About Drive-Thru Coffee Culture

A commenter, katCL, posed a very interesting question in the comments to my last post, and I thought I'd put up both the question, and my response to it here.


katCL said...

I don't quite understand the "no drive-through coffee culture here yet" though. When some drivers stop in front of the neighbourhood grocers and blare their horns for assistance, is that not vey similar to the drive-thru concept? Not done in Dubai? It's very common in Abudhabi.

My response...

You are right that there is a sort of drive-in/thru culture in the UAE. But it's of a different sort. There's drive-thru when it comes to a McDonalds or Hardees or Burger King, or drive-in (and Honk! Honk! Honk!) when it comes to a road-side cafeteria. But those are places where you're grabbing a bite to eat. 

For fast food, drive thru works here. But when it comes to coffee, the situation is different.

Up until now, coffee in the UAE has been of a very European / Upper-crust American experience. People here are used to sitting down with a latte, or tall and expensive dessert type coffee drink, and spending time with friends. They chat, sip some very sweet caffeine, and while away an hour or two. It's a very social paradigm.

Drive-thru coffee, on the other hand, is a very utilitarian sort of experience. In Canada I would grab a cup on the way to work to help me get ready for the day. Or I'd make a run to Timmies for co-workers who were looking for their morning coffee fix. Generally speaking, however, Timmies was never a place to go to, it was a place to go by, on the way to somewhere else - a hockey game, work, etc. What makes it work in Canada is that we don't use coffee as the setting for socializing, but for the set-up to socializing. (There are some people you just do not talk to before their first cup in the morning.)

I do feel that the UAE is primed for the sort of drive-thru experience that Canadians know so well. And with Tim Hortons, there would be a viable alternative to the inescapable ubiquity of burgers and fries here. I think residents of the UAE would like to roll up in the morning on the way to work, and grab a bagel and cream cheese, or pass by at lunch for a freshly made sandwich. Unfortunately the Tim Hortons corporate people don't have that sense, and are setting up walk in locations only. I think the caution is understandable, from their perspective, after their experience in Ireland. But still, I do hold out hope.

Tim Hortons Invades Dubai

I'm kind of proud of a sort of achievement of late. I was finally first at some thing.

Specifically, I was the "First Tim Hortons Customer in the UAE".

Yesterday evening the family and I went down to check out the new Timmies on Sheikh Zayed Road, only to learn that it was yet still closed. But, we saw from the sign on the door, it would be open on the morrow. 

At that moment, two staff members leaned out the door for a bit of fresh air, and I had a chat with them. "Will Timmies be open at 6am?" I asked. "Do you know what a double-double is?" Yes, it seems. They would, and they did. Well, I thought, we'll see about that in the morning.

I set my alarm for 5:30 am, so that I could be there when the door opened. At 6:15 am, when I actually woke up, 45 minutes after my alarm (Dang you Nokia!), I was on my way.

Would I see a crowd? Would I see a line? There had been absolutely zero advertising about this opening, so I wasn't sure what I would find. Thus it was, at 6:55 am, when I got out of my car, it happened.

As I walked to the store, there were two men outside. One in grey slacks and a white dress shirt , hair slicked back like a Latter Day Saint - obviously a representative from head office - and an older South-Asian gentleman, who appeared to be either a manager or franchise owner. The men saw me and fixed their eyes on me. They looked first at me, then at the Starbucks next door, as if to ask silently "Which way is he going?" But as I passed by the Starbucks door, and tilted my frame towards theirs, it was all smiles, and a loud happy shout from the South Asian fellow.

Inside the store I was greeted by cheering, the entire staff overjoyed to see their very first customer. I came just in time, because shortly after I arrived, the people started wandering in, in twos and threes.

I hope they'll do well. I bought a breakfast, and spent some time grilling the corporate fellow with all the questions I had. Why the cup sizes were different (American sizing), why there were no "Everything" bagels (Can't import poppyseeds), and why there were no drive throughs planned (no drive-through coffee culture here yet). He smiled and answered all my questions, but after the first dozen or so, I bet his internal monologue was slightly less Sunday School-esque.

Yet for all the differences I saw, it still felt like home. The coffee tasted the same, the Sour Cream donut just as soft, and the herb and garlic cream cheese on my bagel was just like I remembered it.

Finally! I can get coffee at a sane price. Instead of paying a ghastly 12 to 20 AED every time I want a cup of coffee, I now only need to pay 7. And for a much better brew.

I'm happy Timmies is here, because now I can get a nice soup, bagel, and coffee for lunch. I can grab a pack of Timbits for my kids, or a French Vanilla for my wife, just like how we used to have it back home.

But as much as I am happy, I also wonder... will this be yet one more thing that makes me so comfortable, so complacent, that I end up not going back at all?

UPDATE: I came back, a day later. The place was absolutely overflowing. They literally could not keep stock on the shelves, and one of the managers I had met from the day before was sitting outside, around the corner from the front door, looking like he was ready to just collapse on the pavement. He recognized me, and as we shook hands, he said "Since you came, it hasn't stopped."

Can I Car?

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Can I Car Published via LongTail.tv

I recently had the displeasure of being turned away the the Ford "Can a Car?" test drive event at the Dubai Autodrome. I was promised a personal test drive, so here's hoping!

Of Unicorns, Easter Bunnies and Independent Bookstores

The National Post was channeling The Onion the other day. I love reading interviews with people who make Truthers seem cogent and thoughtful.

When I was reading the interview, I swear that Santa, the Tooth Fairy and even Bunny McEaster stopped by to add their two cents to the wonderfully concocted fantasy reality constructed therein.

Why I even found myself interjecting from time to time!

I thought I might note down a re-cap of the event:

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: I think that the shift and trend towards digital positions independent booksellers as more important than ever. After all, it’s one thing to find something to read, it’s quite another to find something good to read. More is not necessarily better. You can get to the world’s largest buffet but you might need help determining which of the dishes to sample, otherwise you fill your plate with a lot but enjoy little of it.

Moi: You're so right, Mark. The internet is just a bad dream, book bloggers are a figment of the imagination, and I always trust desperate sales staff to consider my wants and needs when buttering me up for a sale.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: It makes sense that an online company that is all about the Internet and the virtual IS going to see huge successes in the digital/virtual realm.

Moi: I totally see why they made you the manager of a bookstore in Hamilton - You're a smart fella. A company with a market cap of $85 billion, with warehouses around the world, and 33,000 flesh and blood employees totally is all about the virtual.

Alana Wilcox: Most e-tailers offer only a Top 50 or theNew York Times bestsellers — useful if you already know what you’re looking for. But most of my best book finds have been accidental meetings on bookstore shelves, which is nearly [im]possible in the ebook world if you don’t have a search term.

Moi: You tell it! It absolutely is so much easier to discover new writers from disparate parts of the globe in a cramped little bookshop at the corner of Somewhere St. and Out-of-the-Way Dr. than through an e-tailer with worldwide publishing and distribution connections.

Alana Wilcox: We send books out to stores and never know whose bookshelves they end up on. But regular chats with our indie bookselling friends let us know who’s buying our books and why.

Moi: You make a solid point, Alana, Otherwise, how else in the world would a small, indie publishing house that specializes in experimental poetry and fiction know that their work generally appeals to a small group of well educated urbanites with an interest in the avant garde. Lacking this input, you probably would have spent countless hours loading copies of Eunoia on to the book racks at Shopper's Drug Mart.

Becky Toyne: I think indie bookstores will evolve...Daunt’s in London, England, has already started its own publishing imprint to capitalize on its brand. I don’t expect it to be the last to do so.

Moi: La la la! Can't hear you because my fingers are in my ears! Look, Becky, if you're just going to sit there and talk sense, we're not going to listen to you.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Even though the bookstore at McMaster has had the ability to print books on demand since 2008 with our Espresso Book Machine, I’ve never thought of Titles bookstore as a publisher – in my mind it has always been about selling books.

Moi: Don't beat yourself up about it, Mark. Absolutely anyone who spent every day for three years staring at the means through which they could profit greatly by cutting out the middle man, and controlling the production and distribution of a product they know intimately would be hard pressed to connect the dots.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: I think there are huge opportunities for creative collaboration between publishers and booksellers in which both of them discover new wins and new successes.

Moi: And, to add to your point, when publishers soon start shipping books via unicorn, in baskets carefully packed by elves, publishers and booksellers will the see themselves as equals, holding hands, united in purpose, boldly walking forward into a future of harmony and co-prosperity.

The Internet Can't Compare to the Grand Custodians of Literature

The ever media shy and elusive Margaret Atwood made an appearance in the Wall Street Journal, in a story about her appearance at Book Expo America. What with Book Expo Canada long dead and buried, it's one of the last venues where the books in all their forms and market tested glory are sprayed at an adoring audience.

The most memorable bit -

She described the “serendipitous experience” of walking into a store and picking up two or three unexpected books. She said that unlike the Internet, bookstores provide a filter for customers – they are a modern-day version of hand sellers (earlier, Atwood described how she sold her own first book by going from bookstore to bookstore). Bookstore employees read and make informed guesses as to what their customers would like.

She is so right. The internet is totally unfiltered, so it's just, like, totally impossible to get a personal book recommendation the way those grand old (*sniff*...sorry...nostalgia gets the better of me) librarians used to. Why, I will always remember that one time, in my entire life, when a librarian I knew recommended a book to me. It was such a good book. Yes it was. It was about incest, death, and the tragic loss of innocence of a 12 year old boy.

No, it's not like there are any book blogs, or reviewers out there who passionately engage with their readers about books that have caught their imaginations. I was so used to walking into a Chapters or Indigo and spending a good thirty minutes to an hour with a staff member, discussing my reading wants and needs, and standing there in awe as these noble $10 an hour curators of great literature went out of their way to find the books that were best suited to me.

Oh, wait. Check that. That's just my imagination getting too active. Come to think of it, outside of handwritten book recommendations on the shelves of the science fiction bookstore Bakka in Toronto, not in a single bookstore I have ever entered in my entire life (and I have indeed been known to haunt my share) has there been a friendly staff member who has come up to me to guide me deeper into the worlds of imagination. They'll happily guide my hand into my wallet, but that's where the interaction always begins and ends.

Like everyone else I know, I'd peek at the jacket, hear about a book from a friend, or maybe read about a book in the paper, or (later) online.

Atwood describes an idyllic fantasy that never was. I mean "bookstore employees read and make recommendations?" Since when?

Invariably, whenever I have gone to a clerk to ask something for a recommend, this is the conversation -

"Can you recommend any authors similar in style to (author x)?"
"What genre?"
"Fantasy, I think."
"Fantasy section is over there" Waves a hand vaguely toward the back of the store.
"Oh, uh, okay. How about authors comparable to (author y)?"
"Genre?"
"Mystery/Thriller"
"Mystery section is over there" Waves a hand vaguely towards the back of the store.

Sigh. This bullspit just never ends.

Using Piracy to Turn Your Book into a $$$ Machine

There's some new thought turning up on the interwebs about the intersection of pirating and the book business, and while the mainstream line is that piracy is always bad, recent events may be adding a caveat on to that.

Sure, if you sell and e-book and someone pirates it, it's bad, because who wants to pay money for another e-copy? But if you are getting the digital copy of a book that can only be truly experienced in a more tactile form.... then pirating becomes marketing.

At least this was the case with the breakout best-selling kids title "Go the F--- to Sleep."

More Prizes Yay Happy Clapping

John Barber had an interesting piece in the G&B recently, about how the overabundance of literary awards has perverted the course of publishing by creating twisted incentives. Due to this, nobody really reads or reviews books regularly any more.

B.C. native George Bowering, Canada’s first Parliamentary Poet Laureate, notes that he has published 40 books since the inauguration of the B.C. Book Prizes 28 years ago – and has yet to win. But the attention he most misses is different. Books he published as a young man would routinely garner dozens of reviews, according to Bowering. “Now that I am older and a better poet, my books will be lucky to get more than one or two reviews in the papers,” he laments. “How did I know that 1970 was the golden age for books in Canada?”

Absent reviews, publishers need to look to somewhere for validation, and awards are it, now.

Nor do prizes properly honour writers, according to Baird. “For a lot of writers, it’s total agony,” she says. “If your book doesn’t make the short list, you might as well fold up shop and forget about it.” The message is reinforced by publishers who rely heavily on past and hoped-for prizes to shape their lists, according to Baird, often including bonuses for nominations and wins in writers’ contracts and discounting future advances extended to “failures.”

So that's where it's at? If you don't get the blue ribbon, Mommy and Daddy don't love you no more?

Sigh...

Rick-rolling the professor

This was just awesome.

To see whether his prof actually read his essay, a US Computer Science student, user name Mayniac 182, decided to Rick-Roll his prof in acrostic form.

I love acrostics.

Here's what he did -

Who said poetry wasn't practical?

Are video games the new novels?

I been sayin' that since I got my first NES back in '89. Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Zelda... they weren't games so much as stories. And the trend only continued on, moving out of the RPG realm, into RTS, FPS, and various Sim games.

Take a game like Halo... the latest derivation is actually a prequel, where you play the back story to the original three games. What's more, it's structured as a tragedy, as there is no way to win (the end is already known... the protagonists fail, Reach falls to the invasion), but the appeal is in the story, the details. It's no longer the "what" that is the concern, but the "why", the "how", the "who".

It's a lucrative, and viable option for writers... not only do these games require writing for the games themselves, but also for the novels, the cartoons, the movies, and the web series they spawn.

And as for lit-cred... not long ago the idea of a TV show being accorded the same respect as classic and contemporary literature was the stuff of mad men and fools. A complete nonsense idea.

Things change fast. And increasingly faster.

Head up #$% disease - a modern literary ailment

Saw something in the HuffPo...

Writers of the literary sort tend to be isolated, introverted, yah-dee-yah. They also tend to disdain modern socializing technologies.

The problem is, however, that their potential readers don't, and these technologies have quickly become enormous elements in the discourse of modern life.

As Joanne MacNeil sees it:

The average fictional character is either so thoroughly disinterested in email, social media, and text messages he never thinks of it, or else hastily mentions electronic communications in the past tense. Sure, characters in fiction may own smart phones, but few have the urge to compulsively play with the device while waiting to meet a friend or catch a flight. This ever-present anachronism has made it so that almost all literary fiction is science fiction, a thought experiment as to what life might be like if we weren't so absorbed in our iPhones but instead watched and listened to the world around us at a moment's rest.

Are literary writers anachronizing (not a word, I know, but it works!) their characters by imbuing them with their own authorial techno-uselessness or disdain?

Contemporary readers of contemporary fiction are now running into the same problem that post-Colonial readers had with the all-white, all-male Great Books pantheon. The works don't speak to them, because they do not resemble them.

Now, the other side of the coin is that by imbuing a work with period specific references, it hampers the ability of a work to later be considered "timeless."

I believe there is a certain arrogance in thinking that your work is somehow fit for the ages. Anyone dispensing that advice really is putting the cart before the horse (an anachronistic idiom that is yet somehow still relevant in our hyper-cyber-age!).

But even if you receive the approval of these fuddery gatekeepers of eternal lit, what they think and feel has no bearing on what time will bring.

A few years ago, I met with Ross King, who wrote "The Judgment of Paris" and he spoke about Ernest Meissonier, who, in the 18th Century was perhaps the most famous and celebrated artist in the empire. Of all the artists whose work and fame would survive through the ages, all were certain Meissonier would be foremost of them all.

Within decades of his death, his work had been derided, his name forgotten, and his art, which had once commanded sums only kings and emperors could afford, barely drummed up a pauper's two-pence and ha'penny.

All of which has led me to think that there's little point in writing for the ages. Write for today, if history decides that your work is worth remembering, count it a blessing, happenstance, or luck. No more.