selected from a book about cigar bands. Waelchli can not understand how—after two years—it is suddenly such a big deal in the media. “Sure it’s bad, what happened under Hitler,” Waelchli said. “Even today people do bad things—in Syria people are being beheaded.”

“These statements are unacceptable to us,” said Weber.
 
Thank you Susan Stone!

 
Boston-based artist Jake Fried creates these incredible, trippy, hand-drawn animations, or as he calls them “moving paintings,” by repeatedly layering on top of an original drawing with white-out, gouache, ink and coffee. Each animation shows the drawing process from original sketch lines to finished picture.

Fried’s animations are described as “psychedelic” and “spiritual,” and have been screened at the Tate Modern in London, Sundance Film Festival, and during Cartoon Network’s late night Adult Swim programming bloc.

See more of Jake’s work here.
 

 
Via Neatorama

 
Starbucks has apologized to a Louisiana woman who claims a Baton Rouge barista drew a pentagram and 666 in her coffee with caramel drizzle.

Starbucks told The Daily Adviser:

(Sunday) was the first we heard of it when she posted on our Facebook page,” Starbucks social media team spokesman Tom Kuhn told The Daily Advertiser. “We reached out to her through social media and apologized. We’re taking the complaint seriously. We’re not sure who served her or what kind of beverage it was. It looks kind of caramel-ish in the photos.

When asked if Starbucks will change its policy regarding foam art (cos there’s some Satanic shit going on), Starbucks replied:

I don’t know; I guess it could.

All hail the satanic Starbucks cup of joe!

Via Gawker

 
I am forbidden to drink coffee. My wife says it turns me into a speed-talking, speed-walking lunatic (“and an asshole” she insisted I add) and this is, if I am honest, undeniably true. It was none other than Lemmy himself who once told me that speed really did what cocaine is supposed to do, but as far as my body processes caffeine, it has a far greater effect on me than even the best coke does. My wife is right, it does turn me right into a Tasmanian devil. Sometimes I sneak coffee behind her back and I feel like I’m a former drug addict backsliding. As pathetic as I realize this sounds, it feels kind of shameful. She always knows when I’ve had a cup or two. Every time. Without fail. I try to lie about it, but she sees right through that.

Yep, coffee has a super-pronounced effect on me. Personally I really enjoy the effects, but when your partner can peg your “wired” and “weird” behavior just as easily as if you had snorted a pound a blow, there might be a problem, right?

In any case, knowing how coffee transforms me into a complete maniac, I have long suspected that the rise in “road rage” in recent years had much in common with the parallel increase of premium coffee chains like Starbucks and Peet’s popping up on every street corner like mushrooms after it rains… People drink a lot more coffee than they used to, this much is undeniable. When did we first start hearing the term “road rage” or experience it ourselves? Coincidence? I think not.

Which brings me to my next topic: Red Bull. The first time I drank a Red Bull, it was at a party and about 9pm. I drank two because I was really exhausted and because it tasted like a liquid version of Flintstones Vitamins.

I perked right up to be sure, but I also did not sleep again for two whole days!
 

 
With the above in mind, this morning I became aware (via Caffeine Informer) that on average (because caffeine levels can vary so widely) a 16oz Starbucks Grande coffee, with approximately 330mg of caffeine is FOUR TIMES stronger than a Red Bull, two times stronger than a Monster Energy Drink and eight times stronger than a Coca-Cola Classic.

When coffee was first introduced into the European diet in the 16th century, there were calls to ban what was then thought of as a “Muslim drink.” (Coffee was also banned for quite some time by Arab societies.) Some of the earliest examples of what we’d now call an “advice column” apparently address the problem of coffee addiction causing weird behavior. In 1511, according to Terence McKenna in his Food of the Gods, the Prince of Waldeck set up what was basically the first “drug snitch” program and offered monetary rewards to anyone who turned in a coffee drinker. People were fined and given floggings over coffee. After a few centuries, most of us (not me!) are accustomed to the effects of caffeine, but for some people it can cause anxiety, depression and other psychological discomforts.

Or perhaps make you act like an asshole when you’re driving? I’m not a scientist, I’m just throwing it out there.

Here’s some nice road rage footage. Not sure what this driver drank before this unfortunate incident, but I suspect that it had a lot of caffeine in it. Skip to the 1:00 mark.
 

Via reddit

“Rock Lobster” by deviantart’s ~alabama-slamma
 
It’s great to see some B-52s lovin’ going on at DM just now. As Richard has mentioned they’re a uniquely American band, and a serious gateway to trashy American kitsch-and-camp like John Waters and Russ Meyers. They’ve been known to inspire some extreme reactions in their fans too. Just take a look at this guy:
 

 
As uploader hollow01 says:

“there was a lot of booze and coffee that night.”

I bet!

Thanks to Joe Spencer.