A journey across the highly caffeinated globe.
July 24, 2013 12:59 PM   Subscribe

 
Well, I certainly suck at this.
posted by brundlefly at 1:00 PM on July 24, 2013


WTF Anchorage. Other than that, the secret is to visualize the relative size and shape of the financial district and extrapolate from there.
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:03 PM on July 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


15/20! A consistent scale would have been nice.
posted by theodolite at 1:04 PM on July 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


Other than that, the secret is to visualize the relative size and shape of the financial district and extrapolate from there.

Or what body of water it's on (I missed the obvious Manhattan but vindicated myself with Chicago).
posted by Etrigan at 1:05 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I've been saying for years that we are soon to have a new measurement system - the starbuck, as in:

Q: How far is it to the post office?
A: Not far at all! Just four starbucks from here.

With that said, I am ashamed to say my score was a grande 10.
posted by janey47 at 1:05 PM on July 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


No. I cannot.
posted by sparklemotion at 1:08 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


According to the Chicago map there are fifteen Starbucks locations in O'Hare airport. You could set up a four-round basketball tournament just using the staff from each one.
posted by theodolite at 1:09 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Chicago, New York, and Toronto were easy. The rest, not so much. Still got 10/20 though.
posted by rocket88 at 1:11 PM on July 24, 2013


There is a Starbucks in my building. I can get my WiFi while in there ordering a Venti Iced latte. I am actually looking out my window through the courtyard (air shaft, really) watching someone tap away on a MacBook right now.

I am just way too nice to set up a public network and troll the shit out of them by randomly replacing text and images in http requests, but I really wish I wasn't.
posted by Ad hominem at 1:15 PM on July 24, 2013 [4 favorites]


I suck at this. 5 out of twenty, so exactly what a random pick would have given.
posted by octothorpe at 1:23 PM on July 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


11, but there were a couple where I had it narrowed down to two and chose the incorrect one; probably a couple that went the other way as well.
posted by LionIndex at 1:28 PM on July 24, 2013


Mighty Yonge Street quickly gave Toronto away for me.
posted by sudasana at 1:29 PM on July 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


I thought for sure NYC couldn't be NYC because there must be some SBs across the river in Jersey, but I guess they were only showing same-state locations or something. Grr. Even with that one I only would have got a 7. Sheesh. Back to GeoGuessr!
posted by Rock Steady at 1:32 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I thought Torronto was Las Vegas because of the large strip going down the center. I'm not familiar with Toronto at all.
posted by codacorolla at 1:32 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


13/20. I'm a venti!
posted by slogger at 1:41 PM on July 24, 2013


11, Grande. But yes, the varying scales were unfortunate.
posted by mochapickle at 1:41 PM on July 24, 2013


Toronto was the subway map, for the most part, with a mega-cluster in the financial district.
posted by maudlin at 1:43 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I have no idea why (I've been to Toronto maaaybe twice?), but for some reason, that one long northerly strand (which appears to be Yonge) made me zero in on the right choice.
posted by Etrigan at 1:45 PM on July 24, 2013


Also a 10, mostly because I have no idea what the shapes of Mexico City and Shanghai are and they were offered as choices a LOT. The changes in scale also made it difficult to determine where rivers were, which is apparently how I know the city shapes that I do. (For example, I know Seoul has a big river so I could get that one based on the Starbucks gap)
posted by maryr at 1:46 PM on July 24, 2013


As a Torontonian, I was surprised at how instantly recognizable Toronto was. The cluster doesn't really look like anything, but you see Yonge St instantly.
posted by 256 at 1:47 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


OK, Washington DC is SUPER MISLEADING because they're not using the Virginia suburbs (you're telling me Arlington and Alexandria and Washington National Airport don't have a Starbucks?!)
posted by leotrotsky at 1:51 PM on July 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


I was kind of...like...touched? by how emblazoned onto my consciousness even the vaguest suggestion of Chicago's or Manhattan's morphology is.
posted by threeants at 2:00 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm on an iPad--should I be seeing anything beyond green dots on a gray background?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:41 PM on July 24, 2013


You should see multiple city choices to guess.
posted by maryr at 2:47 PM on July 24, 2013


Right, but not outlines of streets or other geographical features?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:48 PM on July 24, 2013


Yeah. Nothing but dots. It's hard.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:51 PM on July 24, 2013


Fun. You mean it's fun.
posted by maryr at 2:57 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's a test of how well you know urban geography, as opposed to Sbux.
posted by jb at 3:04 PM on July 24, 2013


E.g.: I just identified Chicago correctly, though I've never been there, but I know the lake is to the east. And even Starbucks doesn't yet have underwater connections.

I recently learned that my relatively-downtown TO neighbourhood has no Starbucks not because locals fought it but because we're not cool/rich enough.
posted by jb at 3:06 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


Vegas was easy because of what I assume was the Strip. Just a little straight line crammed full of Starbuckses.

I love how relatively Starbucks-depopulated every non-Manhattan part of NYC is.
posted by showbiz_liz at 3:19 PM on July 24, 2013


Maaan. I missed Los Angeles because I was looking for a cluster in Santa Monica, forgetting as usual that SM is not in the city of LA.
posted by town of cats at 3:26 PM on July 24, 2013


13. Knowing the orientation of the city is the biggest help, but I got tripped up by expecting Portland and Shanghai to have a waterfront. Also, Paris seems awfully low on Starbucks.

Very clever idea for a quiz.
posted by zompist at 3:30 PM on July 24, 2013


Both Yonge and Bloor really stand out in Toronto, but the subway system as a whole shows up pretty well.

LA has bizarrely few Starbucks. Is there some other coffee chain that dominates there?
posted by jacquilynne at 3:52 PM on July 24, 2013


I think LA's problem is not enough foot traffic, which is Starbucks' stock in trade, although that is a TOTALLY random and uninformed guess (well, not entirely uninformed, as I lived there for many years and worked downtown....).
posted by janey47 at 3:58 PM on July 24, 2013


What a great quiz! I was disappointed in myself with 16 out of 20 (Anchorage, Miami, Shanghai and one other), although the answers available make it easier or harder; sometimes one city may fake you out into thinking it's another -- if the alternatives on the Anchorage choice are Seattle, Portland and New York, it's obvious; if the alternatives are Phoenix, Cairo and Pittsburgh it may be harder.

It's both urban geography, orientation and also Starbucks density; knowing that they do better in markets closer to the Pacific than to the Atlantic helps in most cases.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 5:20 PM on July 24, 2013


The Boston/Dunkin Donuts puzzle is just a large orange circle at very zoom level.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:39 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


15/20 -- I screwed up DC because for some reason I thought that the southern part wasn't actually part of the city. spent a bunch of time staring at transit maps of many of these cities while debugging my trip planner, and that has to have helped.

I was surprised by how few *$ there were in Barcelona relative to its population and status as a major world city. And my trip there was in 2006, so I had completely forgotten the city.
posted by novalis_dt at 8:21 PM on July 24, 2013



I recently learned that my relatively-downtown TO neighbourhood has no Starbucks not because locals fought it but because we're not cool/rich enough

heh - jb, I looked at your profile to see which neighborhood you were talking about, and it turns out we live on the same street!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 10:19 PM on July 24, 2013


Paris seems awfully low on Starbucks.

The French don't drink American-style coffee or espresso milkshakes. I was surprised to see so many of them.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 7:08 AM on July 25, 2013


Paris seems awfully low on Starbucks.

The French don't drink American-style coffee or espresso milkshakes. I was surprised to see so many of them.


I'd bet that Paris Starbucks locations map pretty strongly with tourist destinations, and that that's who you'll find in those places.
posted by Etrigan at 7:41 AM on July 25, 2013


12/20. I actually got 3 cities I've spent most of my time wrong. Gah.
posted by of strange foe at 7:48 AM on July 25, 2013


15/20. How.
posted by elizardbits at 8:58 AM on July 25, 2013


11/20 Grande.

Recognized the pattern of Las Ramblas and Av. Diagonal, though I only spent a week in Barcelona in 2010. I miss you so much, Barça!

One of my favorite things to order in a European Starbucks is an Americano. Because I am.
posted by Cheezitsofcool at 10:43 AM on July 25, 2013


8/20 I'd feel bad but I don't travel much and I don't like Starbucks. OK I still wouldn't feel bad if either of those weren't true. Double negative? Suggests the positive.
posted by evilDoug at 7:05 PM on July 25, 2013


The French don't drink American-style coffee or espresso milkshakes. I was surprised to see so many of them.

I know! I had been drinking "French Roast" made in a "French Press" (yum) in Canada and the UK, only to visit France and almost die* from caffiene withdrawal when I couldn't find French-Press coffee anywhere. I don't drink espresso (whether in teeny cups or milk-shakes) - I wanted to sit at cafes with a nice big press of coffee.

*may be an exaggeration
posted by jb at 2:04 AM on July 26, 2013


« Older The St. Louis Slinger Tour   |   No Longer King of the Mountain Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments