From the JoeBurnsBlog: October 2008

CEOs make way too much money for what they actually produce and should be paid less.  We should boycott their products and demand they are paid less.

The CEOs I'm referring of course to Celebrity Egocentric Opportunists, also known as Hollywood Actors.  Note these 2007 incomes: 

1. Will Smith - $80 million   
2. Johnny Depp - $72 million
3. Eddie Murphy - $55 million
4. Mike Meyers - $55 million
5. Cameron Diaz - $50 million
6. Keira Knightly - $32 million
7. Jennifer Anniston - $29 million

WOW!!   These incomes are HUUUGE.  Do you think that type of pay resulted in higher movie prices for the working stiff?  It isn't like they are providing an important product, they live in a world of make-believe and take 9mos of the year off to attend divorce courts and detox centers.  Consider for a moment how hard it is to run a Fortune 500 company or lead your team to a World Series and compare that to the difficulty of acting like someone else in front of some cameras. 

For the record, I think greed and over compensation exists in corporations and sporting leagues, but neither compares to the extremes found in Hollyweird. 

Where is the uproar over Actors compensation?

There are two types of people in this world.  Those who fill their cup with coffee, then add the cream and sugar, OR those who add the coffee to an already sweetened mug.  Which are you?

I love that coffee company from Seattle with the green logo... I can't think of their name right now, wait, let me look out my rural office window... oh yeah, there is one over there in the thicket of trees, 'Starbucks' I believe the sign says. 

Despite their recent closings, I believe this little Juggernaut serves the most tasty cup of me (Joe), by the most friendly baristas, in the most friendly environment this side of the Misis, Missipi, Mrs Sippe... um, Oklahoma.  Yet, I am perplexed because they hand me my piping hot, aromatic brew in a cup that has yet to be properly conditioned.  I don't know when it started.  Probably, when everything else uniquely odd about me started, my freshman year(s) in college.  We marched from our dorm room to the dining hall with our meal card in hand, straight up to the cup stack, then through the condiment line, to the 600 gallon, galvanized vat of luke-warm coffee.  If your cup hadn't been properly sweetened, you had to go back to the line, muscle in and grab the sugar and creamer. Not an easy task when your 5'6", 140lbs and hungover.

We didn't have time for individual sugar packets or measuring spoons, you had one shot to accurately pinpoint the pour with your one eye-ball not swimming in last night's Coors Light fest.  By pouring the white gold into an empty cup, you could easily determine the appropriate amount.  Same thing at the Denny's, you sit down, turn your mug over, add the correct amount of sugar/cream, then when the waitress poured in the coffee, viola, no stirring necessary and ready to go.  I've saved the State University system and Denny's thousands in not having to wash my stir-spoon. 

Now, with these new fangled cafe's, I have to remember to ask for 'room' when ordering the coffee, then head over to the elbow-knocker (that's what I call the 12" x 18" counter where 6 people simultaneously treat their coffee) and guesstimate how much sugar and cream will be sufficient.  Then stir the begesuss out it with a bent little popsicle stick, until I can take the first sip and verify my sweetening prowess.

What do you prefer to hit the mug first?   Sweetener or the Joe?

Joe