I recently picked up "It's Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks".

As you might know, I am a bit of coffee coin-a-sewer, owning a $2000 espresso machine and such. You might also remember the only popular blog post I've ever written - the one about the Starbucks logo. I was always very interested in everything Starbucks. The reason? Well, I really could not understand how a company with coffee that is so bad could be so popular.  I mean, have you tasted the stuff?

"It's Not About the Coffee" - wow, I thought, this should clear some things up. Because, I for sure know that it's not about the coffee. I've had good coffee. It just can't be about the coffee. 

The first sentence of the book (int the A Note to Readers) reads: "Although this book is titled It's Not About the Coffee,  of course it is about the coffee--it's about the people and the coffee." Leadership lesson number one: start out with a lie, then weasel out. 

Cloying, sacchariney  corporate doublespeak only got worse on the following several pages, I am not even sure I can get through the book at all.  There might be some interesting Starbucks anecdotes further down, so I'll keep trying. Meanwhile I get a weird feeling about Howard Behar - the same I used to get about Soviet Politburo members: I could not understand if they believed themselves in the ideals that they extolled. 

Ok, I read a couple of more pages, and was instantly rewarded by learning this interesting, although disturbing fact: besides the coffee passport, which I knew about, there's a piece of corporate propaganda known as the "Green Apron Book."  Almost like Chairman Mao's "Little Red Book". Neat.

All of this reminded me a story that I've read somewhere about a North Korean student at a Moscow university that used to carry around with him a little portrait of the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung. He would meditate, looking at the picture for hours, and even used it instead of a mirror while shaving. When asked - how could he shave without a mirror, he said - this is better than a mirror.

I guess, if you can make people shave in front of a portrait, you can make them believe that Starbucks coffee is tasty. There are ways...

For once, I haven't forgot to wear the little armband that comes with my sleep phase tracking alarm clock (I'll write a review of it soonish) and everything worked perfectly: I was woken up right after a dream (and thus REM phase) was ending, well-rested and alert.

This also made me remember the dream that I was seeing. Believe it or not, all I did in that dream was look at modern art at the Guggenheim museum (the one in New York).

The ship named after the patron saint of bug fixing (her portrait hangs in my cubicle) is in the news for being buzzed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats. She could have of course harpooned their ass,  but those things are like $700K.

Since the last time I compiled the list of megayachts, Larry Ellison's very pretty 452 foot yacht  slipped to 5th place according to Wikipedia's list. My advice to the various oligarchs: private nucular submarine is the way to go.  Man, do I wish I could afford a 27 foot fishing boat...