Here is another joyful indication of the approaching holiday season: yesterday, local mom-and-pop coffee shop Starbucks began its annual tradition of serving coffee in wintry red cups. Bwog doesn't even like Starbucks, and yet there's something about Red Cup Day that makes us inordinately happy.

So, take your red cupped hot chocolate and take a stroll amongst College Walk's secular tree lights. After all, whether it feels like winter or not (and today it definitely does not), classes end in a month!

From now until 4pm, you can go to College Walk and EarthCo will exchange 10 plastic bags (bad for the environment) for 1 Westside Market tote bag (good for the environment). Seems like a good deal for you and the world! Also, from the EarthCo email:

The first 70 people will receive a new tote, but after that the rewards do not stop. All people who come after the bags have been distributed will be entered into a raffle to win a $20 Starbucks card, to help supplement their caffeine addiction that is flaring its ugly head during this fall's midterm season.

Caffeine and environmentalism? No way.

Bwog passed the Carman gates at 114th Street and was happy to find representatives from Seattle eager to bequeath $5 Starbucks Cards as well as Tazo Tea and their replacement for adderall to students harried by midterms. All you have to do is put your "name" and your "address" onto a postcard that you are sending to your "parents." Enjoy!

For the next two and a half hours, all Starbucks locations in the eastern U.S. will be closed. According to The New York Times, Starbucks needs the time to teach their employees new ways to use the coffee machines. Because, you know, there's more than one. As to why this process will take a couple hours, Starbucks has remained cryptically and smugly quiet.

Meanwhile, the under-caffeinated sit patiently and wait during what is soon to be known to Blue Java employees as "the best day ever."