I guess it does make a difference, where you write.
When I’m writing at home, in my study, with my dhurrie rug underfoot and the night sky outside my window, I feel philosophical.
when I write on my laptop in Starbucks, I feel intellectual or pretentious. or pretentiously intellectual.
now as I sit at my desk in my office (it’s lunch time, okay?), I feel like someone’s reading over my shoulder.

just checked. both shoulders. no one’s there.
but you know what I mean. there’s not that sense of solitude that you feel in the comfort of your writing cave.
even in the case of Starbucks, there’s a sense of privacy created by the “we’re all doing this alone together” ethos of the Wi-Fi cafe subculture.

I heard recently that Starbucks is concerned about the threat posed by Old Town.

“white coffee” is to Old Town as espresso is to Starbucks
Ipoh is to Old Town as Seattle is to Starbucks
kopitiam culture is to Old Town as cafe culture is to Starbucks
the ringgit is to Old Town as the dollar is to Starbucks

therein lies the not-so-jolly green giant’s conundrum.
were it not for the fact that this trend also affects San Francisco Coffee (to a lesser extent, but still), I would be a little bit jollier.

you know what I think?
Starbucks ain’t goin’ away.
the two-tailed mermaid might have some of her seaweed (or whatever else it is mermaids eat–sailors?) taken away from her by Old Town, but she’ll live.
unless, of course, the mothership in the US goes down.
(and then we might have a buyout and rebrand of the Malaysian entity. BerjayaBucks anyone?)

did you hear about the latest coffee purveyor that’s eating into Starbucks’s space in the States?

it’s McDonald’s.

surprised?

they’re serving proper coffee now.
the one in Bangsar’s Telawi is.
have you noticed the new coffee menu in any other Malaysian branch? leave a comment–I’d like to know!

yea, yea, there are people who rant and rail that Peet’s is so much better than Starbucks, what more McDonald’s coffee? the phrase even sounds like a joke–McDonald’s coffee? you mean Nescafe?

but they’re making amends to coffee lovers by raising their standard of beans.
and with the lifting of a little finger, the global giant is distributing it all over the world through a network that already exists, at a fraction of the other’s costs.

still, my favourite remains a single shot of espresso at San Francisco Coffee.

sniff.
quaff.
sigh.