coffee and taxes

Laura and I stopped into a Starbucks this morning to grab a couple HoChos before heading in to work. This particular establishment is right at the Industrial exit off of I-80 on the east side of the causeway in West Sacramento, so you might expect a lot of transient traffic. I wouldn't say that the place was crazy busy, not by any stretch, but there were plenty of people moving in and out of the place, both on foot and via the drive through, trying to get their morning injection of wake-me-up juice. It all kind of looked like people flocking to church to do their daily confession.

I know that people buying coffee products is not a strange thing in any sense of the act. The crazy thing to me was the manner in which everyone ordered their beverages; how crisp, well practiced, and odd their orders were. "Half-cap triple shot no-whip non-foam venti with room." WTF? Again, nothing about what I'm saying is new; plenty of comedians and feature films have poked fun at the skitzo variety of coffee options that exist these days. I'm merely making an observation. Like the guy in what looked like weight-lifter or pajama pants, bald head, denim jacket, leg twitching as his previous buzz wears off, ordering his coffe. Outside of Starbucks, I would probably peg this dude as someone I don't want to mess with. But here, listening to his rediculous requirements for bending and twisting the flavor of a damn coffee bean, I just had to laugh at the whole thing. What makes us happy? What gets us through the day? Why am I spending money on hot choclate at Starbucks when I could probably make a better one at home in just about the same amount of time, and probably for less money? That's it! I'm now officially on a search for a good hot choclate product which I can make at home.

Funniest part of it all (at least to me) was a guy who pulled up along the curb in a large mobile crane. Yes, the kind with cables and a hook, and that lifts heavy things into the air. He quickly u-turned it in the court outside the establishment, and left it running as he ran inside for his coffee product. I guess it's not that weird, just seemed funny to me. No stranger than someone driving a bus through a Caffino drive-thru to get an orange juice, anyway.

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Ok, one last bit for today's entry. I jumped onto California's Franchise Tax Board web site just a few moments ago to check something out regarding my own taxes, and one of the first links they have right now is to a page (see it here) that lists the top 250 individuals or corporations who currently owe more than $100,000 in back taxes. Three years ago I screwed up my witholdings and had to pay a big sum of money to make up the difference, but that sum of money PALES in comparison with some of these people. Why do I use the word "pale"? Because the number one dude owes almost $10 million in back taxes. Again I say, WTF?