OK, try and forgive me for the goofy title to the post, but I promise that you'll see where I'm going with it momentarily.  As you all know, I read the news every day, several times a day.  Whether it's on the internet in the morning before I go to work, in one of several newspapers while on my break at work, or on the television in the evening as I'm eating my supper, I'm always pretty up to date on what is going on locally, nationally, and around the world.  Oh yeah, I listen to national public radio to and from work as well, so that gives me an entirely different perspective on the day's top stories...but I digress.  I always like reading the stories that are eyecatching both for me and for many other average Americans.  Today, one of the headlines that I saw and heard all over the various news media avenues that I peruse had to do with the increase in the price of beverages at Starbucks by nine cents I believe.  This doesn't go for all of their beverages, but I believe this nine cent increase was going to be applied to various espresso beverages as well as their frapuccinos.  As a strict iced vanilla latte drinker, I'm shocked to read about this increase in the price for an already overpriced refereshing drink.  Part of the shock from all of this is due to the fact that Starbucks already increased their prices on these same types of drinks by six cents less than nine months ago.  Fourteen cents total doesn't seem like all that much money, but when you start considering how many people are forking over this amount of money every day or multiple times a day, the amount is really going to add up.  I think back to when I worked at my old office where between the whole group of us, we probably had fifteen coffees from Starbucks each day.  OK, you're still not convinced, and I will admit that when I look at that I think, OK, so that's another dollar and fifty cents per day...whatever.  But then you have to take that one dollar and fifty cents and multiply it times all the small businesses in your city whose employees stop by Starbucks each day for their daily coffees...then think about your state, your region, your country, and ultimately the world.  That's some fast cash if you ask me.  The scary thing is that people will pay for it with very little fuss.  Starbucks, as you all may already know, is becoming somewhat of a monopoly in the mainstream coffee business.  Local chains and even some smaller national or international coffee chains (I'm thinking Seattle's Best and the Coffee Beanery) are struggling to compete.  Their struggle is evident in that, rather than increasing their prices, they have just made their cups smaller, perhaps thinking that John Q. Public wouldn't figure it out.  Wrong...ong...ong!

I guess that I haven't really noticed this ever increasing trend in the price for coffee beverages, because I've done my best over this summer to simmer down on my coffee intake.  During the academic year, I was having "at least" two coffees a day from somewhere.  It's the way of the graduate student.  When there is no sleep and no rest to be had, you've got to keep your motor running one way or another...and that means caffeine...and lots of it.  Anyways, I've always thought Starbucks was expensive, and it's going to be even moreso now.  Ha...that makes me think of this crazy Starbucks drivethru girl back in Florida who used to report your order total by saying "your order is only nine dollars and sixty three cents".  Only nine sixty three?...for two coffees.  Absolutely crazy!  Maybe I should start budgeting now for my coffee intake allowance since the academic year is quickly approaching within the next month.  That way, I'll at least have a little something set aside to start me out.