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In my Thursday evvening IS 7010 class, we keep coming back to Starbucks and McDonald’s as examples of distinctive competencies. Starbucks does coffee and coffee-flavored milk very, very well.

As a music store, Starbucks is not that great.  I do not understand why Starbucks has to litter its counters and floors with CDs and DVDs for sale. Most Starbucks customers want coffee, not entertainment.

In the fast-food industry, breakfast is battle to satisfy some very specific key success factors. Coffee has to be hot and acceptable. The food has to be quick and reasonable. McDonald’s figured these issues out in the 1970s and has dominated fast-food breakfast ever since.

Starbucks has announced that the company will dump its recently introduced line of breakfast sandwiches before this fall. The items were selling, but counter staff had to spend time microwaving the refrigerated sandwiches.

Frankly, this idea sounded more like a McDonald’s scheme. After all, McDonald’s uses distribution as its driving force. The food can be assembled in the restaurant with a minimum of skill. The factory plays an important part in preparing the food to be shipped to each restaurant.

As McDonald’s rolls out its McCafe coffee counters, Starbucks is planning a 19 March announcement of five “bold” new features. I’m wondering what Starbucks will try next. Perhaps they’ll have breakfast pastries that actually taste good.

Here’s a brief article from BusinessWeek about Bionade, a soft drink that is organic, brewed, tasty and very popular in Germany.

I want some. Perhaps I’d like the ginger-orange flavor best.

Both Honolulu papers have added several blogs over the last year, so we are getting more local news and comments on their web sites.

Case in point: the Star-Bulletin’s So Necessary blog reported Tuesday that Magoo’, the fabled bar at Puck’s Alley near UH-Manoa, is closing its doors tomorrow. I don’t get to Magoo’s often, but it’s one of my favorite places and I’ll miss it.
There was a follow-up article in yesterday’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and a hint that new ownership may open their own restaurant in the same space next month. Magoo’s will use 10 vans to sell pizza around the island.

Kamahemeha Schools bought Puck’s Alley last year, and today the Star-Bulletin announced that Kamehameha schools has purchased the Varsity Theater across the street. The Varsity closed its doors last week, with a similar lack of advance notice. Expect construction, renovation, and new business in a year or two. Construction will finish soon at another Kamehameha property, the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, which may become a fourth campus for the schools according to another Star-Bulletin article today.

From the Associated Press, here’s confirmation of what I saw in a few Burger King windows here in Honolulu during the last week: Burger King now serves SPAM for breakfast - on a platter, Croissanwich or biscuit.

Hawaii loves its SPAM

McDonald’s has offered SPAM on its Hawaii breakfast menu for several years. I am fond of the SPAM McGriddle, a sweet and savory congealed mass of warm, friendly tastiness. I know I shouldn’t eat it, but at least This Wicked Tounge understands what The Morningwood News cannot comprehend.

When Jack-in-the-Box jumps on the SPAM bandwagon, Hawaii will have a 24/7 SPAM fast food breakfast solution.

SPAM Ciabatta sandwich? Yes, please.

SPAM breakfast burritos? Bring ‘em on.

Both are preferable to the venerable SPAM Musubi. I’ll do musubi once in a while, but it’s not my favorite.

From a joking friend:

Thanks to all my friends who sent me such important emails in 2003 and 2004! It’s so wonderful that you included me in your quest to inform! Because of all of you:

I stopped drinking Coca-Cola after I found out that it’s good for removing toilet stains.

I stopped going to the movies for fear of sitting on a needle infected with AIDS.

I smell awful, but thank goodness I stopped using deodorant because they cause cancer.

I don’t leave my car in any parking lot even though I sometimes have to walk about seven blocks, for fear that someone might drug me with a perfume sample and then try to rob me.

I also stopped answering the phone for fear that they will ask me to dial a stupid number and then I get a phone bill from hell with calls to Uganda, Singapore and Tokyo.

I stopped consuming several foods for fear that the estrogen they contain may turn me gay.

I also stopped drinking anything out of a can for fear that I will get sick from the rat feces and urine.

When I go to parties, I now don’t mix with anybody, for fear that someone will take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.

I went bankrupt from bounced checks that I made, expecting the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL were supposed to send me when I participated in their special e-mail program.

It’s weird, though, that my new free cell phone never arrived, and neither did the passes for my paid vacation to Disney. But I am positive that all this is because of the chain I broke or forgot to follow and I got a curse from hell.

If you don’t send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in the next ten seconds, a bird will crap on you today at 7:00 PM.