dvd: shut up and sing
Documentary about country trio “the Dixie Chicks”, and the troubles that they had by speaking out against the president (a single throwaway line at a concert that was blown out of all proportion). Cleverly manages to make the frighteningly wealthy singers seem quite normal and down-to-earth, most of the time. A watchable analysis of the interplay between media - and country radio in particular - and politics in that period of 2000-2005.
book: Watchmen, though a graphic novel, is on the list of Time Magazine’s top 100 novels since 1923.
Tells at interwoven story, subverts the graphic novel genre. A complex piece, with lots of hidden detail for future re-readings. Not for kids, given some of the content. Oh, and they’re turning it into a film, somehow.
[@mpesce] online etymology dictionary - find out the history of words.
dvd: intacto
An odd film, to be sure, but just as good as I remember it. Worth it just for the scene where the men run blindfolded through a forest.
A post over at 37 signals on looking good vs technical features reminds me that in considering a tech product, there are plenty of other things to describe than just the size of the hard-drive, or whether it has this or that technology.
My current phone has a perfectly adequate screen and keypad, but its interface drives me to distraction so often, and that is why I end up not enjoying it as a phone. Having said that, I chose it for its reliability as a phone - it never randomly switches itself off, and it has great battery life. My old K-Jam, which I loved, couldn’t be trusted as a phone, and so ends up retired, even though I miss it, and I’m looking for a new smartphone to take its place.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while: although not all the cafes offer loyalty cards, when they do, it’s an extension of the cafe-going experience, so it’s worth considering. I’ve scanned in a few that I picked up recently, and thrown them into this post.
In my own experience, my first encounter with these kinds of cards was from Gloria Jeans. In the olden days, they had two stripes of “buy ten”, the first gaining a free coffee, the second gaining your choice of free coffee or free small bag of coffee beans. Back then, you could go to any of the franchise stores, but look what they have now done:
The card isn’t stamped, but it’s punched with a custom punch. Over the years, they had various problems with people stealing the punches, and getting free cards: this is the trouble, I guess, with franchising.
Franchise tea store easy way had a similar problem, and ended up scrapping their whole card system, and replacing it with a database and magnetic stripe card. In the world of coffee, that’s something that Hudsons coffee did from when they arrived in Sydney. Every purchase adds up to reward points that can be cashed in on coffee, food, or other rewards.
So when you set up a reward system, one decision you have to make is whether you are trying to keep the customers aware of the cash value of the freebie, or if you are trying to create a relationship with them - to have a conversation of sorts.
Probably not having hired an expensive designer for these cards, we have a very economical card: four goes at “buy five, get one free”, and an extra space on the same card for the customer to buy ten meals, and get a free meal. It suggests a cheap-and-cheerful approach to running the business.
Espresso di Manfredi appears to offer its customers a template for cards that they can customise. This cafe, near the Philip Street (Law) campus of Sydney University, has two lots of buy ten, get one free on the one card, and limits the generosity of the free coffee. Even if you’ve bought ten large coffees, the free coffee is a small one. In my opinion, this undermines the spirit of the loyalty card: why not splash out and make a large coffee if your customer wants one?
This card for on the grind has a few coffee-themed photos on their card, the full contact details, and a star-shaped punch. After two runs at buy six, get one free, the customer gets no just a free coffee, but a free muffin as well.
Until I saw this card, I had no idea there were so many Miami Ice cafes around the place - this card spreads the word across the whole group of cafes, and the sales are marked off with a texta.
Home Espresso in North Sydney has a simple, elegant design for their cards: consistent branding on these cards, and the separate business cards. In this case, the hole punch ends up completely obliterating the card by the end: worse, there’s no contact details on the card - it’s up to the customer to keep coming back. The problem here is that it makes it harder for word of mouth to spread: instead of being able to give the card to someone else, you have to walk your friend down to the shop yourself.
If you want to see a real relationship develop on a single card, look at this card from caffe marco. The longer you hold onto the card, the more you get. First, you have to buy seven coffees to get a free one. Next, six, then only four, and then, you can come back and have a free dessert with a meal. It’s a little celebration on a card: plus there are seventeen coffees bought.
Newcomer three beans has gone to town on their sense of design, and trying to carry on their hippy, environmental theme - and their branding - across to their cards. There’s no punching to be seen here, instead, it’s a coffee-bean shaped stamp.
So that’s it for the initial review of these cards: what does your favourite coffee do to inspire loyalty?
[cade and lisa] Why it’s hard to stop reading blogs
One of my favourite cafes, Grind, in Cronulla has a new website.
[/karen/ - fb] NYT article on “ambient awareness” - the unusual aspect of digital life where via twitter and facebook and other social networks, there is a new way of relating to people.
For some reason, I’m not often tagged in memes, so even though life is quite busy at the moment, I thought I’d respond to this tagging from bec, and then also by george. Here are the rules of the meme:
1. When I was ten, I went to Goulburn for a week to stay with relatives. That week, I had my first ever trip to the Big Merino (they said they were taking me to see “Rambo”, but it turned out that this was the locals’ nickname for the giant concrete sheep). This was the beginning of a passion for visiting as many of the “big things” as I could find.
2. Despite years of swimming lessons, and getting to a point where I could swim many hundreds of metres, I don’t like to put my face in the water when I swim.
3. I have a tendency to say out loud what other people would not even dare to think: this can, at times, be either politically incorrect, or emotionally scarring. Somehow, though, my friends let me get away with it.
4. Though I’ve nearly beaten this tendency now, for many years I would factor in a negative amount of travel time to get somewhere. For example, if it’s midday, and we have to be somewhere that’s two hours away at 3pm, I might aim to leave at 3:30pm, and then travel for negative half an hour to get there.
5. When studying for the HSC, I felt that I should really make myself a cooked lunch, but I didn’t know how to cook. I made up for this by cooking pasta, draining it, then grating some cheese (and perhaps shreds of ham), and stirring it through. It would be years before I actually learned to cook.
6. And one more about cooking: when I was first learning to cook, I bought some raw chicken, and a jar of Chicken Tonight. I read the directions, and it said to “brown the chicken”. I’d only cooked beef mince before, and so I knew how to brown mince - it goes from red to brown. I put the chicken in the pan, and it went from light coloured - pink - to white. I kept it in the pan, waiting for it to turn to brown from white. Waiting, waiting. Waiting. Eventually, my housemate came in, saw what I was doing, and told me I should stop. If he hadn’t, I think I could have burned down the whole kitchen!
Six people to tag with this meme: allan, chan, erika, jordan, matt and rach.
It’s perhaps a sign of where I should be moving in my career to see that I’m more excited about the tour of Google Chrome’s features - the explanation of how it will work, and how clear Scott McCloud’s illustrations are - than I am about a new browser.
A reader asks - what is something that you’d could be persuaded to buy when you go for your coffee: specifically, something with a long-ish shelf life. No one wants, for example, stale croissants, but it’s possible that you might like to have a small, gourmet chocolate.
In my travels, I’ve seen a lot of different places, with a big variety of options for things that will go with coffee, but most are highly perishable:
Do you have any favourite long-life snacks to go with coffee?
My little brother recommended a threadless t-shirt - I can now testify to its inaccuracy.
[k10k] What better way to combine a calendar with bubble wrap than the bubble calendar?
Little Marionette Coffee. 1A Booth St, Balmain.
Across the road from Gladstone park, if you’re lucky you can find a parking spot just across the road. Though not a large cafe, it manages to fit a couple of bookshelves on the wall, giving that welcoming sense of a second hand bookshop. Indeed, locals sit enjoying the atmosphere reading the paper, or books that they have brought.
Coffee is deservedly well-reputed. The decaf is rich, with a strong, slightly sweet flavour, with a lingering aftertaste. Well worth a visit, just for the coffee.
Artecaffe Coffee. 487 Darling St, Balmain
The outdoor seating is the first thing that strikes you when you approach here: a mix of locals from different walks of life sit chatting and enjoying coffees and the all-day breakfast. Step inside (and you’ll have to - it’s order and pay at counter) and there are a number of large wooden tables where people are sharing - there’s a sense of community gathering here. The prices are quite reasonable for balmain; the scrambled eggs with sourdough is only $9.50, with sides at $2, $3 or $4. If you’re not after a big breakfast, there are a good range of toast options - even a raisin brioche.
The decaf here is pleasant enough: nothing amazing, but quite a good complement to the rest of the experience here.
I managed to get almost half of these movies by one letter from the poster - it’s easier and harder than you think.
Can you really judge a book by its cover? To some extent, this is a good starting point - each commentary series has its own goals, and relative technical difficulty level. Best Commentaries dot com takes you further, though - you can see the books on a virtual bookshelf (comparing their relative sizes and thicknesses), and click on them to see their covers. Additionally, they’re all scored, based on an aggregate of different reviews. You can also see a list of forthcoming commentaries on a book. Well worth a look, if only to get a feel for how many commentaries are out there.
Is anyone else surprised to learn that an Ampersand character is a conjunction of the letters “e” and “t”, because the word “et” means “and”?
If you’re trying to find the right ampersand for the job, you might find a cross-platform list of ampersands a good place to start.
