Akemi loves a good Starbucks cappuccino, but the taste of those foam-topped semi-espressos is invariably laced with a touch of (non-coffee) bitterness due to the fact that the baristas can never seem to get her name right. “Akemi,”she tells them. “A-ke-mi!”. And they’ll nod and head off to make her drink and then, when it’s done, she’ll receive something like this:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
Or this:
Finally, this morning, on the advice of her blog regular, Jeanette, she elected to use the much simpler “Lulu” (our french bulldog) as her Starbucks name.
And this is what she received:
Today’s blog entry is dedicated to my sis, the Birthday Gal!
Hi! I am laughing, laughing, giggling too! I thought Lulu would be easy. Akemi, you can use my Starbuck’s name “Amy”. Your Starbuck’s might mess that up too though. Too, too funny.
Wow…. I think she should just go with “Bob”.
@Akemi:
I can sympathize with your plight. When I lived in England, no one spelled my name as “Jeff”, it was always “Geoff”, or when I sometimes said “it’s ‘Jeff’ with a ‘J'”, I would get “Jeoff”! I gave up in the end, because with “Geoff” at least it still sounded the same.
Maybe a nametag or business card?
@Das:
I just received the second book in the trilogy (The Enemy is Within). The cover art is horrible, but so far the book itself is good.
@Deni:
I’ll be making the cheesecake next week and freezing it (thanks Tam Dixon:!). What day will you be at the convention?
Does that say Lele?? Oh my goodness! That’s terrible.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDRIA!! Joe is older, right? 😉
Hey today is also my main man’s birthday, Jason Momoa. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG GUY!!! 😛
Happy Birthday, Andria! I hope Joey sent you something nice. 🙂
Are these people just uniformly dense? What if you told them it was “X”. I suppose then it would be something like “ikse” or “exs”. Crazy.
Happy Birthday, Sis!
Learned something today – when you think your motorbike rear tire is probably too worn to take on a long drive to another city, it probably is. On the upside, I had a wonderful conversation with a tow truck driver.
Holy Hanna – how hard is it??? You should post that on Starbuck’s Facebook page.
Happy Birthday Andria! Have a blessed day
Looks like Akemi has a namesake penguin!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2013/08/01/calgary-zoo-penguin-beer-boots.html
I was sat watching the Ariel Castro court stuff earlier live and was thinking, why won’t the Judge just give this monster the death penalty, the guy committed horrific crimes against those poor girls and dozens of life sentences given to him just didn’t seem enough to really give those poor girls justice.
You know its bad when the judge during sentencing takes over 40 minutes going over everything he’s done and sentences for each of the 900 counts. Now the taxpayer has to fund this man being locked away for life when the easier option of the death penalty should of been used. I doubt anyone would miss him.
Long, long ago, my name would get hacked regularly. Then, there came a TV character with my name and everyone is rock solid on it now. The solution to this is in your hands, Joe.
That’s pretty bad. Try Jelly next time and see if they can get it.
Since I am not a coffee drinker; I have to ask, is it really that bad not to have your name spelled correctly on the cup as long as you get the right coffee?
Happy Birthday Andria! Hope you have a great day! Bet your name gets spelled wrong all the time. :p
Opps, sorry I forgot earlier. Happy Birthday Andria! Bene Fortuna!
Happy Birthday Andria!
Akemi – so sad they could not get Lulu correct.
You could confuse them and use the name: coffee.
@randomness
He took a plea deal. He plead guilty so he wouldn’t get the death penalty. But I bet he won’t last long in prison once everyone in there finds out what he did.
But that Judge did do a smart thing by letting him say whatever he wanted to say. If the Judge had stopped him his lawyers could have used that in an appeal.
Either way life +1000 years is a long time. And he’s got a special place waiting for him in Sokar’s prison moon…
@ Andria – Make sure Joey buys you a car, or something. One you can drive, not one that fits in a matchbox. 😉
@ JeffW – I didn’t realize it was part of a trilogy! That’ll be good, especially if I like it. It’ll help the winter pass (IF I can stay awake long enough to read more than two pages – a bit of a problem I’m having of late with everything I read…I think I need more afternoon naps 🙂 ).
@ Randomness – The death penalty was taken off the table for the plea bargain, I believe. And I’m glad because he will suffer more the longer he lives. He showed no remorse, and even blamed the girls for what happened to them – an absolute sociopathic pig!! And when Michelle Knight spoke, I just couldn’t help but cry. What a brave woman! And when I saw how tiny she was, and thought of that big ape beating her and stomping on her, it just made me so sick! I am glad he will now have a taste of what he put those girls through, although it won’t even be half as horrible as what they endured.
@ Akemi – Don’t feel too bad. My name is Deirdre, and I get called all sorts of things. I used to cringe every time someone called me Debbie or Desiree, but those suddenly became welcome alternatives when, on my wedding day, the DJ at our reception introduced me as…
Derrière. 😛
das
@Derrière: *dies laughing*
Happy Birthday Andria!! Hope you have a great one and what did you get her Joe, something terrific I bet.
Akemi, if they are to ever get it right, you may have to show them a paper with your name spelled out,,maybe, just maybe that will work. but no guarantee..But it does make for a funny.
Oh man lol….that happened to me before too. So many times they write my name as June, Jewels, Joey, Jo….and I kept thinking “how do you get that from Julie…”… so from then on, I started giving them random ridiculous name like “Just put down Gandalf”, “the name’s Frodo”, “Sarah Connor” etc. Lol I figured if they were going to mess up the name, then might as well have fun with it XD
Happy birthday!!!!! XD XD
I know those feels! I particularly enjoy when I spell it out for them and they still get it wrong. 😛 I’ve given up at this point with my name, generally, though. I recently had a few people ask how to pronounce my full first name (versus the short form I go by) and I was like, “however, close enough”. After nearly 30 years of no one getting it right (not even family members!) I don’t even care anymore.
Not that I envy those Starbucks folks. Nothing is more terrifying for me than the first day of class when I have to read out my students’ names. I’m probably worse than the average Starbucks employee!
Just think, though, Akemi, one day someone will get it right and it’ll be the best thing to ever happen. 🙂
@ das – I think that would have called for a discount when paying his bill. I don’t understand what is so hard about your name. Wait a minute. Is it pronounced Dee-dra?
@ gforce – This is literally the exact moment the DJ said it – as you can see, I was amused…but Mr. Das? Not so much. 😆
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v54/dasNdanger/51b5c329-b2af-4595-975b-2de285f3f318_zpseeb42ac5.jpg
das
my name is pretty simple, but they also mess it up on orders. it doesn’t help that it sounds like a boy’s name. so i spell it out.
don’t know if that will help akemi. her accent might confuse some people.
@ Ponytail – Lor’ no! 😉 It’s Dear-dra. Two Rs, not one like Deidre (Dee-dra) Hall. Sometimes Brits pronounce it Dear-dree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deirdre
das
@das: What a lovely looking bride!
I love Mr. Das’ expression. He is NOT pleased.
@ das… hehehe! Priceless.
I have an old fashioned name, not so easy to spell, but with a wide choice of nicknames. I went by Rita for a while, and get stuck with Maggie quite often. Sometimes I go to my Burning Man handle, which is Anti M (aunty em). Since it is misspelled already, I don’t care much, and it certainly sticks.
Kimmy I get, but some of the others? What? And Lele? Poor Akemi, you can’t win.
I’ve got to say I’ve never really had that problem. “Jim” is pretty vanilla. Perhaps a name tag, with 2″ tall letters? AKEMI emblazoned across it. Might be an interesting experiment.
Back to “Wormhole Extreme”: I’ve watched the episode numerous times, but never really noticed all the cameos. I picked out:
Joe Mallozzi, Rob Cooper, Brad Wright, Michael Greenburg, Kenny Gibbs, Peter DeLuise, Andy Mikita, N. John Smith. Oh, and the pineapple.
Yeah, sorry for belaboring the point. It’s just a great episode.
Happy Birthday Andria!
@das: *trying not to laugh.* Mr. Das definitely does not look pleased.
Happy Birthday Andria! Any more pup pictures?
JeffW: Good luck, safe travels and have a blast!
Deni: Have a great time!!!! (Please take pictures)
Sweet Akemi. Dp is right, make her name famous! People get my name wrong all the time. As long as my order is correct, they can call me anything.
Man, I’m glad I don’t drink coffee, and therefore never go to Starbucks! I’d hate to see what they do to my name, Mike. 😉 No doubt they’d do something funky with it since most of the baristas in my town are all wanna be hipsters. The only thing worse than a hipster, is a wanna be hipster….trust me.
I was a bit perplexed yesterday. Here was SyFy, showing a marathon of SG1 episodes with the corner promo graphics proclaiming their “love” for Stargate. Yet, their track record and history dictate otherwise. Part of me didn’t want to watch the episodes being shown because of their past treatment of the franchise, but they were some of the best ones ever put on screen. Especially Heroes. I had forgotten how fantastic that two-parter is. Seeing Don Davis tear up at the end is a seriously powerful moment.
It was amazing coming home from work and firing up the TV right at the moment Wormhole: Xtreme! started up, though. I waited to make dinner until it was done just so I could pay even closer attention to all the little things that I’m certain are references or inside jokes that we, the viewing audience, will never completely get.
Heck, even Heroes had a bunch of that inside joke kind of stuff in it, I could tell. Must have been fun to write that kind of stuff. I just wonder what hijinks never made it air!
Someday, in the not too distant future, you’ll have to take us scene-by-scene through Wormhole: Xtreme! and 200 and point out the not-so-obvious easter egg stuff that no one else would normally get outside of production. Maybe you can compile that blog post over time and just keep it in your back pocket for one of those days when you’re either traveling or can’t come up with anything good for a blog post and just insert that one for that day.
-Mike A.
I have the same issue with my name. I get Shannon, Shawna, Shane, Shanna, Sharon, Jenna, even got a Mina once. I once gave them Louise, figuring I’d be good to go and the cup came back with Louis. I gave up at that point. Good luck Lele with your future cup endeavors! :O)
@Andria Happy Birthday to you.
Shana
@ das – Beautiful wedding day picture! You look so pretty!
I’m actually quite surprised you’re still having problems finding the legendary Akemi cup Joe lol
I mean, how hard is it for someone to understand a Japanese name? Not very, ignorance perhaps? or bad hearing?
Surely common sense must come into play here, surely whoever writes the name, must think, hang on, something is wrong here, that name doesn’t seem right lol
Happy birthday to Andria.
LOL @ DP
Long, long ago, my name would get hacked regularly. Then, there came a TV character with my name and everyone is rock solid on it now. The solution to this is in your hands, Joe<<<
Yep, from now on it is Joe's fault. 🙂
My daughter is Leora. They routinely butcher it.
Well Joe, from personal experience which I related earlier, I am not surprised. It happened more than once. While Vancouver has many lovely people of east asian persuasion, the majority are Chinese or at least that is what I heard spoken. “‘Ben, Ben, …. is Ben here! What is your name?’ ‘Matt’ ‘nat?’ ‘no Matt, like on the floor’ ‘Oh I thought your name was Ben.'”
My comment never posted. Stupid IPad. I think Akemi should try “Joe” and see if they put “Jo”
Very belated happy birthday to Andria!