Just Plain Wrong!

Security vendor VeriSign found 66 percent would choose to give up their passwords for a Starbucks coffee, during an informal on-the-street survey conducted Thursday in San Francisco.

I’m speechless!!! Not about the fact that people would give up their passwords for a cup of coffee. But that they thought that starbucks coffee was worth the price of a password. I mean, have you tasted that slop? It’s the weakest, palest most bland coffee in the world (generally about as interesting as VeriSign’s line of business).

Which reminds me of an American woman that Kerry and I met on a train from Venice to Budapest. She had requested a couchette to herself, and due to space limitations had been given one that she had to share with some other women - she was convinced that she was being ripped off and was about to be raped. When she found out about the change in arrangements she turned on the waterworks, and started to abuse the guard, who was I should add, a very friendly and accommodating bloke. This continued for a while until there were several guards enjoying the floor-show, rolling their eyes at us, and ushering her into her cabin so they could get on with their jobs.

After the train was under way, she knocked on our door asking what we paid for the beds and declaring that these “bastrds” were “bastrds”. We finally concluded that there really was something wrong upstairs after the following exchange: We on a train departing from Venice. K and I had spend almost a month having the most wonderful time in Tuscany, Venice, Rome and Florence. We said something about how we admired the lifestyle of the Italians, how pleasant they had been to us. She responded that they were all bast*rds trying to rip her off. I replied that at least they had the best coffee in the world and that I had survived solely on a diet of cappucinos. She looked askance at me, as though I uttered a non-sequitur, and said that she would have to disagree with me there, because “I come from San Francisco, and I’m spoilt, cos there we have a Starbucks on every corner!”.

I must have been too much for the guard because shortly after he threw her off the train. The moral of this story is that people from San Francisco are weird.