Plucky 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 I hate the place. Hate it. Evil, evil corporation. Is it coincidence or just God speaking when the 6.1 earthquake in Seattle damaged the Starbucks headquarters? It was one of the only buildings really hit by the quake. A girl I work with likes to travel and collect Starsucks mugs from different places. So far she has Japan (5 cities), 10 different US states, Thailand and Australian cups. When will the insanity end??? It's just fuggin' coffee! Bunch a friggin' yuppie copycat poser pieces of beetle dung! Do a google for 'coffee' and see what comes up first. It's so Orwellian/Planet of the Apes. Starbucks will control everything while the monkey GWB (ape) sits and pushes buttons. Just watch. Back off on the brew and save the world! Boycott the evil empire Starbucks! Seriously, if you go to Starbucks......bah bah little black sheep. Link to post Share on other sites
skemmygirl 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 Evil? Why's that then? I quite like it myself, not amazing but better than lots of places. Link to post Share on other sites
snobee 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 Plucky - Like you said "It's just fuggin coffe". So what's the big deal. They're hardly in the Walmart, McD, etc conspiracy league. The reason(s) I sometimes frequent is simple - I can more often or not plant myself in a big soft armchair with space around to spread out (legs, magazines, newspaper.....!)and BREATHE air that is void of nico addicts residues. 2ndary to that is the coffee. Link to post Share on other sites
dancing_barefoot 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 I go. Link to post Share on other sites
xxx 2 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 Did someone involved with Starbucks do something to you, or abuse you as a child, or something?? I have a Starbucks quite often because a) its convenient to where I work and I like it. Link to post Share on other sites
rach 1 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 I've got nothing against Starbucks, except perhaps the prices! But I sometimes pop in for a coffee. Link to post Share on other sites
Plucky 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Author Share Posted March 22, 2004 Expected. Not trying to start a war, just prove a point. No, nothing bad happened to me. I'm just going to keep quiet now. snobee - do some research. as bad or worse. Link to post Share on other sites
snobee 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 Plucky - over the years heard some of the stories and read some of the articles. Sure - corporate culture with a capital C squeezing rocks. But if it's boycotts where do you begin? Nike, Nestle, Coke, Mitsubishi, Microsoft.... Hell there's plenty of stuff on the so called better new wave corporateers - Virgin, Bodyshop...... As I said, at least I can breathe while relaxing and that's worth some brownie points. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 Starbucks may be a bit of a disaster in the US and other countries that have vibrant coffee cultures. But in Japan where the kissaten coffee is like tar and you sit with your knees jammed up against a tiny table with strange people smoking all over you, I guess it is a step up. Japan's version of Starbucks, Dotor is an utterly miserable place to be. It's been around since I first got here and it's hardly changed in over 10 years. I've only had Starbucks coffee once, on an aeroplane, and it was far better than anything I had had in-flight before. Link to post Share on other sites
Plucky 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Author Share Posted March 22, 2004 Quote: Originally posted by snobee: Plucky - over the years heard some of the stories and read some of the articles. Sure - corporate culture with a capital C squeezing rocks. But if it's boycotts where do you begin? Nike, Nestle, Coke, Mitsubishi, Microsoft.... Hell there's plenty of stuff on the so called better new wave corporateers - Virgin, Bodyshop...... As I said, at least I can breathe while relaxing and that's worth some brownie points. inhale, exhale..... I'm sorry, but if you don't get it, bash the facists (which you haven't) then you should just really shutup. Not directed at you snobee... not at all. I'm just tired of some of the hypocracy that is presented here. Screw the western world, but oh, my double tripple vanilla latte with 5 scoops of gummie bears is perfectly fine. That's why I said do some research. Coffee does more harm to the Earth than all golf courses combined. Just for coffee. Yay. Starbucks is buying your vote also. do the google and see. Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 If you sit in Royal Host you can drink bottomless coffee for maybe about 400 yen. It tastes like crap. Starbucks at least is nice coffee and like snobee said a smoke free enviro... I don't frequent the place these days myself very often BUT if I was still teaching in coffee shops I would rather go there... plucky, why don't you boycott the great ol' US of A? thats where all these "bad companies" that dominate the world and exploit 3rd world countries come from. Link to post Share on other sites
Plucky 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Author Share Posted March 22, 2004 Quote: Originally posted by Indosnm: If you sit in Royal Host you can drink bottomless coffee for maybe about 400 yen. It tastes like crap. Starbucks at least is nice coffee and like snobee said a smoke free enviro... I don't frequent the place these days myself very often BUT if I was still teaching in coffee shops I would rather go there... plucky, why don't you boycott the great ol' US of A? thats where all these "bad companies" that dominate the world and exploit 3rd world countries come from. Might just do that. thanks for the thoughts. My fantasy is to drop in on a 6 footer, hit the bottom turn and then shove my surfboard straight up GWB's ass. I'll defend the US for what I believe it should be, and if you argue against it, that's your right. Hey, I heard Canada got some good mountains. Indo (my return key isnt' working), don't get me wrong, I love the US for what it should be, not happy with it right now. I really do hate starbucks though. guilty??? Link to post Share on other sites
Plucky 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Author Share Posted March 22, 2004 there are 189 starbucks in tokyo. dig it. http://www.starbucks.co.jp/cgi-bin/Kstore_locator_prefsch Link to post Share on other sites
indosnm 0 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 well I halfway made ya fantasy today. 3-4ft glassy as and clear green water.. no crowds ( where I chose to surf) and no starbucks! Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 The CEO of Starbucks is active Zionist. That's enough to keep me out of there if can help it. As for their menu, while trading on the coffee-is-cool-and-sophisticated-cafe-society type image that probably came out of Italy, lots of Starbucks popular drinks seem to be the milkshakey ones that are full of fatty and sugary stuff and frothed up with pectin. For a place that sells maybe twenty different kinds of beans, you would think you'd be able to drink a few different kinds of ordinary black coffee in the shop. As drinks in plastic/paper cups go, their standard coffee is quite nice, I suppose. Link to post Share on other sites
veronica 2 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 What happened to all those big mugs? They seem to have gone, to be replaced with plastic. Link to post Share on other sites
kintaro 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 Drinking coffee in Japan used to be very frustrating to me. Until Starbucks arrived, that is. Everything Ocean mentioned above I agree with. The average kissaten consists of small chairs, people smoking on you....add tiny servings for large prices and more often than not, idiot workers. The starbucks Japan workers seems to have been trained in how to address foriegners as well as Japanese costomers with proper manners. I've always had my orders taken properly and have yet to encounter: 1- the deer in headlights worker. That would be the idiot (male or female) who listens to the foreigner order, freezes, can't compute what they just heard (in Japanese or English) eventually runs for help. or 2- the "that wasn't in the manual" worker. Order an extra ketchup (or whatever) with your sandwich and Starbucks gives it to you. At Dotoru they look confused and say they don't have 'extra' ketchup (or whatever). The ORDER only comes with the orignial 1 ketchup that normally comes with such order. I'm all for capitalism. If Starbucks works and satisfies its costomers needs than good. Expand to wherever you need to to meet your customers needs (good luck in France). If you personally don't like Starbucks, grow your own coffee, make your own bagel choose another coffee place......or not! I think Lotteria is pretty vile as a fast food joint. but Sooooo! They, and their Buddhist CEO have a right to try to sell their fast food idea and make a profit. Who cares? Link to post Share on other sites
mikazooki 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 kintaro, i think u r missing plucky's point about the degradation of large areas of rainforest, and poor farmers turning to the more lucrative but unstable cash crop of coffee. and he may also be suggesting that starbucks is serving to popularise the coffee-drinking pasttime, and hence worsening the problem. others may wish to compare this to the many problems associated with the world's increasing consumption for meat. here is a plug for something of a compromise: Quote: A few major coffee houses are now offering “ethical” coffee, triple-certified to be organic, grown in the shade, and fairly traded. “Coffee, if grown right, can be one of the rare human industries that actually restore the Earth’s health,” according to Halweil. But in the last few decades, over 40 percent of the area devoted to growing coffee in Colombia, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean has been converted to full-sun cultivation. While this conversion allows farmers to grow more coffee per hectare, it destroys the rainforest and squanders many of the natural benefits of growing coffee in the shade. The initial economic gain is, at best, short-term. Coffee grown under a rainforest canopy requires fewer pesticides, less chemical fertilizer, and almost no irrigation water, thus cutting down on farmers’ expenses. Farmers’ finances benefit in other ways as well. For example, on shade coffee farms in Peru, farmers derive nearly 30 percent of their income from sales of firewood, timber, fruits, medicinal plants, and other natural products grown in tandem with coffee beans. When shade farms are converted to full-sun use the diversity and number of organisms in the area crashes, says Halweil. The rainforests’ role in sequestering carbon and protecting freshwater resources is lost. on the coffee at starbucks - i don't frequent the place. the coffee is drinkable at best... it is not good. drinkability, however, a quality of some value. corporations taking over the world, well thats another issue... the Fortune 500 came out today. its interesting to see how oil and vehicle manufactures represent 4 out of the 6 biggest companies in the world. the biggest being walmart. corporatisation, it's a question of what u want, and who you want to control you. Link to post Share on other sites
slow 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 Those coffees like Caffe-Mocha, Caramel Macchiato..., they are fattening, aren't they? And the flavour of coffee is nothing special for me. I like cappuccino at bodum cafe, this creamy frothy milk is the best for me. Link to post Share on other sites
white-void 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 Dotor do some nice chicken/egg bagel sandwiches. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 This shouldn't need saying and I don't want to hijack the thread, but.... Quote: Originally posted by Kintaro: They, and their Buddhist CEO have a right to try to sell their fast food idea and make a profit. Who cares? Zionism is an extreme nationalist movement established in the 1800s. While it claims to represent people of the Jewish faith and is sometimes confused with Judaism itself, lots of Jews, including a good number in Israel itself, do not support it. Buddhism, which has nothing to do with this, is a religion. Link to post Share on other sites
mogski 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 If Starbucks represents all the bad stuff like destroying the earth, slave labour and all the other "bad" stuff just so people can have a coffee and we are supposed to hate it for this, should we not be doing the same with every other industry or consumer oriented outlet on this earth? Why? Because we are the consumers and it is because of us all that these places exist and their way of business exists. The rest is a by product of the consumer wanting more for less and the shareholder of the company wanting less for more. Vicious circle that can only be stopped by the people who created it in the first place; The consumer. Link to post Share on other sites
mikazooki 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 i agree whole-heartedly. and it is education of the consumer which will help to make this a more feasible proposition. take a look at this: a consumption manifesto it uses the word manifesto...so it must be good! Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 That's a bit oversimplified. Corporations make it extremely difficult for consumers to see what the real deal is. When I followed Plucky's stern directive above, for every criticism of Starbuck's policies, I found at least one counterclaim from some Starbucks spokesperson or other throwing at least some doubt on the criticism. It's hard enough to find out just how bad Starbucks really is, or not, and I don't even care - they don't serve booze so I don't go there. Consumers are generally required to be more alert than they can afford the time for. Is it too much to ask not to be sold an unethical con everytime we buy something that we actually need? Who thinks Bill Gates is actually a decent fellow for supporting AIDs initiatives in Africa? What's the con behind that? Anybody read the Best Democracy Money Can Buy? I like that book. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted March 23, 2004 Share Posted March 23, 2004 While we were talking Link to post Share on other sites
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