April 12, 2004

• Pretty funny, even if taking the piss out of Starbucks is like fighting a cripple in a boxing match. And if the prices are going up to help the coffee farmers, I'm fucking glad. I'll pay the extra price, any day.
• Frappucinos make coffee palatable. Girly Drinkness be damned.
• do they serve fair trade coffee yet?
• 5 more minutes is still the funniest of the bunch. though i’d like to have the creator of this have to work under a 'no swearing' rule to see what he can do without that particular crutch. c.f. Homestar Runner.
• Crap. 5 More Minutes.
• The squirrel is the best part of the series.
• wedge - starbucks doesn't carry fair trade. this (and several other reasons, my pissiness at the idiocy of the sizing is one) keeps me out of the place. here in town we have two starbucks, right across the street from each other. (i mean, nice location planning, morons...) we have two very good local coffee shop chains in town as well; one is semi-national, primarily associated with college campuses and the other is a homegrown chain, but growing. only the first one carries fair trade, so i go there as often as possible (read: once a day, or more) to fill up (but i don't feel bad about giving money to the other chain, hey it did start right here in town after all). my shop carries this coffee. not sure why more places don't follow suit with the fair trade. it seems to be better than some of the other varieties, it doesn't cost me any extra, and the farmers get more of my money, rather than having it go to a middleman. heck, didn't dunkin' donuts go fair trade recently? if they can do it, then the snotty starbucks drinkers who look down their nose at a (gasp!) cup o' joe from a donut shop ought to be ashamed to pay what they do for the coffee they buy. dunkin' donuts patrons will pay less for a coffee than a starbucks customer, but will probably contribute more to the coffee grower than said trendy coffee shop customers do.
• oh - that starbucks link may be a little biased. just to be fair. as much as it pains me. but if being fair to starbucks makes you angry here's another little link to make you feel better.
• Is fair trade usually the same price? I thought I had seen it generally a bit more. I read something very interesting a while ago (sorry no ref) about one of the biggest problems in the international coffee trade is that countries who grow a lot of coffee often get very little profit compared to those which roast and otherwise process it, which is where a lot of the value is added. They were trying to get more coffee roasting started in Uganda (I think), but were facing barriers as to world perception of its quality. I really should go to see if there has been any follow up. But this is a derail - I thought we were talking about foul but funny mouthed squirrels. Creamy chesy cream cheese!
• Nah, that's not a derail. Coffee and foul-mouthed squirrels go hand-in-hand... with the cream and the cheese and the creamcheese
• More hilarity from the same source: the Fatkins diet.