im so tired of being tired. i am constantly exhausted. i seriously am so excited to go up north for a week and just relax and sleep.

hey look....

That's me!! :)

hmm...

so i am actually pretty upset about this. surprisingly or not, i have made a strong effort to purchase all natural, organic, biodegradable, eco-friendly products. whether it be cleaning supplies or cosmetics this household transformation has happened within the last year. anyways, as i was washing my face this morning i was reminded of my slowly draining bathroom sink. it has been this way now for about three weeks and i was tired of it taking twenty minutes to drain the water from brushing my teeth. i then realized that most of the face products i have been using, from the Godsend LUSH, are oil based. this meaning that all of the lovely oils making my skin squeaky clean and smooth have slowly but surely clogged my drain. sad day. this meant i had to go buy the yucky, icky, smelly, ooey, gooey, Drain-O. man was i bummed. i have made this effort for so long, and have put a lot of money into it, and i have to go ruin it all by purchasing this product of an opposite lifestyle. oh well, i guess i'll start from fresh. i just hope my sweet japanese girl facial bar doesn't require me to continue to buy the product equal to the eco-devil.

on my mind

things that are on my mind at the moment

*Michael
*Detroit Red Wings (#40)
*Cupcakes
*going on an adventure to the library
*my leaking toilet
*ahhh...what's my major going to be?!?
*i really want starbucks right now, grande nonfat latte add caramel 140*
*i love my job
*i love my NEW job at macy's
*i am so excited to get my new library card....yeah i know, im a dork

love you lots
amanda

Starbucks Claimed to Help Ma & Pa Coffee Shops

As said at slate.com...
The first time Herb Hyman spoke with the rep from Starbucks, in 1991, the life of his small business flashed before his eyes. For three decades, Hyman's handful of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf stores had been filling the caffeine needs of Los Angeles locals and the Hollywood elite: Johnny Carson had his own blend there; Jacques Cousteau arranged to have Hyman's coffee care packages meet his ship at ports around the world; and Dirty Dozen leading man Lee Marvin often worked behind the counter with Hyman for fun. But when the word came down that the rising Seattle coffee juggernaut was plotting its raid on Los Angeles, Hyman feared his life's work would be trampled underfoot. Starbucks even promised as much. "They just flat-out said, 'If you don't sell out to us, we're going to surround your stores,' " Hyman recalled. "And lo and behold, that's what happened—and it was the best thing that ever happened to us."
Ever since Starbucks blanketed every functioning community in America with its cafes, the one effect of its expansion that has steamed people the most has been the widely assumed dying-off of mom and pop coffeehouses. Our cities once overflowed with charming independent coffee shops, the popular thinking goes, until the corporate steamroller known as Starbucks came through and crushed them all, perhaps tossing the victims a complimentary Alanis Morrisette CD to ease the psychic pain. In a world where Starbucks operates nearly 15,000 stores, with six new ones opening each day, isn't this a reasonable assumption? How could momma and poppa coffee hope to survive? But Hyman didn't misspeak—and neither did the dozens of other coffeehouse owners I've interviewed. Strange as it sounds, the best way to boost sales at your independently owned coffeehouse may just be to have Starbucks move in next-door.
That's certainly how it worked out for Hyman. Soon after declining Starbucks's buyout offer, Hyman received the expected news that the company was opening up next to one of his stores. But instead of panicking, he decided to call his friend Jim Stewart, founder of the Seattle's Best Coffee chain, to find out what really happens when a Starbucks opens nearby. "You're going to love it," Stewart reported. "They'll do all of your marketing for you, and your sales will soar." The prediction came true: Each new Starbucks store created a local buzz, drawing new converts to the latte-drinking fold. When the lines at Starbucks grew beyond the point of reason, these converts started venturing out—and, Look! There was another coffeehouse right next-door! Hyman's new neighbor boosted his sales so much that he decided to turn the tactic around and start targeting Starbucks. "We bought a Chinese restaurant right next to one of their stores and converted it, and by God, it was doing $1 million a year right away," he said.
Hyman isn't the only one who has experienced this Starbucks reverse jinx. Orange County, Calif., coffeehouse owner Martin Diedrich started hyperventilating when he first heard a Starbucks was opening "within a stone's throw" of his cafe, yet he reported similar results: "I didn't suffer whatsoever. Ultimately I prospered, in no small part because of it." Ward Barbee, the recently passed founder of the coffee trade magazine Fresh Cup, saw this happen scores of times. "Anyone who complains about having a Starbucks put in next to you is crazy," he told me. "You want to welcome the manager, give them flowers. It should be the best news that any local coffeehouse ever had."
Now, lest we get carried away with the happy civic results of Starbucks' global expansion, I hasten to point out that the company isn't exactly thrilled to have this effect on its local competitors' sales. Starbucks is actually trying to be ruthless in its store placements; it wants those independents out of the way, and it frequently succeeds at displacing them through other means, such as buying a mom and pop's lease or intimidating them into selling out. Beyond the frothy drinks and the touchy-feely decor, Starbucks runs on considerable competitive fire. Consider Tracy Cornell, a former Starbucks real-estate dealmaker who found and locked up a staggering 900 North American retail sites for the company in her decade-plus career. "It was sort of piranha-like," Cornell told me of her work for Starbucks. "It was just talking to landlords, seeing who was behind on their rent. All I needed was an opening like that, where the landlord wanted out. I was looking for tenants who were weak."
As much as independent coffeehouse owners generally enjoy having a Starbucks close at hand, most of them seem to have a story or two of someone from the company trying to undercut them. And occasionally a new Starbucks will hurt a mom and pop—even drive them out of business. For example, in 2006, cafe owner Penny Stafford filed a federal antitrust suit against the company, alleging a nearby Starbucks illegally sank her Bellevue, Wash., coffeehouse. Starbucks employees were passing out samples right outside her front door, Stafford claims, even though the company's nearest outlet was over 300 feet away.
But closures like this have been the exception, not the rule. In its predatory store placement strategy, Starbucks has been about as lethal a killer as a fluffy bunny rabbit. Business for independently owned coffee shops has been nothing less than exceptional as of late. Here's a statistic that might be surprising, given the omnipresence of the Starbucks empire: According to recent figures from the Specialty Coffee Association of America, 57 percent of the nation's coffeehouses are still mom and pops. Just over the five-year period from 2000 to 2005—long after Starbucks supposedly obliterated indie cafes—the number of mom and pops grew 40 percent, from 9,800 to nearly 14,000 coffeehouses. (Starbucks, I might add, tripled in size over that same time period. Good times all around.) So much for the sharp decline in locally owned coffee shops. And prepare yourself for some bona fide solid investment advice: The failure rate for new coffeehouses is a mere 10 percent, according to the market research firm Mintel, which means the vast majority of cafes stay afloat no matter where Starbucks drops its stores. Compare that to the restaurant business, where failure is the norm.
So now that we know Starbucks isn't slaughtering mom and pop, the thorny question remains: Why is Starbucks amplifying their business? It's actually pretty simple. In contrast to so-called "downtown killers" like Home Depot or Wal-Mart, Starbucks doesn't enjoy the kinds of competitive advantages that cut down its local rivals' sales. Look at Wal-Mart. It offers lower prices and a wider array of goods than its small-town rivals, so it acts like a black hole on local consumers, sucking in virtually all of their business. Starbucks, on the other hand, is often more expensive than the local coffeehouse, and it offers a very limited menu; you'll never see discounts or punch cards at Starbucks, nor will you see unique, localized fare (or—let's be honest—fare that doesn't make your tongue feel like it's dying). In other words, a new Starbucks doesn't prevent customers from visiting independents in the same way Wal-Mart does—especially since coffee addicts need a fix every day, yet they don't always need to hit the same place for it. When Starbucks opens a store next to a mom and pop, it creates a sort of coffee nexus where people can go whenever they think "coffee." Local consumers might have a formative experience with a Java Chip Frappuccino, but chances are they'll branch out to the cheaper, less crowded, and often higher-quality independent cafe later on. So when Starbucks blitzed Omaha with six new stores in 2002, for instance, business at all coffeehouses in town immediately went up as much as 25 percent.
The key for independent coffeehouse owners who want to thrive with a Starbucks next-door is that they don't try to imitate Starbucks. (As many failed coffee chains can attest, there's no way to beat Starbucks at being Starbucks.) The locally owned cafes that offer their own unique spin on the coffeehouse experience—and, crucially, a quality brew—are the ones that give the Seattle behemoth fits. Serve an appetizing enough cappuccino, and you can even follow Hyman's lead and take aim at almighty Starbucks, where automated espresso machines now pull consistently middling shots at the touch of a button—no employee craftsmanship required.
After all, if Starbucks can make a profit by putting its stores right across the street from each other, as it so often does, why couldn't a unique, well-run mom and pop do even better next-door? And given America's continuing thirst for exorbitantly priced gourmet coffee drinks, there's a lot of cash out there for the taking. As coffee consultant Dan Cox explained, "You can't do better than a cup of coffee for profit. It's insanity. A cup of coffee costs 16 cents. Once you add in labor and overhead, you're still charging a 400 percent markup—not bad! Where else can you do that?" Until Americans decide they need to pay four bucks a pop every morning for a custom-baked, designer-toast experience, probably nowhere.

The Dark Knight

We are all at a loss for words of the death of acclaimed actor Heath Ledger. This is what the blog slate.com has said about this tragedy and the marketing techniques Warner Bros. will use.

Knight's Tale: Despite persistent rumors that Heath Ledger had not finished recording all his lines for the upcoming Batman movie, Warner Bros. insists that director Christopher Nolan got what he needed while filming.
Warner has kept largely mum about how it will manage its big investment in The Dark Knight after Ledger's sad and untimely death. The studio is still figuring out what to do not just with the film but with products like T-shirts and toys. In fact, the studio has set a big meeting for today to discuss those merchandising questions.
Warner plans to release the movie as planned in July. Usually, after filming is completed, actors do looping sessions—that is, they record and perfect their lines in a studio. It would be unusual for Nolan to have all the sound that he wants at this early stage but a producer—not associated with this project—tells us that it's not impossible. "I can't think of a movie where there were no looped lines whatsoever, but I can think of movies where a main character was not looped," he says.
On a big-budget franchise picture like The Dark Knight, he adds, looping would be the norm. "When you are doing a movie like Batman, as opposed to The Savages, you loop," he explains. "You are a perfectionist because you have the money to do it and the studio gives you whatever you want. You go through 17 takes of Heath Ledger saying, 'I'm the Joker,' and if it isn't just right, you loop it."
Warner could use a voice artist if needed—and there are rumors that the studio will do that. If so, the studio's denials would be understandable: Warner wouldn't want the public to be listening for variations in the voice when the movie is released. But the producer assures: "With a good voice artist, you would never know the difference."
Indeed, when Spartacus was rereleased in 1991, the studio wanted to insert the deleted seduction "snails and oysters" scene between Tony Curtis and Laurence Olivier. The footage was there, but the sound was not. Curtis was available to redo his lines; Olivier's part was seamlessly performed by Anthony Hopkins.
A Warner executive acknowledges that another actor may at least have to provide a Joker voice for such things as a planned theme-park attraction. Some marketing efforts—like an idea that involved calls to fans' cell phones—may be scrapped.
Dozens of licensing agreements have been in place for months, but another studio source says that relatively few involve Ledger's image. Many Batman-associated products are aimed at children aged 5 to 9, so, this executive says, Warner was proceeding with a degree of caution even before Ledger's demise because of the intensity of the Joker's character in the film. For some products, the cartoon image of the Joker was already being used. And Ledger did photo shoots so that his likeness could be used on certain products such as T-shirts.
Now Warner has to figure out what to do with products bearing that likeness. "You don't want people to think you're exploiting his death," the source explains. "But his character is part of the movie, and he was on board with wanting to do this with his character." And if Warner doesn't release the merchandise, "The pirates would come out of the woodwork, and then it's completely out of control."
Meanwhile, Warner is likely to alter some of its marketing campaign, which featured Ledger's image in the early going. A source close to the project says the plan all along was to start with the Joker and then segue to the image of Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face. In the film, Two-Face is in a love triangle with Rachel Dawes, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. It was clever to cast Gyllenhaal in the role vacated by Katie Holmes. Both have similar kewpie-doll faces, so it's not a grating change. And Gyllenhaal brings more weight to the part. That's one less thing to worry about in a blockbuster that's already carrying a lot of weight.

http://www.slate.com/id/2183273/nav/ais/#Knights