"ordering" news and stories

This morning I came across Mobo, a text-messaging-based service that allows users to send food orders to New York City restaurants like Cosi, Quizno's, Subway, Dunkin' Donuts and Ben & Jerry's. The restaurant prepares your order, bills your account and has your meal waiting for you to pick up from a special separate line. The idea being that you can message ahead and then breeze by all the other poor slobs waiting in line for their sandwiches. Apparently you can also assign codes for the things you order frequently. I don't live in NYC, but I'd be curious to hear about people's experiences with this type of service.

I have always wondered why people have problems saying the drink names at Starbucks. I'm not just speaking about the sizes, Tall, Grande and Venti, either. I'm talking about words like "latte." I notice men actually mispronounce the words on purpose. They will plaster a big grin on their face and, sarcastically, say something like "I'll have a 'grand kap-po-see-no.'" I kid you not - and when you come into a Starbucks every single morning, you will learn, at some point, the proper pronunciation of the names. How hard is it to say 'grahn-day,' really.

I generally chalked it up to some sort of testosterone-based insecurity because women almost never do this; the fear of saying a word incorrectly by chance was so great that these men preferred to grossly mispronounce the words on purpose. The question is: why be insecure?

I far prefer to stop at a Starbucks than a fast food restaurant when I am on a long drive because, most of the time, I will pack my own snacks are simply want to get a drink. I'd rather have the extra caffeine of a coffee versus a soda and prefer the far-better taste of freshly prepared coffee than the "coffee" that comes out of a dispenser at the gas station convenience store. Starbucks also generally tend to have well-maintained bathrooms, which I appreciate.  But unless I really need to stretch my legs, I will find myself pulling up to the drive-thru window at many highway-side Starbucks. Driving thru takes about the same amount of time as going inside the store, with the added benefit that you do not have to get up. This is especially useful when it is cold outside and you don't want to put on several layers to walk a few hundred feet to the door.