Would you like Crema with your Big Mac? · Tuesday January 8, 2008 by colin newell
McDonald’s will begin to roll out one of its biggest and most expensive new product concepts ever in a bid to put the heat on Starbucks in the battle for upscale coffee drinkers.
And if you think you are having a deja cappuccino moment, you are because if memory serves me correctly, Ronald McDonald did some clowning around with gourmet and specialty coffee about 7 years ago…
and it was an udder failure.
I was in a McDonalds Cafe in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in the year 2000 or 2001 and it was quieter than lunchtime at Mime School.
Perhaps it was timing.
And like the late-seventies Laser-Disk that was so totally wrong thing, wrong time this shot of espresso coffee supremacy could actually take off.
Starbucks, it appears, is suffering from an excessive softening in growth – and hence: Starbucks announced Monday that CEO Jim Donald is out and that founder and Chairman Howard Schultz would retake the reins as CEO…
It is all falling into place. Strike while the coffee pot is hot.
And so McDonald’s is diving into the frothing pitcher anticipating taking a chunk of upwards of over one billion dollars in market share.
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Only in Canada RCMP rant · Friday January 4, 2008 by colin newell
Would you like a breathalyzer with your fries Sir?
RCMP officers in Surrey are asking that very question as part of a new program designed to catch impaired drivers at late night drive-thru windows.
A plainclothes officer is stationed inside the restaurant near the drive-thru window while an officer in uniform waits outside.
The plainclothes officer takes a passive observer role inside the restaurant and looks for signs of impairment, such as slurred speech and the smell of stale liquor.
For the love of…
“We’ve gotten really good buy-in from the proprietors that we’ve dealt with,” said Sergeant Roger Morrow, spokesman for the RCMP’s Surrey detachment. “They’re really excited about it, they’re having fun with it.”
Buy-in? What the @&*! is Buy-in?
He said the program, titled Project WULF (an acronym for Would You Like Fries), has been used on three nights in recent weeks and has already caught two impaired drivers and doled out numerous roadside suspensions…
Do the whoppers and biggie-fries come with that suspension?
Why not go one better and station RCMP officers:
- in Bars
- in your living room
- at Airport arrival gates
- at every Tim Horton’s outlet
The RCMP have had a bad year (2007) tasering innocent people and putting bullets through the heads of people in custody… and I know how that can screw up an otherwise effective Walt Disney-esque public-relations campaign.
But this… I just do not know.
Year in review rant number 1 · Sunday December 23, 2007 by colin newell
2007 has been one heck of a year wouldn’t you say?
I, for one, have been quite comfortable… no disasters, no illness to speak of, steady employment, regular pay cheques, 3 square a day.
Not everyone has been so lucky. And trust me folks: Luck has everything to do with getting through the year without pain or crisis. When your luck turns, look out. No one can protect themselves against the furies.
Well. No one except for people like Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein who received a whopping 67.9 million in bonuses for being, well… a guy in the right place at the right time.
In the photo upper-right, CEO Blanfein relaxes after a hearty meal of investors
Somehow this company managed to avoid the bulk of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis – a crisis that touched, no walloped the likes of Merrill-Lynch and Morgan-Stanley. Their respective CEOs did not earn a bonus this year.
And this is a perfect example of good luck. I mean, Lloyd Blankfein did absolutely nothing to warrant this kind of financial reward – his staff did. And guess what, his staff are getting no where near 67 million in rewards.
Truth is, as much as I support the free market system, this kind of reward system verges on the incomprehensively obscene. What of the million plus home-owners that will lose their homes this year because of the sub-prime mortgage scandal?
Sadly, versions of this story can be re-told from one community to the next in every small Canadian or American town; tales of inequality, unfairness and injustice – plain bad luck I guess.
In the last few days leading up to Christmas 2007, I hope your luck has been good, that your family and friends are healthy and that there is a roof over your head and food on the table.
In a society like the one we live in, sometimes it is all you can hope for.
Victoria realty expressions explained · Wednesday December 19, 2007 by colin newell
Notorious for some of the most expensive houses in North America, our Victoria area realtor’s pride themselves in their colorful, yet somehow cryptic use of the English language.
Well – here at the CoffeeCrew blog, we love to help out by making sense of the confusing. So here are some examples and the appropriate translation:
Great starter home – Has rats, lethal mold and is not fit for human habitation.
Good location close to transportation – One block from the airport runway… and has rats.
Walking distance to the Jubilee Hospital – Has mold and rats. You will be hospitalized if you buy this house.
Amazing privacy – Has Big scary rats.
Priced to Sell! – Next door to a grow-op.
Delightful backyard – playful rats
A piece of heaven – At these prices you can own the promised land… and has Norway rats.
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