Coffee, Booze, or Benzedrine?

I guess it depends on what you're writing, what kind of chemistry you got goin' on in your body naturally--but what is most interesting about the list below is how unsurprising it is that so many writers depend/ed on some kind of drug in order to be productive.

Believe me, I can relate--if you knew how many horse tranquilizers I was snorting every day, your puny little unenlightened mind would explode.

(courtesy Lapham's Quarterly)

Most of these associations are not terribly surprising, but Elizabeth Barrett Browning on laudanum? That one caught me off guard.

Good for her.

Bad for us:

Until the 20th century, laudanum was available over-the-counter, despite the fact that it contains opium, morphine, and codeine. Today, only infants born to heroin addicts or people with Guinness-record diarrhea can get permission to have a taste of that bitter delight.

Even more reason to try that muy picante salsa...


Dessert:
Much like laudanum, Benzedrine sounds like it was a whole lotta fun as long as you didn't know what it was doing to you in the long run...

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Don't Fuck With a Canadian Donut Store Franchisee

Get a load of this stupid shit that went down in Canada recently, eh:

A coffee enthusiast in St. Andrews, N.B., has learned the customer may not always be right.

After complaining three times about "burnt" decaffeinated coffee at the local Tim Hortons, Jimmy Craig is now banned for life from that outlet and the one in nearby St. Stephen.

"It was like brown, burnt water," said Craig. "I almost, you know, got sick in the sink."

Craig said he voiced his concerns to the store manager and corporate office, then got a meeting with the owner, Edwin Dow.

That's when Dow served Craig with a letter banning him under the province's trespass act.

Craig has contacted a lawyer to try to get the ban overturned.

Meanwhile, he can only return to the Tim Hortons if he's on the job as a paramedic, responding to a medical emergency.

So he's brewing his own coffee at home, which, he said, is cheaper and always fresh.

(full text of article here)

First of all, no coffee enthusiast drinks DECAF, much less decaf from a shitty donut shop. That would be like calling a guy who drink O'Doul's a beer aficionado.

Second of all, Jimmy Craig, if the coffee sucks...why do you care if they ban you from their store? Do you want to keep buying/drinking shitty coffee? Is the local Tim Hortons where girls go to get picked up by overweight middle-aged men?

I don't get it.

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