Shazam for Actors

My writer friend and I are discussing a need for Shazam and IMDB to team up so we can point our phone at the screen and find out "who is that and what do I know the person from"?

Comment/ share if you also wish this exists, or know an app that does it.

App Idea

If someone could make an app to alert me 24/7 (Yeah,  give it a setting to bypass blocking mode and stuff) when something on my Amazon wishlist or shopping list goes on sale (at a discount amount I can set,  because saving 1% is not worth getting woken up over), that's an app I'd pay 99 cents to own.

Lightning deals are great, but there are hundreds of them a day right now. And sometimes they change at the last minute. It's a very "luck of the draw" situation. But if I got an alert that something I want will be on super sale in the near future (or right this second), that's valuable information.

There are some services that come close. Obviously the largest obstacle would be that the app needs to do this without draining my battery. It would have to connect to a server of some kind,  and that server would have to check Amazon every 20 minutes. Pinging my app, and thus alerting me,  only if relevant information becomes pertinent.

Maybe this is a $2.99 app.

Anyway- if someone can get on that,  that's be great. Thanks. ♥

Starbucks Mobile Order - Three Experiences

I have the Starbucks Mobile App. The "order with app" is in the Beta stage. There were bonus stars for using the ordering feature,  which is why I tried it. Here is a summary of those attempts:

1- October 31, 2015- $14.47- Went inside,  stood in line. The woman ahead of me in line had never been to a Starbucks. And the person waiting on her was a trainee. So customer asked a question,  trainee had to flag down an employee to get an answer. Five minutes later I get to the register and say I'm here for my order pick up. After a consultation... "Oh,  you're supposed to go to the pick-up area for that." Okay,  I go over there. After first-time-customer gets her drink,  someone finally acknowledges me. I repeat that I'm here for my order. The person finds it.
Cold.
I've been here for 15 minutes now. I just take it and go.
I miss the drive-thru.

2-November 5, 2015- $9.22- Ordered. It didn't have the latest drinks listed. Could have had something better!  Whatever. Go to pick up my order. This time I skip the register line and go straight to the pick-up area,  since I know the protocol. This location doesn't have a drive-thru. It does have the friendliest barista I've ever encountered. He's awesome. But he's waiting on folks who are in line. "All by myself" by Eric Carmen plays in my head. Super Barista finally sees me. He asks if he can help. I tell him why I'm there. He reheats my sandwich and makes my drink fresh because- SURPRISE- THEY WERE BOTH COLD. But he fixes that without my having to ask. Still,  let me point out that I have saved no time,  and actually spent extra time standing here waiting to be noticed. This is not an improvement,  or better,  or faster. It's a way to get ignored and get hot food served cold (unless a great employee won't serve crap and thus intervenes.)

I learned that, to get the latest "seasonal" items, I had to uninstall the app, reboot my phone,  reinstall the app,  and log back in. 

3- November 7, 2015- $10.28- Ordered at the same location as in the first one. Went in,  went straight to pick-up. Watched FIVE drive-thru people get served.  When the girl brought a drink over for someone who had ordered at the register,  I finally get acknowledged. "Oh,  here," she says as she pulls it out. "The whipped cream is deflated. I can add more if you want." I had ordered an iced Chestnut Praline Latte.  The whipped cream isn't the biggest issue. Nearly all the ice melted. This tastes like slightly flavored water with cream. Gross.  And my sandwich?  If you just hold it for a minute instead of using a stove,  microwave,  or fire- that's how "warm" it is.
I long for the drive-thru.
The bonus stars, which lead to free drinks, do not feel worth it. It isn't like at Panera where you can mobile order and the stuff is on a reachable shelf so you can just get it. This isn't McDonald's with a heat lamp to keep your breakfast sandwich warm.
I loved Starbucks. But I really hate the pick up portion of mobile ordering.

Those are my experiences. What about you?

Why my Starbucks was free today

I went to Starbucks today and my order was free.

No,  it isn't my birthday.

I used my giftcard. How'd I get that? 

Shopkicks. It's an app on my phone. I get "kicks" when I walk into stores. I get more kicks if I scan an item on the list. (Manufacturers actually pay for you to just touch their products.)

I trade the kicks in for giftcards.

I've earned five so far,  and I rarely leave my house. If you work at Target or a mall or something,  you could seriously clean up just flicking your phone app open once a day.

Anyway,  I thought I'd share,  in case anyone out there thinks an extra $10 a month or something is worth it.

http://get.shopkick.com/peppermint14584