BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 02:36 AM

That's funny, I had to log the accounts for said coffee industry not so long ago.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: DougR
Date: 23 Jun 02 - 05:55 PM

Jeri: I'm sure my mudcat friends will avail themselves of that opportunity.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Cappuccino
Date: 23 Jun 02 - 08:14 AM

What an amazing place this is - I've just started a new job, and one of the magazines I'm editing is for the British coffee industry. I picked this story up from a news feed and bingo... all the data is in Mudcat!

Thanks for helping me in the new job, folks!!!

- Ian B

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 07:33 PM

Long line of stupid decision makers- that does explain their success, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 06:49 PM

Thank you Doug, but I believe most of your Mudcat friends would rather speak for themselves.

Major corporations have people in them, and people can make stupid decisions. Sometimes the stupidity is a matter of company policy. Sometimes, the stupidity starts at a the individual level and just keeps getting overlooked or encouraged - what, it seems, happened here. Starbucks seems to have had an unusually long chain of stupid decision makers.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: DougR
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 06:41 PM

Dicho: I was not reflecting my view of major corporations when I made that statement. I believe that is the view of most of my mudcat friends. The ones I am referring to would never give the Starbucks corporation the benefit of the doubt.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 01:15 PM

Speaking as devil's advocate, major corporations are owned, for the most part by us. Through our stock and bond purchases, through our unions and associations who invest their pension funds in their stock, through our mutual and trust funds investments. We may vote on their policies annually (although I think most of us just send in proxies).
If "major corporations never do anything good," are they not reflecting the shareholders attitudes?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: DougR
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 12:35 PM

I think the dislike of major corporations by many of my mudcat friends has clouded the issue here. If you read the whole article Jeri posted a link to, you would also see that Starbucks contributed 1 million dollars to the NY relief fund, and furnished free coffee to the Ground Zero workers.

It appears to me that some employee, who had not been authorized to donate free water, coffee, rolls, or anything else, did what an employee is expected to do. He/she sold the water. Decisions to offer free merchandise are not made at the counter, they are made at the management or ownership level. Also, it is easy to to use hindsight in a situation like this and criticize, criticize, criticize.

I don't know if all Starbucks stores are company owned, or if they are franchise operations. If they are franchises, the owners of the franchise probably would make this decision anyway, not corporate headquarters. In this case, corporate headquarters is about 3,000 miles of NYC. How in the world would they even know such an event took place as the events of that terrible day unfolded. Corporate headquarters did respond after the happening was publicized, and a check for $130 was sent to the offended parties. Would they have sent the check if there had not been such negative publicity? Who knows, but why not give them the benefit of the doubt? I'll tell you why, in my opinion. Because major corporations never do anything good.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Wincing Devil
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 12:53 AM

THIS IS RIDICULOUS!

You can see the ad here. No wonder nothing ever gets done! everybody's worried we're gonna offend somebody.

Q: How do ya know when you've offended a redneck?

A: Tire iron upside yer head had oughta be yer first clue!

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jun 02 - 12:17 AM

How did Seattle become the focus for coffee? In the grocery stores here, "Seattle's Best" in several blends is the top in price (slightly cheaper than Starbucks) but very popular. Good fresh beans!

Starbucks sells both dark and light roast coffees and one near me has about a dozen varieties in the bean for sale, from African to Indonesian to Arabian to Columbian to Central American. Certainly the biggest variety in my city. This in addition to the per cup coffees, lattes, espressos, etc., etc. Their per cup prices are about par with other purveyors. I can't understand the grabbucks attitude of some posting here. Just anti-success?
The other big chain here (in western Canada) is Second Cup, about the same pricing, good coffee, but not into the coffee bean business.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 08:45 PM

Well just so we can stay on a musical theme here, how about we turn this into a song challenge. I'd like to see a song which eloquently parodies the profound stupidity, short-sightedness and emotional shallowness of the airheads who started this whole ridiculous flap by thinking dragonflys lok like jetliners.

Winner gets a free tinfoil helmet to protect them from FBI Thought-Scan networks redcently installed all over the world on top of cell-phone towers with special passive sensors capable of piclking up, discrominating among, analyszing and storing iover 250,000 separate threads of brain-wave frequency thought per tower. This is one of those things they paid for from the WTC Victims Fund which they didn't mention of course.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: artbrooks
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 07:24 PM

Happens I have an "official" copy of the offending poster (miniature size, to put in those annoying display things that sit on tables). I'd be glad to scan it and send it to anybody that PMs me an e-mail address.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 06:19 PM

I remember the Proctor and Gamble story, it was some time ago (70's or 80's) and several thousand churches boycotted P&G products for the simple reason it was a partial moon (horned god) and 5 pointed stars..... the star used by Sir Galahad on his livery, and called the Star of Bethlehem.... Oh how those early Christians liked to sanitise pagan images......

In the end they just took the logo off for a while. It crept back in a few years later and no-one said anything about it... Personally I think an advertising campaign featuring a semi naked baby rolling about unsupervised in hot washing up water and bouncing around in a washing machine far more sinister and upsetting.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 05:53 PM

SharonA: Go to google.com Do a search: Procter and Gamble satanism and you'll turn up the situation I was referring to.

Sometimes you gotta feel sorry for the big guys.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 11:04 AM

Oh, and here are those bugs and cups again (also the "grass" pattern in the map of the USA): http://www.starbucks.com/retail/c_patrol.asp (note also the same font in the page head and on the van).

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 10:58 AM

Variations on a theme, from Starbucks.com:

http://www.starbucks.com/retail/sum_bev.asp (silhouettes of cups and bugs, with "grass" below)

http://www.starbucks.com/retail/happening.asp (the cups at the beach, with palm tree)

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: MMario
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 10:32 AM

that's the THIRD version I've seen! (each slightly different)

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 10:27 AM

The offending image

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: MMario
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 09:27 AM

Remember the Lipton commercials where they fell into swimming pools after tasting the tea? that's what "collapse into cool" conjured in my mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 08:55 AM

Robomatic: Proctor & Gamble? Moon & stars? No, I don't remember that one going by, and I can't find anything about it on the Urban Legends Reference Pages at Snopes.com. What's the story?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: RichM
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 06:45 AM

I looked at the poster after the controversy started, so I can't say I looked at it objectively. But it DID remind me of September 11, in an eerie way. Just a coincidence, I think.

As for Starbucks, I occasionally have a sit down and a coffee there; it's right across from my favorite music store--the Ottawa Folklore Centre! and the coffee (basic) is a buck-50 canadian, close enough to regular prices...
...and sometimes I do shop at Walmart's...

Rich

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 05:57 AM

Wrong way round Liz - £2.50 equals $3.74. $1.95 would be equivalent to £1.30 - which is still bloody expesnive for a cup of coffee.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Jun 02 - 02:32 AM

I boycott Grabbucks anyway, because I object to paying £2.50 (can't work out the US $ but probably about $1.95) for a cup of scalding coffee that will irritate my stomach lining and make me bounce off the walls for 4 hours. Besides, the only cup I've ever drunk was too hot to drink hot and too nasty to drink cool.

And they use UHT milk which I'm allergic to.... don't ask how, I just heave if I drink more than one of those little catering cartons of it....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 11:48 PM

The replacement poster includes three glasses of some tan colored beverage sitting on the sand. Each has a straw sticking up at an angle remeniscent of an WW2-vintage anti-aircraft gun. The symbolism is obvious, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 10:51 PM

Actually the grass in the poster works like one of those Magic Eye drawings. If you stare at it long enough you will see an image of a man with an umbrella on the grassy knoll just as the motorcade passes along with Paul McCartney in bare feet. One of the guys mentioned it to me tonight as we were standing in the field waiting for the UFO to land.

The only thing that bothers me about the poster is the word "collapse". I'm not bothered about any possible connection to 9/11, I just can't figure out what it is supposed to mean! Drink and ice tea and collapse? Is that supposed to mean the same as "refresh"? Maybe I'm not hip to all that groovy jive lingo those crazy young kids on Madison Avenue are using these days, but from an advertising point of view the poster doesn't make much sense. I hope the person who designed it kept his or her day job.

Ron

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 10:40 PM

Actually the grass in the poster works like one of those Magic Eye drawings. If you stare at it long enough you will see an image of a man with an umbrella on the grassy knoll just as the motorcade passes along with Paul McCartney in bare feet. One of the guys mentioned it to me tonight as we were standing in the field waiting for the UFO to land.

The only thing that bothers me about the poster is the word "collapse". I'm not bothered about any possible connection to 9/11, I just can't figure out what it is supposed to mean! Drink and ice tea and collapse? Is that supposed to mean the same as "refresh"? Maybe I'm not hip to all that groovy jive lingo those crazy young kids on Madison Avenue are using these days, but from an advertising point of view the poster doesn't make much sense. I hope the person who designed it kept his or her day job.

Ron

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 08:00 PM

Let's not respond to hysteria with hysteria. Remember the rumors spread about the moon and stars symbols used by Proctor and Gamble? It was real stupid, obviously stupid, I personally saw a hand-written warning against the Satanists at P&G posted at the entrance of a grocery store in a small native village in Alaska. But what could P&G do? They defended their image and withdrew it from circulation for the time being. I think Starbucks legitimately felt in the same boat. Sometimes you have to make allowances for outrageous situations.

BTW, whatever the outrage you may feel about the 'charging for water' incident on 9-11, that was a local call made by a store manager, it might have been insensitive or worse, it might have been an attempt to make sure the water went to people who really needed it, not some yokels who were going to cart it off and sell it. The corporation made a substantial donationi to relief, and you should be aware that the relief effort itself has come under controversy.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: SharonA
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 04:35 PM

Yup, Pete, kinda like "The Onion" does, only "The Onion" does it well! *G*

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: PeteBoom
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 03:31 PM

Ummmm. the "holy war on inferior columbian coffee" is from rantapalooza.com They have a tendency to be "cute" with current events and issue "news" stories they think are full of biting sarcasm and witty cynicism. I'm sure if I was 17 I'd think they were right.

wandering away mumbling...

Pete

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: MMario
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 01:26 PM

Which terrible example? Their withdrawal of the poster (Which I admit is a terrible example to capitalists anywhere) or their suppossed association with the Holy War on Inferior Columbian Coffee?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: GUEST,Mike Strobel
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 01:04 PM

Dear Catters, Please confirm if indeed, this terrible example of capitalism is true of starBUCKS...........'cause if it is, I'm gonna spread the word to boycott those bums, everywhere I go. Thanks.

Mike Strobel

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: SharonA
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 12:43 PM

Haven't found that cylindrical-glass image yet, but I did run across the following page, which seems to explain the whole thing – obviously, al Qaida terrorists have infiltrated Starbucks's advertising agency as part of Osama bin Laden's "Holy War On Inferior Columbian Coffees": http://www.rantapalooza.com/story/2001/9/21/03415/3097

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: SharonA
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 11:22 AM

Yeah, somebody showed one of those folded $20 bills around the office. Who thinks these things up?

Wow, so there are two (at least) Starbucks "Collapse" posters making the Urban Legends rounds??? Can anyone post a link to this second image, with cylindrical glasses?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: MMario
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 11:01 AM

and some people just have way too much time on their hands. have you seen this?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: MMario
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 10:56 AM

The poster in the link is NOT the one they were showing on the news last night, BTW - the one on the news DID have cylindrical glasses - (with straws in them) (people were saying they resembled the searchlight beam memorial) and less butterflies. I'm pretty sure the dragonfly is lower in relation to the top of the glasses as well. but still it looked like a couple of drinks in a garden.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: SharonA
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 10:49 AM

Thanks, Graham, for the link to the page with the image of the poster itself. After reading the news story, I had had in my mind's eye an image of two narrow, cylindrical glasses (not wider at the top than at the bottom) that might have been reminiscent of the WTC towers, with the dragonfly approaching from the side of one of the glasses. I was relieved to see that the actual image, with plastic Starbucks cups and the dragonfly above them (and four butterflies around them), did not bear any reasonable resemblance to photos or video of the terrorist attacks of September 11.

I wasn't sure what the green things in the poster were; I knew they were supposed to represent cut grass but I didn't realize they were Starbucks straws until I read the Urban Legends article. As a graphic designer, I don't think the straws "work" in this image, but they never gave me the impression that they were buildings, since they are at different angles rather than being uniformly vertical.

But even if anyone thought they were buildings, they aren't close to being in proportion with the skyscrapers surrounding the WTC, so again I don't see an intention on the artist's part to connect this image with 9/11. Besides, the sky was cloudless that day, and there are puffy white clouds in the poster image. And I can't imagine what any complainant thinks those butterflies are supposed to represent – the souls of the victims, or what?

In other words, IMO it's just WAYYYY too much of a stretch to try to say Starbucks was being "insensitive" by publishing this ad. Those who make the claim that the company was insensitive should look to their own oversensitivity. What's next, an injunction against the implosion of dangerously dilapidated buildings?

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 09:29 AM

$1.40...$1.60 if I didn't use my own cup. The wierd drinks cost more, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: MMario
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 09:21 AM

Have to admit - my BIL thought the GRASS was city buildings surrounding the glasses of tea. He kept talking about the "buildings" -why did they put in the buildings - my sister and I couldn't figure out what he meant.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 08:57 AM

Right -- well, everyone knows dragonflys are just like jet airlines and frozen tea is just the same as a skyscraper. Give to me one large break!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: MMario
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 08:45 AM

art - $1.40??????? The cheapest Starbucks coffee in this area is $3.50 and they go UP from there!

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: artbrooks
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 08:39 AM

I can only say that Starbucks is 3 blocks from my house, and so is IHOP. Starbucks charges $1.40 for a cup of coffee (in my big cup). IHOP charges $1.25 for a small paper cup. Starbucks brews it a gallon at a time, and goes through a lot of it, so its always fresh. IHOP makes it in 10 gallon batches, and it was stale the two times I went in there. Starbucks is quiet and lets me sit there as long as I want reading my book. IHOP is noisy as hell. If I want to go anywhere else, and there are other coffee options in town, I have to drive 3 miles or more.

Pulling the poster was bullshit. Implying that denying water to WTC victims was corporate policy because one idiot employee of one outlet did so is just as much bullshit. The denial from headquarters that it happened may well have been based on increduality that anybody could have been so callous and/or stupid...and I'd bet he/she isn't working there any more.

Is Starbucks PC or not? Personally, I don't care, but then I find the entire idea of judging people or organizations on "political correctness" as repugnent as trying to lump people or ideas into "liberal" or "conservative". They put out a good product, which admittedly isn't to everyone's taste, and they are very successful in their nitch market.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Grab
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 07:59 AM

For those of us in other countries, or those of us who aren't Starbucks customers, this is the poster.

To anyone who found it offensive, I can only say, "You what?!?"

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Banjer
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 05:45 AM

The actions of Starbucks are similar to the building supply company in south Florida when hurricane ANdrew hit. Scotty Lumber outlets actually raised the price of their plywood sheeting (needed to seal off broken windows, etc.) while Home Depot put into effect sale prices scheduled for a sale later that month. According to news articles Scotty's was fined by state officials for price gouging. There are a few Starbucks outlets in this area and as others have reported they are way too high priced! I can buy a pound of coffee and ruin it better than they can for a lot less money! If I were a customer of theirs I would let them know that their knuckling under to the ridiculous PC faction is very discouraging!! I have seen the ads and it's like those stupid inkblots, no two people will see the same thing. I saw a summer scene with two beverages standing in a pleasant meadow surrounded with the trappings of the season.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Jun 02 - 01:38 AM

Amos, a candied butt.... hmmm, sounds interesting.

I have only twice ever bought at Grabbucks, and then only because the philistine I was with cares not a jot or tittle for the rest of the world, but does rather like their hot chocolate. I was stunned at the price of 2 chocolates and one piece of cake, which equated the price of *1 CD, *3.5 Happy meals *1 main course lunch at a Harvester Inn, *2 main meals and one pint at a Wetherspoons' inn (pub chain in the UK) or a paperback book.

As for the continued twitchiness about the WTC, why is the same twitchiness not extended to Hiroshima/Nagasaki, which killed or injured far more people, to both World Wars, same again; or to any one of the other atrocities people have committed upon each other in the name of religion or freedom.

Yes, I know lots of people died there, and it was a calamity of epic proportions, but as long as they keep sanctifying the remains, the scar will not heal.

Would they be so twitchy if it had been those two towers in (insert name of Middle Asian country with two large towers full of bankers), as seen in 'Entrapment'? I think not.

It was a truly horrible thing and nothing will make it better. But life has to continue, and this kind of sanctification will only warp and twist the memory of those who were involved. Life goes on, get over it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jun 02 - 11:17 PM

JEsus H. Christmas. Wodda load of neurotic bullpucky and codwallop. It's bad enough we are creating a culture tailor-made for victims instead of those who do; now we are going to go into frenzies on behalf of imaginary victimhood??

And the Federal Government will soon be tasked with protecting American citizens from having bad dreams? The "Communication Neutrality Act" of 2013 will make it illegal to issue public communication suggesting or alluding to any possibility of pain, discomfort, illness, loss, death, confusion or upset.

A nation is a terrible thing to waste; a dream is a terrible thing to lose. Home of the brave, my candied butt!!

I spit.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Jun 02 - 09:13 PM

For the record: When there is better coffee to be had than Starbucks, I go for the better coffee and also support my local roaster. (In Anchorage we have better roasters than Starbucks).

When there is no better coffee to be had, which is usually when stuck in airport terminals, I have Starbucks and am properly grateful.

But... When I learned there was a Starbucks in the Forbidden City, I bought the stock!

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Jun 02 - 01:15 PM

I think it's funny... watching Deep Impact the other night... after the tidal wave hits New York and the water recedes the FX guys ahve the WTC still standing...

Nothing ages faster than Speculative Fiction...

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 06:21 PM

I imagine they'll have problems anytime they want to re-release Spielberg's AI, where the Two Towers rising out of the flooded ruins of a future New York area are a central image; or the re-made King Kong, where they are the setting for the final denouement in place of the Empire State Building in the proper version.

But I can't imagine there's been a film set in New York since they were built which didn't have them in the background at some point. I think rather than desperately try to edit the image out retrospectively, it would be far better to produce a movie collage made up of all those bits.

As for Starbucks, fortunately it's still possible in some places to get two cups of better coffee for the price of one cup at Starbucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 06:07 PM

Well I like coffee entirely too much to go to a starbuck and get it. As for Tommy Hilfiger; down here on the edge of the Ozark plateau we have a tee shirt with the TH logo on it only it sez: Tommy Hillbilly.

CB

Subject: RE: BS: Starbucks 'Collapse' ad: PC or not PC?
From: Kim C
Date: 18 Jun 02 - 01:49 PM

What's next, is someone going to want to change the title of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower"? Tower Records? Obliterate the word "tower" from every language on the globe? Oh please. Doesn't anyone have anything better to do, fercryinoutloud? Whatever.

As for Starbucks, it was nice when it was a novelty and a treat. Now it's common and not nearly as charming. However I must confess, when the pre-Christmas anxieties set in, I really like going to Starbucks on my lunch hour for a Mocha Valencia and 30 minutes in a puffy chair. :-)