Comments on: Comments on 6886

Post number 6886

TuxHeDoh — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 19:13:58 -0800

Free Cone Day- Ben and Jerry's gives the world a cone- May 2, 2001

By: waxpancake

waxpancake — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 20:00:11 -0800

I tried to get a free cone two years ago at the Ben & Jerry's in downtown Berkeley. Maybe in Vermont, the lines move swiftly, but at the Cal campus, the line was all the way down the block and around the corner. I hate to be a grump, but is a $3 ice cream cone worth 30 to 60 minutes of standing in line? The minimum-wage kids serving the cones get paid more hourly than that.

By: mcguirk

mcguirk — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 21:27:12 -0800

I was waiting to see how this could be given a cynical, negative interpretation. At least I wasn't disappointed.

By: shinybeast

shinybeast — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 21:40:15 -0800

Yeah, and I bet the cones are poisoned, too.

By: pikachulolita

pikachulolita — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 21:52:43 -0800

free cones = gateway to communism.

By: dogwelder

dogwelder — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 22:04:23 -0800

A free cone killed my puppy.

By: zempf

zempf — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 22:08:32 -0800

A free cone caused Bush to lose the election! Oh yeah, and Nader Nader Nader! (I'm imagining hundreds of Brill's readers coming across this thread & trying to figure out what all the fuss was about)

By: zempf

zempf — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 22:08:58 -0800

Er.. Gore to lose the election. Dammit. I previewed that thing like 4 times, too. I suck.

By: darukaru

darukaru — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 22:12:11 -0800

zempf ate a free cone and lost his ability to tell Bush from Gore! DAMN YOU, CONES!

By: aaron

aaron — Mon, 09 Apr 2001 23:15:11 -0800

Just a friendly reminder that Ben & Jerry's is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the international conglomerate Unilever. Have a nice day!

By: sudama

sudama — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 00:03:44 -0800

I've enjoyed a few free cone days with lines of all shapes and sizes. Never waited more than 5 minutes for a cone, though. The ice cream gets a little sloppy, in a your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter kind of yummy way.

By: kindall

kindall — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 02:43:33 -0800

Wait a minute. Ben & Jerry's has stores? Or are we supposed to just walk into a grocery store, open up a pint, and help ourselves?

By: hijinx

hijinx — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 04:31:28 -0800

I have a Ben & Jerry's store not 60 paces from my apartment. Yes, it's a dangerous thing. aaron - don't forget that they're pulling the plug on the long-standing donation policy in a year or two, either!

By: Maxor

Maxor — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 04:42:01 -0800

Heh.... I think we all should just walk into a store and open up a pint. I'd like to see the look on their faces. That would be funny...

By: Postroad

Postroad — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 05:14:04 -0800

There's no such thing as a free lunch (soup kitchens excepted) but this is free desert, a start for charity based ice cream.

By: flimjam

flimjam — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 05:37:56 -0800

My God, have you seen the Unilever site? Uggh!

By: hijinx

hijinx — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 05:52:33 -0800

Nearly a year ago, I wrote: Ben & Jerry's sold to these guys. Unilever. It's a huge, huge monolithic corporation. Look at all of the brands they own! What gets me more is how they put these heartwarming pictures of "ordinary people" (a statistically-generated, politically correct cross section of people living in America) on their front page. I'm sure that the farmer they show is no longer employed because of them, that the businesswoman feels bad about her body because of their products, and whoever designed their very crappy interface is making $100k a year.

By: aaron

aaron — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 05:54:48 -0800

Yeah, it's not exactly a Jakob-approved design, is it?

By: briank

briank — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 07:30:38 -0800

Last year it rained here on Free Cone Day, and still the line was around the corner at our nearby B&J store. And, yes, I stood in the rain for my Coffee Heathbar Crunch. I'm also drooling with anticipation for my first Father's Day Free Cone, since the baby is due in between Free Cone Day and Father's Day. Two free cones for me from here on out...is this a great deal or what?

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 09:10:30 -0800

oooh, I didn't know about the Father's Day deal. I got 4 cones last year on Free Cone Day. Sure, I had to wait a bit, but nothing terrible. The lines moved really fast since no one got stalled at the cash register. It was in a touristy area of DC, and I kept pulling people in. They all assumed I was putting them on, the city boy trying to pull one over on the tourists: "No, really. Free. Any flavor. Really."

By: youhas

youhas — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 13:49:03 -0800

FCD Hypothesis #17: The wait in line on Free Cone Day from a given Ben & Jerry's is inversely proportional to the square of the distance to the nearest college campus.

By: culberjo

culberjo — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:51:07 -0800

one day you youngsters will be old and lactose-intolerant like me, and Free Cone Day will mean nothing...

By: moss

moss — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 16:04:29 -0800

Actually, youhas, the Ben & Jerry's in Annapolis was only about two blocks from my college campus (St. John's, not the other college in Annapolis), and the line last year seldom reached the outside of the store. Of course, I'm not sure that counts--we didn't exactly have the population of U.C. Berkeley--but I enjoyed it anyway. It was short enough that you'd finish each cone just in time to order the next one.

By: CrayDrygu

CrayDrygu — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 17:41:40 -0800

Not that I doubt you guys, but I managed to traverse Unilever's horrid site and get to their list of ice cream brands they own. I see Magnum, Solero, and Breyers. No mention of B&J's.

By: dagnyscott

dagnyscott — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 18:10:03 -0800

FCD Hypothesis #17: The wait in line on Free Cone Day from a given Ben & Jerry's is inversely proportional to the square of the distance to the nearest college campus. I don't know, you obviously don't live in West Michigan. Come to think of it, I don't think there are Ben and Jerry's stores in West Michigan, though we have it at our grocery stores. If there were, I'm sure everyone would line up for hours to get their free ice cream cone. Because it's free, and you can't pass up something free, can you? Maybe you just need to work in the Dutch population to your equation.

By: briank

briank — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 18:11:28 -0800

Oh, it's true, CrayDrygu -- they bought B&J and SlimFast at the same time (talk about your irony).

By: kindall

kindall — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 18:11:47 -0800

Straight from the cow's mouth. Of course, it's not really the corporate monolith buying out the tiny hippie ice cream company, oh no -- if you read that press release, you'll see it's really the tiny hippie ice cream company "joining forces" with the corporate monolith to teach it some social consciousness! (Gag.)

By: youhas

youhas — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 19:52:41 -0800

Ah well, so much for my hypothesis. Back to the drawing board! (Not that I had a great sample size to begin with: the two local B&J outlets I've tried to get to on Free Cone Days past just happen to be right next to Mission College in Santa Clara and San Jose State, respectively.) Still, it's nice to know that at least some folks in the world getting their bounty with a minimum of hassle. Oh, and dagnyscott: the closest the scoop shops get to West Michigan appears to be Ann Arbor.

By: CrayDrygu

CrayDrygu — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 21:02:14 -0800

Ah yes. Another one of those "we didn't buy them, we ____ed" excuses. Oh well. I can still down a whole container of Chunky Monkey in one sitting, and that's what matters. That's also why I weigh 195lbs. The local B&J's store here is in the middle of a bunch of malls on a major highway. If I time it right (maybe take a long, late lunch), I should be able to get a free cone without too much hassle.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 21:10:02 -0800

Free cone? Eh. Free dodecahedron? Now you're talkin'!