on the Ides of March

yeaps, once a Year, we have the Ides of March, the 15th of the 3rd month. "So what the big deal?" you may ask. Well, for us who did "Julius Caesar" for Shakespeare class before, the Ides of March will hold a special place in our hearts. "Beware the Ides of March!" *dramatic fanfare*

For more info, goto: http://www.william-shakespeare.info/shakespeare-play-julius-caesar.htm

Well, poor Caesar didn't see it coming, cos he let too much pride gets to his head. Well, there's a lesson to be learnt from this. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" don't work in this scenario. *

Another reason the lament the Ides of March is that from today onwards, the local coffee-shop owners will have official license to increase the price of coffee drinks anywhere from 10 cents to 20 cents per cup. The reason for this increase is because the price for raw coffee beans and materials have gone up. This bodes very good news for the coffee sellers. Just imagine with me, if you can sell 4 cups of coffee every 5 minutes, that'll be 48 cups an hour. An average coffee shop operates from 6.30am in the morning till 9pm at night, that 6.5 + 9 = 15.5 hours of operations. So daily hike in revenue will be 15.5 x 48 x 10 cents =  $74.40. Given Singapore coffee shops are opened whole year round**, that'll be increase in monthly revenue (30 days) of $2232. Guess this goes towards covering the electric bills a bit for the coffee shop owners...

On the other hand, what about us coffee drinkers? For those of us heavily addicted to caffeine, we can easily order 3 cups of coffee a day (one for morning break, one during lunch, and one during noon break). So that's an additional 30 cents a day, an additional $7.50 a month. My my, small things do add up.  I have already people telling me they will switch over to tea and caffeinated-soft-drinks, just to beat the price hike. I wonder, what will they do when the price of these drinks go up?

For a lively discussion, goto http://info.channelnewsasia.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=22801&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=79e2a710a512e0b80c7d37c42540f0b1

ah, it looks like it's gonna be another hot day just like yesterday. Better hike myself to the library, before all the seats get taken up.

 

*Quote from the Godfather II (1974).

 ** except for special holidays like Chinese New year, where thy are closed for 2-3 days.