The Free Thinker

Re: Excessive Ice

Dear Starbucks,

I have enjoyed your drinks for many a year. During the summer, my favourite has always been your iced coffee. The fusion of your usual euphoria-inducing, caffeine-loaded coffee mixed with a soothing cool temperature is just perfect for those hot summer days.

Alas, I've noticed lately that you've been going heavy on the ice, and light on the coffee. I don't know when this happened exactly, but it seems I finish a grande a heck of a lot faster than I used to. I've attached a picture of last Saturday's coffee after consumption, for illustration.

As you can see, the ice takes up a little more than half the volume of the cup. Now, let's consider for a moment what the ideal amount of ice in an iced coffee would be. The purpose of the ice, of course, is to keep the beverage cool on the aforementioned hot days. So, ideally, the ice should be completely melted by the time I'm finished drinking. I understand you brew the iced coffee more strongly than your regular coffee, such that as the ice melts to dilute it, it will match the strength of a standard warm coffee. If this is the case than a drink left with excessive ice can be considered a failure, because one of two things has happened, neither of which is desirable:

1. The consumed coffee was too strong because all of the ice, compensated for during brewing, did not melt during consumption.
2. All the ice was not compensated for, so the ice is taking up volume that could be used for more crack...err, I mean coffee.

Now don't get too upset, Starbucks. This isn't a Dear John. I'm not mad. We're still friends. I'm just letting you know, as I might notify a friend of their bad breath or a stray booger. Your staff are friendly and personable. Your washrooms are clean and convenient. But no relationship is perfect. Just make it right, and all will be forgiven.

Sincerely,
Adam

Truth in marketing is tough to find these days. When they're not outright lying to you they're either stretching the truth, exaggerating, or glazing over the bad spots. But don't worry, our good friends at Equality are on our side with...process cheese product.

That's right. I was at my local grocery store the other day and had a hunkering for Cheese Whiz. Being a starving wannabe student I went straight for the generic, most honestly named product I have ever encountered. I can just imagine the meeting where they finalized the name for this thing. Somewhere out there a high-paid exec thinks this was a great idea. Right off the top of my head I can think of four snappier names:

• Cheese Zip
• Cheesetastic!
• Cheese Louise
• Cheesus Christ

Okay, admittedly those all kind of suck. But I don't make $150,000 a year, it took me 30 seconds, and they're still better.

Deep down, I hope this is the start of a new trend. After all, wouldn't it be easier to shop for a car if one of the options was a Ford Crapbox? Would you still go to McDonald's if they named the Big Mac the Artery Sludge?

Consumer advocacy groups should really be pushing for stuff like this. After all, if companies refuse to give things that are bad for us disgusting names, how can we be expected to make the right choices?

PS The other shocking thing about this product: the first ingredient is actually cheese, and it's not spelled with a "z"!