Sometimes heading to bed early is a good thing. Got up fairly early today and planned to hit the grocery store. I didn’t realize it was going to be mid-60s and sunny outside, even with a little bit of a breeze. I can feel some of that fading and it is gonna get hot today, but nowhere near as bad as it had been lately.

The grocery store was full of teeny boppers in town for the Global Peace Festival. Rude, loud, pushy and very much in-the-way teeny boppers. As I told Jack, “These kids didn’t seem like they wanted peace. Just their Snapples.” They turned what is usually a very quick early morning trip to the Safeway into a wee bit longer than I’d planned. But it’s a lovely day outside, and I have a few more errands to run, so I best get to it before we hit the 80s. And as the very short lived success of “That ’80s Show” will prove, nobody wants to live in the 80s again.

After having to demand my receipt yesterday morning, this morning the cashier made sure to grab it, add this new stamp to it, and then hand it to me. I don’t know if people simply weren’t aware of the promotion and therefore weren’t redeeming it. To be honest, the age/cultural demographic around the office skews a little older, so I’m sure a lot of people here only visit this one Starbucks on weekday mornings and don’t think about it the rest of the week. I still haven’t been back for my afternoon discounted drink, and clearly not too many other people have either. I wonder what they’ll do to take this promotion to the next level.

I’m a little impressed. Generally whenever Starbucks has a promotion, the stores nearest me seem to have never heard of it, have completely wrong information, or pull the “participating locations” crap.

Looking to bring more value-seeking consumers through its doors for a late afternoon caffeine fix, Starbucks Corp. said it will now offer its morning customers any iced grande beverage for $2 after 2 p.m.

The price is a big cut from the normal price of most grande-sized iced drinks. A grande iced latte, for example, costs about $4. To get the discount, customers must present a receipt from their morning Starbucks visit.

Starbucks offers afternoon drink deal nationwide

I’m not normally inclined to hit Starbucks in the afternoon since I don’t do coffee breaks beyond my morning stop on the way into the office, but with this I might pick up a cheap iced drink on the way home or after my commute in Columbia Heights, assuming you can use it at a different store. Kudos to them for a promotion that’s easy to understand and easy to redeem.

From The Consumerist, Circuit City had a rather extreme reaction to being spoofed by Mad Magazine. From an internal memo:

Immediately remove all issues and copies of “Mad Magazine” from your sales floor. Destroy all copies and throw them away. They are not inventoried, and your store will not incur shrink.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this!

They really need to lighten up and realize what a compliment it is to be parodied by Mad. Head to the site to see the full spoof, it’s a really good one. Especially the sales copy for the Wii.

Update: I was wondering if this was for real considering that while I know some Best Buy stores sell books (and magazines?) I had never seen a Circuit City that sells one. Apparently some (40 out of 700) do and The Consumerist got a letter from their corporate communications department.

This message is a public service. These ice creams are extremely sensually overwhelming and will likely leave you in a dessert coma. They seemed innocent, especially the vanilla honey bee flavor which came with a cute little website, and encouraged people to make their own little bee characters.

I don’t normally do frozen desserts, since I’m not that huge a fan, but I had to try the vanilla. Then I saw the caramelized pear & toasted pecan flavor which sounded so delicious, I couldn’t stop myself. Last week I gave the vanilla a try and could barely get through 4 spoonfuls, it was so intense. The pear was just the same, absolutely delicious. I’m starting to see why people pass by the Häagen-Dazs section with a slight longing look in their eyes and then quickly push the cart past.

Beware, my people, beware. This is not a dessert to be trifled with.