Gripes and Grins

Grin: AT&T Uverse

It's been several months since we moved our home from Comcast to AT&T Uverse.  Aside from the phantom charges, pricing and lengthy outages, I really didn't have any issues with Comcast.  I wanted to try Uverse because I'd never really tried another bband digital TV solution.  My initial experience with Uverse is definitely a grin.

Even tonight, after AT&T Uverse needed to reboot before each NFL game, I was still pleased with the recovery and support experience.  The support experience in particular is nice. 

Two days after the unit was installed, the hard-drive was borked when the box failed in the middle of an upgrade.  I suspect the unit lost power in the middle of a major upgrade and literally forgot where it was, what it was doing.  A quick swap fixed everything.  I'm sure that box was wiped and reinstalled somewhere else -- I don't really care.  The point is that my wife explained to support that the box needed to be replaced before a sporting event the next day, and so a Uverse truck showed up at 6:30pm, a nice guy swapped the box, tested the remote box and disappeared quickly.  That's the kind of TLC I like. 

At a feature level, the AT&T Uverse IPTV STB is light years ahead of the crappy comcast Motorola DCT-series.  The content is IPTV, not digital cable, which is better.  But, the user experience is much better.  The Uverse GUI, multiple tuners and local hardware mean that the overall user experience is modern, relatively feature-rich, and hardware is responsive to the remote IR commands.  It makes Comcast feel appropriately last-century. 

So far, I'm a fan.  But, I'm worried about the outages I saw tonight -- they remind me of a common issue in all broadband services.  What happens when everyone in your area are using the Internet AND watching TV at the same time?  If you're using IPTV, where the TV signal and the Internet are connected to the same pipe, something is going to give.   I'm worried about the Olympics, Election night, World Cup, Final Four, Oscar night... I'll be watching, tweeting, and sharing my experiences.

 

Grin: BUMPNRUN productions

While I'm taking a little time off to play with the wife and kids, I've been tracking down old friends from Stanford u-grad class of 1995. Here (http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/54k1) are two of the funniests humans alive, on or off of Funny or Die, Branyon Davis (B-Luv) and Kevin Garnett (KG) with their latest, a spoof of Dos Equis ads, featuring the one and only Billy Dee Williams (see FunnyorDie embed below). 

You have probably seen BUMPNRUN work before, as I get a steady stream of updates about humorous ads they've created.  The name BUMPNRUN is a reference to a football defensive coverage technique, where the defenders on wide-outs get in the face of receivers and distrupt their progress up field before they can get into route.  That style of play is tough, it's physical, it's persistent.  That's how these two played, and, fittingly, that's what is required to get your brand of humor some visibility in Hollywood. 

I'm really happy for these guys.  Branyon was the first person I met at Stanford. He started off as a receiver and converted to defense, and because were hobbled with injuries for much of our freshman year, we spent a lot of time wise-crackin, sampling underground rap, and playing tunk. 

KG and I spent a little too much time on a pleather couch one Palo Alto summer, along with Craig Thompson.   We would watch crappy TV with the volume down and do voice-overs to entertain each other.  Trying to make he most out of basic cable, we'd make spoofs, and establish foolish positions, like computer generated images should be outlawed.  That memory is funny when considering all three of us would soon be working in Television -- Craig and I first at WebTV, and now Craig has been at Comcast for over ten years.  KG went right to the content side and never came back.  He is really good at what he does -- follow him at http://bumpnrunproductions.com/

 

 

The Most Interesting BLACK Man in the World part 1 - watch more funny videos

Working at Outspark

I'm so tired. I'm tired like when I had small children waking me up every hour.  Someone asked me over IM to compare Outspark to other startups.  I had no way to express the delta.  Until I saw the video below. 

So, what's my day like?  It's sorta like this amazing play below... I have a solid team with great talent, but what's really impressive is the way they think in mid-air, bat things around and move the ball on instinct.  And, btw, they're all still here in my office working on the launches of Fists of Fu and Divine Souls. 

 

 

Grins: Fangraphs is one of my favorite sites, but surprise...

Fangraphs is one of my favorite sites, but surprise...I find little value in the stats.  But, for a baseball junkie and stat guy, this is just baseball-porn, and I wish I could force all fans to read that kind of stat-porn.  But, personally, I don't see any value in the stats because I have the rare baseball experience that makes me look at the analysis and go "no shit, Sherlock". 

Don't get me wrong, I love the zone breakdowns on hitters.  Take for instance, this graph image of young phenom Jason Heyward and his first week at the MLB.

 

What this map tells you is that Jason Heyward -- a gifted, exciting, lightening-fast 6' 4"/240lb freak of nature -- is hitting fastballs well, and swinging over the top of "off speed" pitches located in the dirt.  For stat guys or a sports guys, this is interesting.  For baseball-stat guy, this is scintillating.  For a guy that played baseball at a high level or is currently in the big leagues, this graph is like a five-year-old's treasure map of the front yard that clearly leads to the freshly-dug dirt pile in the middle of your lawn with an "x" marking the spot. 

To explain further, anyone that has one week of college or pro baseball can look at 20-year-old Jason Heyward in a uniform and think "Okay, young, powerful, keep the fastball down and away early in the count and bounce the curveball if you're even or ahead in the count.  If you want to waste a pitch, go high and hard."  That's it. 

Why is this so obvious? Because in the 100+ years of the "modern era" baseball (literally, since players were getting paid to throw overhand), there have been hundreds of Jason Heywards.  A few of them learned plate discipline quickly, and became outstanding players (see Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds).  A lot of them never learned plate discipline and just got really good at hitting mistakes (see Ken Griffey Sr., Bobby Bonds).  And, more became "projects" or "organizational players", or worse. 

Here's the underlying explanation: A young kid that hits a fastball a ton, gets aggressive and looks to feast on fastballs.  And, even as a player advances through levels of baseball, if they're good enough, they can take the one or two fastballs they get and do damage, wherever the pitch is located (i.e. Vladimir Guerrero, Pablo Sandoval).  Hell, my three-year-old son is that guy right now.  But, at some point, pitchers will remove fastballs altogether.  And, even if a young hitter wants to lay-off of breaking balls, in MLB, pitchers throw nasty breaking stuff that leaves the hand looking like a fastball.  Baseball is just NOT fair to hitters.  Reminder to everyone, no one has hit safely better than 40% of at bats in 69 years (Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941).  

Right now, Heyward doesn't know he is swinging over sliders.  He is reading location and hand-release, and his instincts and reaction are punishing any fastball in the zone.  He is just happy to be in Atlanta and collecting $300 per diem.  At some point this month, he'll understand that collectively, the NL pitchers are bouncing sliders and curves in each of his plate appearances.  But, as soon as he learns how to read a breaking ball, pitchers will start throwing breaking pitches to the corners in minus-counts, hoping to get called strikes.  Heyward should start "thinking" in the box and guessing at what pitch is coming next, taking away his aggressive "see-ball-hit-ball" mentality.  At that point, he'll have a new development milestone, a new lesson to learn.  

Fangraphs stimulates a knowledge exchange like this, and the editorial does a great job of interpreting the stats and explaining what's going on for the fan, for the stat guy.  But, the graphs aren't terribly useful.  I could have told you what would happen to Jason Bey with a glance at his uniform and one box-score. 

One more example: Today's MLB section of ESPN is touting Big Papi's struggles as an issue of pitch selection.  That headline is like a doctor running into your bedroom saying, "I have an explanation for your vomiting and fever -- you have a virus, it's not cancer."  My response to  both diagnostics reports is a sarcastic "REALLY?!". 

In reality, Papi, isn't suffering from "pitch selection issues" -- that's a developmental condition for young guys like Jason Heyward.  At 34, David Ortiz is old (for the game, not 'for this erf'), and so he is pressing, and he is cracking under the media scrutiny.  For examples of cracking, see other symptoms, such as referring to himself in the third person and telling the media that "big papi sucks", and then spewing 30 expletives in a 12-second outburst in response to the simple question, "why are you 0-for-lifetime against Andy Pettitte?"

Hitting .136 with a .208 OBP as a DH in clean-up, Papi is trying to stay in the lineup, so of course he is swinging at fastballs outside of the zone.  That's what everyone does when they are cracking under scrutiny.  Papi has 13 years of service, and he officially overpaid by any unit of measure.  Media scrutiny of his PED admissions is rightfully creating more stress, because he is battling the very real interpretation that he was never as good as his ALCS MVPs would suggest -- he was an enhanced Papi whilst no one was checking, and his current public image as a fraud is his real player potential. 

Plate discipline at Papi's age is about confidence and composure, it's not an issue of learning to be disciplined.  Like Giambi before him, Papi has to be going through a panic right now... but I digress. 

Why do I love FanGraphs? Because it's a giant conversation aid for people that love baseball, but don't know enough to truly understand the game at the player or manager level.  But, when I find someone comes at me with a question, like, "why is this happening?" Instead of making a comment or observation showing a fan or sports writer's understanding of the game, I'm much more engaged and interested in having a conversation that reaches into the depths of baseball knowledge that I rarely touch on.  Ultimately, the Fangraphs and other metrics-driven sites are good for the game, good for creating a new generation of stat-driven fans, like the card-sharks and rotisserie players of the past.   

Old competitors don't stop competing, they just break stuff

I think I broke my finger today -- my driving finger on my left hand. Actually, I think I re-broke it, if that's possible. Like an old athlete, I'm angry. Things are starting to break down on me. My hamstrings are getting tight running around the yard with my kids. My molar just broke in half the other day, and now I have a gold tooth. I'm getting arthritis where I had bad turf-toe on my right foot. And, during lunch/softball practice, I think I re-broke my finger. I finally broke down and called my doctor, who I've been avoiding since I passed a physical a few years back. Here's the problem with being a retired athlete: I don't seek medical attention where I should. Instead, I tape an aspirin to whatever hurts and have a beer or three. That's what old athletes do. And, that's why our bodies break down, literally. How did I break it originally? Well, here's your answer: http://www.gostanford.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/100609aaa.html. In my first at bat during my alumni game, I swung through a fastball and in my back-swing my middle finger on my left hand wrapped around the handle and I felt something bad happen. It immediately swelled, I taped it tight and finished the game. Since October, my hand has been hurting whenever I'm active. Today, I finally broke down and called the doctor. And, I can't stop thinking I'm a wimp. That's who I am -- a competitor, a guy that never wants to admit weakness, physical or mental. Athletes are like this. Need an extreme example of competitiveness? Take a look at the competitiveness in these two old rivals:

Looking Forward

Everyone wants to "look forward" or "get beyond 'this'" right now.  This phrase seemed to pop out of the ether like so many other catch phrases birthed by spin doctors.  Does anyone know who started pushing this phrase?

I guess I first started hearing "moving forward" from shamed athletes like Jason Giambi and Mark McGwire admitting to or commenting on performance-enhancing drugs after carefully parsing words in front of Congress.  It gained steam as an adjunct to public apologies from drunk-driving-and-drug-addled celebrities.  Next to move forward, politicians describing compromising positions with boys, girls, videographers and Argentinian nationals.  Now we've got vapid MTV "realityTV stars" describing a drunk punch in the face as a personal triumph, followed by moving forward.  Any minute now I'm expecting that John Mayer will tweet that he and his penis are moving forward.  Tiger woods is scheduled to move forward Friday as he graduates from sex addiction therapy. 

I'm not sure where the inflection point occurred, but I'm suddenly surrounded by the notion of "moving forward".  And, based on what I've heard, moving forward has less to do with a plan for the future than sorry attempts to end discussion of the past.  I'm reminded of the Bob Marley refrain, "don't know ja past, don't know ja future."

Today, I woke up and flipped on MSNBC to see the President talking about growth in the manufacturing sector and the GDP, and he tied it back to unpopular decisions he'd made last year.  He pulled out his short-sword and took a stab at re-casting the previous decade as the "lost decade", wherein salaries remained flat, jobs weren't created and the wealthy got wealthier. I guess he is looking forward and doesn't want to discuss the TARP anymore now that we have growth data supporting his decision. He is leading us forward now, brace yourselves. 

During my commute, I listened to an NPR segment discussing the effects of two years of recession in Silicon Valley, including a "brain drain" from Asian immigrants returning home to faster-growing economies in China and India.  Other data points cast doubt on our flagging schools, K-university, and the sagging venture capital industry.  And then there was the review of California's status as a donor state, seemingly devoid of any federal support, but especially the defense-industry funding that proved critical for valley cornerstones like HP and Fairchild.  These guests were trying to cast recent history and move forward.  All eyes, it seems, are compelled forward out of shame, fear, uncertainty and doubt.  And, very few are thinking about the routes from here to "forward". 

It occurred to me that maybe that simple shift of focus on bridging to the future would create that sudden lurch forward, create that contagious optimism we seemed to have lost in recent years. 

But, in all honesty, I kinda want to slap people that use "I want to move forward" or "put this behind me". If you're trying to explain why you lied, cheated or committed other acts of douche-baggery, moving forward means something less than leaders in business, science and politics.  It seems we need to make a collective decision to stop diluting the meaning of "moving forward". 

Thinking about my business helps me find short-term bridges. I'm building a roadmap for greater success, more market penetration, more fluid currency moving between our customers and partners.  And, as I look around to test my newest hypothesis, I see more interesting technology developments than I've ever seen.  Aside from the comic hilarity in RWW's open-sourced Facebook ethnographic study, I see the growing disconnect between the personal technology comprehension of the average user (Google finds only 8% of people can describe a browser) and what is being shipped and developed to enable gesture-based UX (see video below), and I'm excited.  When our infrastructure provides for persistent wifi and cloud computing frees us of a device, augmented reality enables information services to exist in a near-gaseous state -- perhaps as common as O2.  These things are in the near-future.  And they'll enable much more than wireless hand-held TV or human filtering in nightclubs.  I believe that augmented reality will help us evolve as a society, and isn't that we're all really trying to do? Isn't that what we really mean when we say, "I want to move forward"?  Aren't we all saying, we want to see the path forward?  Warning: The path forward might be lined with virtual advertising.

Doc Ellis and the LSD No-No

NoMas-nyc was created by Chris Isenberg, aka "Ise" (pronounced IZ). Like many of our classmates at Stanford, Chris went the startup route -- media, fashion, art.  His creativity is on display at nomas-nyc.com.  Chris and I were friendly in college, but no friends.  We had one very good friend in common -- a roommate that pitched on the baseball team, and later pitched several years in the Baltimore and Arizona organizations. 

From time to time I hear about No Mas.  On business in New York, I'll see the hipsters wearing No Mas gear on the streets.  I'll hear about the amazing bags and apparel from friends, or read reviews of No Mas gear in mens fashion rags in executive lounges in airports and hotels. Chris has done well, and he is still into the things that he always loved.

Isenberg is a true baseball fan.  Really, he is a sports junky.  You have to know this to understand the No Mas line and the art he produces.  The following animated short was produced by Chris -- you'll love it.  It's got a feel that matched the innocence of the 1970s, when American was experimenting in all directions and the fashion, art was 'far out'.  The short is about one of the most astounding events in baseball -- the day Doc Ellis through a no-hitter after a two-day acid bender. 

Nice work, Chris. 

Why I write, what I write about

Last week was brutal.  I worked 9am-6pm in the office, 9pm-2am at home each night.  My wife hated me.  I was sick and ignoring the potential for the illness whilst team mates fell to strep throat.  I have an over-developed sense of my own capacity that allows me do silly things in life.  Like, do my own demo work during a rennovation. 

My work reputation proceeds me.  When I join a team, I frequently hear about some friend-of-friend that saw me work 24 or 48 hour stretches.  Here's one I got recently:

"Is true you once worked 118 in a single week?". 

The answer is no, I once billed 118 hours over a 7 day period wherein I worked closer to 125 hours.  Kris Jacob is my alibi.  He's got a great presentation on holding his breath -- he is probably the only guy I've met that works harder than I do. 

I'm not proud of 120+ work stretch, fyi.  It wasn't the least bit fun and I aged physically during that week.  I mean, my hair started going white, my skin went gray and I got wrinkles.  I don't think my back was ever the same.  It feels like I've been trying to catch up on sleep since that week back in February 2000.  But, that's a different story. 

The point is that I'm mentally strong as well as physically strong.  Lunatic strength.  I played catcher in highschool, college and a little professionally.  In all of sports, there are few position players with as much disregard for personal well being as a catcher.  The classic baseball "adage" is that "he (catcher) dons the tools of ignorance".  The saying is a reference to the semi-protective gear.  Like most baseball sayings, this adage is flawed and true.  The catchers gear is smart -- it protects you enough not to get killed, most of the time.  But the mindset required to put on the gear is total lunacy.  Or, total ignorance of what could happen "behind the dish" as catchers describe their place of work.  But, if you choose to put on the gear, year-after-year, and space out in borring meetings, day dreaming about the punishment you used to take, you're a fucking lunatic like me.... finding my narrative here -- this is why my credentials are important. 

This morning I wake up to this image in Facebook:

Jason Baxter was a tremendous highschool athlete -- strike that, he was born a tremendous athlete.  He would infuriate me in the schoolyard with his tiny, scrappy game of quicks and handles on the bball court.  He could throw a football.  He could run, jump, adjust in space, and he had animal-like foot-on-the-ground speed.  But, he was 5-foot-something and 150-something pounds.  And, this knowledge is the sole explanation for every 5-foot-something-pumped-up-shriveled-penis in super tight jeens and tshirts starting shit in sports bars across America every night.  Professional sports are a business of size-and-speed.  Get big fast applies to the bottom line and the draft-day objectives, no matter what sports franchise.  So, while his team mates on our ridiculously good high school soccer team (Jason's best sport) went on to play college soccer all over, Jason went right into creating his own uber-challenging major and then an outstanding career building educational software for kids, and eventually settling in as "the man" at Dr. Moz with all of their amazing baby-gear, distributed globally.  We recently connected via facebook, and, after wading into my stream of sports knowledge, he drops this bait on me.  Nice. 

The expanded context here is that one of my college friends does sports at NBCBayArea 11 -- Laurence Scott.  Recently, over lunch, I explained to him how Zito has been tipping his curveball for years, and I'm glad he stopped trying to correct it and just throw.  We dove deep into baseball mechanics and psychology during that convo -- focusing on pitching.  My assertion was that Zito's heal or toe kick, which if a batter watches on film, can easily be read as a reliable predictor of the forthcoming pitch, is impossible to react to from inside of the batter's box.  If a hitter were to be watching Zito's hands as the pitch were delivered, he'd have no chance whatsoever.  Laurence, or "Ltrain" as he is known in some circles, pushed me deeper into the how/why I knew this.  I'll recap. 

Zito's breaking balls are big and wide, and when he seperates his hands from the glove, Zito kicks his heals out and unleashes a bowel-clenching breaker that looks like it's going behind you before floating across the plate.  I know pros, and they've told me quite candidly how hard it is to hit that pitch, no matter how softly Zito throws it.  His fastball, by comparison, requires that he breaks his hands from his glove and coil his arm and unleash his fastball with quickness because handspeed generates velocity. So he lifts his leg with his toe pointed down, and his heal tucked under his thigh.  The motions for fastball and off-speed pitch are distinctly different. The heal kick on his curveball is a physical requirement that allows him to drop his arm and "wrap" his curveball, creating that big hook with is hand and his wrist.  But I digress. 

The point is that I have knowledge about this game, and a stupid amount of human memory dedicated to recalling dates, facts and figures (numbers) in relation to individuals -- and this isn't just limited to baseball or sports.  I'm like a bio-organic wikipedia on geopolitical history and current events -- 90% right, and fucking annoyingly close when I'm wrong.  After an hour, Laurence asked the same question -- why not write?

So this morning, I turned off the blather that is KNBR in the mornings and I ignored my mobile phone while contemplating this question.  It's true that my senior year, I was actually a coach at Stanford -- the 1995 trip to Omaha and the College World Series.  And, then I was a part-time bench coach at SF State the following year, and a player-coach again overseas.  I watch baseball in a peculiar fashion.  I watch it like a seasoned ER nurse watches doctors.  Unlike the guy that started ahead of me at Stanford, AJ Hinch (youngest manager in the big leauges, Arizona Diamondbacks), I don't have the big-league credentials.  But I do know what the fuck is going on, and I know what is probably going on the heads of the baseball surgeons on the field. This makes watching baseball unbearable for anyone else sitting near me.  I can't edit myself.  It's true, this doesn't only apply to baseball.  For example, I leaned over to my wife five minutes into "Sixth Sense" and whispered "he (Bruce Willis's character) is a ghost".  Yeah, I'm that guy... fucking annoying, I know. 

But, the point is that anyone is annoyed by my misapplied knowledge.  My friends are.  My wife, huge baseball fan, hates watching baseball with me because I'm calling pitches, putting on run plays and doing lightspeed baseball math and blurting out probability of a hit on the next pitch.  The average first time viewer sits next to me, jaw agape, like I'm friggin seeing into the future -- 6-7 seconds into the future.  But after a game or two, it's like watching a game in a sports bar where the a/v feed on two adjacent screens are off by 6-7 seconds.  I'm right in my calls enough that when I'm wrong, it's confusing, and angering.  And, I'm only better at the games.  With full-field-viewing advantage, I start stealing signs and reading base-runners (very effectively I might add).  And, that's just ruining the fun for everyone in my section.  My wife buys me a lot of beer so that I'll just shut up and lose a bit of focus. 

All of that said, I frequently hear from people that think I should write about sports, or do baseball color commentary.  I have friends that are baseball producers -- guys that were in my wedding.  I go home at night and watch my college classmates Richard Engel and Heather Maddow on MSNBC.  I have done a number of on-camera interviews as a marketing exec.  I'm actually starting to think I can do this sports-writing thing, if I bothered to edit myself.   I know sports, I know consumer tech.  I know marketing and media.  I could write about sports with a passion above and beyond this blog even.   

But, here's why don't bother.  I know myself.  I don't have the "blego" (blog ego) for writing, nor do I have the desire to avoid or ignore my family in the name of work (anymore than I already do).  They're great kids.  My wife is the supreme combination of beauty, brains, sports-fan and selfless-low-maintenance.  Besides all that, Jack is just now three, projected to be 6' 5", and he runs and hits live pitching like I did when I was twelve.  He hits left, throws right.  I've got a bigger, potentially more lucrative project if you know what I mean.  So, the answer is yeah, I think about being a sports writer.  Frequently.  I've always kept that in the back of my mind.  But, I don't want a pay-cut, being a dad is awesome, and I could apply this skillset to bing an agent in about 18 years. 

So, for now, I'll just keep this blog going -- bitching about big brands that shit on consumers, and pimping the startups that might do things better if they can find a way to survive. 

New blog, more drivel

I'm setting up a new shop.  Previous blogs at AO (bloomba guy) and PodShow (podpimp) went awry.  I took a bunch of heat for my posts on the Yahoo! acquisition of Stata Labs.  And, I think I'm done with the whole PodPimp schill identity provided by Adam Curry, et al.  Also, I'm done ghost writing for other execs.  I'll keep my shit right here for the time being.

I'm going to blog about product and marketing snafus -- something more punitive than what goes on at Media Guerilla.  I'll also share some nuggets on startup life, maybe I'll drop a few more names than what gets posted at Cerdafied. 

Here is my first punching bag: Starbucks. 

I'm an addict to caffeine. My coffee maker at home costs more than most people's cars.  FYI, I'm embarrassed about that -- not proud at all.  I've done some rough math and figured out that I spend some $3,000 a year in coffee shops.  Cafe Nero and the dollar-to-pound exchange is seriously inflating these figures, but I think you get the point.  I've tried every imaginable "Harbucks" drink and every imaginable permutation of "special request" for a drink. 99.99% of the time, the well-oiled machine that is Starbucks and their "partners" and baristas spits out my hit of caffeine with the cold efficiency of a Ray Bradburry short story.  I used to think that you couldn't mess with these guys.  I used to think Schultz and his generals could even improve upon the most precise legions, like the US Army.  That is until I discovered the drink combo that grinds any and every Starbucks to a halt....Ladies and gentlemen, here is Starbucks' Achilles heal, an order combo that is destined to unravel the juggernaut that is Starbucks (not really). 

"I'll have two vente iced coffees, one sweetened with room, one un-sweetened with soy milk". 

Say it slowly if you want to.  But make sure to have the camera running.  The quiet mayhem that ensues  is hilarious.  I've tried this in no less than 30 Starbucks locations across the US.  The order usually results in a huddle, followed by a managerial consultation, and finally a request to restate the order.  Restating the order multiple times is almost always required.  In one particular Starbucks in Palo Alto, I've had to restate the order six times.  Try it.  Regardless of your taste for the beverages, the confusion, the hand wringing, the shear exasperation is delightful. 

If you want a bonus delight, go ahead and ask the manager why this order is so hard to fulfill.  The explanations range from, "unsweetened iced coffee is technically an 'americano'..." to "Unsweetened with soy is usually served without ice". At any rate, the explanation usually trails off.  If you feel especially prickish, ask for the explanation to be repeated.  I did that once.  The poor cashier looked like she was about to cry -- total frustration and helplessness.  I felt bad, but only for a second. 

Let me know if you find any other mayhem-inducing order combinations at Starbucks or any other International blight, er, uh retail chain.   

You can always CallMe.