My residence has a fireplace, which almost makes up for the fact that it is "heated" — yes, we're talking very loosely here — by wall-mounted electrical units that make really interesting, soul-rattling noise but produce very little real warmth. The fireplace has kept the place warm through many a winter evening, and for that I'm grateful to whomever designed and built my home — probably the same person who installed those useless heaters, but never mind.

For a while I burned wood, because while it was tough to light and produced voluminous amounts of smoke, I felt better about wood than I felt about using processed fireplace logs, which smelled like a pharmaceutical plant set aflame, and disgorged God-knows-what into my lungs. Then, late last winter, I discovered Java-Logs, and I've been using them ever since.

Made of coffee grounds and paraffin wax, Java-Logs don't burn as hot as wood fires or as colorfully as other processed logs, but they are more environmentally sound (they produce 85 percent less carbon monoxide than wood and leave very little ash) and they smell sweet and vaguely nutty, not at all how you'd expect burnt coffee grounds to smell. They're easy to light —even more so than other "firelogs" — and a single Java-Log burns for a little over two hours, which ain't bad at all. It's just long enough to heat the place up, but not so long that I have to wait for the damn thing to snuff itself out so I can go to bed.

Java-Logs are worth trying out, even if you don't get a caffeine buzz from sitting near one (I've done extensive research on this). They're available at most Seattle markets, as near as I can tell.

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