Frankie Hejduk, the Caffeine Pusher

Gather your strength fierce warriors, for today we battle
like the ocean, no talk and all action

- Bob Marley

For some reason, I decided to watch this profile on Frankie Hejduk from the US Men's Soccer Team. It's pretty interesting from a few perspectives.

1. There are a lot of Hejduk Haters out there and for folks who appreciate the finer skills of professional soccer players, I can see why. He is not an elegant player by any means. Ever wonder how his touch on the ball can be so bad? Well, he stocks up on espresso before the opening whistle...and pretty much all day. Seriously, watch the first minute of this and be amazed.
2. Furthermore, Frankie goes on to describe how the team dopes up on caffeine before the game! Holy cow. For those of you who might question this, you are right. Caffeine is one of the substances that the NCAA tests for (or used to at least) back when I was in college.
3. Frankie is a Marley fan, and writes Marley quotes like the one above on the team whiteboard. Pretty cool quote actually.

Is Your Local Starbucks Closing?

Go here and find out if your neighborhood Starbucks is about to close. Unless it is located close enough to another location to cannibalize sales, you may be safe.

Units of Measure

I went by CC's on my way out of town to Baton Rouge this morning and ordered a 'super grande' cup of coffee with cream and 4 sugars. The drivethru woman asked:

Barista: How much cream?
Me: umm........
Me: (silence, completely stymied)
Me: ummm.........
Me: Two tablespoons!
Barista: ummmm.....Ok.

I order cream at Starbucks all of the time and they never ask this question. What unit of measure would you have chosen? And why does Starbucks never ask me?

No Leprechauns Please

Barista: Welcome to Starbucks. Can I take your order?
Me: Yup. I'll take a grande peppermint mocha, hold the leprechauns.

Alliteration Gone Wrong

I've been drinking peppermint mochas from Starbucks recently but with the upcoming St. Patrick's day holiday, they are throwing green sprinkles on it and have renamed it to a Leprechaun latte. Never mind that it is not a latte. When I pointed this out and asked for an explanation, the reason they decided on this term is that it 'leprechaun mocha' just doesn't have the right ring to it. Thus, they have decided to incorrectly name the product.

Hot Springs Signs: Clinton Was Here

Since the election season is heating up, I thought I would pull out a this recent photo from Hot Springs, Arkansas that was taken this past Thanksgiving. If you did not know, Bill Clinton was raised in Hot Springs so any time we visit my wife's parents (who live in Hot Springs Village), we end up driving by his old house on our way to Starbucks. It is tough to miss the house...

Barista

Barista: He's a cute dog. What's his name?
Me: Her name is Jozy.
Barista: Like Mourinho?
Me: Yup. Or Altidore.
Barista (to Jozy): Are you The Special One?

Los Campesinos - You! Me! Dancing!

I predict that you either hate this song, or are sufficiently intrigued to listen to it at least 2 times before you figure out if you like it or not. It takes a little bit to open up, but when it does, it has a pretty cool/happy beat. It is the singing, which I think can be categorized as twee, that will potentially lead you to question why I would enjoy this song... However, I think we have already established that my taste in music spans the gamut, so it should come as no surprise that I find this catchy and "on the good side of odd."

Payback: Cutting in Line

The second half of the story: Carlee was not happy with the fact that I cut the drive thru line at Starbucks. Thus, we paid for the drinks of the people we cut. It wasn't all that expensive and the principle of the thing made Carlee feel better. It made me feel silly.

I made it clear to the barista and I will make it clear to you. I thought paying the people back was pretty ridiculous. Basically, I felt like we would encourage more text messaging while in line. However, I was overruled by my wife and keeping her happy is more important than making my point to someone who can't pay attention in line.

Cutting in Line

So we were in the Starbucks drive thru line on Saturday morning and I noticed that the driver 2 cars in front of me had left about 1 car length in between their car and the car currently ordering. I get annoyed when I see people do this at traffic lights (because I believe it impacts the number of cars that make it through the light), but I was ok with this at first. I was ok with it because I assumed the person was leaving some space to decide if they really wanted to wait in line. Let's face it, sometimes that drive thu line is brutal. Being able to exit can be really important if you are in a rush.

That was when the car that was ordering pulled forward and around the corner. The "gapper" didn't move. I waited 5 seconds or so. Reversed. Changed the angle of my car and craned my neck to see if I was missing another car, or a motor bike, or any other logical reason for the person to not pull up and order. Nothing. 10-15 seconds had passed. At this point, I pulled past the car immediately in front of me (who for some reason was not laying on their horn) and pulled up next to the "gapper." I stopped for 2 seconds and they never looked up...from their text messaging.

So I cut in front of two cars in the drive through and went about my day. As we were ordering, as we were paying, and as we were leaving, that woman continued to text message and leave major gaps in the drive thru line.

I am 100% comfortable with cutting that line.

Luxary is Part of Performance

This is a longer video than I would normally post but if you have 18 minutes to spare today, this is really an enjoyable presentation by Bryant Simon, Professor of History and Director of the American Studies Program at Temple University. The subject of the presentation is how the desires of daily life are revealed from the couches of Starbucks. It is driven by the speaker's premise of "what we drink has meaning." The presentation has a lot of insights into the culture as well as a lot of humorous slides about the pervasiveness of the brand.

And no, it is not a Starbucks commercial. In fact, it will probably give you some fodder to make fun of people like me who end up there about 5 times a week.

Some interesting points to tease you into making the time to watch this:

• There is a Starbucks in the Forbidden City
• 44 Million people a week go to Starbucks. Bryant discusses what these 44 million people actually do there.
  
• He also tackles why people pay the premium for coffee and proposes three core themes: Functional, Emotional and Expressive. Not to give it all away but did you know that Starbuck's coffee is the most caffeinated coffee on the market? It has 2 times the caffeine of Folgers. So the first idea proposed is addiction.

Watch more. It's worth it.

The presentation is from a conference called the Taste3 conference, founded by Robert Mondavi and explores the relationship of wine, food and art.

Barista Banter

Barista: Hey, what are you guys up to tonight?
Me: Well, I am trying to figure out how to make that caramel flavor in your hot apple cider drink last longer.
Barista: We could put more on top.
Me: That's the problem, it is only on top.
Barista: Let's put it on the bottom. Next time you order it, ask for an "grande upside down on top hot apple cider."

It worked pretty good. The caramel lasted longer. New drink invented.

The Jacket Revolution

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative. - Arthur C. Clarke

So sometime over the last year (or more) Starbucks evidently developed a policy that is designed to limit the number of coffee sleeves distributed with their drinks. What this policy means to you and me is that if you are not ordering a Venti, you need to ask for the sleeve. As an avid fan of scalding hot caffeinated beverages, and a dedicated consumer of one of the most prominent scalding hot drink producers in the country, I find the policy a little counter intuitive. Let me rephrase, I can see it being intuitive to an unfortunately near sighted individual in a board room, but I see it as counter-intuitive when viewed from the perspective of the customer satisfaction revolution that is sure to be spearheaded by a one hand blistered burnt new age savior who will lead us all.

In response to this policy, I have invented a new Starbucks ordering method that will be sure to spread like wild fire across the land. My old order was phrased as a "triple grande with whip vanilla latte." This will now be modified to "triple grande with whip jacketed vanilla latte." This is huge. It may be bigger than the "The Way I See It" campaign. I will hold my breathe.

I tried "sleeved" as in "triple grande with whip sleeved vanilla latte" - but the "s" and "v" don't work in the drive through lane very well. Hard syllables work over multiple mediums. "Jacketed" will catch on and become the new hip, in the know phrase, of all caffeinated soldiers in the customer satisfaction revolution. It will migrate to slang. Your children will start using it in school. "Man, did you see that move, it was jacketed." It will be added to Wikipedia. Andy Rooney will use it as a generation gap expletive. Webster will come around. It may even make a rap song or two. And most importantly...

...your drink will no longer burn your hand through the cup.

PS - The patent hyperlink (Patent # 5,425,497) on the "sleeve" above is technically not correct as it links to the patent filed by Jay Sorensen, who rather than sue the coffee company who burned him, decided to invent the insulating sleeve. Starbucks eventually made, or went with, a competitor product. For a really interesting article on Sorenson and his relationship with Starbucks, go here.

- Start the Revolution: Click the Email Post Icon below -

Hats Off

Starbucks was out of lids today. It wouldn't bother me all that much except for the fact that there seems to be a continual inventory issue occurring there. We only have one real Starbucks in town. The rest are fake - being that they are in Target or B&N. There is a difference you know, and yes, some people can tell. The people who can tell most likely frequent Starbucks more than 5 times a week and I would say that my 10 trips (on an average week) puts me in that category. I've graduated to a triple shot drink at this point. The baristas like to point it out sometimes. There are probably very few addictions that people can call you out on and you can just shrug them off and laugh with them...

I went to go find a nice graphic to give you, themed to Starbucks of course, and found this little gem on their website. Interesting to see what the image was called: "hp_promo_espressoDating.gif" In general, it's little details like this that are small windows into places you don't normally get to see - usually because people gloss over details and don't turn on their inner editor. In this case, there is no lack of attention to detail here. This particular example is just a small token of the lifestyle that has become a piece of Starbucks marketing. Because, amen, Starbucks has actually teamed with Yahoo personals and gone into on-line dating. They even have a dating guide. You can find more info here.

The inventory problem can range from a lack of vanilla, lack of sleeves, and now a lack of lids. I think coffee may be the next chip to fall and I won't be shocked. I guess that is just some damn good expectation management, or lack of attention to detail. Hats off.