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The Golden Age of Cup Manufacturing
jonerik writes "The Washington Post has this article today on the disappearance of traditional 'small' (8 oz.) cups of coffee in favor of a larger concept of 'small' (12 oz.). In the case of Starbucks, for example, a truly small 8 oz. cup of coffee is still available, but it's called a 'short' and isn't listed on the menu. Why not? 'We still have it,' says Starbucks spokeswoman Lara Wyss, 'but we don't advertise it because of the size of the menu board, the physical constraints.' Yeah, sure. Disposable cup manufacturers have taken notice of the popularity/compulsory nature of larger cup sizes. The Sweetheart Cup Co. started manufacturing a successful 24-ounce hot-beverage cup about two years ago, and Kathy Deignan, the company's national vice president of marketing and account sales says 'The eight- and 10-ounce cups are pretty much gone.' Sweetheart also manufactures 7-Eleven's 44-ounce Super Big Gulp cups, and Deignan says the company is considering producing an 80-ounce cold drink cup - that's 5 pints, folks. Christ, how much do these companies think people need to drink, anyway?"
I was going to reply, but I have to piss...BRB.
What are we suposed to talk about guys?
Um yeah, cups a getting bigger. Wow.
er...
1, Make big cups
2, ???
3, Profit!!
....Guy took a job at a simple little manufacturing company, hoping for a stress free position, and then out of nowhere... his web servers get slashdotted....
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Meanwhile, the 8 ounce asscheek has been upgraded to the 24 ounce asscheek.
There will be trickle down from larger pants to larger chairs to larger coffins.
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
I'm in favor of the steady increase in cup sizes. I suppose this trend can benefit the ladies, too, since guys also wear cups.
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When you sneeze, all bodily functions stop--even you heart!
A sneeze is nothing more than a spontaneous brain abortion.
We almost died on a recent trip -- the value meals came with 300ml drinks. That's the size of cup you'd get for a small orange juice in the states. it definitely is an american thing -- none of us could even ration out the liquid to cover the whole meal and we wound up going back for second drinks.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
And rehashed an old Dennis Miller routine. It didn't start with coffee cups. First I remembered was resizing of McDonald's cold cups in the mid to late 80's. That was fine then, but now, when I want a small, it means I really want what is called the 'child size'. Ironically, when you get a happy meal, you don't get a 'child size', you get something even smaller.
The reason they don't put it on the menu board? It costs ten cents more for the 'small', but only has about 1 cent more cost involved. They 'lose money' (in the same way that pirates cause MPAA and RIAA companies to 'lose' money) by selling this size. That's why they push the barrel basket of popcorn at the movie theatre for 'only 25 cents more': because it only costs them 5 cents more, so they make an additional 20 cents.
"Do you want to supersize that?"
"No, moron. If I wanted to supersize it, I would have said 'Number 3, supersize', not 'Number 3, medium'" But I usually don't, as it is the owner/manager who will fire the drone if they forget to pimp supersize fries.
(BTW, call me in to testify against that fat bastard suing the fast food companies. Listen lard-ass, just order a medium! I'm fat, so fuck you, I'll call you lard ass if I want. I'm fat because *I* shovelled garbage down my gullet, not Mayor McCheese.)
Oh, and to those who say "the market will prevail": bullshit. McDonald's used to have an "All-American meal". Cheesburger (not 1/4 lb), fries (modern medium, traditional large), and a coke (modern medium, traditional large). It's exactly what I wanted. Doesn't exist anymore. Yes, the items are available separately, but have you ever ordered separate items at McDonald's? What a joke. Definately a roll of the dice as to whether those people get anything right. (I do this frequently. I'll get a medium two cheeseburger meal with an extra drink, sometimes extra fries for my wife and I to split. Then throw in a hamburger for junior.)
Blah. Gimme a gun, a knife, and an open fire. I'll get your supersized meal as soon as a buffalo comes walking by.
(Not even 30, and I'm becoming a 'bitter old man', ranting about 'the good old days')
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Be assured it's just as silly here. I can't comment about Pizza Hut, but I know darn well that several fast food outlet pre-programmed droids get mighty confused when you ask for a small size of anything. "We have medium, large, extra large, and colossal -- what size would you like?"
To which I reply, "I'd like small, but you're not going to play along, are you?".
Blank stare, followed by "Medium, then, sir?"
"If that's the smallest you have, then yes."
Honestly, how stupid do you have to be to then ask me if I'd like to supersize that? Apparently, approximately as stupid as a significant proportion of American high-schoolers, who really make me want to say, "see, now, that's why you're wearing that silly hat".
Anyway, I digress. And, apart from that, I'm getting off the subject.
It's marketing, I'm sure, pure and simple. And the most depressing thing is it evidently works. Well it must, or they wouldn't keep doing it, now, would they? Yes, we really are stupid enough that we accept them calling the smallest size on the menu "medium", in blatant contradiction of all that is sensible and logical in the world, and buy drink sizes that ought to have a health warning from the surgeon general about over working your bladder and other sundry bits of internal plumbing.
Well... I think it depends on the drink as much as the culture or country.
For example, in my one experience in a Munich beergarden, I found that Coke came only in small glasses.
Beer, on the other hand, could be ordered in a few sizes, including "large", "very large", and "2 litre, two-hands-required-to-lift the 20-pounds-of-glass-and beer" size.
That was a good size.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
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I ran "venti" through Babelfish, and it means "for the corpulent American".
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"Ask me about Loom"
You turn and say "Bitch, hold this" like any normal person. Sheesh.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
The volume in ounces of a "large" disposable beverage cup will double every 10 years. ;)
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
With the growth of high level languages like Perl, Python, and TCL you'd think that coffee cups could be getting smaller, not larger. This is the strongest evidence against Moore's Law I've seen in a while.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
True. I should have said Can the digestive tract, bloodstream, and bladder combined handle 80 ounces of liquid before your first trip to the bathroom.
When I was in college, we used to have contests to see who could drink the most beer before having to take a leak (the loser would have to throw an extra fiver into the pot while playing poker or some such punishment). The record was eight beers (96 ounces). That's 80 ounces with a tall-boy to spare.
I take drugs seriously.
Next thing you know, they will be able to handle e-mail.
chown -R us.
Several weeks ago I had to provide a urine sample as part of the interview process for a government job. The problem was I couldn't do it! So the doctor gave me a 6-ounce cup, directed me to a water fountain and told me to just keep drinking water until I could pee.
Given that I didn't fill the cup to the point where it would overflow, I estimate I must have had about 5 ounces in each cupfull.
At least 40 cups and less than an hour later, I was shivering and bloated, but I could finally pee. Less than an hour after that, I desperately had to pee again, only this time the urine was crystal clear. I stood there peeing for several minutes (people came in, did their business, left... other people came in, did their business, left, etc.). When I got home about an hour after that, I peed clear again. That was probably about 200 ounces (2.5 of those 80-ounce monsters), or 6.25 quarts, which is just over half the amount that killed a U.S. Army trainee.
Rule of thumb:One monster drink is probably OK, though not healthy. Two is definitely unhealthy and wasteful (since you'll be pissing it out in an hour or two anyway, not absorbing it). Three will make you feel very sick and probably disoriented. Four or five will kill you.
At least KFC and movie theatres can save some money since their chicken and popcorn buckets can now double as cups for soda.
Frighteningly apropos: "...These go to eleven."
And I think Pizza Hut should change their sizes to large, extra-large, and GALACTUS, DEVOURER OF WORLDS.
At one typical "yay for us" session where the publisher/CEO was trying to drum up support for an initiative the editorial staff opposed, I was obliged to clap with the majority. It would have been inappropriate not to. I noticed that one of the editors was not clapping, and I asked him how he could get away with that.
"I don't want to spill my coffee," he said, pointing out several other editorial staff members who were not clapping and holding coffee cups. "Next time, bring a cup."
So the next time I grabbed an empty coffee cup on my way to the meeting and just stood there holding it when everyone clapped. It was a good lesson in civil disobedience. When I left the company over a year later, and my boss was giving a BS speech about how much I meant to the company, I brought a coffee cup.
I hope they never do make that 80-oz cup. If I put one of those in my cup holder, the whole damn computer would tip over.
Five pints of water would be fine and dandy, but with five pints of Coke you've got over half a pound of sugar and 933 Calories. Hope you're getting it lots of veggies with your super-ultra-whopper-double gulp.
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Hey, i can make up facts about the body too!
Did you know that if you unwound your brain it would reach halfway from the earth to the moon?
Well except for the brain of the person who compiled that list, his would be lucky to make it around the block.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
They call it a Darwin because drinking it weeds out people that can't handle their alchohol? =)
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Here it is:
http://www.theonion.com/onion3011/cola.html
As a side note, a little guy like myself (135lbs) can't handle anything bigger than a small these days. I usualy order the "kiddie" meal whereever I go. I sort of sucks to not be a lard ass in america, because the sizes of drinks and meals here were made for those people in excess of 300 lbs I think.
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
Hahaha, I like that one!
In all seriousness, I'd like to state that the people of Darwin, NT Australia drink more beer per capita than any other place in the entire world, including germany.
*sniff*
God I'm proud to be an aussie
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Yeah, you also forgot: Did you know that if you unscrew your belly-button, your bum will fall off?
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...