Today, I aimed for one rosetta, one heart, on tulip. The rosetta came easily enough (imperfect though it was); the heart a sort of happy, minimalist accident; the tulips not even close.

We’ll start with the good stuff, and work our way down.

I quite liked this rosetta, the only one I poured for photo all day. Foam a little spotty, and the espresso pulled too fast, making the whole thing a little light in color. But it’s got a good aura.

This is a little heart. It is great. I’m not sure how I managed it, since none of my other heart attempts today came anywhere near mediocrity.*

This one made me giggle like a schoolgirl. I was attempting a tulip — the mechanics of which are to pour a heart, then another on top, then another, and ties them through with a stem. But what I got was a heart/bird (see the obvious beak on the right?) with a rosetta-ish bloom out the top. Happy accident, indeed!

In the spirit of transparency, here are three god-awful tulip attempts. No explanation given, because none exists — except that I don’t know how to pour tulips.

*I suppose I should explain the mechanics of the heart pour. Briefly, it’s like the beginning of the rosetta — pour silky foam in the middle, wiggle a bit for stripy contrast — but instead of wiggling back late to form more little blooms, you simply pour through while raising the milk up to thin out the line. Most people learn the heart first, then the rosetta; most of my employees can pour good-looking hearts consistently, while I’ve only poured a couple mediocre ones in my latte-art existence.

Not much to say… just more pictures. Still inconsistent, but I’m getting decent results 80 percent of the time. Someday — not far from now, I hope — I’ll look back at this and laugh at what I consider “decent.” For now, however, I’m elated to be able to do things like this.

Fat-Bottom Girl.

Wiggles.

This one looked nice, with good, smooth foam. But the top disappointed me, so I tried to put a little crown on it. That part made it look dumb, but there’s no good way to undo it. So, there ya go.

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system.

Because here’s a new blog post. Ha!

(Seriously, at some point in the near future, I’m going to have something to say again. I think.)

Posted via web from third image.

Posted via web from third image.

If homeowner’s insurance worked like American health insurance, it would not only pay for fires but also cover utility bills, replacing broken appliances, baseballs hit into the window and all the food, drink and paper towels that pass through the kitchen. Certainly, a company could offer an insurance product that covered absolutely every expense of living in a home. But such insurance would be phenomenally expensive and full of ultra-complex rules; the insurer would also acquire an incentive to dream up excuses to deny payment. Just like American health care insurance!

— Gregg Easterbrook, “Tuesday Morning Quarterback”

Politicians seem to live in a two-dimensional world (think C.S. Lewis’ “flatlanders”), while the rest of us are out here in 3D, pleading with them to see features they simply aren’t built to recognize. Put another way, our representatives present us with black and white on health care — Bad Option A, and (totally different but just as) Bad Option B. Thus you have the “public option,” and the “leave it alone” camps battling for supremacy.

(You haven’t heard Republicans saying, explicitly, “leave it alone.” They talk about “sensible reforms” that are supposed to come if the Dems scrap all their current plans and go back to the drawing board. This is kind of like me saying, “Sure, I’ll exercise more, just as soon as I start getting enough sleep the nights before.” In other words, it ain’t gonna happen.)

Leave it to a football column to provide a far better alternative. In his “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” article at ESPN.com, Gregg Easterbrook takes a break from dissecting plays and mocking the punt — no, he says, it is NOT that risky to try on fourth down — to present a quite cogent and perfectly simple argument: Insurers should face price-controls, and providers should have to offer non-insured individuals the same pricing they offer insurance companies. (More quotes after the jump.) (more…)

“Democrats think the constitution says what it doesn’t and the Republicans think the constitution doesn’t say what it does. We’re lucky to have such a wide choice.” — random commenter at random blog

Joe “You Lie!” Wilson has been made into a randomized website. (H/T to @JakeTapper)

My main criticism with “conservatives” (most who label themselves as such deserve the sarcastic quote marks), put most aptly by the always insightful (and actually conservative) Andrew Bacevich:

Only those who recognize the omnipresence of sin—recognizing first of all that they themselves number among the sinful—can possibly anticipate the moral snares inherent in the exercise of power. Righteousness induces blindness. The acknowledgment of guilt enables the blind to see. To press the point further, the statesman who assumes that “we” are good while “they” are evil—think George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11—will almost necessarily misinterpret the problem at hand and underestimate the complexity and costs entailed in trying to solve it. In this sense, an awareness of one’s own failings and foibles not only contributes to moral clarity but can help guard against strategic folly.