another sam chan: the student blogger

I noticed that my last post regarding coffee caught more attention than normal, with more people dropping their 2 cents than usual so I guess there are a lot of coffee lovers out there…as well as a lot of coffee haters. Actually, I didn’t have a coffee today…and most days I don’t have coffee. As hard as it is to believe (even to myself, since I stereotypically ‘look’ the type of an coffee addict), I do not live on that brown liquid, as much as I like to talk about it. In fact, it usually takes 5 packs of sugar (not spenda, which tastes like sugar, because it’s made from sugar, so why not just get real sugar) for me before it starts tasting good. The ‘real’ coffee drinkers sipping on their cup of tar in the back row would disapprove.

So besides not having coffee today, I also had very little of something else, something I do live on: food. It was just one of those days where you want to lie around and do nothing (unfortunately this happens more often than the days I do have something to do) Unemployed college drop outs who live in their mother’s basements will agree – doing nothing does not involve cooking. I was all set to order delivery, when I realized that all I could order was pizza. Where the burgers at? Chow mein? Chicken wings? Okay fine, you can order chicken wings at Pizza joints. But has it never occurred to anybody but Italian guys named Mario that people could want food delivered to them? Yes, I’m sure they’re out there, but why don’t I know about it? I was stuck between paying 15 bucks for a pizza to be delivered to me, or chips. I chose the latter.

However, this brings forth a new idea. Why doesn’t Starbucks do delivery? With the Statue of Liberty not doing too well lately, this could be their out-clause. I went ahead and did some research on coffee being delivered and it turns out it does exist. If Starbucks or Timmys were to do it though, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one who would use it. The delivery boy might demand a tip for this guy though. Using that train of thought, imagine if Starbucks were to use Pizza marketing strategies in general! Step back a few years, and check out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – drinking Coffee instead of eating pizza. Radical!

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Have you ever had a hot beverage on a hot day outside? It seems like a bizarre thing to do and an even more bizarre thing to ask, but believe it or not, I do see quite a few people holding their daily starbucks fill regardless of the weather. This got me curious. If caffeine is what they want, there are a million other choices starting with coke, pepsi, and redbull; if they wanted the taste of coffee, Starbucks offers iced versions of practically anything they wanted and more (pomegranate frap though? gross.) Intrigued by this strange ritual, I looked up at the sun today and decided I would try it as well.

So I went to Starbucks’ Canadian brother from a different mother – Tim Hortons and ordered a large hot Joe. Before I do share the results, let me first clarify that coffee, regardless of the brand, usually has no effect on me whatsoever (This does not apply to expresso shots – those are legal drugs). In fact, sometimes I drink coffee just to give off the impression that I’m at least making an effort to try to stay awake. But as the sun scorched down on my typical Asian black-yet-actually-brown-in-the-sunlight hair and the hot beverage touched my lips and down my throat; it was as if the stars aligned and I felt like I was right next to the Philly Cheese lady playing the cello to accompany her harp.

Okay, not exactly. But, maybe just as miraculously, the hot coffee made no effect on my temperature whatsoever. I never expected it to make me cooler by any means, but the fact it didn’t make me hotter was quite amusing to me. In fact, the brown liquid which never had an effect on me before seemed to actually work for a change and made me more awake, more alive, more … wordy and ready to blog.

I think I have figured it out. There’s many bloggers out there. There’s many coffee on a hot day drinkers. All those bloggers who have been more successful than I, this is what they do. THEY are all the ones I see walking around with a hot drink and 2 cups to hold it in on a 30 degree day. They find a nice hot place; be it a sauna or the equator, and rehydrate themselves with a hot cup of coffee. After the potion starts working, inspiration comes to them and the words put themselves together from that point.

Lucky for me, now that I have found out how the magic potion works (remember, only under hot weather) and along with my other superpower (Morgan Freeman verbally narrates my life in my head and even pauses in case I want to write something down) I am now unstoppable. Now, since my superpower can’t be passed on, I figured I would at least let all you other amateur bloggers know about the potion. I’m not a selfish guy, there’s enough blogging for us all. Let the great blogs begin.

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