Mike's Rants and Raves

This page reflects the sole personal opinion of Mike Miller, and is not necessarily that of Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee LLC, its other members, or its advertisers.

I'll try to keep reflections of me at my orneriest confined to this page!

New Music

I need to find some new music to listen to.  My longtime favorite group, Yes, recently announced a tour after a long hiatus, only to have the tour cancelled due to frontman Jon Anderson's chronic respiratory problems.  I could become more fashionable and listen to (The) Gossip, or I could become much less fashionable and listen to Daniel O'Donnell.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

My favorite TV show is Curb Your Enthusiasm.

My Least Favorite Things

1) Bagel stores.  To me, nothing other than evidence of the American talent for putting lipstick on a pig.  For the businesses, the plan is to offer a McDonald's-grade experience with enough upscale window dressing to command a much higher price.  This morning at Panera, the drip coffee tasted exactly like McDonald's coffee, yet surrounding the self-serve coffee station was a barrage of marketing verbiage, including a lot of the terms you read on this website (for example).  However, this is merely "specialty-washing" and, more to the point, the coffee was brewed so weak that it would be humanly impossible to detect the superiority of the beans.

Though Panera is too large a corporation to offer true specialty coffee (like Starbucks, there just aren't as many specialty beans in the world as they would need), it always seems like improving the quality of the product is the last thing anyone thinks to do.  The first, and usually the only, is to turn up the volume of the marketing.