“Dr Evil, several years ago, we invested in a small
Seattle-based coffee company. Today, Starbucks offers
premium quality coffee at affordable prices. Delish.
Dr Evil, if we shift our resources away from evil empires
and towards Starbucks we can increase our profits five-fold.
Number Two, I make the decisions here. I demand a little
respect. Silence!”
– Austin Powers – The Spy Who Shagged Me
FROM: THE ONION:
SEATTLE,After a decade of aggressive expansion throughout North America and abroad, Starbucks suddenly and unexpectedly closed its 2,870 worldwide locations Monday to prepare for what company insiders are calling “Phase Two” of the company’s long-range plan.
Though the coffee chain’s specific plans are not known, existing Starbucks franchises across the nation have been locked down with titanium shutters across all windows. In each coffee shop’s door hangs the familiar Starbucks logo, slightly altered to present the familiar mermaid figure as a cyclopean mermaid whose all-seeing eye forms the apex of a world-spanning pyramid.
What’s Happening?
In a sweeping move to the coffee giant Starbucks will suspend operations from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. local time at its 7,100 company-operated stores nationwide, the company’s CEO Howard Schultz said. While the stores are closed, more than 135,000 baristas and employees will undergo “extensive training” according to company spokespersons.
The timing and scheduling of this procedure seems to coincide with rumors circulating that the criminal mastermind Dr. Evil has been released from suspended animation pursuant to his earlier incarceration in 1970. Many people believe that Dr. Evil is a fictional character from the Austin Powres movies and are not aware that the film’s plot is based on facts culled from actual criminal case files of the London Police Department circa 1967, and that Dr. Evil is a real live person (there is a wikipedia entry for him).
Dr. Evil (born Douglas Powers) is the chief villain and nemesis of Interpol with aspirations of world domination. In the mid and late 1960’s Dr. Evil routinely hatched schemes to terrorize and take over the world, and is typically accompanied by his cat Mr. Bigglesworth and his side-kick Mini-Me.
Also beleived to be working with Dr. Evil is “Number 2”, a henchman and leader of Dr. Evil’s industrial empire, Virtucon. A natural businessman, Number 2 is often more concerned about the financial aspects of world domination than the world domination itself. Number 2 has devised various schemes and ventures which would not only garner massive profits for – and expand the power-base of – the Virtucon empire, but would do so legitimately, leaving the authorities with little else to do but release Dr. Evil from suspended animation.
Conspiracy theorists across the globe speculate that the simulaneous closing of all Starbucks locations and the release of Dr. evil from captivity cannot be a coincidence. They believe that Starbucks under the new regime of Dr. Evil intends to “roll out” phase two of a sinister plan that could be according to them would be the first shot a war that would usher in the new world order.