Would you like a Mocha with that?
McDonald’s is making Starbucks scared with their seventh consecutive month of increases in global sales:
McDonald’s expansion into fancy coffees under the McCafé brand is part of a strategy to capture more customers at breakfast time and win them over from coffee chains to its lower-priced drinks.
The move has forced Starbucks to defend its brand. It has been running marketing campaigns with the slogan: “It’s not just coffee. It’s Starbucks.”
In the US, McDonald’s is selling espressos and mochas in its existing stores.
In Europe, it is emulating its Australian business and opening separate McCafé counters, operating in or next to its restaurants. The group plans to have 1,200 McCafés in Europe by the end of the year.
a phrase I don’t like
weak tea, or pretty weak tea, or that’s pretty weak tea.
Dear clusterflock
You have to use the bathroom. You’re alone at home. Do you or do you not shut the door?
from the moderated comments
You go you whoredog……………….I dont blame this man at all. Have you seen the shrew he is married to? She could use a parvo & rabies shot IMHO. That gal in South America is a real hottie.
Those were not “false cats”, those were spirit cats. Sometimes these are simply what humans call “ghosts”, being cats that have died but whose souls have not returned to earth yet. Sometimes they are very powerful spiritual beings who always reside in the spirit realm.
Edupunks
“Colleges have become outrageously expensive, yet there remains a general refusal to acknowledge the implications of new technologies,” says Jim Groom, an “instructional technologist” at Virginia’s University of Mary Washington and a prominent voice in the blogosphere for blowing up college as we know it. Groom, a chain-smoker with an ever-present five days’ growth of beard, coined the term “edupunk” to describe the growing movement toward high-tech do-it-yourself education. “Edupunk,” he tells me in the opening notes of his first email, “is about the utter irresponsibility and lethargy of educational institutions and the means by which they are financially cannibalizing their own mission.”
The reason this is true (via) is because universities are now essentially trade schools, not institutions of higher learning. They function like guilds and if I wanted to join a guild, I’d go play WoW.
quote out of context
The local police tell MSNBC that the man is legally carrying the gun, is nowhere near where the President will be, and is “under constant surveillance.”
Look, it’s Barack Obama (good thing Dad isn’t here)
The Fallacy of Low Expectations
Writer Laremy Legel shares his frustrations regarding the recent spate of poorly handled and shoddy films, and makes some excellent points about what we, the film audience deserve from the filmmakers.
The craziest part is our expectations for people who make 1/100th of what Michael Bay and Steven Sommers do per film are sky high. Would we accept a teacher saying “What did you expect? Educating kids is too hard!” No, absolutely not, no way, no how. Yet Sommers, a man who has made good movies prior, finds it in his heart to dismiss those who would want anything resembling quality from him. Think of the gall that must take, to cash a check for millions of dollars and still believe you are above all forms of reproach.
(full disclosure, I freelance for film.com)
quote out of context
Not that in context it makes much more sense:
His albino squirrel fetish was unnerving
(thanks, Dale)
Radiohead is single
Jason posted about Radiohead’s intention to no longer traffic in full-length albums.
The switch to short-form releases will be a change for Radiohead, who have long been one of the most steadfast advocates of the album format. Previously, the band’s downloads were only available as complete albums. This approach initially made them spurn the industry-leading iTunes Music Store service, which insists on selling albums as individual tracks.
I think this is actually a good thing. Once a band has been together as long as Radiohead has, usually the pattern becomes one of breaking up or creating shittier and shittier albums to maintain the idea that the band persists. I can imagine the freedom this arrangement allows Thom et al. I bet this will end up being good for them and fans of Radiohead alike.
Relatedly, here is Radiohead’s tribute to Harry Patch, the recently deceased last British soldier from WWI.
reasons why cover designs get killed
An article I wish were longer on rejected book covers.
Vivienne Vermuth, Stardust
Say No To Socialism
I saw a link to this image capture on Twitter. It made me laugh.
Kathryn Rantala,
friend of Clusterflock and fine writer, has done it again. I’ve just received my copies of “The Spokane Trilogy”, consisting of three chapbooks The Jewel Encrusted Alligator, Lost Secrets of Meteorology and The Statuary Garden. (Selections from the last two have appeared in elimae.)
If you are interested in copies, let her know at krantala (at) gmail (dot) com, as the books are currently only private releases and are not orderable at Amazon or elsewhere.
“Often I have appointments so plain I cannot even think what they are for.”
“I don’t know if Darwin discusses it, but sometimes breathing is hard, on ground as under water, and at any time anything can be futile. If he did say something about any of this, I don’t know where to find it.”
from The Statuary Garden
Trolling for Credit
(3) provide at least 10 posts defending ID that you’ve made on “hostile” websites, the posts totalling [sic] 2,000 words, along with the URLs (i.e., web links) to each post (worth 20% of your grade)
James Wood’s How Fiction Works–Recommended
I’m always watching for books that delve into the subtleties of narrative technique, exploring the ways it slips into readers’ minds to do its work. Reading this slim volume is like having an engaging converstion about such things with a person who has a broad and deep acquaintance with remarkable literary works and the innovations developed by the writers who wrote them. His examination of free indirect style and related matters of point of view is particularly engaging.
Another of my purposes for writing here is to note my disgust with a number of “reviewers” on amazon. This book received many five star reviews–and also quite a number falling at the other end of the scale. Such a distribution is almost always a sign that something worth looking at is at hand, and this proved to be the case here. I was amazed to see (I know, I shouldn’t have been) a number of opinions offered by people who apparently deduced from the title that this is a How-To book, and that “It’s good and all–but what’s he got against plot?” I could list a number of such examples but won’t; let it be enough to say that many readers should make an effort to first see what exactly James Wood (or any other writer) is attempting, before railing against a work for not being their own book about the subject. Each book doesn’t have to be everything that a book of the sort might be. Sometimes a book inspires further thought in a way that might never have occured if not for its presence–and I’m happy when that happens.
Watching the wake
Catching the ferry at the weekend for a day trip to Arran
Outlaw Chaps
These are 2 of the first three Outlaw Chapbooks from Bannock Street Books. (If you click on the link, the Outlaw Chaps are at the bottom of the page.) On the left is the rear cover of St Sebastian and the Ravioli of Love, short stories by Sarah Black. Yours truly provided five illustrations for the collection, including that maplet on the rear. On the right is a mini-anthology called Outlaws, with flash fiction by various writers (including Mike Topp, JA Tyler, Stefanie Freele, Matt Bell, et al.) and some great photographs. The “blockhead beast” on the cover is also by yours truly, and currently in the collection of Sheila Ryan. The series also includes Motel by Stefanie Freele, with flash fiction and photography.
Playing Jesus in the Big Lebowski – John Turturro
Why Neoconservative Pundits Love Jon Stewart
I am occasionally called a “neocon” and, while that is not true for a large variety of reasons, I still say that I love Jon Stewart*:
Conservatives like Stewart because he’s providing them a platform to reach an audience that usually tunes them out. And they often find that Stewart takes them more seriously than right-wing political hosts, who are often just using them to validate their broad positions, do. Stewart will poke fun, but he offers a good-faith debate on powder kegs — torture, abortion, nuclear weapons, health care — that explode on other networks. “Shepard Smith did the same discussion [on torture],” says May. “He kept yelling me at me: ‘This is where I get off the bus! Not in my name!’ He wasn’t arguing with me. It was just assertions and anger. That’s not what Jon deals in.”
(via Andrew Sullivan)
*Not that I would ever be a political pundit.
Basketball is big in Greece!
Revolution
“A unique picture-book for adults” in torn paper, by French artist Sara.
(Via Book By Its Cover)
Mario Bellatin (and a note of interest)
This week’s publication of Mario Bellatin’s Beauty Salon by City Lights Books sparked a feature in today’s Arts section of the New York Times.
Though [Bellatin] was awarded a Guggenheim grant in 2002 and has participated in writers’ retreats and workshops in the United States, Mr. Bellatin is little known in the English-speaking world. The first of his works to be translated, a collection of three novellas called “Chinese Checkers,” appeared only within the last couple of years, and “Beauty Salon,” a novella from 1994, is to be published by City Lights Books this week.
Of interest to ‘flockers, friends, and (one would hope) others: Bellatin’s debut in English translation, the collection Chinese Checkers (Ravenna Press), was translated by our Cooper — Cooper Renner.
attention to detail
Audi has a reputation for the quality of the interiors of their cars.
It seems that Audi’s “obsession for attention to detail” is so rigorous that it created a Nose Team way back in 1985 to sniff all 500 or so bits that go into its interiors to be sure that nothing is overly noxious. The six-member Audi Nose Team is reportedly prohibited from wearing any scents to work, including perfume, shower gel or aftershave and is not allowed to eat garlic. No, we’re serious.
dick sandwich
A little while after my accident I sold our Apple stock on rumors of Steve Jobs’ health. Since then, the stock has doubled.
