In Which Tyler Rants - Again

Survival in Starbucks.
Part 1 - In the Presence of Thine Frappuchino

Oftentimes in restaurants, you will walk in, wait in line with a dozen other people, make outlandish decisions (such as whether or not you actually want fries with that), and the process ends with the cashier giving you a receipt with an order number on it, eventually your food, and you are off on your merry, artery-clogging way. Starbucks, however, being the brainchild that it is, adds an extra addend into the equation: They enforce the requirement of using an actual name. Now, while this may personalize your order considerably more, there are two equally considerable drawbacks to such a system. Observe:

1. Firstly, in order to even get a decent cup of coffee at Starbucks now, you have to make at least four decisions. If, like me, you like your coffee early on, at a point which your brain hasn't started working yet, this in and of itself can be quite a lot to handle. So finally, after not only deciding on, but actually pronouncing your order, you cannot go sit down and read the newspaper, you cannot go to the bathroom, you cannot answer your cellphone, you must give them a name.

2. Second, it also becomes a rather large security risk. We should know well enough not to leave our identification lying about, nor let anyone else know our PIN number, and we even teach our children not to give out too much information on the internet. Why? Safety. Yet, what do we do with empty Starbucks cups? We throw them away. Now trash-browsing prowlers not only know our faces, but our names and how we like our double-chocolate low-fat decaf soy vanilla mocha-chinos in the morning.

How do you avoid such strain on your cerebral cortex in unholy hours of the morning? Or, more importantly, the vagabonds bent on tracking you down and inserting said cortex in their evening meal? The procedure, actually, is quite simple: Fake it. The most logical (and practical) way to fake your identity at Starbucks (if really you must go there), is to simply give an order number. No number in particular, just a favorite number you have, or simply the first one that pops to mind. This not only sends your barrister through a loop, but gives you a nice sense of security and identity, with a nice chaser of warm caffeine streaming through your veins, in next to no time at all. The true benefit at this point is that, if you actually used that advice, you are now a cold-hearted enough of an individual to give the taker of your order next to anything. Such examples include "Rumplestiltskin" (my particular barista at the time simply put a large R with a line next to it), "Twinkletoes" "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha", "Incoherent Slave of the Outdated Imperialist Dogma", and "6."

The best advice I can give you now is to practice your best at keeping a straight face while you say it. While Starbucks is usually a very casual organization, at early hours in the morning, the people are no-nonsense, and don't take no extra-whip mocha frappuchino from anybody.

Another Very Special Day

Recently we celebrated the 18th birthday of our beloved fellow GAG member, Aranel. 18 is a big age. It's the age you can vote, be held legally responsible for crimes (which I'm afraid isn't good considering she's writing for this site) and the only age where you can say "I'm 18" when someone asks you.

But 18 is not the only major milestone in life. In fact, we here at GAG think 16 is a major one too. It's the age you can legally get your license in this state, the age you can legally work, and the age you can say "I'm 18" when someone asks, therefore getting away with whatever you were hoping to do underaged.

Which is why we feel it be important to say "Happy 16th Birthday, Tyler!" GAG wouldn't be the same without your randomness, your rants, and your spacey beanishness. We're very glad you're on the team and are happy we get to celebrate this momentous occasion with you. Would you like to say a few words?

Actually, yes I would.

There, was that a few? :P

It was a few. Good job, Tyler. We're proud of you. We hope you have a supercalifantabulous birthday, and a great 16th year of existence. :)

Now go have some ice cream ;)

On Second Thought...Let's just have a Contest!

Alright, so our last little endeavour didn't exactly work. We don't know who visitor number 100 was (we have their isp number, and we can take a random guess, but that wouldn't be fair now, would it?) So we've decided to remodel our idea.


Everyone Can Enter the Contest!

Instructions
Write a decent-lengthed humorous article (decent = 1 to 2 pages. 2-4 if double spaced...)It could be a schpiel, and opinion you have about something, a funny anecdote or anything that you think you'd see on this site. E-mail your entry to giveagripe@gmail.com. The GAG team will judge each entry based on amount and style of humor, relevancy to our site, relevancy to topic, how much you sent us on Paypal along with it, and what debate club you're from (kidding, kidding.) In all seriousness, we will be completely unbiased. Your article should be labeled by catagory (Anecdotes, Rants, Schpiels, or "Other" etc) and have your name on it (or the name of whomever you'd like to take credit for your work).

Entry deadline is Wednesday, June 16. Entries will be judged and results will be in whenever we decide to stop procrastinating (sometime next year) but we will aim to post the winning article and name the runners-up by Saturday, June 19.

The winner's post will be posted right here on GAG, and we might even send them an e-card if we think about it...But don't get your hopes up. The runner-up (2nd place) will be briefly mentioned and congratulated in italics at the top of the post and quickly forgotten.

Good luck to all and may the funniest writer win!

Congratulations Visitor #100

I took a break from the studying of my chemistry final to see if anything had changed on GAG...

Nope...

I did, however, notice that I was visitor number 999. That's pretty significant if you think about it. That means if you're the first person to read this, you are not only the first person to read this, but you are lucky visitor number 100.

Some of you may see a gap in my logic. Those of you who are severely mathematically challenged most likely did not. Perhaps I should explain:
I'm thinking it's safe to assume that the writers of GAG themselves make up 900 of those views, since our site does not have a huge fan base. 1000-900 according to our skilled mathematicians, is still 100, meaning that you, dear reader, are visitor number 100. However, we're only taking our professional's word for it. If they lied to us, for all we know you could be visitor number 83 1/2.

So if you scroll down and our hit counter says "1000 Visitors" then we here at GAG will let YOU write the next article for our site. That's right. You get to be in the spotlight of a site with 1000 visitors. 900 of them being the same 3 people, about 50 of them from various countries in Europe, and maybe 6 from our debate clubs. The remaining 40 (a number deduced by our resident math experts) we assume are extraterrestrials

We here at GAG wish we could afford to get you something special for being our 100th visitor, but due to our lack of finances and our extreme laziness, we won't. Sorry. Just know we thought about it.

So if you won our prize, please inform us via comment box or e-mail and then e-mail your schpiel, anecdote, or funny scrawling to giveagripe@gmail.com and we'll post it with your name on it!

Christmas is coming early for visitor #100

EDIT:: Gaah, it counted me as visitor #1000. So whoever was visitor # 1001 gets the grand prize!