You Want Ice? No Espresso For You!

Now imagine back to when you first saw the Seinfeld episode featuring "The Soup Nazi" and you were probably thinking a) this is really (naughty word deleted) funny and b) there is no way that this could ever happen in real life.

Ah...but that's where you're wrong. As Kramer would say, "It can. It has. And I'm loving every minute of it!"

I direct your attention to the paper of record here in Washington, DC: The Washington Post, and their fine bit of Metro Section reporting on a guy who couldn't get ice with his espresso. It seems that the "barista" (a term I still shutter when saying because it's such a pretentious way to say "coffee drink pourer") would not give this gentleman his triple espresso over ice and only begrudgingly gave him a triple espresso and a separate cup of ice.

A few things to point out here:
1) If you're ordering a triple espresso you are a bit off balance to begin with and should not be told "no" to anything for fear of you shooting up a place
2) If you want the caffeine boost you probably shouldn't cut it with ice/water
3) In a piss-poor economy...you never tell a customer "no"....if he wants his coffee over ice over a pile of leftover coffee grounds, you can advise him not to, but if he insists then you do it!

Fast forward to later that day. If you were a sane and rational person (you wouldn't be drinking a triple espresso!) you might retell this story to a friend and laugh it off as really bad service. But the customer (much like yours truly) decided to go home and blog about the incident. I'm not sure of his previous traffic but something caught the eye of the blogisphere and his site was bombarded with visits and comments. This in turn lead to the owner of the coffee shop (who by the way had to close a previous incarnation in DC because he owed the city $400k in collected sales tax revenue) to blog back saying that the shop had "rules" that could not be broken or questioned.

What a freakin idiot!

Note to owner of Murky Coffee, Nicholas Cho: Hey dumbass!!!! The customer is always right. Even when he's a jerk (nobody likes a jerk) and orders a triple shot...he's still right. I didn't realize that you were loosing so much money on the ice or that your espresso is so good that it can't be enjoyed any other way that you don't deem permissible. If you had just let this guy blog and not said anything there would be no story and no bad press for your store. But since you couldn't handle that...No Soup For You!

Another Reason Not to Wear Headphones When Running/Biking/Scuba Diving and How does ION stay on the air?

For those of you who don’t know (and based on telling this story to my running team on Saturday, most of you in this group), Mike Wise, a sports columnist at the Washington Post.

Last week he was out in the evening (after dark) running a few miles with his dog on a DC trail that runs along the C&O Canal. After going about 3 miles he stops to stretch and the dog (who is off leash) paces around him. After a minute or so the dog wanders off on to the frozen over canal to sniff something and falls through the ice. Wise (who is about 6’4”) slides down the embankment and onto the ice to try to rescue the dog and also falls in. He can’t get himself out and would have frozen to death in just over 6’ of water had it not been for a lone runner out on the trail who heard his plea for help. Jason Cotes just happened to be running by the trail at that moment and came to Wise’s rescue (and the dog too). You can read all the details here at WJLA’s report, but the long story short, had Cotes been like many runners out on the trail and listening to headphones/ipod/etc he would not have heard Wise and that evening would have turned tragic. I ask all of you who go out side to run/bike/roller blade/whatever DO NOT WEAR HEADPHONES….you may just put yourself or others in danger.

Second item today: How does ION network stay on the air? Yes, I too was unaware of ION network until recently. I subscribe to a number of media industry newsletters and saw in one of them that this is the “prime time” line up tonight:

8pm: Mama's Family
830pm: Mama's Family
9pm: Drew Carey Show
930pm: Drew Carey Show
10pm: Who's the Boss?
1030pm: Who's the Boss?

No offense to Valerie Harper, Drew Carey, or Tony Danza, but these are not names that can carry a network in primetime in 2008. Twenty years ago possibly but not now. The one notable exception is ”Mama’s Family” which was never funny, unless you live in the middle of Ohio or Indiana and perhaps know somebody who looks and sounds like a loud mouth New York Jew but who happens to be trapped in the body of a 70 year old Midwestern protestant house wife. Oh and for a “family-friendly programming” network, I don’t think bringing “Baywatch” on the schedule in March is the best move. Unless they plan on blurring out Pam’s boobies.