Dear Austin Allergies

Dear Austin,

I hate your allergens this year.

 

Am I crazy or are everyone’s allergies like a million times worse than usual this spring?

I rarely get allergies outside of about a one-week period in early fall when all of the mountain cedar blows down with the cold temperatures, but this spring I am dying. Literally, I feel like I’m not going to live to see the end of this semester, and this year it’s not because of final exams or the wrap-ups of semester-long projects. So, what is this devil magic that is keeping us all sneezing, coughing, and exuding disgusting radiance all over the place?

Like this:

 

Hawt.

 

According to AccuWeather.com, we’re experiencing EXTREME! levels of indoor dust and dander…

 

Surely this can’t really be what’s causing all of our turmoil… can it? What, are Austinites overdoing it on the Spring Cleaning front and stirring up dust and dander and throwing it into the air, or are we just way dirtier at home than most people and we carry it out into public? Or could it be that we as a city collectively spend a proportionately larger amount of time outdoors running, hiking, biking, climbing, and playing on the lake than the lazier cities of the US where people only venture from within the confines of their air-conditioned chambers in order to reach their cars? I’m sorry, I for one just don’t believe that the root of all of our suffering is coming from inside the house. I call bull shit, AccuWeather.

Conspiracy? Possibly. Is this perhaps Kim Jong Un’s true force of terror? Hah, no. Well, probably not. It would be pretty ingenious, wouldn’t it? Allergen Warfare. Gives flower power a whole new meaning, eh?

What I keep overhearing, and have experienced first-hand, is that doctors are saying allergies this year are worse than ever before. While at Starbucks this afternoon for my second dose of caffeine to take the edge off my pounding sinus headache, I overheard an older gentleman chatting about his allergies with the barista. This guy had to be in his 70s and he said exactly what everyone else is saying: in all his life, he’s never had allergies this bad. This spring his doctor had to go so far as to prescribe him an inhaler because his allergies are developing into asthma-like symptoms. So what this means is allergen levels are higher and are causing more extreme symptoms than they have in at least seventy years! That’s insane. Ugh, what a great time to be in Aus-auss-schooo. ‘Scuze me. Austin.

So, here I sit, indoors, suffering with a stopped-up head, feeling like my brain is trying to expand like a sponge in a jar full of water, unable to enjoy the best part of Austin—the outdoors—while receiving mixed messages . If AccuWeather is correct, I should be out there instead of in here… If my doctor is correct, I should stay in here and not out there… Ugh. Good luck with your allergies, Austinites. Here, I’ll save you a trip to the doctor and prescribe you what mine did me: drink lots of fluids, take an anti-inflammatory, and stay inside. I’m going to think more on that conspiracy theory now…

PS: carry tissues and cover your face when you sneeze. Unless you want to look like this:

Double hawt.

 

 

 

 

Starbucks Blonde Roast

 

About a year ago, or maybe even more than that, I moved into my now, 2 bedroom double occupancy apartment located only two blocks away from the university. My first apartment ever.

Not an avid coffee drinker back then, but one of my roommates brought in a Keurig. Now, a year ago these little, individual spitter-outers were just getting popular and coffee companies were pairing up with Keurig to introduce their own individual servings to keep up with the consumer popularity. One of those companies, of course, was Starbucks.

I wanted to talk about their relevancy and how they attack their customers. Along with my roommate hulling in the heavenly Keurig, my mother heard such news, and because we did not have the coffee making contraption at home, gave me Keurig samples that coffee companies sent her in the mail. And boom. That’s where my obsession with the Starbucks Blonde Roast began.

I loved these little individual sized cups of coffee grounds. There has to be something in the human brain that tells us to love small, tiny packaged things. As if something huge is going to pop out of them. In this case it was a delicious cup of light and mellow, blonde roast coffee. After I tried this one little sample, I had to have more, but I hated the idea of those wasteful plastic packages. Sure, they were cute, but it didn’t make me want to buy them, so my coffee obsession stopped once I ran out of samples.

A year later, I rediscovered this blonde roast through couponing. This, of course, made me buy a package for myself during my grocery trip and I was once again reunited with a lighter taste of coffee. Starbucks got me. They understood my need, and gave me an incentive of a coupon which only took off, oh… $1.50 from my purchase. But they knew where to find me: sending samples to my home, coupons, the Starbucks by campus. Heck, the Starbucks a block away from my place ran out of blonde roast, which was quite disappointing.

Just recently I read an article on Starbuck’s approach on advertising for their Blonde roast. What I thoroughly enjoy is their development of characteristics in coffee, that match up with their consumers. I may not be a coffee expert or a barista, but what I do know is some brews are strong and some are not. What Starbucks did was appeal to the likings of their consumers: 1) the mellow consumer 2) the middle-man consumer and lastly, 3) the bold consumer. They established that they do not just brew coffee, but brew coffee specifically to you and your tastes.

Yes, I like their approach, but I will agree with Jonathan Baskin from AdAge that their campaign does not deserve much on the creative side of execution or deserve any awards, but it does do well to reachtheir audience. The video above that I found on Starbuck’s YouTube channel… is… well… eh. I would have expected a little more, maybe not so staged and cheesy. Maybe even younger actors/actresses.

What do you think? Were you aware of their different roasts? Were they relevant, or am I the only one getting hit by their media?