Life is far too short for bad coffee.

Too true. And while I'm not planning to shell out the money for, say, a pound a Blue Mountain, there's a Caribou Coffee around the corner and it's not much more expensive than Dunkin' Donuts.

That is cool (the garlic zoom). I'm not a big gadget person, although I did buy a Mouli Persil and a Mouli Julienne on my last trip to France. Those are more of a nostalgia item for me though.

there's a Caribou Coffee around the corner

Every time I drive past Caribou Coffee, I sing the Pixies.

No, seriously.

"Cari-boooooooooooo!!!"

I am pretty sure wife of a politician is never in my future, that said, in the situation, I would offer btw 1) not going to a press conference or 2) going to press conference and kicking him throughout it.

One of the food blogs I read did a review of the Garlic Zoom about a week ago and said it's fun to use, but is a total bitch to clean. (Dear kitchenware manufacturers everywhere: NOT EVERYONE LIVES IN THE SUBURBS AND HAS A DISHWASHER. KTHXBYE.)

However, LOVE:

Knife people want to turn their sharpest knives on the gadget people resulting in a colorful and satisfying plume of blood and a cascade of the ever-intensifying screams, but do not ultimately do so for fear of somehow damaging the blade.

Every time I drive past Caribou Coffee, I sing the Pixies.

I go past Caribou Coffee almost every day, and most of the time I still hear a little "Cariboooooooou!" in my head.

Every time I drive past Caribou Coffee, I sing the Pixies.

Me too. Or rather, three.

if I was ever one of these public wives, I would NOT go to the damn press conferences.

At least she didn't even attempt to smile. I'd go to the press conference if it got me a signed agreement on the terms of the divorce.

But would not going to the press conferences really hurt their ambitions? I can see how it could hurt the kids, but I don't see how it could hurt her divorce settlement (if she decides to go that route).

In my view, she's too smart not to be acting in her own interests, even if we don't know exactly what those are. If you want an unlikely hypothetical for how it would affect her divorce settlement, she may have to stay married for 21 years for a big payout, and she's staying married. If you want a more likely explanation, (again, IMO) there's no upside to publicly displaying anger or shame here, and acting hysterical might derail any chance she has to go back into private practice, where discretion is everything.

Do people use non-electric pencil sharpeners anymore? I mean, when they're not typing on a computer, texting, etc?

Yes. I'm far too thrifty and protective of my colored pencils and drawing pencils to watch an electric sharpener chew them up.

I read a comment somewhere that Kobe Bryant's wife had it more right: she was at the press conference, but was staring him down like "You motherFUCKER" the whole time.

This is the sort of option I'd like to see. Like, philandering husband thinks wife is there to stand by him in silent support, whereas wife glares at him more and more angrily as the conference goes on until he says something a little too condescending and she goes to town on him with a desk stapler.