Book report

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of poker books, but in high school I read a lot of literature. I didn’t read things like the Great Gatsby or Sense and Sensibility. I preferred Tropic of Cancer. Tropic of Cancer is an awesomely filthy book. Who wants to read about the 50 shades of Gray when you can read about Henry Miller’s escapades with one legged hookers or how his Indian friend took a shit in the bidet of a whorehouse? It’s racist, it’s sexist—he calls one of the characters, Tania, an international cunt. I used to tell people this was my favorite book and hardly anyone ever heard of it. “What’s it about?” They would invariably ask. I used to say I don’t know. This guy goes to Paris…he’s an ex patriot and he wrote a book that changed the censorship laws in America. That’s not what it’s about though. It’s about sex mostly, but it’s more than that. It’s a book about a working class man trying to become a writer. Actually he is a writer. Trying isn’t the right word. “A year ago, six months ago, I thought I was an artist. I no longer think about it. I am.” Over the summer I read the book again. It’s amazing how much stuff I missed before because I wasn’t literate enough to understand it. I’ve had that line memorized for years, but I don’t think I fully understood it until recently. The book is chock full of vocabulary candy. The first time I read it, I had no idea what half the words meant. I didn’t know what a valise was. I didn’t know the meaning of “polysyllabic” or “indefatigable.” No one uses the word “quim” anymore either. Back then I had to have the dictionary besides me just to translate the book so I missed a lot of the subtle nuances. Reading a book like this when you are older is such a different experience. My vocabulary is more extensive and even if I come across a word I don’t understand all I have to do is touch it and the definition instantaneously appears like magic. I now know that “I am” is the shortest sentence in the English language. It is also the English translation of the name of god. Yahweh is I am. His Indian friend takes a bath every Sunday so he can please the great I am. I’m paraphrasing because I don’t feel like going back and finding the passage, but it’s things like that that really stick out when you read it again with a 34 or 35 year old brain as opposed to the brain of a horny virgin teenager. One of my favorite parts of the book is a monologue by Van Norden. It’s a rant about sex and poverty. It’s so different from the way I remember it. I thought it was a great ode to manliness. I admired the way this guy had such a way with women. I was wrong. “I had a married woman the other day who told me she hadn’t had a lay for six months. Can you imagine that? Jesus, she was hot! I thought she’d tear the cock off me. And groaning all the time. “Do you? Do you?” She kept saying that all the time, like she was nuts. And do you know what that bitch wanted to do? She wanted to move in here. Imagine that! Asking me if I loved her. I didn’t even know her name. I never know their names… I don’t want to. The married ones! Christ, if you saw all the married cunts I bring up here you’d never have any more illusions. They’re worse than the virgins, the married ones. They don’t wait for you to start things – they fish it out for you themselves. And then they talk about love afterwards. It’s disgusting. I tell you, I’m actually beginning to hate cunt!” I have a different perspective. There is another line where Van Norden says he would rather read a book than have sex(more colorfully of course) When I was young I thought that was hilarious. Now, from the perspective of this age, it is one of the most melancholy stories I have ever heard. Sex is something I used to think of as a wonderful expression of love between a man and a woman. It was supposed to be the joining of souls, not in any supernatural sense. The soul I am referring to is the soul of consciousness. The soul is between your ears. Everything I value, everything I am meeting in the middle with a woman who shares the same values.—the romantic ideal. This was real easy to think before I ever had sex, especially as the proverbial late bloomer. Now it just seems like a biological need. It’s lost the romance. I’ve become so cynical. You say what you need to say, do what you need to do to cum. You always hear how everybody doesn’t like to play games, but when you don’t play the game and are genuinely honest—it makes you look needy or desperate. The same thing happened to me when I re-read The love song of Alfred J. Prufrock. In High School I remember it reminding me of my favorite nostalgic memory of going to Philippe’s after the Dodger game because it says something about sawdust on the floor. Now another couple lines stick out: I grow old…I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. I don’t feel that old, but I understand the poem a lot more now. He’s a dude that is afraid of rejection, has trouble with women and is a little down on himself because his hair is graying and he has a bald spot. I put a lot of water based pomade in my hair and it’s starting to get thin. I cuff my jeans. I have always been out of fashion, mostly on purpose. It sucks getting older. The problem with Prufrock is that he gives a fuck. I used to give a fuck, now I don’t—this is what I keep telling myself. People are always asking me for advice about women. I don’t know if I’m qualified to give any advice. I guess my advice comes down to this: You don’t want to be afraid of rejection like Prufrock. Yes you should dare goddamn it! What you don’t want to do is become misogynistic cynic like Van Norden, fucking away all the meaning out of life. Reading that book again really affected me. It changed my perspective, again.

Why I support Dan Cathy’s (CEO of Chick Filet) Freedom of Speech.

I’m tired of hearing about Chick Filet, but here’s the reason why. The CEO has the right to express is opinion because he is a citizen of the United States of America and enjoys the right to speak his mind because of the first amendment.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
So yes, the CEO does have the right to say what he wants the same way the Westboro Baptist church has the right to say god hates fags at military funerals. Customers of Chick Filet have the right to stuff as much cock in their mouth to protest gay marriage as they want. On the other hand, supporters of gay marriage have the right to boycott the company as well.
Freedom of speech does not make you right or moral however. When it comes to sex, many of the religious folks in our country have morality all backwards. In my opinion, there are immoral sex acts. Rape is immoral. Forcing someone to have sex without their consent is just about the worst crime I can think of besides murder. It is wrong, not because it says so in some bronze age book with an unknown author says it’s wrong, It is wrong because it is evil to force someone into having sex with you against their will. Forcing people to do things against their will is evil.
There is a story in the book of Genesis that most Christians say is the reason why god hates fags. . . okay maybe most Christians don’t put it in those terms, but a rose by any other name is still a rose, right? The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is engrained in our culture, so much so that we think we all know it. Why even read that part of the bible, everyone know s the story right? Here is a quick synopsis, ikn case you haven’t actually read the first book of the bible or maybe you just forgot:

The story begins with two angels entering the city of Sodom. They meet a man named Lot who wants to wash their feet. The bible is chock full of foot fetish imagery like this. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples in the new Testament (I know you didn’t think Jesus was so kinky did you?) Lot was very hospitable he even baked the angels’ bread without yeast, because mnot only does got hate fags—he also hates yeast.
Then some dudes from the city come up to Lot and ask him to bring out the new boys so they can have sex with them. I guess they didn’t know they were angels, maybe they hid their wings? This is wrong by the way. I am assuming that these dudes wanted to fuck the angels with or without their consent. That’s rape. Rape is bad. Rape really is evil.
So then Lot is like “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing.” Good for Lot, he doesn’t agree with rape, this is a good moral lesson to learn. . . “Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
What the fuck! Lot! What the hell is the matter with you? You offer your virgin daughters up for rape instead? That’s ass backwards. Rape is wrong. Rape is wrong, Rape is Wrong. Stand up and tell them to go fuck themselves. The angels can fly away with their invisible wings, but you should protect your daughters from being raped as long as you can by any means necessary.
Then the angels tell Lot to get the fuck out because they are going to destroy the place.
Lot and his family get out of dodge(or Sodom) I’m sure you’ve heard this part before, fire and brimstone, yada, yada, yada, the city is destroyed, but first Lot’s wife looks back at the city. Because she looks back she was magically turned into a pillar of salt.
So then after they leave Sodom, Lot no longer has a wife. His virgin daughters decide to get him drunk and fuck him so they can preserve their family line through their father.
I’m not the first person to critique this story, Richard Dawkin’s says similar things in the God Delusion, but I’m convinced that most Christians don’t really read their bible. If they did, there would not be so many.
There is a problem in this country. Many of our citizens really believe people can be turned to salt. They really think there is a god that will bless America and say fuck Iowa if he doesn’t like what they are doing. They feel like if we allow gays to be married or in the military god will jack off and cum fire and brimstone all over this great nation. I don’t think this is a red herring when about 40% of the nation think something called the rapture will occur within the next fifty years.
That is not a reason to mandate against someone else’s pursuit of happiness. Let people be happy and let the chips fall where they may. The real sexual crimes need to be prosecuted, but contracts between consenting adults should never be stifled. If this is your reason against gay marriage then your reasoning is not protected under the first amendment. Say what you must, do all you can, proselytize to your heart’s content but you do not have a right to impose your religious doctrine to squelch someone else’s individual rights.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Magic sky daddy in the sky says it’s wrong, is not a rational constitutional reason to outlaw gay marriage.

On one hand I agree that the CEO has the right to say whatever he wants because of the first amendment. I am a strong advocate of the first amendment. I like the fact that you can say anything in this country, no matter how bat shit crazy you may be. I even support the right of the Westboro Baptist church to protest military funerals. It is really the same issue. He thinks god hates fags.
I also support the boycott of Chik-Filet. This is also a right given to us, not only by the first amendment but by the fundamental nature of capitalism. I support individual rights. If two men want to stand side by side together and declare themselves married—that should also be a right protected under free speech. The state should either recognize it for them as well, or just get out of the business of marriage all together (which is what I would prefer)
Sex is not a crime, unless it involves force. I prefer individual rights to family values because family values seem to be valuing the wrong things in my opinion. If children are raped in churches, no one orchestrates a boycott against that church or eats a Big Mac in support of the victims. When Dan Cathy says they believe in the biblical definition of marriage—people get all giddy. What the hell is the biblical definition of marriage anyway? David had 600 wives. Should that be part of the biblical definition of marriage as well? I’m not against polygamy either, but if we have a family law court that issues alimony what happens if 300 of your wives want a divorce? How do you divide the alimony up amongst the wives? These are things that the courts could figure out, but polygamy has got to be the worst idea of marriage of all, except it’s still not worse than rape.

You Don't Want To Sit Next To Me

Interesting thing happened to me at the casino last night. Well, interesting for me, but that’s all that matters anyway ;) I sat down a at a $2-$4 game. I probably shouldn’t have because the rake is insurmountable, but I wanted to test this hypothesis that I had. I usually played during the day when I went to the casino. The day shift is full of regs, mostly retirees trying to eek a few extra bucks out of their social security checks. I wanted to see how the games were at night. My guess was the games would be better.
There is one old obnoxious guy named Charles. He plays a lot of hands. It’s as if he is donating all his money, but the weird thing is I feel like he knows better. He knows a little about the game. If he would focus and screw down he could beat the game. Watching him gave me an epiphany.
People don’t always gamble to win. Most people don’t even expect to win. They see poker on TV and see people win consistently. They have to know that there is a way to win, but most of them never look into it, or if they do they don’t use what they’ve learned.
I saw one guy praying for a third heart on the river. I didn’t come, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it did. The third heart will come on the river 18% of the time. If you stand to win more that 4-to-1 on a call then you call. You make money even though you only win 18% of the time.
I expect to win 55% of my sessions. That means I am losing 45% of the time I play. If I dedicated more time and learned how to table select better and became an expert I could probably only win 60% of the time. The first thing I did when I walked in was remind myself that I only win 55% of the time. I was hoping there would be a lot of loose players at night that just played to unwind after work. It was a Wednesday, so it wasn’t as good as it could be, but there were several loose players. I responded by playing tight.
I also told myself I wasn’t going to hide anymore. Hiding isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind. I just let everyone at the table know I played online, a lot of heads up. Poker is a game of manipulation. Most of the books and the podcasts say you should never let anyone in on the fact that you know how to play. That’s probably true for the most part, until you have reason to do otherwise. One of the things that drove me crazy when I went to San Manuel before was that everyone was trying to change seats all the time. Some change in hopes of increasing their luck and some change to get position on a bad player. When no one knew me they frequently sat to my left. I don’t want that because money has a tendency to flow clockwise in poker. It’s a game of position. If I have a decent aggressive player to my left, he’s going to put me in some tough spots. People always flocked to my left when I sit down. Last night they wanted to be on my right. I just said I played a lot of head’s up online, but now it’s for ridiculously small stakes. I complemented a guy on a good play, even though he lost the hand to me. It really was some textbook check raise the turn on a pair and a draw to the nut flush. The next hand he moved away from my left.
The reason why they don’t want to be on my left is because they realize when I come in I’m coming in for a raise. And when I come in for a raise I’m going to have a better than average hand—especially compared to the rest of the table. The guy that did the fancy correct play still lost a huge pot. If I play head’s up—You can bet that we will never chop. I miss head’s up. I play 95% of my hands when.
If it get’s down to the two of us pre-flop, we’re not splitting three bucks—it’s going to be mine the vast majority of the time and anything else that comes into the pot along with it. Just by subtly throwing that out there the aggressive regs didn’t want to be to my left. They knew that every time everyone folded they were going to have to face a raise and they have no idea what to do in that situation. They love to chop, it gets them excited. Why didn’t I think of this before? It made it much easier to win and I felt like the regs gave me more respect too. Sometimes it feels pretty good when people don’t want to sit next to you.

comme d’habitude

I’ve been doing a lot of reading these last few weeks or so. I came across something by Ayn Rand in some compilation book about comparing yourself to others in your career. She said it is not necessary to compare yourself to others, just do the best you can do. That was not the most eloquent way of paraphrasing, but you get the point. She used the career of a writer as an example. She said a writer should not choose to be a writer because he is the best writer in the world. A writer should choose to be a writer because he has something to say.
Queue epiphany sounding music.
Look at the cartoonish light bulb above my head.
By the way I chose to omit “he or she,” because I’m purposefully avoiding the androgynous form everyone uses nowadays. It’s just this idea I have, but I digress.
I’ve started writing some short stories, well I guess a single short story would be more accurate. I think the reason I never tried to publish anything was because I always thought I had to be the best god damned writer in the whole fucking world. The problem is I want to live a life with the least amount of regrets as possible. I find that I’m more prone to regret the things didn’t rather than the things I did do.
I used to read Henry Miller in high school and I had to look up a lot of the words he wrote. People always tell me I have this stellar vocabulary. Again, “stellar,” used by choice. Most of the words that people get so impressed by are words I learned from Henry Miller. I mispronounced a lot of them. For years I totally said voluminous and polysyllabic incorrectly. Now you can get the MP3 pronunciation on the internet—That’s so much better than Webster’s dictionary. There’s still shit in that book I don’t understand because some of it was written in French. I understood common terms like cul-de-sac, or c'est la vie, but I didn’t get things like “comme d’habitude.”
Having an extensive vocabulary is not as difficult as it seems. All you have to do is read books by authors that have great vocabularies. In high school I had to keep a dictionary besides me, but now we have the internet. Now, with the internet, the answers are at my fingertips. You can highlight a word on you kindle or kindle app and the definition automatically pops up. What could be easier?
Henry Miller wrote Tropic of Cancer in France. It was published in 1934. It would never have been published in the United States of America at that time.
It was deemed obscene until the supreme court deemed in not obscene in Miller Vs. California (1973). Rappers can say Mother Fucker because Miller dared to write “international cunt.” I can’t say international cunt. I’ve only used it in a sentence maybe one time before this. IT just doesn’t flow right for me. I can’t think of a possible practical application of this phrase in contemporary America. I can’t use the word quim. No one knows what that is anymore because no one uses the word quim. They say Va-J J. Everything is vanilla, people are too afraid to say what they are really thinking.
I don’t have to emulate James Joyce. I don’t even like James Joyce. I can just have something to say. Having something to say doesn’t mean you have to use words like somnambulist. I don’t have to write like Henry Miller. In fact, reading it again, I wouldn’t want to. Anti-Semitism is not cool.

I haven’t written a short story in years. I’ve been looking at it all wrong. I don’t have to have the biggest vocabulary or be the best writer. I just need to write well with my own purpose. I don’t need to find my own voice—I already have that. I just need to say what I have to say.

Incomplete sentences

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything for this blog. On one hand I feel like If I write something I should try to publish it as well. If I put something on my blog, I squelch any chance of getting it published. On the other hand, sometimes I just want to experiment with my voice. Something like this has absolutely no commercial interest, at least without a theme. I can’t sit idle. It’s difficult for me. I have to be doing something. Learning, writing, fidgeting. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I listen to podcasts. I keep my mind active otherwise I start going stir crazy and start fidgeting. Keeping busy. That’s an incomplete sentence. It’s good to interject those every now and then just for emphasis. I’m at a point in my life where I feel like I’m not doing enough, but I’m wrong. It’s just about everything I can. I have four books and this week I decided to learn Spanish. This is partly because I’ve been applying for several jobs and a lot of places ask how many languages you speak so I figure this would look better on a resume. The other thing is I feel like I want to accomplish something. Learning a language is a lot like running a marathon. It talks time, effort, and most of all dedication. I haven’t decided how I’m going to do it yet. I don’t necessarily want to take a class. I want to learn it on my own. I found a Spanish pod cast and I have the total emersion software from Costco, it’s just misplaced at the moment. I also want to try the method my grandmother suggested when I was a kid and watch Novellas. I there a Telemundo version of Hulu? I took Spanish in High school, but I didn’t take it too seriously. I learned how to conjugate a lot of verbs a few nouns, but never really was able to put it all together. The problem was it was all book work and I never ventured out to use any of it. I never attempted to have a conversation en Español. I used to get pissed if someone started to speak to me in Spanish. It annoyed me a little bit. I thought it was a ridiculous proposition to just start speaking to someone in the United States in Spanish. Not to be stereotypical (actually I am going to be stereotypical) but I don’t look like someone that would know how to speak Spanish. I mean, I understand if someone asks ¿Hablo Espanol? I don’t understand just speaking Spanish a million miles an hour as if you assume everyone in the free world speaks your native tongue. You never see a guy from China go up to someone that looks like Owen Wilson and start speaking Mandarin. I decided to get off my high horse though. I subscribed to the Spanish101 podcast. I’ve listened to three of them now. It surprising how after years of being dormant the stuff I learned in Spanish class is slowly being resurrected. I have no idea if I’m spelling any of this correctly, this is the draw back of learning from a podcast. Comos Estas? Estoy Bein. De Colores et cetera, but I learned new stuff too like lentamente (slower) and Entonces(so and then so) which is a concept I still quite understand. I also don’t understand why someone would say more or less when asked “how are you?” More or less what? An incomplete sentence? Things are going pretty good with Kim too, she’s my only subscriber, which is fine. I mostly do these things for myself but it’s nice that she subscribed. She motivates me and I don’t even think she realizes it. She’s just being herself. It’s nice.

I like You Too.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me today, but I used to be shy. In middle school, I couldn’t even talk to girls. In high school, I got a little bit better, but was still deathly afraid of rejection. I had a warped sense of romance. I used to read Shakespeare, I loved his sonnets. Required reading for sure, but I thought they were the epitome of romance. My favorite was sonnet 130. To be honest I didn’t remember the number, but through the magic of Google, I just typed in “Shakespeare sonnet breath” and that’s all it took to bring it up. The internet is amazing. This was my paradigm. I thought this was the truest expression of romance.

So instead of asking girls out to a movie or for ice cream, I just kind of stared googly eyed at some unrequited object of my desire, (extremely sexist, I know) Instead of going to dances I spent my time laboriously writing sonnets of my own. A few times I even mustered up enough courage to give them to some girls.

I wouldn’t recommend this.

The empirical evidence suggests that your chances of obtaining a date this way are extremely dismal.
A sonnet is a fourteen line poem written in iambic pentameter. In case you don’t remember, iambic pentameter is a combination of ten unstressed and stressed syllables. It gives the poem a song like rhythm, you know . . .if you actually can read it out loud with self-confidence.

Needles to say, I am not longer a fan of poetry. I fucking despise poetry. I’m strictly prose. I just buy cards like everyone else. I’m not really a fan of them either.
A couple of weeks ago someone pretty special, her name is Kim, gave me a little book entitled I Like You, by Sandol Stoiddard Warburg and illustrated by Jacqueline Chwast.

I can not pronounce either of their names.

It was cute, really cute. I could probably plagiarize the whole thing and it would take up a page, but it was nice and sweet. One of the lines is:
“I like you because
When I tell you something special
You know it’s special
And you remember it
A long long time.”

It’s poetry and I like it. I like it because I like the person that gave it to me. It was much more thoughtful than a card, but what really floored me was the fact that she wrote something underneath the book cover. I unwrapped it like a gift. I’m not going re-write it, because it was special, just for me.

I’m 34, and this is the first time anyone’s ever written anything like this for me. I just felt the need to share that. Sure I’ve received cards, but those are things written by other people. This book was written by someone else, but the little inscription on the inside cover—that was her. That was different. That, among other things, is why I’m in love.

Save Bucks

I, like most people is a nation, am addicted to caffeine. Our paper money should have a slogan like in coffee we trust. We love to suck down Red Bull, Monster, and Rock Star In mass quantities. I try to be frugal, but energy drinks are one of the leaks in my financial ideals. For some reason I’m really careful about looking at the unit price on most things at the grocery store, but when it comes to liquid energy or courage—I never seem to care that much about getting the best deal. I will if what I’m looking for happens to be on sale and if it is I’ll buy more, but if it’s not, it never discourages me—I’ll pay the little extra happiness tax. I’m frugal, not a miser.
I once read a book on investing that contained great ideas on saving money. The book was by Andrew Tobias, The Only Guide To Investing That You’ll Ever Need. It was a great book. Not only did it talk about P/E ratio’s, indexes, options, mutual funds and EFT’s but It had great money saving tips. One tip was buy commodities, but not the type of commodities you see in the financial section of the Wall Street Journal. He didn’t recommend that his reader’s buy corn or pork futures. He meant stock up on things like mouthwash. When you buy stuff in bulk it usually comes at a discounted price per unit. So if you bought a case of Cepacol that would last you a couple years or so, in the long run it would be cheaper than buying a 750 ml bottle every month.
This is how I purchase beer and energy drinks, albeit I’m cutting down on both. I do this with a anything I can really. The hard part is storing it. Tobias suggests underneath your kitchen table or under your bed. I keep after shave, razor’s, and body wash stored in some odd places, but I don’t care. With Register Rewards and coupons I picked up jour bottles of after shave for $1.80. I don’t clip coupons, but some of my coworkers do. They know all the tricks for register rewards and look at sites like crazycouponlady.com. I don’t have time for that, but Pro Glide razors can be purchased for pennies on the dollar.
I generally buy soy milk , not because I give a damn about animal rights, but because it spoils much more slowly. In the long run it saves me money. Almond milk is even better because you can buy boxes of it at Costco for really cheap and it doesn’t have to be refrigerated until after you open it. A twelve ounce box of Honey Nut Cheerios comes with a price tag of $3.50 at the grocery store, but 2.1 lbs. is $6.39 at Costco. A dozen Durex condom’s is $15.99 at your local drugstore. At Costco you can pick a Durex pleasure pack for $9.99 and it contains 4 times as many condoms. If you don’t have a use for condoms you can Google internet magazine subscriptions and pick up a two year subscription of Playboy for less than ten bucks.
I haven’t looked into buying lotion in bulk.
I really do enjoy the articles.
There are a myriad of things you can do to save money, but this is one of my favorites, probably because I figured it out on my own. I’m going to let you in on a little secret, well a couple. When I was in high school, I had a really good economics teacher. If you’ve known me for any length of time you’ve probably heard me talk about him. He got me really excited about Individual Retirement Accounts. I was intrigued with the idea of compounding interest. If you start young enough, like at 21 or so and just set aside $50.00 a week you can retire a millionaire by the time you reach 65. You can even stop at 27. There are a lot of naysayers these days. Everyone’s so anti Wall Street, the sky is falling—but don’t pay attention to them because you’ll be sorry. In the Automatic millionaire, the author suggests that you give up that cup of Starbucks every day to find the money to invest in your IRA or 401K. This is also a great idea, but I found a better one.
The economist, Milton Friedman once said there is no such thing as a free lunch. I’m a big fan of Friedman’s ideas, but I can assure you there is a such thing as a free cup of coffee.
Starbucks has exploitable policy. If you order a caramel frap-a lotta calories they make it on the spot. They steam the milk and brew the espresso to order. If you try to watch calories like me, however the five calories in a regular cup o’ joe is a lot more appetizing. It’s also cheaper. I think it’s less than two bucks for a tall coffee. Here’s my tip. If you go in the morning—they will offer a couple different brews,
one bold, perhaps a French Roast and one mild roast, most likely Pike Place. Demand goes down throughout the day since most people like to drink coffee in the morning. I like to brew my own coffee in the morning, but I found that when I go into Starbuck’s in the afternoon they tend to run out of drip coffee. They also have a policy if they are out of what you ask for—it’s on the house. More often than not, when I ask for a cup of coffee at 3:00 p.m., I don’t have to pay for it.