非诚勿扰

2008.12.19

       冯导今年的贺岁片我觉得拍得神了,应该说冯小刚越来越神了。现在基本上看不明白了,不过还爱看,总觉得吧,还是那么个味。通篇倒是挺乐和的,演员演技高超到位。值,真值。

      没想到电影结束还遇到一位娱记采访我,我就胡乱夸了夸冯小刚,也算为电影事业做出点自己微不足道的贡献。最后她问我,以后如果他还出片子,你还会到电影院看吗?我说:会!

人生最高境界

2008.12.18

      拿沙特工资,住英国房子,用瑞典手机,戴瑞士手表,娶韩国女人,包日本二奶,做泰国按摩,开德国轿车,坐美国飞机,喝法国红酒,吃澳洲海鲜,抽古巴雪茄,穿意大利皮鞋,玩西班牙女郎,看奥地利歌剧,买俄罗斯别墅,雇菲律宾女佣,配以色列保镖,洗土耳其桑拿,当中国干部.
      做到最后一点,前面皆可实现.

by news.163.com

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The Time Traveler’s Wife

2008.12.14

(From the book synopsis) This is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap.

Overview

Director:

Robert Schwentke

Writers (WGA):

Bruce Joel Rubin (screenplay)
Audrey Niffenegger (novel)

Release Date:

2009 (USA)

幸好这部由小说改编的电影要2009年才开始上映,这让我有时间在接下来的日子里,买这本书,然后读完它。虽然有人会说这会破坏电影的有趣度,但是我还是会看完它。
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Starbucks chairman warns of “the commoditization of the Starbucks experience”

2008.12.14

Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz wrote this to CEO Jim Donald earlier this month. The memo’s authenticity has been confirmed by Starbucks.

From: Howard Schultz
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:39 AM Pacific Standard Time
To: Jim Donald
Cc: Anne Saunders; Dave Pace; Dorothy Kim; Gerry Lopez; Jim Alling; Ken Lombard; Martin Coles; Michael Casey; Michelle Gass; Paula Boggs; Sandra Taylor

Subject: The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience

As you prepare for the FY 08 strategic planning process, I want to share some of my thoughts with you.

Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.

Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience; but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces. For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista. This, coupled with the need for fresh roasted coffee in every North America city and every international market, moved us toward the decision and the need for flavor locked packaging. Again, the right decision at the right time, and once again I believe we overlooked the cause and the affect of flavor lock in our stores. We achieved fresh roasted bagged coffee, but at what cost? The loss of aroma — perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores; the loss of our people scooping fresh coffee from the bins and grinding it fresh in front of the customer, and once again stripping the store of tradition and our heritage? Then we moved to store design. Clearly we have had to streamline store design to gain efficiencies of scale and to make sure we had the ROI on sales to investment ratios that would satisfy the financial side of our business. However, one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store. Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee. You certainly can’t get the message from being in our stores. The merchandise, more art than science, is far removed from being the merchant that I believe we can be and certainly at a minimum should support the foundation of our coffee heritage. Some stores don’t have coffee grinders, French presses from Bodum, or even coffee filters.

Now that I have provided you with a list of some of the underlying issues that I believe we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it’s time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience. While the current state of affairs for the most part is self induced, that has lead to competitors of all kinds, small and large coffee companies, fast food operators, and mom and pops, to position themselves in a way that creates awareness, trial and loyalty of people who previously have been Starbucks customers. This must be eradicated.

I have said for 20 years that our success is not an entitlement and now it’s proving to be a reality. Let’s be smarter about how we are spending our time, money and resources. Let’s get back to the core. Push for innovation and do the things necessary to once again differentiate Starbucks from all others. We source and buy the highest quality coffee. We have built the most trusted brand in coffee in the world, and we have an enormous responsibility to both the people who have come before us and the 150,000 partners and their families who are relying on our stewardship.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge all that you do for Starbucks. Without your passion and commitment, we would not be where we are today.

Onward…

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Train Ticket

2008.12.12

最近比较有名的一张来自中国的火车票

火车票

火车票

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《Mother and son》

2008.12.12

《母与子》

其实起这么一个名字也不是很贴切,因为这里写的是猫的故事。但是拟人化的猫很感人。原作者卜桦。

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