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Macy’s wants to be the department store for Millennials (and it’s hoping to make that happen through a series of initiatives it’s launching over the next three years to bring its Impulse and mstylelab departments in line with... Read the rest of this post

The trailer for ‘The Hunger Games’ is finally here (and we — like millions of teens and adults alike — can’t stop watching it! Since the clip debuted earlier today on “Good Morning America” and on a jumbotron in Times Square, the Web... Read the rest of this post

Facebook’s latest announcement was rumored as a music service (but it has the potential to revolutionize media in general. The new apps will allow users to see what TV shows, songs, movies, news, and games their friends are using through... Read the rest of this post

Moshi Monsters are everywhere from the children’s online community to the pages of the best-selling magazine (and now they’re entering the music business with the launch of the label Moshi Music. After the company’s success with its... Read the rest of this post

The Situation is known for taking his shirt off (but now Abercrombie & Fitch wants to pay him to do so. The student-targeted brand has offered “a substantial payment” to Mike Sorrentino and his cast mates to not wear its clothing.... Read the rest of this post

Phase two of my holidays is goin' exactly as planned. =D

The week has been awesome and busy and fun. The hubby had a blast on a camping trip with his bro, and I spent time with my amazin' daughter and some really great friends.

My daughter and I always have so much fun together, she's as crazy as I am. We spent one day mall shopping, visiting the best store on the planet; 'Teaopia' - we spent as much time in there as we did in the rest of the mall!

The next day was a museum day at the Manitoba Museum, Planetarium and Science Gallery.

In the MB Museum we hung out in a bat cave; played eye-spy in exhibits; swam with the tall ship Nonsuch; got freaked out in the creepy town when we realized we were the only people left in the museum cuz it was after hours and closing (you do NOT wanna get locked-in overnight in a museum!). (O_o) Just sayin'.

We saw a Beatles laser show at the Planetarium - a first for both of us. Good tunes, dry ice and dancing lights - awesome!

The science gallery is filled with these crazy cool things like an anti-gravity machine, a meteorite you can touch, pulley chairs, sound wave dishes, you can even build lil Kinex cars and race them! So much fun!

I spent the next day at Starbucks with my friend Sammy, catching up and talkin' shop (writin' stuff). =) She is one smart lady and a fantastic writer. She always gets me psyched to write.

Yesterday, I went poolside with my buddy Valerie and my daughter. Nothin' like hours of warm weather, great conversation and yummy goodies. Valerie has even begun to write! You go girl!

I'm still on holidays until Tuesday and I plan to make the most outta every minute! Woot woot!

For my writing exercise, I woke up yesterday morning with this first line, 'I am trapped by the darkness of my soul', running thru my head and it inspired the following poem:

nationalpost:

From @Tumblr to TV: How our #Starbucks ‘Trenta’ graphic became an online hit

The week-old editorial above caught my attention because it’s about how an illustration (which the National Post commissioned from Andrew Barr) went viral.

My shock came not when I saw the bigger-than-a-stomach cup, but when I read this line in the Post’s editorial: 

The Starbucks graphic was an excellent learning experience for us, in that it was a perfect example of how editorial and graphics can maximize exposure by moving quickly to execute a great concept at the peak of popular interest.

“Learning experience?” Is the editorial staff saying they are just now learning the value and effectiveness of including strong, informative graphics with their stories in order to attract readers’ attention? Shouldn’t they already know this?? Isn’t this fairly basic to editorial publishing? To storytelling? 

To the folks at the Post: my apologies if I got this wrong. It just concerns me, as a working illustrator, to think the good people who commission work from us seem to not grasp the full value of what we bring to the table.

Tweet

By Michelle Rafferty

“So, why did we launch the Trenta? We listened to you,” says Starbucks. Really?

Looking for more answers, I asked my friend Greg Dietrich for his thoughts on the matter. Greg works at Paragon Coffee Trading, which means he imports coffee and collaborates with members of the New York commodities coffee trade. Oh and he gets to roast beans and cup all day (see picture below on right). Below is a conversation (via Gmail’s instant messaging service) we had about the Bucks’ latest creation.

Note: Some g-chat names have been changed to protect the identity of those in the conversation below.

Me: So you work in coffee. What do you think of this whole Trenta thing?

Greg: Honestly, this is about McDonald’s. They are very successful with their iced coffee and Sbucks is trying to compete.

Me: So the Trenta is really a response to McDs?

Greg: Yes.

Me: They also appear to be warring over oatmeal…is Sbucks actually afraid they’ll lose their customers to golden M?

Greg: Sbucks started off as a specialty coffee outfit but they moved away from that a long time ago. Now they are responding to the demand for iced coffee and larger beverages.

Me: Wait what does “specialty” mean? Better quality?

Greg: There are many interpretations of specialty coffee, but for the most part it encompasses all Arabica/high grown single origin coffee.

Me: And what do they use now?

Greg: Well, Sbucks does not use bad coffee, in fact it is still considered specialty because it is Arabica, meaning it is grown at high elevations, and it is from a single-origin. But, by no means does specialty signify “good coffee.” Sbucks has gotten sooo big that they are now buying coffee from cooperatives (many different farms with varying degrees of quality), whereas the majority of the other roasters prefer to buy single-estate coffees (aka single farm coffees where quality is consistent and exact origin is available for the end consumer).

Me: So they still get to say they’re “specialty,” but in reality they’ve lost some rights to this claim. They’ve just grown too big.

Greg: Yeah. They have already lost a lot of customers to McDonalds/ McCafe due to quality and price. McDonalds has better coffee.

Me: Whoa, really?

Greg: Yeah, McDs has won numerous blind tasting competitions and they have cheaper prices.

Me: In terms of the bean, what’s the diff? And have you participated in these competitions?*

Greg: In my opinion the difference between the two is not so much the bean, but the way they roast. McDonalds has an outside company roast their beans for them that solely focuses on roasting whereas SBbucks roasts for themselves and I feel has become complacent and lacks innovation in terms of blending and adding new flavors.

Me: They are bad roasters?

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To honor our veterans today, we’ve collected links to share books with our troops.

The nonprofit E-Books for Troops will help you share your used Kindle with our troops overseas.

Through Operation Warrior Library, writers share hundreds of books with military personnel overseas.

A Story Before Bed offered 100,000 free story recordings for our troops–military parents can produce videos of themselves reading a story to their children.

Finally, the Kindle community has setup a discussion thread entitled “Happy Veteran’s Day!!”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hillary Clinton tells teens 'It Gets Better' (giving the anti-bullying social media campaign a nice dose of political legitimacy — I especially like that she tells LGBT youth who are struggling to "ask for help." Meanwhile, GLAAD urges... Read the rest of this post

By Dennis Baron

Apparently an English professor was ejected from a Starbucks on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for – she claims – not deploying Starbucks’ mandatory corporate-speak. The story immediately lit up the internet, turning her into an instant celebrity. Just as Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who couldn’t take it anymore, became the heroic employee who finally bucked the system when he cursed out nasty passengers over the intercom and deployed the emergency slide to make his escape, Lynne Rosenthal was the customer who cared so much about good English that she finally stood up to the coffee giant and got run off the premises by New York’s finest for her troubles. Well, at least that’s what she says happened.

According to the New York Post, Rosenthal, who teaches at Mercy College and has an English Ph.D. from Columbia, ordered a multigrain bagel at Starbucks but “became enraged when the barista at the franchise” asked, “Do you want butter or cheese?” She continued, “I refused to say ‘without butter or cheese.’ When you go to Burger King, you don’t have to list the six things you don’t want. Linguistically, it’s stupid, and I’m a stickler for correct English.” When she refused to answer, she claims that she was told, “You’re not going to get anything unless you say butter or cheese!” And then the cops came.

Stickler for good English she may be, but management countered that the customer then made a scene and hurled obscenities at the barista, and according to the Post, police who were called to the scene insist that no one was ejected from the coffee shop.

I too am a professor of English, and I too hate the corporate speak of “tall, grande, venti” that has invaded our discourse. But highly-paid consultants, not minimum-wage coffee slingers, created those terms (you won’t find a grande or a venti in Italian coffee bars). Consultants also told “Starbuck’s” to omit the apostrophe from its corporate name and to call its workers baristas, not coffee-jerks.

My son was a barista (should that be baristo?) at Borders (also no apostrophe, though McDonald’s keeps the symbol, mostly) one summer, and many of my students work in restaurants, bars, and chain retail stores. The language that employees of the big chains use on the job is carefully scripted and choreographed by market researchers, who insist that employees speak certain words and phrases, while others are forbidden, because they think that’s what moves “product.” Scripts even tell workers how and where and when to move and what expression to paste on their faces. Employees who go off-script and use their own words risk demerits, or worse, if they’re caught by managers, grouchy customers, or the ubiquitous secret shoppers who ride the franchise circuit looking for infractions.

I’m no fan of this corporate scripting. Calling customers “guests” and employees “associates” doesn’t mean I can treat Target like a friend’s living room or that the clerks who work there are anything but low-level employees who associate with one another, not with corporate vice presidents. I don’t think this kind of language-enforcement increases sales or

1.  Arrive at the airport ridiculously late and then insist on jumping every queue because your plane is about to leave.  Even better, get a luggage trolley and use it as a battering ram.

2.  Wait until you get to the very front of the queue at the check-in desk and then suddenly remember half a dozen banned items in your carry-on luggage.  Open all your cases and begin re-packing procedures, making sure to spill most of your belongings all over the floor.

3.  Get one of those carry on cases with an extra long extendable handle and be sure to hold it behind you at arm’s length where you can be certain of tripping up the most people.  This is especially effective in the shopping area.

4.  Fill your arms with as many miscellaneous items as you can carry at the duty free shop.  When you get to the cash register spend ages fiddling in your purse/wallet until a major queue has built up and then ask if you can pay in a really obscure currency.  When you receive a negative answer from the cashier, simply say, “Oh, never mind then,” leave all the items on the counter and walk away dragging your over-sized carry-on bag precariously on its 8 foot handle.

5.  On the way to security, stop at Starbucks and order a bucket of whatever coffee suits your fancy.  Then try to take it through security.  When you are refused entry, insist on standing there holding up the queue until you have drunk the entire thing.  After all, you paid for it!

6.  Alternatively, stuff your carry-on bag with as many jumbo-sized bottles of shower gel and shampoo as you can carry.  When security stop you and refuse to let the items on the plane, offer to go to the bathroom and empty some from each bottle down the toilet until they all only have 100ml.  This should get everyone laughing along!

7.  Bring along a mobile phone, ipod with leaky earbuds, hand-held games console and any other potentially noisy electrical gadget you can find in your house.  Then go to the part of the airport where all the frazzled long-haul transfer passengers are trying to get a couple of hours sleep and turn them all on.  If you can listen to a humourous audio book on your headphones and occasionally laugh out loud, not only will it annoy people, it will also make them a little afraid of you, thus ensuring you those coveted empty seats to put all your bags on.

8.  Head purposefully towards every travelator and walk onto them with speed.  Then immediately stand stock still and put your bags down so that nobody can get past you.  At the end of the travelator it is imperative to dither while stepping off the walkway and then immediately stop to extend the handle on your bag, causing a pile up of disgruntled travellers behind you.  Then walk off, oblivious to the carnage.

9.  About ten minutes before your plane is due to board, randomly stand somewhere close to the embarkation point.  This will cause other nervous and sheep-like passengers to stand behind you forming a pointless queue when in reality they could all have stayed in their seats until the flight was actually called.

10.  When boarding the aircraft, make sure to take your time putting things in the overhead lockers while everybody else waits behind you in the tiny aisle.  If possible, change seats at least twice, moving all your belongings each time, and be sure to smash your enormous hard-edged carry-on case into somebody’s laptop bag in order to make it fit into the compartment, thus damaging their screen.  They won’t realise what’s happened until they get to their destination and by that time you’ll be long gone.

The sad thing is that most of these suggestions are drawn from things I’ve really seen at various airports around the world!  Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments below.

Or for some more gentle humour, try these articles by the same author:

Fans Who Love Their Team Too Much

Famous for all the Wrong Reasons

Coffee talk (Starbucks' new campaign recruits the next generation of coffee drinkers to tell their stories online. Also, with the help of animation site Aniboom Fox crowdsources its next cartoon) (New York Times, reg. required) (TechCrunch) - That's... Read the rest of this post

This morning K and I headed to Starbucks. The air was cool and crisp and a heavy fog had settled in. Starbucks was packed with customers looking for a piping hot cup of coffee and a good newspaper to read or a friendly chat with a neighbor. Our favorite mugs were back on display and we quickly scooped up the last two and purchased them. They carry the signature Starbucks mermaid design in warm bronze and brown tones, my absolute favorite of all the Starbucks designs. Don't you just love them?


We have the taller version of this design which is great for a latte or mocha, but the shorter, more full bodied mugs are just the right size for a hot cup of chocolate. A warm respite after a busy afternoon of working on a mixture of projects.


We're making headway on the floors and are about 1/3 of the way done, yeah! Of course with any project, one leads to another and now we want to paint the kitchen. I think we'll need to take a life line and ask the audience for help with the color. I'll post photos at a later date and maybe you can help. Right now it is white and while I know this is a popular color, we need a change, even if it is a minute one. Please stay tuned!

MEDIA ALERT: April Henry to Close 9 to 10 P.M. Thursday to Perfect the Art of Being Human
B-Roll and Images Available

WHAT: April Henry conducts historic in-home relaxation event for self
In-home event and media-related details include:
• Taking a tip from Starbucks, the writer April Henry will close all of her computers in the U.S. on Thursday, February 28, 9 to 10 p.m. local time, to conduct a nationwide relaxation event, designed to energize herself and transform her writing experience.
• The comprehensive educational curriculum will focus on viewing the latest episode of the TV show "Lost" to provide her with a renewed focus on her humanity and crazy, convulted plot lines that will help ensure the exceptional quality of every sentence she writes thereafter.

WHEN: Thursday, February 28, 2008

APRIL HENRY FUN FACTS:
• April Henry will cease writing for one hour. That’s 60 minutes or 3,600 seconds.
• Approximately 2 computers across the country will temporarily not be accessed.
• April Henry has been cranking out words non-stop since she left her full-time job February 1.
• When it comes to deciding who is hotter, April Henry is torn between Jack and Sawyer.

After a very busy weekend of deadline work...and when everything had been delivered...I took my sketchpad and headed to the local Starbucks for a little bit of peace, quiet, coffee...and sketching that's not on a deadline!

Tonight was special, though...a local group of people who love to knit have started gathering at Starbucks on Monday night at 6:00 PM. I don't really like to knit, but I love to crochet...and when Robin Hasty came over to say I looked like someone she knew...we started talking...and now I'm gonna be meeting with them next Monday night - only I'll show up with my crochet hook!

She shared her love of knitting - and her blog, For the Love of Fiber. I'm extremely excited! Maybe I'll pick up my knitting needles again!

If you get a chance, check it out. She has all kinds of information and beautiful work to share!

A quick 4 minute sketch while at Starbucks. I like the heaviness and darkness of the line so I left the sketch as is. For a larger image click here.