Coffee in Norway

Nice! An elaborate description of coffee-drinking habits in Norway, within a forum thread on Turkish-style coffee brewing:

CoffeeGeek - Articles: How-To Article Feedback, Brewing Turkish Coffee

coffee is very much a national drink in Norway, and that would have travelled with Norwegians immigrants going to Minnesota, North Dakota, Washinton state in the US and Manitoba and Alberta in Canada.  Until Norway discovered oil in the late 70′ies, Norway was in fact a very poor country and the weak coffee was more a result of economics than of taste.  However, maybe the weak coffee instead inspired higher consumption?  All I know is that my Norwegian family are all big coffee drinkers and Norwegians seem to be awfully fond of coffee.  These days boiled traditional cofee is giving way to stronger imported types though, and Costa (Starbucks copy) is already established in Norway, so are other similar chains.

I grew up in Sweden and remember well coming to my father’s work when I was kid.  On the coffee machine on his floor, they had a board with names where the employees would make a tick at their name for every coffee they’d take.  At the end of the month, they would charge the employess their monthly consumption at approx 5 cents a cup.  My father was without comparation light years ahead of his colleagues.  The only challenger he would have to win the “coffee league” was another Norwegian employee!!!  He never beat my dad though.

I also remember going with my grandparents during my summer holidays to visit aunts and uncles in the family.  Often these visits would take place very late - you’d arrive at 10PM and leave at 1 or 2AM.  You have to understand that this far north, the sun never drops below the horizon during summer - the land of midnight sun.  Going on family visits like this was and is still called in our tounge: going for coffees.  And that’s what you’d do.  You’d talk, drink numerous cups of coffee and eat cakes, like lefsa and chocolate cakes.

Mind you, I was never allowed to taste coffee until 14 years old.  I know it used to be tradition to give coffee mixed with water or milk to kids in the old days, but so was giving them a rag soaked in vodka to suck on.  In the end, having kinds myself, I believe the latter is more realistic than the former: why would you want to give your little terrorists a kick?  Let’s sedate is probably or more logical but equally desparate reaction.  But I do have friends who started drinking coffee before they were 10.

As a coffee-drinker, I’d surely love to do coffee ethnography in Norway…

Comment-Fishing: Think It Through

As I notice that provocative and opinionated pronouncements are more likely to garner feedback than carefully crafted balanced thoughts, I’ll say it like this: bloggers should think before they blog! :-S

What I really mean to rant about is that the part of blogging I dislike the most is time-sensitivity. Knee-jerk reactions are great for blogging and I do believe in RERO. But there’s a point at which people seem to care too much about posting at the right time. Some even want to be the first person to blog a given issue. Is it the blogging equivalent of scooping??

Ok, ok, I’m about as guilty as anyone else. Partly because I have long lists of things I want to talk about and there are some cool streams of consciousness effects in the bringing of current issues in the same conversations. This is, in fact, where blogging is most interactive, IMHO.

Sheesh! Can’t people just think, once in a while?

“It’s A Small World After All” (Blogging Edition)

Blogging is fun. Among the neat effects of blogging is that, though bloggers aren’t at all alike, they tend to be “like-minded people,” despite striking individual differences.

Cases in point, from last night.

Went to an event organized through Montreal Linkup, an event organisation system with obscure ties to Craigslist. At one point Saib, one of the participants, was talking about a blog post he had read. Turns out, he was describing my ramblings (and open letter) about Montreal culture and the Linkup system. I did feel quite proud. Not that he had read my post (or that he remembered anything about it), but that the post had exactly the kind of effect I wanted. Though blogging can feel awkward in my case, and I often feel like I’m writing in a vacuum (for several reasons, feedback to my entries has been extremely limited), it leads to those situations where different parts of your life are linked.

Also present at the Linkup event was Shiraz, a fellow YulBlogger. Thanks to the Yulblog Confessions from the August YulBlog gathering, I had went on Shiraz’s blog and even used her technique of blogging different topics in the same post, right here. Before the Linkup event, I didn’t know Shiraz personally, but chances are now that we might link to each other.

Which is a major issue among bloggers. Been thinking about it myself, thanks in part to Sylvain Carle (yet another YulBlogger). And it has influenced my blogging philosophy (whether I notice it or not). No wonder network analysis has been growing steadily. (Man! Do I love putting my academic hat in the middle of my ramblings…)

On occasion, I will insert as many outgoing links in my blog entries as possible. Several reasons for this practise, including the fact that it’s easier to find links if they’re on my blog. But there might be more of a wish to get comments from other bloggers by teasing them with links to their blogs (thanks to pings and trackbacks).

Yes, posting about blogging is allegedly uncool, and linking to your own entries seems silly. But I’m having fun doing this…

In fact, if you think this whole blog is lame, do comment here!

Podcasting Profs

My good friend Philippe Lemay is being interviewed by national media about his newfangled podcast-teaching methods. Here’s a short summary (in French):

Quand le prof vit aux îles de la Madeleine

Thanks in part to podcasting (and ProfCast), Philippe can teach in Montreal from his home in the Magdalen Islands. The implications are rather profound, especially for “remote regions” («régions éloignées»), the economic development of which often becomes politically significant. Granted, such solutions aren’t typically for just everyone and relying on technology for social change is often a risky proposition. But technology does bring hope to a lot of people.