from a mountain of cliche

I had forgotten how much I like Elliot Smith. If you want to here a good album, you should listen to "From A Basement On The Hill".

Lately I have been having a really good life. I have a lot that I need to do in the next few days, but I am really excited about it.

This lady just walked into the coffee shop that I am sitting in, wearing spandex everything. It's probably underarmour or some other glorified version of spandex. I would feel weird walking around knowing that everyone that sees me knows basically exactly what I look like naked.

If you ever get a chance to do stuff in the rain, do it. Trust me.

It's weird that how one person lives their life can be enough to make you want to change yours.

The following is an excerpt from my good friend APC's blog (regarding starbucks):

"how about you tell everyone why your stock is doing so well? who wouldn't want to buy shares of a company who pulls a 60% profit margin? SIXTY percent! one would think a company like yours could afford to slip a little more dinero to your farmers in central and south america, africa and indonesia. and what's even worse, you try and play it off like you're doing the world a service by selling Fair Trade coffee, but what the world doesn't know is that you're only investing about 4% of your total coffee purchases in Fair Trade.

side note: Fair Trade is rather frustrating for me. there is Fair Trade, and there is "fairly traded" coffee. you already know and understand this, you shades, but let me explain my frustration. let's say there are four major coffee farmers in Brazil: Farmers A, B, C and D. let's say Farmer A grows the best coffee in the region, so he gets paid the most money. Farmers B, C and D cannot compete with Farmer A, so they call up Fair Trade, pool their beans, and have FT pay them more money for an inferior product. That is how Fair Trade works, so even though Farmer A might have a significantly better product, they're not getting a payment to match it. "fairly traded" coffee eliminates middle men without a label and directly pays Farmers A, B, C and D the money they deserve for the product they're farming. it's simple economics.

while we're at it, one might wonder why an establishment with such a mighty profit margin can't afford to make better coffee. selecting between "dark" and "charred" is not something i enjoy doing. the "smoky" finish you boast is not something to be proud of - i highly doubt that it is even intentional. why don't you take that extra money and dabble in the best coffee there is to offer while paying the farmers the price you're forking over to the FT label for that average business. heck, why not even pay more? its better coffee right? why not splurge a little? invest some money that will increase the quality of your product instead of building another location across the street from the one that's already there."


nicholas david welch