Forget “Coffee is Hot!” and its variations. What they really need is a warning on iced blended drinks that anything larger than about 12 ounces may separate and require frequent re-mixing unless drunk rapidly. And those are the ones that are mixed well. Let us not speak of the ones you get at the café downstairs from the office, or at rush hour when everyone else in town wants a Frappucino NOW and the baristas are just trying to get through with the blenders as fast as they can. You know, the ones that end up like a coffee-flavored snow cone with a straw.

For some reason, coffee just doesn’t seem to blend with ice as well as fruit does.

While cleaning the apartment this weekend, we found a long-forgotten bag of “Lazy Lizard” Mozilla Coffee. RJ Tarpley’s, the company which sold it (and donated a percentage of profits to the Mozilla Foundation) disappeared last summer. By September, I couldn’t even find a whois record. The domain name has since been picked up by a link farm.

It was decent coffee, and it helped support some good software. And I got a nifty mug while they were still in business. There was maybe half a pound left, but 12-month-old decaf coffee just isn’t fit to drink anymore, so instead of brewing one last pot in salute, we tossed what was left.

Maybe it’s the housing costs, but people in San Francisco need a little extra incentive to give out their computer password than people in Liverpool. Last year a survey found that 71% would reveal their password for a chocolate bar. A similar survey this month in San Francisco found that 66% would give it up for a coffee.

At least Verisign made good on the offer—with a $3 Starbucks gift card.

I recently rented two of the Justice League DVDs. So far I’ve gotten through the opening 3-parter, “Secret Origins,” and the 2-part “Paradise Lost.” I have no idea how far into the series the second disc is.

A scene that stuck in my mind was the newly-formed League looking around their headquarters. As the heroes are deciding whether to join, the Flash remarks on its well-stocked kitchen and offers, “Iced mocha?” Wonder Woman tastes one and says, “Mmm, they don’t have anything like this on Themyscira. I’ll stay.” Aha! The way to an Amazon’s heart is through iced mochas!

So it was even more funny in “Paradise Lost” when the Flash started fantasizing about Paradise Island: “The beach, hundreds of women, and me, the first man they’ve seen in, well, ever. And what do I have with me? Iced mochas for everyone!”

Anyway, on to the review: It’s certainly better than I remember Superfriends being. It does still have a significant cheese factor at times, Continue reading

Remember Mozilla Coffee? In the first month they offered it, RJ Tarpley’s Coffee raised $400 for the Mozilla Foundation by donating a percentage of the profits.

We ordered it a couple of times, and it was actually pretty good. I even picked up a Mozilla Coffee Mug at one point.

Alas, the website (formerly www.rjtarpleys.com) has vanished. There isn’t even a whois record anymore. I don’t know if the company went out of business or just shut down their web operations.

All I know is that Mozilla Coffee is no more. That, and I seem to have a collector’s-item mug.

Originally posted on my Spread Firefox blog.

Update: Ron Tarpley himself commented on my post at SFX on 12/15/2005:

Hey Kelson,

I just happened to stumble across this entry today. You are right, I did shut down the Coffee biz and Mozilla Coffee with it. It was and still is an awesome idea. My problem was order fullfillment. The roaster thought he could have a program in place to fullfill orders (packaging, labels, shipping, etc.) When that fell through, I ended up doing this in my garage at midnight and 5:00 am while trying to maintain my real job, be a husband, and a father! I held on for as long as I could because the coffee is awesome and folks like part of the profit going to The Foundation. I will explore this again with my roaster (they are expanding successfully in the South) and the great folks at Mozilla. Who knows, if this can be done better this time I think it could be huge. Combining Mozilla (Firefox) and Coffee……what could be better?

Ron Tarpley