Wednesday, October 06, 2004


struggling to get to bread and chocolate

i need to spend more time drinking coffee with friends. . .

just as i think i'm going to catch up with bread and chocolate notes from my recent trip to italy -- and yes, for those emailed inquiries, i will make a few remarks about wine and fall fashions as well -- along comes a great moment from a person i must confess i have completely ignored but who probably should be best known for her devotion to breast-cancer charities.

popular actress r. zellweger gives the charming "coffee with friends" line above. which certainly shows us all that she's a bccy-kinda coffee-lovin' gal after all!

because let's face it, we all need to spend more time having our friends over for coffee, don't we?

and finally, let's note the mermaid increases her prices slightly today. i don't for a second believe the price of the coffee has anything to do with it.

the price of milk -- which remains shocking, but i ranted on that last year and people thought me a little odd -- always the punishment for being ahead of one's time! -- and certainly, the price of offering health care:

those reasons i'd believe!

(let me also offer a quick rebuttal to daniel gross here: people pay a lot for the mermaid because of the perceived atmosphere, their liking for the flavors of the "coffee" drinks, and because it's still trendy to carry about a starbies cup on the street. this has been proven by customer surveys, and is also obvious to anyone who's ever been in a starbucks.

gross tries to argue that it's because people are "addicted" to the mermaid's supposedly high caffeine levels. however, that study seems to have been flawed, as our hero scaa chief ted lingle noted soon after it came out. . .

and he also questioned whether most people generally develop this supposed "dependency" in actuality.)

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