Pass the cheer, hold the narcotics
I'm not entirely sure of what requirements are in place by which Starbucks measures the worthiness of the masses of aspiring baristas to man the stands at the mall and on street corners around the globe.
But I'm quickly finding that my order is invariably given to varying forms of a perky college student with a greasy coiffure and godly clear skin. I don't know if this is some kind of a prerequisite for employment, or if it's just what becomes of any ordinary person subjected to a caffe mocha or two every half hour. Either way, I personally find their almost obnoxious happiness unbearable, even if I only experience it for a total of thirty seconds at a time. The knowledge that I'm subjecting my body to this common poison makes me wonder if I might someday wake up to find myself hopeful for the future of mankind, effusing this effervescent demeanor in a constant stream of caffeine-driven optimism. If this curse should ever come upon me, it will be a billion arguments too soon.
One might be tempted to think it unfair to be so privileged as to bask in the coffee-induced delirium of the Starbucks barista. However, thoughts of racing, pumping hearts and erectile dysfunction quickly beckon us back to reality. Still, the syrupy goodness of a white chocolate mocha, and perhaps also the image of everlasting youth taking your order, eventually bring us back for more. (Coffee, that is.)
January 4th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
If you ever wake up feeling hopeful about the future of mankind, Nezer will always be there to knock you back to reality.
January 6th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I love how all the Google ads at the top of your page are ads for different kinds of coffee.
I had coffee today...Don't give me that look. I started drinking at college. (I am probably the only person in the world who, when saying "I started drinking at college", is referring to coffee and not something else.)
I actually applied to be a Sagista (barista for the SAGES Cafe in the Cog Sci building) last semester and went in for an interview. I guess I was deemed inappropriate as a server of coffee. Or something.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
*gasp!!!* Lily...drinking...coffee? That's exactly what I expected after a semester in college, but I'm still shocked. I wonder, was the coffee drinking part of the interview? I can picture it very clearly: you're sitting in a completely dark room save for the bright light they're shining in your face, and the manager pulls off the cloth that previously covered what you discover is a caffe latte that you must drink as a test of your loyalty to the coffee shop.
I'm not sure what the date of the Wait Wait show is, although I'm quite sure I have a podcast of it somewhere, because Luke is rarely ever on the show (and yet somehow he has a group of people in the audience who like to chant "Luke" whenever he's introduced, although I always thought it sounded like they were jeering at him; "Luke" sounds a lot like "boo" when it's said by enough people).
January 11th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I still don't drink coffee-- then again I haven't spent a full semester in college... However I find a cup or darjeeling and/or pomegranate green tea much more energizing. Not that I am a 'tealavangelicist' but I do think tea is a much better option. Of course, I end up having a cup of chamomile to counteract the black tea.
Do you use iWork '08? I have been using the free trial that came with Leopard (a few months after I got it) and I find it to be exactly what it is. MS Office fully integrated with AQUA. Therefore worth purchasing over my disgusting MS Office 2004 system.
But now they are releasing MS Office 2008 soon... I'm wondering if it will be less clumsy and more AQUA friendly.
What have you heard?
January 11th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I personally drink coffee because I just plain like how it tastes; the energy kick is just a nice plus.
I actually don't use iWork. I have open-source office software called OpenOffice. I am considering getting iWork here soon though. As a Mac purist I really don't want any Microsoft software on here. If you want my own prediction, I think Office 2008 will be sluggish on the Mac. But I haven't really heard much about iWork or iLife except what I get from the Apple website. That's why I wish I lived near an Apple store so I could demo the new stuff.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Yeah, the CompUSA's all went out.. a couple of my Mac friends lost their jobs. It was the closest thing we had to a Mac Store.
I have a demo of iWork 08, you should have gotten one too-- I think it comes with Leopard. It is a lot less clumsy to use, but it, like all things Mac, has issues going off Mac.
I use Office 2004 because sometimes I need to email something to a friend on a Windows, or print something off a Windows computer... I suppose it wouldn't be bad to invest in iWork and supplement its capability issues with Office 2004.
If Office 2004 is any predictor of 2008, then you're right. 2004 is clumsy, faulty, sluggish, basically it can't cope with the AQUA interface, I think on the older systems it had some problems with COCOA too.
How's Leopard working for you? I had to spend a couple months getting it ready for me-- had to make the dock 2D again and give it features to make it heirarchical, coverflow is useless to me. Nevertheless, I enjoy that unlike other systems I could mention *cough* Vista *cough* I can fix all the cosmetic issues I find.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Another thing that occurred to me is, if you're on a high-speed connection, there's always Google's office solutions. The only downside is that there's no presentation software.
I'd say Leopard is passable, but not amazing. I had to download a patch for Sibelius 4 because it wasn't saving my scores correctly, sometimes not at all. But everything's working well now. All I see is GUI enhancements; I can't take advantage of any of the other innovations because I'm on dial-up. Which reminds me, iChat frequently gives me error messages, because I guess my internet is too slow for it. I'm keeping my eyes on the forums to see if any solutions come up; at least I've discovered that I'm not the only person with that problem.
Vista = one big cosmetic, technological "issue"
Thank the Unix kernel for the wonderful hackability of OS X
January 12th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
iChat doesn't work well with dial up, you're better off with AOL SM-- I get the same errors when I have my Internet really busy.
I guess it has something to do with the message AQUA interface has to go back to basic (not BASIC) code, go through the AOL servers, go out the AOL servers, and so on and so forth.
I am interested in seeing what 10.6 or 7 will be like-- but what interests me are the updates to get to 10.5.9. I'm thinking they'll put back in some of the stuff they took out of the betas. Stackable apps for instance.
You *should* get a better Internet connection, not just to take advantage of Leopard, but of Macs in general.