Food

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Starbucks… you disappoint me.

6 October 2008 in Food, Nonspecific | 1 comment

Oh Starbucks…. I’m afraid that I’m going to be adding you to my boycott list, which hurts me because I have some good friends who you employ. I also enjoy your drinks, luckily I live in an area where you haven’t killed the local competition!

Starbucks, you have recently been doing things that I don’t agree with. What it all comes down to is that you decided to leave your market niche in the sight of greed, and now I see you breaking apart like a used and abused coffee filter.

Starbucks Fail

My main complaints of you at present are with pushing special needs workers out the door and now with your horrible waste of water. I use to really respect your organization for hiring people with special needs as part-time cleaners. It not only provided you with cheap labor, but people talked good of you for doing so. Then, out of no where you decide it’s time to start saving the couple of pennies you are paying these people who are cleaning up after everyone and washing your dishes. Seriously, not cool… especially because we know the big wigs are still getting their raises and bonuses.

Thanks for taking away a job my sister really liked and enjoyed. The sad thing is, that before the store got a new manager… the old one was even trying to set my sister up for failure, so you could save even more money when she left! So not only did you scale back the work to hardly once a month (from two to three times a week) you tried to make her working experience crap from ridiculous treatment at work. The result you had? I gave up my two or three times a week drink to once a month. 

Now thank-goodness we have The Sun doing an investigation here. You want to save some money? Try not having a big water bill. I know there are more environmentally viable solutions available. It is the year 2008 and we often are faced with droughts and water problems in much of the world… yet there you are leaving the water run and run like a kid brushing their teeth all day long.

I am a strong believer in conserving our natural resources… and I see that you are not. Just as I would not support a political candidate who believed in or supported wastefullness, I will not be supporting you till yins decide to cleanup your act.

Support local coffee shop trade! I do, and it feeeeelllss great!

Links of interest:
Starbucks Gossip
I Hate Starbucks
Sun article on water waste
BBC article featuring Starbucks rebuttal 
Find your local coffee shop 

Even Skymall is part of the trip

16 July 2008 in Airports, Food, Memories, Planes, Trips | 2 comments

This past weekend I ventured northwest on Southwest for a weekend in the windy city. An absolutely fantastic time with some amazing food. The plane ticket alone merits the pizza experience; I’d easily get a pizza once a week if I lived within distance. The popcorn in that city is just as stunning - we had the buttered mix. With my health conscious locked away for the weekend, there was some good food to be had. Plus, the views of the city, great weather, public transport and fantastic friends all add to the great Chicago taste.

I suppose I should also credit Southwest for a good trip as well. Infact, Southwest exceeded my expectations with the complimentary peanuts and drinks. I didn’t know those were still included as part of the flights? Props to Southwest. Plus, there is the whole Skymall experience… who doesn’t like making a wish list?

Some picks from the weekend:

half Spinach, Half CheeseChicago Pizza  Cloud Gate reflecting the windy cityCloud Gate

Sears towerSears tower Chi TownChi Town

Drew in Sears towerMeeeeeee

When in Beijing…

11 July 2008 in Animal Welfare, China, Food, Olympics, Politics, UK | No comments

We are going into their culture… why should they adapt to appease us? When in Rome, do as the Romans do… I guess “When in Beijing” doesn’t apply?

“Concerned that canine dishes might offend animal rights groups and Western visitors, Beijing said restaurants expected to be popular among foreign visitors must stop serving dog meat ‘to respect the dining customs of different countries.’ ” Yahoo Article Link

It would suck to live in a society where a government can dictate your restaurant’s menu. Personally, I am a vegetarian… so to me a dead animal is a dead animal. No difference between eating a dog, cow, donkey, horse, pig, cat or chicken - it’s all dead animal. So what’s the difference? Even though I don’t eat meat, I would not change my menu to appease some people in another culture.

Dog Art 1

—

In other world news…
Looks like Englanders are upset over google mapping their streets over “privacy” concerns. Seems to me, from a country that is always busy taking away more rights from it’s citizens… that everyone would be up-in-arms over more important matters. So someone mapped your street… big deal!

Privacy? What privacy do you have now? Your government does more spying on it’s own people through wire tapping, internet spying and CCTV; a google map of your street is the least of your concerns.

Stick to it Google!

Google Mapping Car spotted in London

Easter 2008

23 March 2008 in Expectations, Food, Lent, Winter, spring, warm | No comments

Happy Easter!

Now that it’s Easter, it is starting to feel alot like spring (and the weather may be finally getting the memo as well.) My Leprechaun traps came up dry, Lent is over, the Easter Bunny hid my basket well, the car was washed without the locks freezing, the temperature is on the up all this week, and the daylight is intruding into the evenings. Yes, it is starting to feel like spring.
One of the best things about this time of year is that I get a change to refresh myself for the spring season with Lent. I am not the most religious person in the world, mostly because I have some major beefs with religion for several reasons - something for another day - but I do look forward to Lent each year. It is a time for me to challenge myself on personal and sometimes physical level. For that reason, I really like the concept of Lent because it allows a person to grow. This year I decided to give up the snoooooze alarm. 
The snooze alarm was an evil bugger that would even put my whole day behind schedule. Plus, I would just be falling asleep again when the soft ear piercing beeps would be starting up again. Every time those beeps would go off, I could feel stress and anger building inside of me - not good. So looking at how I felt when the alarms of the day went off along with the numerous studies that have been published, I felt it was only right to start waking up on a positive note.
—Fast track all of Lent—-
So now that Lent is over…. I can proudly say that I have succeeded in not using the snooze alarm once. I can also add that I did not use any secondary alarms as well. For me, this is a really good accomplishment. There were days when I was working till 1AM and had to wake up at 4:30AM for work. Normally the 4:30 wake up would require 2 or 3 punches, but I managed to push myself to the hot shower and just jump start my day (which now conveniently had time for some morning grub.) 
Eventually, as Lent progressed, I started noticing how much easier it was for me to wake up when the alarm went off - sometimes I’d even wake up the alarm before it could wake me. It turns out that once I got into the rhythm of waking up without the snooze, there was only a handful of days I yearned for it.
So come Monday morning tomorrow the snooze will be fair game, however, I think I have kicked the habit for now and I am looking forward to using it as little as possible.
Now that I have succeeded in refreshing my mornings, I am ready for spring. To kick off spring and celebrate the holiday, I have a veggie roast in a beer batter getting ready for supper tonight. mmmmmm mmmm.