This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004). This blog is one of the transitions for the new year. I've started it This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004). This blog is one This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004

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An Affogato at Caffe Trieste.

10:31 PM Sunday, April 17, 2005

[The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly]

Sunday nights my beloved Espresso Roma is closed after seven or eight. I had to get out of the house and decided to drive all the way to the Berkeley Caffe Trieste, not too close to home, even though gas is almost three bucks a gallon here in Northern California. I wasn't disappointed. It was too late for a latte and a weird time for a plain espresso, but they had something called an" afogato", which turned out to be a scoop of gelato with a shot of espresso. A perfect drink for a a funky Sunday evening. There was a waitress who asked me to smell a rose from her hair, and an earnest barista who appeared to be from India, who explained the "afogato" for me. There was French pop music playing, a mellow dim light, and lots of high-carb goodies in the display cases. A cute brunette customer commented on my "afogato", then ordered a giant piece of cannoli. I tried my "leave the gun, take the cannoli" joke on her but she didn't get the reference. Is the Godfather now something only us old-timers remember, like "La Dolce Vita?"

But I digress (isn't that the whole point of hypertext—digression?) When I get back to my dual-processor G5 with DOHC valves and turbo cooling, I'm going the search the internet for "afogato." Stay tuned.

… OK, he're the scoop (as it were). Affogato in Italian (note the double F) means drowned. In other words it's ice cream drowned in coffee or some other liquid. After exploring a dozen butt-ugly links in Italian (it's not all Gucci, you know), I found this, which seems to do justice to the subject.

OK, it's bedtime. Ciao.—JDL

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