FourBux

Clowns are the new devil.

I forgot it was Halloween.

I was up very late last night working on one of my last freelance projects, and woke up exhausted. The shower didn’t wake me up, and I think I slept through my drive to the coffee shop and most of the transaction. After receiving my coffee from the barista, I turned around and came face to face with a giant clown. Face paint, big red afro, hot-dog stand colored outfit, the whole bit. It scared the crap out of me.

I almost beat him down with my shiny metal travel mug.

It’s not that I’m afraid of clowns mind you, but I really think there should be a rule: If you’re taller than, say, 6′3″, you probably shouldn’t dress up like a clown and stand really close to people who are obviously sleeping in line at the coffee shop.

No one would have blamed me.

As you can see in the dramatic reenactment, he was no match for me. However, in retrospect, I very well could have almost beaten down a Ronald McDonald impersonator, so maybe it’s better this way.

So, I talked to the CIA today

One of the things I like about working for The Company is that a place this size affords me many opportunities that I didn’t have as a freelancer. One such opportunity is the joy of the fire drill. Haven’t gotten to do one of those for a while. Really set my Tuesday off on the right foot. Sadly we all thought the sound was the fax machine choking on a timeshare offer so we ignored it. Looks like we’ll be getting safety training for that one!

Another opportunity I had was to attend a mini-seminar given by a member of the CIA’s Cyber Crimes unit. This little pep-talk was given as part of our internal Information Security folks’ open house, which I thought was going to be a snoozer, but turned out to be fun. Not because of the content. There was candy, which I needed like a hole in the head, popcorn, cookies and sodas. It was like trick or treating at Fox Mulder’s house.

I have to say, I learned a lot from the speaker. Sure, I’m thinking some of it was the mystique of listening to an actual CIA agent, but I think there were some nuggets too, and I feel like I should pass them on. After all, we are all connected on the web, and you really should know this stuff:
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My Halloween Haiku

I grew up not doing anything for the Halloween, because, you know, that’s the day that Satan and kidnappers are out. At least that’s what I got from my mom. Anyway, now that I’ve grown up and married someone who loves the holiday, I’ve gradually softened to the point of enjoying staying home and handing out candy to the kids. This year, I’m on my own. My wife has a class that night that they won’t let her out for, and since we’re still new in our area, I have no idea how many, if any, children will show up at our door.

Not to leave anything to chance, my wife brought home a huge bag of candy last week so I can be prepared for whatever kids I may get. In honor of the this event, I’ve been inspired to write a haiku:

Still two days, all gone
Ate thirty bucks worth of sweets
Pass the stomach pump

Thank you.

How cool is that SketchFu?

Sometimes you just need to veg out and doodle for a little while. Or at least I do. And for that, I love SketchFu.

Starbucks is selling breakfast sandwiches. And I’m not okay with that.

I have a problem. My mornings revolve around, well, let’s be honest. They revolve around my previous evening. And since I don’t plan on changing my night time routine any time soon, I have developed a workaround.

And that workaround is to answer the sweet sound of the siren’s call…a trip to the Fourbucks on the way to work. As a general rule, I already try to avoid the stores that have installed a drive through, because I’m not there paying through the nose because I absolutely love their coffee, despite their efforts to infuse it with 50% more caffeine than other coffee to get me hooked, but I visit Fourbucks at least partially because of the atmosphere. It used to be a cool place to hang out, study, read, strike up a conversation with a stranger, but now, eh, not so much. It’s become the equivalent of the swap meet - loud, dirty, and packed with the unwashed masses.

Besides having sales people hawking $300 cappuccino machines and assorted coffee paraphernalia at the door, they of course sell pastries. Which I’m fine with, although if you ever checked out the caloric content of some of their grub it would really cut down on the number of items you eat there. I recently discovered that one of their scones had the same amount of calories as a junior cheeseburger. For that kind of fat content what I’m eating better be hot and have cheese oozing out of it.

In addition to selling things we can use to fill the aching void in our faces, they also schlep music. You like the music you’re hearing while you stand in line like so many sheep? Well, impulse buy it at the counter. Sure, you can download the entire CD from iTunes for $9.99, but we’ll sell it to you for $14.00 - plus you get this giant piece of marketing crap that immediately goes into the trash! It’s a win-win. How about a seasonally themed stuffed animal, handmade with care by some child in Indonesia? Please, think of the children. You don’t want them to get fired, do you?

But I digress. What could very well be the nail in the coffin for me is the new decision to sell “Breakfast Sandwiches.” Is it just me, or are these just Egg McMuffins in a fancy wrapper? Sure, I may not have to order it from my car by shouting through a clown’s mouth, but I could if I wanted to. Is this is just Fourbuck’s way of getting back at McDonald’s for beating their coffee in a taste test? Perhaps. I like to think this is one more way to screw me over on my way to work. It’s bad enough when I get caught behind a real-life Barbie doll who wants a “half-decaf, half regular, dry soy latte with a half a pump of vanilla and a third of a packet of Sweet & Low” but now she wants a hot bacony muffin with egg and cheese too? Perfect. That shouldn’t take add too much time to the line. Didn’t Denny’s have a “ten minutes or it’s free” deal at one point?

Anybody take a second and think this one through? If I actually have time to spend in the store I sure as hell don’t want to spend it in line. This directly hurts my customer experience, and causes my thoughts to wander to other, less-commercialized coffee shops.

Wait a minute, maybe they did think it through. Maybe the underlying goal is to get us to stand in line for more time, thus making more impulse purchases of music, stuffed animals and 47-setting coffee bean grinders.

I’m onto you Siren…don’t make me start making coffee at home.

I don’t want to have to go to bed early.

Not much going on today

Spent the day doodling, turned it into a Mojizu character.

That’s all I have to say about that.