Bet you thought I wasn’t going to post, didn’t you? Oh, ye of little faith.

Since I’m getting all school-minded now, let’s have a progress report. On the state of the nation’s educational institutions? On my district’s state report card? Nah.

On Starbucks.

Back in April, in an effort to reclaim dissatisfied customers and “get back to basics,” the Starbucks think tank decided to go retro. They reverted back to their original brown logo (at left, although it looks black), in hopes of sparking nostalgia and a “return to roots” feeling among their customers.

According to this article in Business Week, Starbucks brass heard loud and clear from their customers that things just weren’t working, so they boarded the nostalgia bus. I haven’t heard word on whether it’s worked or not. All I know is, $3 and up for a cup of coffee is a *little* steep for many folks.

Apparently, the effort they made back in February to improve service by closing down all their stores for a day of intense training and re-training didn’t have the desired effect.

I haven’t seen the brown logos at all at my Starbucks store. It’s the basic green like always, with the cleaned-up siren picture on it.

There’s a lot of misinformation about the siren, apparently. From what I could find out through research, a mermaid (with one long fin) is half human, half fish; but a siren (two long fins — see the old logo above) is part bird. Go figure. And the siren is not the gentle, benevolent creature of the sea that we’ve come to know and love through “Chicken of the Sea” commercials and movies like Splash. Sirens are evil beings, whose sole purpose was to lure sailors into the sea and kill them.

Nice.

Fink, done with the final project and ready for the weekend. It’s my birf-day.

1. I hate eBay.
2. Yesterday was almost the worst day of my life. Imagine everything in your world that could go wrong at once — then double it. That was my day.
3. I’m late picking up Mavis.
4. When I get the third response from eBay’s ridiculous excuse for customer support, and it’s the same old tired copied-and-pasted crap…I really want to hurt things. I want to take the little CS droids “Marissa” and “Angelica” (fake names anyway, I’m sure of it) and bash their little heads together. If they have heads. They may be, like, alienoids er somethin.
5. Have I mentioned that eBay needs to die? I hope Amazon swallows them up like the friggin’ Red Sea.
6. I.
7. Hate.
8. eBay.

Fink out.

I was searching finkweb for a photo this morning, and ran across this post from back in May. Ah, May. Maius horribilis. I hated everything in May. And almost everyone. Except you.

So I decided to put off today’s post until tomorrow in favor of riding the stream-of-consciousness bus today. Hence…

Son of 50 More Trivial Things

1. Kay and I had the most wonderful summer.
2. Wait till you see Mavis!
3. The Thriller washed off/hosed down our backyard wooden fence yesterday. I came home from open house and wondered whose yard it was. Icky dirt anyhow.
4. I wonder what I did to upset that one person.
5. Yes, I am procrastinating. I cleared my whole day today — rescheduled a doc appointment, even — to get this final project done for Orchestration class. And what am I doing? Firing the neurons over coffee. Awesome.
6. I honestly fear what I will do with myself when I don’t have these classes anymore after October. I may have a meltdown.
7. Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?
8. I just remembered that I did not post an RtB Contest this month. Oh well. August hiatus. And Stoney — I still owe you the Hershey bar — I haven’t forgotten!
9. I am looking forward to my feast this Sunday. And to Helen’s shower on Saturday.
10. I found this interesting, especially since I am getting more and more annoyed by eBay’s infuriating policies.
11. I simply cannot do a shopping list under pressure.
12. Seamus is coming to dinner tonight, and I’ve no clue what to fix. I know…chili/chips/cheese.
13. I hate the fearmongers.
14. Ok, I’ve worked a little on my assignment, and I’m back. I started this post at 7:56 a.m. It’s now 9:44. So I haven’t been goofing off all this time. Just sayin’.
15. It’s the 20th of August, and I am freezing to death.
16. I’m having a hair 911 episode today.
17. For those of us who are overwhelmed 99% of the time, here are some good suggestions for time management.
18. I am in fact feeling overwhelmed at this very moment.
19. Lars — call me!
20. Since this is Son of 50 More Trivial Things, it’s only 20 items long. Can’t be big as its daddy. ‘Sides, I have got to get to work…

Fink out (of time, again).

Ok, so I stole this idea from another blog I happened upon this morning. I liked it because it made me write out a list. Prioritize. (“But, I want fifty things on my lists…”)

I’m a terrible list-maker, you know; anyone in my family can tell you that (especially the Thriller). So this was good for me.

Here are my lists, then. Items are in no particular order.

7 Things I Plan to Do Before I Die

1. Write something really great
2. Conquer my fear of flying
3. See my grandchild(ren) grow up
4. Retire
5. Win the lottery (although that means I’d actually have to play)
6. Take that Europe trip with Mavis (provided I pull off #2)
7. Pay off my mortgage and enjoy life more

7 Things I Can Do

1. Put in 70-hour work weeks and still manage to stay somewhat sane
2. Sing & play a few instruments
3. Write pretty well
4. Teach pretty well
5. Speak intelligently about football and baseball
6. Cook
7. Try to be a good wife, mom, Grammie and friend

7 Things I Cannot Do

1. Teach elementary-aged classes (I prefer secondary: same circus, bigger clowns)
2. Stay mad (life’s too short)
3. Be disloyal to my friends
4. Eat broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms (you get the idea)
5. Intentionally embarrass a student (unless I’m given the teenage sassmouth — then the gloves come off)
6. Abide bigots, overly aggressive, loud, or mean people — they make me say bad things
7. Shop without spending money

7 Things I Say Most Often

1. “Ah, nuts.”
2. “Nice.”
3. “Ha you durrin, henny?”
4. “You do that and I’ma come out swingin’.”
5. “I mean, we may as well do it right.” (Repeated ad nauseam from September through June. I’m certain my students could probably come up with quite a few that I don’t even remember saying. But I reserve the right to deny having said them.)
6. “Ya know…”
7. “I hate everything and everyone. Except you.”

7 Celebrity Crushes

(“Crush” is a strong word…let’s just say “dreamy-yet-shallow admiration based solely upon facial features”)

1. Johnny Depp (s’prise)
2. Joel Gretsch
3. Robert Downey, Jr. (one of the cutest movies I’ve ever seen is Heart and Souls)
4. Mark Harmon (especially in his St. Elsewhere days, when Denzel Washington first became a star and Howie Mandel had hair)
5. Al Pacino (in the Godfather days)
6. Keanu Reeves
7. Tom Cruise before he was crazy

So, uh…what’s your seven? Putting your list in the comment section would make me happy.

Fink out.

I’ve followed the case of “Clark Rockefeller” with interest.

Last night I read that the FBI finally figured out who he is. No small task, as he had used at least four different aliases in the almost 30 years he lived in the US. Turns out he’s one Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, born in Germany.

It’s amazing to me how somebody could pull off a scam like this at all — let alone for three decades. He held jobs; how did he pull off a Social Security number? Did no one question his “ancestry?” Why did the Rockefeller family not get wind of this somehow?

It got me thinking (as always happens) about how many other people have pulled off cons like this. Turns out, the number is quite high. Here are some who were masters at wool yanking.

The name Rockefeller must be a loony magnet. Remember Christopher Rocancourt, who posed as a “French Rockefeller?” Variety did a fascinating story about how he was finally brought down. It’s worth the time to read it.

Possibly the most embarrassing scam was pulled by pop “singers” Milli Vanilli. Rob Pilatus (L) and Fabrice Morvan shot to the top of the charts in 1988 with “Girl, You Know It’s True.” (You can view the absolutely horrible video here.) Trouble was, it wasn’t Rob and Fab singing on the album. Their rockstar lifestyle came to an abrupt halt in 1990, when they were supposedly performing a “live” concert. The recording jammed somehow, and the boys were left onstage wondering what to do. An amateur video of that scene is floating around somewhere. Anyway, they were later outed, and had their Grammy award taken away.

Sadly, Rob Pilatus never really recovered from the scandal. He died of an overdose of pills and booze in a Frankfurt, Germany hotel room in 1998. Did they ever make a movie about these guys? Wait here while I check. Why, it appears they might.

Definitely my favorite in the long line of fakes and frauds is Frank Abagnale. I mean, the man has my total respect. Wow.

He was a check-forger who traveled the world, posing as an off-duty airline pilot (which got him free flights to anywhere) and even a pediatrician. The best part? He wanted to pose as a lawyer, so he forged a Harvard diploma and actually passed the Louisiana bar exam.

Irony of ironies: he now owns a firm that trains law enforcement personnel about how to spot forgers and frauds. Now how cool is that.

The guy’s life story reads like a crime novel.

I remember seeing the movie about his life based on the book he wrote — Catch Me if You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Abagnale.

Even though all these guys were eventually caught, you have to hand it to them — they had nerve. I wish I had half of their self-confidence.

Fink out (to buy some school clothes).

Photo credits: Reuters, CBS, Associated Press, abagnale.com, imdb.com