Get Paid to Vote (and it'll be more than ACORN will put up)

In case you've been hiding under a rock, back in a cave, in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, with your hands over your ears while screaming every word to "Don't Stop Believin'" over and over and over, you'll know that today's Election Day.

I hope you're going to your civic duty (hehe, duty!) and cast a vote for Obama, McCain or yours truly. Hey, just because I don't have an on-camera SNL appearance to my credit doesn't mean I'm not qualified.

Oh, wait, yeah it does.

I wanted to take the time to point out that a fine sense of self-satisfaction isn't the only thing you can get out of participating in the electoral process this November 4th. For those of us who are more greedy, there are a whole lot of freebies out there if you're willing to flaunt your "I Voted" sticker.

For instance, Starbucks is giving away free coffee.

Krispy Kreme is giving away free donuts.

Ben & Jerry's is giving away free ice cream.

Chick-Fil-A is giving away free sandwiches.

Babeland—the adult store chain—is giving away unmentionables (and unlinkables). But at least you'll be able to work off the donuts, fast food and ice cream.

MTV is giving away free music with Rock the Vote.

And, my personal favorite, if you got a misspelled "Country First" tattoo on your lower back, New Look Tattoo Removal will take it off for free. Wa-hoo!

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Update:
There's a tie for first place... get your free Doggie Poop Sacks here!

The Big Day: Dunkin Donuts and Apple Store

Tomorrow's going to be a big day in New England, my friends.

Not only is it the most wonderful day of spring and the first, official sign of summer - Dunkin' Donuts Free Iced Coffee Day - but Thursday also marks the opening of the very first Apple Store in Boston.

It's unfortunate that I no longer live in Boston, since I used to work right around the corner from five D&D's AND the newest Apple Store. You can bet I'd be down there on Boylston, a coffee in each hand, waiting for the store to open so I could be one of the 1,500 people to get my greedy paws on one of the t-shirts they're giving away.

Seriously - how cool are those Apple t-shirts? My brother has been working for them for six months and he still hasn't given me one yet. I'm calling BS on that. Lil' bro, it's time to stop hoarding the shirts and sending one my way, okay? Otherwise, I'm going to stop buying that Hennepin beer you like so much.

My love for Dunkins is well documented. However, I do have to admit that my performances on previous free iced coffee days has been somewhat lacking. I don't believe that I've had more than two in a day, which is just sad. I can generally visit D&D's up to four times on a hot summer day for a medium iced, one cream no sugar. I had better do at least three tomorrow - I'll keep you updated. I'd say I'd go for more, but I am genuinely trying to cut back on the caffeine right now. I'm down to a half-pot a day. Not too shabby, eh?

How about you guys? How many iced coffees are you going for?

Also, anyone going to the Apple Store's grand opening?

Observations at a Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon...

My writing compadre Julie and I decided to meet up today in a downtown Starbucks and get some good work done – me on my thesis and her on a job hunt. While I did manage to write a couple pages, I couldn’t resist people watching (one of the things I love to do when in coffee shops) and put down some of my observations for you to enjoy…

Three ladies sit down at my table. One is “of a certain” age and seems nice enough. Definitely well put together – the lipstick matches the jacket, which also matches the bag. The other two are younger, and, as it turns out, are her daughters. They don’t look anything alike, unless you count the scent of money wafting across the table.
The one in the middle has an enormous circle-cut diamond, encircled by diamonds on a (platinum?) band with, you guessed it, more diamonds. They’re out wandering the streets of Boston planning a wedding. Judging by the amount they’re dropping on flowers for the rehearsal dinner (two grand – I’m so nosy), it’s going to be a high-class affair.
The bride-to-be eyebrows seem to be constantly arched in surprise. This is less due to any sort of sticker shock, but more to an overly enthusiastic wax job, which gives her the look of someone being goosed in their Paper Denim jeans every 15 seconds. Or, maybe she’s just surprised that the popped-pink-polo she’s chosen to wear for bridal registry day is so 2004.
The three of them crowd over their venti teas and examine a Crate & Barrel “free gift” card insert from this season’s bridal magazine. The card entitles one of them to a silver-covered wicker basket.
“What the hell would you use that for?” asks the sister. She’s wearing a Pink Burberry scarf, that matches her light freckles, upturned nose and $200 haircut perfectly. Oh, and it looks good with her $85 lip bleach job, too. Snap!
“We could fill it with candy for Valentines Day!” sniffs bride-to-be.
“Oh, that’d be cute!” coos the cougar mom.
“Let’s go to Pottery Barn and then we’ll be done,” says bride-to-be.
“Can we at least go to one store that I want to go to?” Mom asks, only whining ever so slightly.
“Which one is that?” sister/maid-of-honor/girl most likely to go home with a groomsman asks.
“Maybe Lord & Taylor.”
“What about Nordstrom’s?”
“There’s a Nordstrom’s around here?”
“It’s a Neiman Marcus, you always do that. Get it right.”
“I don’t like pleated pants.”
“Oh, they’re pleated. We couldn’t get anything but pleated.”
“Why is that kid whining? You know, if you let your kids whine, they’ll just develop a speech impediment.”
It was at this point that I have to start tuning them out, otherwise I would be tempted to overturn my table, spill their teas and mess up their hair while laughing maniacally.
Oh well, congratulations. May you last ‘til ’09.

I can’t place this one guy. His appearance gives one the impression of either being a brilliant M.I.T. professor, mentally working out theorems, or of the guy who digs the cans out of my recycling bins each week on a break between talks with Verne, his imaginary pet troll.
I looked up to see him chewing on a plastic bag, so it appears to confirm my latter suspicions. His hair, styled in the ever-popular Ben Franklin fashion (bald on top, long on sides and back) sticks out haphazardly in all directions, coming dangerously close to the latte belonging to the studious co-ed next to him.
He’s also switched seats three times in the hour that I’ve been stationed behind my laptop. Perhaps he’s waiting for someone? Or maybe he’s even more OCD about his seating arrangement than I am (I refuse to have my back to the door – you never know when your mortal enemy might show up. In my case, my mortal enemy is either Derek Jeter, the lead singer for Maroon 5 or Griffin, the smelly kid from fourth grade.).
He’s dressed in a fairly clean, 3/4-length wool dress coat. Underneath that, he has corduroy slacks and a v-neck sweater, both also in presentable states of cleanliness – no stains, no smell. He does come off as frumpy, and not just because of the hair. Everything he’s got on is wrinkled.
If I were a betting man (and I am for the right odds and money), I would have to wager that he is nuts more than he’s brilliant, even if it is a combination of the two. While I’ve been typing the last three paragraphs, he’s still been in focused, intense conversation with Verne the Troll. And, if I’m not mistaken, Verne has done something to make him upset. Watch your back, Verne!

I have seen no less than four iPhones in the past ten minutes, not including my own, confirming my suspicions that I have already slipped dangerously behind times. I must now go and my replace my horribly outmoded iBook G4 with a shiny new MacBook Air, stat. Whatever “stat” means.

This other guy, his head is huge. It looks like a lumpy bowling ball squatting on top of his rounded shoulders. His posture is terrible – all hunched over, gremlin-like - and it is an instant reminder for me to correct mine. Now sitting straight up in my chair, one leg crossed over the other (attracting sideways glances from the boys, but dammit, it’s comfortable) I shoot sideways glances his way. He's removed the bubble-top of his non-whipped frappacino and is tilting the slushy chocolate drink back to his lips, gulping each mouthful down with a long, drawn-out sssssssslurp. I can see the other table members shooting him glares over their copies of Love in the Time of Cholera and How Starbucks Saved My Life. And I find myself doing the same… I wonder if I’m better at shooting darts with my eyes than I am in bars?

What is it, exactly, that gives high-schoolers the herd instinct? Two groups of eight just walked in here, one right after the other. The first was chattering non-stop about some girl named Tracy, who apparently isn't with them and also has some questionable hygiene and moral issues, at least by their standards. I don't catch what the second group was yammering on about, because I’d just noticed another instinct they all seem to share – the motivation to wear that bare minimum of cold-weather clothing.
It’s chilly out. I’m sitting by the door and every time it opens, my fingers turn a slightly deeper shade of blue. I’m typing furiously, not to record all of this stuff, but to keep my digits attached to me, right where they should be – at the ends of my wrists. I’m sitting inside and I’m cold, yet not one of these kids is wearing anything heavier than a thin, unzipped sweatshirt. The girls all seem to be part of some sort of team, or buy their clothes in bulk, since they all wearing identical fake-fur lined, puffy black vests.
Whatever, I probably used to do the same thing. Actually, I have two vests that I recently donated to the Salvation Army because I haven’t worn them in years.

What is it about the French that make them so freaking skinny? This lovely couple just added cream and sugar to their respective coffees. I’m not a big guy, but they could’ve used my jeans as His & Her sides to a denim sleeping bag.
I hate them.
Good thing I stuck with the soy latte.

Okay, time to go warm up… my fingernails just went black and I can’t feel my toes. I thought coffee shops were supposed to warm you up?

"Gotta make the donuts..."

If there's one constant in my life, one love that has spanned the years, a rock that keeps me grounded, something worth waking up to every morning and something that I miss and long for when separated from by the cruelties of life it's Dunkin' Donuts.

More specifically, it's the New England-based chain's coffee.

Now you Starbucks-sippers in Seattle, or you Waffle House-loving southerners don't know the joy that is the morning's first sip of the rich, creamy iced coffee sucked from a bucket-sized cup through an orange-and-purple straw. It's a high that shoots straight through your mouth to the front of your brain, endorphins shower down, birds sing, the world is beautiful once more.

Alas, my favorite double-Ds isn't worldwide yet. But, darn it, we'll get there!

But if you've never had a chance to visit a Dunkin's and have an iced coffee on a steamy summer day - DO IT AS SOON AS YOU GET A CHANCE.

(Disclaimer: I promise not to yell too much on this blog, but for God's sake, some things I just feel too strongly about!)

For example, if you visit Boston, stopping under the purple-and-orange is just as important as visiting the site of the tea party, paying homage at Fenway Park and drinking a Samuel Adams. You can't miss them, anyway, there's literally one every block.

You New Yorkers out there have the same experience with Starbucks. In fact, I think that's the thing that pissed me off the most about living in the City - you can't get away from that stupid angel in the green circle, but there are, like, three measly Dunkin's in all of Manhattan. Abomination!

What's funny about our local Dunkin' Donuts, though, is the variety of differences in each retail location. Sure, they're pretty much branded the same, but unlike Starbucks where a barista from London is the same as a barista from the airport is the same as a barista from the Upper West is a same as a barista from hell, local flavors actually get added to the mix at DD.

For example, there are four locations I visit on a regular basis (generally, I go to each at least once a week). I'll rate them here from worst-first.

4) Dunkin's on the corner of Tremont & Boylston, right off the Boston Common. It's in the basement of 180 Boylston Street (an address I know only because it's the main campus building for Emerson College, where I'm getting my master's).
This location has everything I dislike about coffee shops... it's busy (because of it's location - right by one of the main tourist sites and a T station), homeless people shill for change constantly outside its doors, there's no bathroom and the ghetto-blastin' staff's quantitative IQ probably doesn't add up to Stephen Hawking's toejam.
But, the iced coffee tastes just as good as the nectar of the gods and it's super-convenient for the 8pm halfway-point break during my night classes.

3) Dunkin's on Boylston, one block from Copley Square, across from the public library.
Okay, so some of the same problems here (particularly with the homeless guys at the door, begging for spare change. Ugh - look, if you reek of booze, I'm not giving you money. It's obvious you're not there for a coffee! Every now and then, I'll buy a cup of coffee or a donut for the "doorman," but just as often, they'll turn it down, claiming they "just ate." Yeah, right.).
Other problems: crowded, due to the business towers in the area and tourist traffic, it's long and narrow so it can get kind of cramped, for some reason a lot of candy-faced kids hang out there.
Pluses: the staff is super-efficient and the line always moves fast. They also seem to be friendly all the time and they've never gotten an order wrong.

2) Dunkin's on Newbury Street, between Mass. Ave and Hereford.
Again more homeless (gah! They're everywhere!) brings this location down. The staff, which seems to be predominantly Arabic, with the exception of the super-enthusiastic Filipino guy who makes the sandwiches, has the most trouble communicating of any other Dunkin's out there. But it does add to the unintentional comedy when you have three people, from three different continents all trying to explain to each other how to make a non-fat, no-whipped cream, decaf coolatta. Good times!
For me, the reason I go to this one is it's there. It's a block from my office, which makes it convenient, and whether or not I ride the T, walk or bike to work, it's on my way and calling my name every morning (and, sometimes, every afternoon). I'd compare this branch to a girlfriend you have because she's fun to hook up with - she'll blow your (mind) at night or when the time is right, but you have to put up with a whole lot of ish all the time and you wonder why it's worth it to stay but since there's nothing better you do but secretly you always hope for something better to come along or a new store to open up one block in the other direction.
Uh, not that I've ever been in that situation or anything...

1) Dunkin's in the Shaw's Plaza, off of McGrath Highway, just over the Somerville/Cambridge border.
This one has all the good and none of the bad - it's the closest one to my apartment, right in a plaza that I visit a couple times a week anyway for groceries, it's on the way to the T (with only a slight detour). The staff, which seems to be the entire female/teenage child branch of an extended Indian family, is very friendly and even tries to upsell by insisting on asking every customer "If you would like any donuts or muffins today" (which, as a salesperson, I appreciate). They make the best breakfast sandwiches - even double-toasting the English Muffins so they have a nice crunch. The orders are always right and they're very fast. Heck, even the floors are always clean.
And the coffee? Ooooooooh, the coffee is so good. I visit this one when I'm running late, overslept or after the occasional hangover. That first sip is pure bliss.

I guess the only downfall is that they don't deliver.

I'll have to put that into the "comments" box.

I'd never leave my house.