September
2006
Episode 12 of Upon Further Review!
We’ve hit an even dozen shows this week, and to celebrate we’re adding an extra glazed donut (okay, actually just another mini-review) in Episode 12 of Upon Further Review! In this episode we do a quick mini-review of/shout-out to (we’ll figure out what we want to call these short reviews soon) B&H Photo Video, then thank Steve from Wicked Good Podcast and Spartacus from the Spartacus Roosevelt podcast for their E-mails before moving on to the full reviews: first, we get wired with our review of Starbucks; second, we spend some time with the Piano Man in our review of Billy Joel’s new 12 Gardens concert album; and finally, we play the odds with our review of the podcast(s) from the sports betting site NBX.com. As always, thanks so much for your continued support–please get in contact with us, spread the word about the show, and keep sending us those opinions (as you know, such things are always welcome with us)! (As usual, podsafe intro music is provided by Sharif (“You’re My Girl”), outro by David Henderson (“We Gotta Go”).)
Reviewed in this show:
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Still enjoying the show guys. Have to disagree about Starbucks though. Ordinarily I’d give it a 0.5 for finding a way to separate silly people from their money but since Clea doesn’t like the half digits I’ll have to go zero. Yes the prices are ridiculous. But more ridiculous is the fact you have to learn a new language in order to order. They put the most amazing markup on what costs them about $0.60 to make and justify their insane prices by adding stupidly pretentious language and a marketing campaign that aims to make people feel worthless if they’re not holding a starbucks container.
OK OK I’m off to take my medication :)
I really do like the show…except when it gets my blood boiling like this ;)
grrrrr – this comment was meant to go with the episode 12 blog post – sorry
I’m really gonna go take that medication now
Heh–no problem, Bernadette, I moved them to the right post (which actually prompted me to learn how to do that, so thank you). I have to say I agree with you more than Clea would, but she IS from Seattle…so she’s got that whole hometown pride thing! But I’ll let her respond herself. Hope the medication-taking went well. :)
Greg
Greg, Clea,
Glad you were able to slip in B&H. While B&H is in NY, they’re catalog and web presence is strong, especially for those that want to buy “pro-sumer” merchandise (slightly higher quality video/audio production equipment, etc.). So no worries about seeming NYC-centric from my perspective!
Regarding Starbucks, I like their coffee and coffee drinks (iced/frozen are my favorites). I agree with the price and value arguments, and the service area saturation is ridiculous, even in smaller cities like Jacksonville, FL. We have a new “mall” – more of a series of strip malls in the Florida tradition – which now has four Starbucks in it. Two storefronts, one in Barnes and Noble, one in Target. While I have to admit that the convenience is kind of nice, it sort of erodes the brand, in my opinion.
Thanks, Clea, for revealing that you are expected to return a Starbucks drink you don’t like. Nice to know that is part of the service model, and makes me feel better about the chain, in general.
Looking forward to 12 Gardens! Didn’t know about it, but really cool to have collections that include offbeat songs.
On to un?lucky ep13?
– Chris