Entries Tagged 'coffee' ↓

Flickr: cigarette (by SuperFantastic). Used via a Creative Commons License.

In high school I was drug free, alcohol free and smoke free. These days people call it SxE or straight edge and make it a part of some movement. The only movement that I caused was laughter when I revealed that I didn’t partake in such things.

Back then I was pretty sheltered and I was not joining the “in crowd”. I felt that I had an honour and image to uphold. Sometime between the 12th grade and my freshman year in college that image began to erode.

After getting teased rather mercifully, I began to finally rebel. Normally kids would begin to drink, smoke and do other bad things starting the 9th to 10th grades or even eariler. It took me until the end of freshman year in college to drink regularly. It took me until sophomore year to lose my v-card at the age of 21! What began as an exercise to fit in, soon was normal.

I first started with liquor and then moved on to “malternatives” (aka Zima and Mike’s). After the so called “Alcopops” tore up my stomach due to the acid, I settled on beer. I first drank nothing but Sam Adams but then for some reason I had taken a liking for Heineken. I don’t care what people say, its fucking good beer. Oh and NO its not “skunky”.

After that, in late 2002 to early 2003 I began to smoke on and off. My family at the time was going through some very rough times, so I began to smoke. I remember the first thing I smoked, was a shitty 7-11 cigar. I had lit the wrong end.

I would smoke some cigars once in a while and then I would switch to cigarettes only when I was drinking. My fatal flaw was when I realized that smoking would be a great icebreaker to talk to people, mostly women outside. (So thank you anti smoking laws for making me smoke MORE!)

Soon I would smoke due to work stress or with coffee. (GOD I miss coffee and cigarettes). I would start to smoke so much that Parliament would send me tons of buy one, get one free offers to me in the mail. Still I figured that I only smoked “socially” and it wasn’t a big deal.

Unfortunately I would have breathing issues, my teeth would be yellow, my breath would stink and other things that I am not at liberty to discuss.

After I finished school in Buffalo and moved back to New York I decided to quit. My mother had smoked a few years back and quit, while my grandfather had died from it. When New York State raised the taxes on cigarettes I finally decided it was probably the best time for me to quit. (Of course this was not my first attempt at doing so)

Regardless of what happens to the economy, $7-8 a pack is not feasible for me. That alone made me quit cold turkey. Besides, the costs are too great both physically and figuratively for me to continue to smoke.

Unfortunately I will have to find another excuse to talk to girls at bars. As I mentioned earlier, PUAs won’t be of much help.

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Because I’m a part of Starbucks “Rewards” I can get free things like syrups or wifi at good ol’ SBUX.

What was once an attempt to retain their customers who like to buy overpriced and fattening drinks, is now something of desperation.

For $25 you can upgrade to Starbucks GOLD.

In early November, you’ll have the opportunity to join Starbucks Gold and take advantage of significant everyday value and exclusive member benefits. The annual membership fee is $25 and it entitles you to -

10% off most purchases in participating U.S. Starbucks stores*
A free drink when you purchase your Starbucks Gold Card in a Starbucks store
The option to pay for purchases any way you like
A special Gold Card that identifies you as a member of this group

And if you register your Gold Card, you’ll unlock additional benefits. That’s when the top-shelf treatment really begins. This is a program for people who really love their Starbucks.

If you’re enjoying Starbucks Card Rewards benefits, such as free syrups, milk options and refills on drip coffee, then we hope you continue to do so. But if you’re looking for daily savings on everything from espresso beverages to espresso machines, you should check out Starbucks Gold. (Please note that Starbucks Card Rewards discounts cannot be combined with Starbucks Gold discounts.)

We’re letting you know about Starbucks Gold early, so don’t be surprised if your barista doesn’t know about it yet. You’ll be able to find out more when you visit your neighborhood store next month.

Oops. I’m going to let my barista friends AND the rest of the internets know. Pretty soon I’ll get info about Starbucks TITIANUM. In that program I can get a barista serve me drinks with free soy milk and directly to my house in a bikini. The cost will be only $9000 a year in unmarked bills!

I’ll stick to making my own coffee at home. I’ll only have starbucks once in a while, thank you very much!

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I happen to have an iphone and I’m starting to take a LOT of pictures lately.

So whatever I find I will share them with you.

For example here are some pictures taken over the past few months:

Graffiti at Mohawk Place, my favourite music venue in Buffalo.

Continue reading →

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I wanted to go out quietly, but a certain playground full of trolls and slanderous information made me think otherwise.

For the sharp observer who’s been paying attention, I deleted my youtube videos AND my subscribers just a few days ago.

I did NOT delete them because of the following:

Me being rejected for partnership for the fourth or fifth time. (I’ve lost count.)
I guess I was butthurt after the 1st rejection, but after knowing that no one makes any money from it anyway made me not care after the 2nd. I’m after opportunities that are better than $100 every other month, thank you very much!

Being chased off by a group of people who have absolutely no life.
There IS no “Victory”. I win for having a life. I get to move on with my life while some of my so called protagonists are still mentally disabled and/or unemployed. This is pointed to absolutely no one in particular, but I have to add that a certain few participants who are completely addicted to this site aren’t getting anywhere in life. Some of my friends included.

To all of those declaring victory I have a quote from the immortal Willy Wonka:

“You lose, good day sir!”

I DID delete my account for these reasons:

Making YouTube videos was a waste of time for me:

I’d rather do something (like writing for example) that is more productive than making a pointless vlog that only a few hundred people would watch anyway. While I was flattered to get SOME type of validation from those few hundreds, doing videos kind of felt like a chore to me.

While it was wonderful to voice my opinion, no matter what I said would be always misinterpreted. For instance at the Philly gathering recently someone AGAIN referred to the videos where I put 10 youtubers in their place as a hater video. I mentioned numerous times and I even made a video stating it was solely opinion and not hate. Of course people want to believe what they want to hear. Which leads to the next reason.

The fact that I dealt with tremendous stupidity:
Lets face it, YouTube is a site tailored those with ADD (myself included.) At least the trolls were creative…sometimes. Unfortunately it really makes my head spin to see comment after comment of illiteracy and poor grammar.

Not wanting to sound like an elitist, but most youtube viewer cannot comprehend complex topics. Of course I am solely judging this by how often people would not get my main points of a simple argument I presented. I blame text messaging and IM for damaging analytical skills for many young people.

Feeling out of place:
I also felt that I was in a place where too many children on the site running around unsupervised. If it wasn’t the sub4sub stupidity, it was them uploading copyright content or putting up total garbage.
I felt that at my age I could be doing something better.

It’s almost like being an adult on myspace, the number one landfill dump of the internets. Youtube is no doubt competing for that title as of right now.

Dealing with incompetence from the youtube staff:
Why would I waste time and bandwidth making videos when the staff clearly doesn’t care about me and countless others? Often I have tried to make a dialogue with the staff and point what was wrong. Despite that I got ignored numerous times. I understand them being overwhelmed with morons asking how to subscribe to videos, but they should at the very least speak to their content creators partner or not.

If it wasn’t the glitches, it was them who made countless “cheery” blog postings while being oblivious to several issues.

Despite the “Fail Whale” at least Twitter still addresses their issues head on and tries not to sugarcoat them.

I do have a feeling that Viacom is going to sue them to the point where people are going to flee the site. (Like Napster). I’m starting now before it gets even far worse than it is now.

I have higher priorities in my life:
I don’t have time to waste making vlogs. I am soon going to experience a major transition with my life. I will be done with school and on to establishing a career. Having a video of me cursing out marginal e-celebrities is definitely not the mark I want to leave on any future employers. While I STILL stand behind my words, It was only a matter of time before people in my private life began to notice. Knowing that made me a little freaked out.

That discovery would only hasten my decision.

You can quote that and tattoo it in your retinas. There will be no “comeback” like I did when Roger, The Boring Dispatcher passed away. I will not make videos on another channel. I will not pull a Greg Solomon and come back 2 years later.

To make sure I don’t “comeback” I unsubscribed to all 694 of my subscribers. This will make this decision absolutely final.

I am not leaving youtube! I will still watch and comment videos on youtube just like 95% of the public. HAHAHA! DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS. Account is closed for GOOD. I will be on stickam (or BlogTV if I can figure it out) so you can still see me. I will also be at 888 next month because its close to me and I still want to hang out with my friends (and other Toronto people as well, not just youtubers.) In fact I will go to future gatherings if they are within a reasonable distance for me. However, I will never fly out to one because there is really no point in doing so.

For the ADD crowd:
TL,DR. I did not leave because of  trolls or partnership rejection. I’m leaving because i’m tired of vlogging on YouTube. Its a waste of time, people in IRL started to notice and THAT freaked me out.

P.S. I have to approve all comments and plus I know your ip address if you do comment. Just some food for thought.

Thank you for your well wishes everyone, but its time for me to go.

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