I was paging through a magazine the other day and came upon an ad for the Illy A Casa Espresso Membership Program (catchy name , huh?) Apparently, Illy has jumped on the continuity marketing bandwagon, a la subscription coffee stand-by Gevalia.

The FrancisFrancis! machine pictured here, their new X5 which utilizes what I find to be the mostly subpar pod technology, is part of your $250 introductory kit (a $680 value!)

I've posted about my dislike of the new FrancisFrancis! machine before. Aside from that, there's the fact that my friend Antony remains loyal to model even though it's broken and been sent back to the factory for repair three times now. (Hmm, kind of like my iBook, which is still out being fixed. How is a girl like me supposed to go without her laptop for 5 days and counting?! It's dire.)

The whole pod machine thing is out of control. It reminds me of the flavored coffees that came in those little rectangular tins, way back when. (I am totally spacing on what the brand name was, and some frenzied googling has produced no good result. Halp!) Anyway, it's this whole idea of idiot-proof "European flavor" that gets under my skin. So far the only potable pod coffee I've had has come from the Lavazza machine my friends David and Pierre have in their place out in East Hampton. (I confess the excitement of my anticipation of a visit to them there is nearly equally split between a desire to go to the beach and the promise of cup after cup of delicious espresso.)