¶ Matins: You know the drill: first you read the hard stuff, and, then, if you’re really good, there’s a fun picture below the jump. Let me thank, preliminarily, JMG and Wonkette — but don’t touch those links! First, the hard part. First, you must know that

In early August in her prayer time Cindy heard the Lord say, “There will be no more business as usual.”

No, I didn’t know who Cindy Jacobs was, either. It turns out that she’s one of those astute Jahwists who don’t know dingo about Scripture. (Now you may jump.)

¶ Tierce: Howard Schultz and Arthur Rubinfeld, two men who thought that they had retired from the ardors of selling that old black magic at Starbucks, are back at work, hoping to save the baby. (Actually, Mr Schultz has been back since January. Here is Mr Rubinfeld’s rejuvenation plan in one sentence.

Now that he is again leading Starbucks’s real estate team, Mr. Rubinfeld says he will focus on adding stores to urban areas — where there is already a near-saturation of the coffee market, but also a preponderance of affluent young professionals who subsist on fancy coffee drinks.

I hate to say it, but this sounds like Richard Fuld’s insistence that all was well at Lehman Bros. All those affluent young professionals have turned into Ugly Bettys.

¶ Vespers: There’s a career here for me — or there would be if I were a twentysomething: “Does This Song Match My Sofa?” I would specialize in classy sounds for the classically unsure.

Oremus…

§ Matins. Cindy apparently organized this prayer meeting. Worshiping the Golden Calf — OK, Baal* — has got to get the attention of the Lord, no?

§ Tierce. If I’ve patronised Starbucks more than ten times,** I’d be surprised to hear it. I don’t have anything against the chain. But I know that I’ve become an old man when I walk by the outdoor terrace at First and 85th and wonder, “don’t those people have anything to do?”

§ Vespers. At least I lived long enough to work with an iPod! At least it only took a year to figure out how! The basics took a couple of months — Apple products are almost hilariously counterintuitive for me — but grasping the potential took forever, probably because I’m an old dog. Yesterday, I created MP3 files of most of the Mozart recordings that I have on the Philips label. Today’s note reads: “romantic chamber music; keyboard music; Schubert Masses and the Poulenc Gloria.”

If only iTunes came with a working column on the right, so that I could choose the folder on the left — every composer has his own, arranged in date order of birth — then choose the work to add to a playlist, which I could then drag to the playlist on the right. This very simple interface tweak would make building playlists a lot less mechanically challenging, but of course I have no idea how to tweak interfaces without causing the computer to explode.

*Kathleen’s improvement on my “bull.” No credit swaps in this house!
**Barnes & Noble concessions not included.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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