There is a new milkshake called the “Vivanno” at Starbucks. They’re not particularly good, and Starbucks charges $4.37 for one of them. Now when I loathe a corporation (like Starbucks), I like to hit where it hurts most: their wallet. At the Calgary Folk Festival Starbucks was handing out free coupons for these sub-par smoothies, and so naturally I grabbed a stack. I proceeded to give out most of the stack to friends whom I knew would be more than happy to use them. Myself? I had twenty shakes.

To let you know how gross it was (and why I cannot stand the sight of those things anymore), let me give you some numbers:

• 20 smoothies
• 15 of the Banana Chocolate (which taste like chalk) - 270 calories per smoothie
• 5 of the Orange Mango (which tastes so bland that one settles for the taste of chalk) - 250 calories per smoothie
• $87.40 total cost
• Average waiting time - 5 minutes
• Total waiting time - 1 hour 40 minutes
• Total stores visited - 12
• Total caloric intake - 5300 calories!