Carl's Notes

Apparently Tim Horton's has teamed up with Cold Stone Creamery to serve up ice cream along with their regular fare of coffee and doughnuts, and the Tim's nearest to me is one of the few that have been refitted with the extra equipment, so I tried some of their ice cream yesterday.

First, I should mention that the Cold Stone Creamery is one of a "new breed" of ice cream shops that actually mix your ice cream right in front of you instead of having a very limited range of flavours.

They start with a "basic" ice cream flavour (such as vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, etc.) that has nothing else in it, putting a measured amount on their work surface (a cold slab of metal), then adding measured amounts of "mix-ins" (such as chocolate chips, brownies, nuts, etc.) and mixing it all together.

This means that they can have a small set of predefined flavours, and also allow customers to make up their own flavours.

On my first visit, I had what they called "Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip", which had mint ice cream, chocolate chips, fudge sauce, and a brownie in it.
(I think I need to trim my moustache, though, it felt like I had to dive every bite through it!)

My one complaint about the experience is that they're not using the Standard^™ names for sizes.
Instead of small, they call it "Like It", medium is "Love It", and large is "Gotta Have It".
(there's also a child's size, but that's not very relevant to this discussion)
Now, technically, there's nothing really wrong with it, it's just goes against many rules that programmers have for designing user interfaces, designers have for designing, well, things, and the rule is that people should not have to remember more than absolutely necessary.
In this case, having to remember crazy names for sizes is not absolutely necessary.

However, it's ultimately not that important, and I'm sure I'll learn eventually, but for now, it just rubs me just a little bit the wrong way.
And hey, it's still good ice cream, so it's still a win.

I have had some prior experience with the ice cream shops that mix it up right in front of you.
There's a shop called the Marble Slab Creamery that does something similar.
(though unfortunately their slabs are still made out of metal instead of a slab of marble)
The prices are comparable, though I'm pretty sure that the Cold Slab Creamery has larger sizes...

And after typing that all up, I'm kind of hungry for ice cream again... =0.0=