The telltale sign is trying to obscure the fact that you’re asking for something by declaring that a general greatness (or awesomeness, or even superfantasticness) would arrive if someone could simply perform a task you’d like done. It’s also key to not be too direct about it. Even “It would be great if you wrote the document” may too direct; to be safe, go with “It would be great if you could write the document”.

Now, sometimes someone gets really desperate for a task to be completed. They enter the stronger (weaker?) form of business passive. “It would be great if that report were written by end-of-quarter.” This works best when there are only two people involved in this conversation. It also leads to a wonderful reinterpretation. “Yes, I agree, greatness would truly have been achieved if that report were to show up right before the end of the quarter, fully written!”

The leap I take at this point (and it is a leap) is that this may not simply be a problem of brevity, clarity, and sensibility. I think it’s a problem of confidence. People tend towards this voice when asking to do things that really aren’t important. They themselves don’t even truly want to see a task done, so they feel uncomfortable asking for it, so they rationalize, assuming that someone somewhere wants this enough that “it would be great” to do.

I can’t be sure of that, but there is one thing that I can be sure of. If you’re not actually willing to “own” the fact that you’re asking someone to act, you shouldn’t be asking them to. Do it yourself, or define the task to a point where you know its valuable enough for you to delegate.

The easiest way I’ve found to remember what a particular purchase was is to look at my credit card statement (or mint.com, etc), and search for the prices in my Gmail account. Simple, but it can really save time.

To start you’ll need an Aeropress, and a grinder equivalent to Capresso’s Infinity conical burr grinder. A normal burr grinder or even a decent blade grinder would probably do just fine, but you might end up with a smokier taste.

You’ll also need a way to boil water, a twelve ounce dishwasher safe glass, and of course, some coffee beans (probably at least 1/8 lb to be on the safe side). I don’t recommend trying a glass that is not dishwasher safe, because even with ice, it will get hot.

1. Fill the glass with ice cubes to half an inch below he rim.
2. Add skim or 1% milk to the ice-filled glass until it is up a third of the way
3. Set up the Aeropress on your glass
4. Now, bring the water to boil. You’ll only need about 6oz at the most
5. Once it begins boiling, turn off the heat. If you leave it boiling, the water will be to hot when you brew.
6. Grind on the finest “fine” setting on the infinity (not extra fine) for 25-30 seconds (#5 on the infinity), and pour grounds into the Aeropress.
7. Now, fill the Aeropress the measuring cup/plunger to between 2 and 3 cups.
8. Trickle some water into the grounds, and then follow with a full pour
9. Work Aeropress’s magic. (you know, stir for 10 seconds and then plunge for ~20)
10. If there is space left over in the glass, just add cool water
11. Wash Aeropress
12. Enjoy!

I suggest not adding any sugar, so you can get the taste of the bean. Trust me, give it a couple tries if you’re used to sugar. In fact, I don’t think this method would work well with sugar, since it’s best to add sugar before icing the coffee, and this ices it right away. You could try agave syrup instead.
But, if you use this method your coffee will not be very bitter—only the natural bitterness of the bean which is much less than you’d expect.

Anyways, if you’re a blogger, forum administrator, web developer, don’t allow signatures in comments, you know that’s the right thing to do.