You write a prompt, hit enter, and watch the console light up green. Code pours out. It feels like magic. Then you try to maintain the thing a week later, and you realize your shiny new AI agent just built a leaking bucket.
Having read the iRoast 2 review at Coffee Geek I couldn't help myself and roasted two new batches: 150g of cold Miscela d'Oro (100% arabica). One roasted at 190C - 5m, 208C - 6m, 232C - 2m30s. The second one was at 196C - 1m, 222C - 3m and 240C - 2m. With these two profiles in addition to the first one (176C - 2m, 204C - 3m, 232C - 3m), it'll be an interesting day saturday or sunday when I get to taste all three of them. 
Nothing much new with todays roast, it's the same as two days ago, but with 45 seconds less in the last stage. My reason for this was that I found that roast to be just a little bit too burnt in smell, and I want to see what implications that has for taste. Also, these beans were directly up from the freezer, so the change for them must have been very drastic.
Today I was rushing out of the door but had time for a cup of pre-roasted Columbia. When I came back later I tried the beans I roasted yesterday at the same grind, setting 3. To handfulls of beans resulted in a single double-basket of coffee! Yikes! Where does the rest go?!? (or, how much of my bean is really air). I should get a weigth to try this out. Still with my plastic tamper I did what I would think is a decent tamp and a few seconds later I pulled the lever. Exitement.... how much will come flowing? Nothing. Oh well, a gentle pull... nothing. A thighter squeeze... nothing. Increasing up to full body weight and finally a little bit came dripping. An early refill, press 'til halfway, refill and full length pull with all my weight. Drop by drop, until I had a full cup. Which was still warm, btw, so nothing too wrong there. But the cup was more acidic than the previous cups I've had, so this was probably a too fine grind. I'll let the beans rest for a while and see what happens.
For this one cup I used half my preset 1 roasted beans, grinding at 2 with the Rocky. The reason I'm going for 2 is that my tamper is still the plastic one (I expect a new, decent one with the next shipment of coffee) and I want as much crema as I can get. The cup was propably preheated in a bowl of hot water, so I should be all set. Boil up the pavoni, release some steam, boil further, have some water through the group head, grind, tamp, pull, refill, pull halfway, refill, pull the entire length. The pull really required a lot of effort, but the shot was nice compared to all the shots before my grinder. Much more crema (let me attach a picture). The coffee was really oily (after having broken the crema and drinking a bit you can really see the oil) but I think the taste from the cup yesterday (and this morning, the preset 2 one) was fuller. But hey, this is the day after the roast. I should let the little bit I have back (probably just one cup) wait for three or four days and try again.
I've finally taken the plunge: La Pavoni Professional, Rancillo Rocky and iRoast 2 are all lined up on my kitchen counter. Espresso heaven, here I come. Now, what's missing is what I can't buy: my skills. I have had a $50 espresso machine and a $10 grinder so far, and after 500 cups served it can only produce burnt water (you won't know it until you've tasted it), but after this I was sure I wanted something that could make a real cup where I could taste something new.
For a long while I have been recommending my mum to get the Panasonic DMC-FZ7, and now she was finally ready to take the plunge. Of course, when reading up I found that the Canon Powershot S3 IS was out as well and has close to identical features. The differences are: the Canon is twice as heavy, uses AA batteries rather than a propriatery lithium-ion battery, has a shorter minimum focus distance (good thing ) and zooms quicker. After much discussing, she ended up with the DMC-FZ7 as it was lighter and I'm quite confident it was a great choice even though I liked the lens of the S3 a bit better. Price difference? $1. 
Owen Morse-Brown has made a set of CDs if you want to play duets but have no-one to play with. The series contain Telemann Boismortier sonatas.