A Starbucks barista named Brad describes a guy who bought 365 Starbucks gift cards and registered each of them with a different birthday so he can get a free drink every day. That's already a dick move, but the guy makes it worse by being a real jerk to the barista. When he comes in to the store he asks for a Venti cup and a marker and writes instructions on the cup before handing it back:

He draws lines and arrows and writes all over the cup while telling me: “Two pumps of white mocha here, then add five pumps of vanilla. That should take us to this line here where you’re gonna add cold heavy cream up to this ridge here...it should be halfway between this line and this line. Make sure to add the heavy whipping cream before the espresso, it changes the taste if you do it out of order. Then add your four shots, three regular and one long shot. That long shot is important, since you guys reformulated your machines, it’s been Hell trying to get my drink right. That long shot helps balance it. Then stir it for me, Mister Brad. Now do me a favor and add ice to the top there and it’ll be easy as pie. I’m not picky so don’t worry about shaking it or anything like that.”

A drink like this is normally $6.50, which would make it ineligible for the free birthday coffee, so he instructs the barista to ring it up as a "one quad espresso, add white mocha, sub vanilla, sub heavy cream." Read the rest

A German tourist shot this video of a tour bus guide's racist rant against Chinatown. The tour guide is holding what appears to be an alcoholic beverage bottle. Unfortunately, the tourists applaud her, which gives her the encouragement to go on. Read the rest

Bob Tyrrell, founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator (the stupid person's idea of a smart magazine) enjoys scotch, which is sufficient reason to lock up everyone who doesn't share his taste in recreational drugs.

Both drinking and pot smoking are "coping mechanisms," he concedes, but alcohol is clearly more "civilized" because people can enjoy the taste, drink while reading or conversing, and imbibe without getting "blitzed." All this is either impossible or quite rare among cannabis consumers, Tyrrell asserts with the confidence of someone who has no idea what he's talking about.

Jacob Sullum: Because Bob Tyrrell Prefers Scotch, Marijuana Should Be Banned Read the rest

Charming. Stacey Kafka with ABC News:

“I walked in and the lady at the front counter said hey you’re too big to be in this store, I need you to leave,” said Buster. ... After Shelby’s mom contacted us, we contacted the store. The Rue 21 district manager told us over the phone that they’re aware of the situation and are currently looking into it.

[Video Link] A US Embassy staffer has "departed" Malta after being filmed screaming expletive-laden threats at another driver on a narrow street. (Thanks, Matthew!) Read the rest

Former FEMA Director Michael “Can I come home?” Brown is upset with President Obama for responding to Hurricane Sandy “so quickly.”

“One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on [the hurricane] so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in…Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” Brown says. “Why was this so quick?… At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question…. This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

Heckuva Job Brownie Criticizing Obama for Preparing Too Quickly (Via Cynical-C) Read the rest

I missed this great piece in the LA Weekly from a few weeks back about multi-millionaire yogi blowhard Bikram Choudhury. We've covered his antics before, but his copyrighty litigiousness just got interesting again.

Short version: Bikram is basically the Walter White of yoga. And I'm talking Breaking Bad Season 5 episode 6 Walter White. The "hot yoga" kingpin isn't in the yoga business or the money business, he's in the empire business, and he's suing his former apprentice and right-hand-dude Greg Gumucio for intellectual property infringement.

But now, the US Copyright office says it may have issued all protection related to yoga sequences in error, including the one Choudhury's suing over.

Random tech world connection: Choudhury was introduced to his now-nemesis by John McAfee, the software billionaire turned yoga teacher. Read the rest

The un-bylined author of the Cookies for Breakfast tumblog publishes the story of two female friends attending a standup performance by Daniel Tosh, host of the notably unfunny Comedy Central show Tosh.0, in which the comedian made some stupid rape jokes. Not that there are any other kind of rape jokes.

“Actually, rape jokes are never funny!,” the woman in the published account says she replied from the audience.

Snip from her version of what followed:

I did it because, even though being “disruptive” is against my nature, I felt that sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman. I don’t sit there while someone tells me how I should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape.

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.

Zoe Williams examines the difference between trolls and the merely bad-mannered. [The Guardian via The Awl] Read the rest