Windows takes a tumble in the land of the Big Mac and Bacon Double Cheeseburger You know how it is, you're innocently waiting for a bag of hot and delicious greasy goodness when you get unexpectedly slapped around the face with the wet fish of a Blue Screen of Death. Such an experience was in store for Register reader Nathan as he pitched up at a London Victoria outlet of burger-flipping behemoth, …
Because not everyone has perfect visual perception. Like anyone whom is blind, has bad eyesight from being old, or is otherwise unable for any reason to read the board.
It shouldn't take the blind guy to see why they might need such functionality.
More like.....they couldn't be bothered to disable that system when the kiosks were being designed. Plus the noise level is way too high in those stores with screaming kids, the drive thru speaker blaring, and workers talking in back for an audio system to be useful for any sight-challenged individual.
The order numbers are shouted out.
I asked them about it several months ago and received the usual, "Meh. Not my problem" response.That seems to be par for the course for VF and 'issues' the world over.
I think it'd make global headlines, financial markets would crash, doomsday mongers would claim they were proven right and the 2nd coming was happening on next nearby convenient date should Vodafone ever actually properly fix an issue, handle a customer complaint in a reasonable and timely manner, or just get something right for a change.
(I've met 2 people this week who've said they're waiting for their 2 year contract to end then they're done with VF.. Had to warn them to be sure it doesn't "auto renew" as VF have apparently done to some unwary souls).
And how do you let yourself out of the toilet after washing them?
Hope that some other germ dodger opens the door for you?
Me, I always take a raggy urchin with me and smash their head against the screen........
Not true actually, not been into one of their shitholes since 1988 and proud!
And how do you let yourself out of the toilet after washing them?
I use a few tricks.. Preferably aim for places that have doors that pull out, so when you're in there you push to open. Or look for ones that have hand towels and a bin near enough to use a clean towel to open the door then toss the towel in the bin, or another nearby bin on the way through.
Sometimes I'll wash them before entering the store. Or order food to go and take it somewhere.
And no, not touching those screens for any purpose. As with my last post, I quite loudly refuse. This coronavirus scare will certainly give a decent excuse.. Or maybe "I have AIDS, are you sure you want me touching that?" or something... (New headlines "AIDS Patient Refused Service in McD's" with all the hand-wringing and pitchforks-at-noon etc that goes with such things)
If the place has paper towels, grab a clean one on the way out & use it to open the door. If there is no trash can nearby, drop it by the door.
You will be amazed how quickly a trashcan appears near the door when you do that.
If there are no paper towels, and the door opens inward, things can be more interesting. Some places have a kicker that can be used to open the door with your foot. Good if you wear closed shoes--I doubt the ladies have to do that. I have been known to reach through my shirt in extremis. If this is where you work, a complaint to facilities seems to work quite well. If it is another place you frequent, a (polite if humorous) complaint to the manager is often quite effective.
You will be amazed how quickly a trashcan appears near the door when you do that
Being clean 'n green 'n proper waste disposal 'n all that, I'd never considered such an idea! But much thanks for the suggestion, it may well help improve things in these places. And no one would ever accuse me of doing it, my reputation of being borderline OCD for leaving places cleaner than I found them makes me immune to such things! :)
I'll also make some suggestions to some managers in places I visit often enough to be on reasonable terms..
Much thanks!
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"the screens themselves were infamously reported as being coated with all manner of invisible effluent from patrons."And that is why you were always told to wash your hands before eating food.
I was told by one of their staff I had to order from them. Very loudly proclaimed I had no idea who'd been wanking just before coming in there (emphasis on "coming") and touching those screens. I think their custom and use of the screens dropped off a bit that night....
How are you going to test your immune system, if you're not going around touching things and then licking your fingers?Anyway, McD's doesn't count as real food, so no need to wash your hands.
It probably does count as a test of the immune system though.. Even if just a test of being immune to good sense and looking elsewhere :)
Perhaps it was used for reminding people that they sell McDonald's Cola, anytime anyone asked for a different branded beverage? If someone asks for a "Coke" and you don't tell them they are getting something else, you have violated the Coca-Cola Company's trademark and deceived the customer.
Side note: Would any third party even be allowed to sell their own cola-flavoured soft drinks, if Coca-Cola was a new invention under today's IP régime?
The last time I actually went into one of those places, there were customer-facing signs saying "McDonald's Cola -- the only cola at McDonalds!" and reminders behind the tills that they sold McDonald's Cola.
There could be a good reason for that.
It's been some years since I've had a cola at McD's (just not a fan of cola and don't often eat at McDs), but the last time I did the stuff was quite watered down.
Perhaps Coke will no longer let them use their trademark if they're ruining the "brand experience" by making it so much worse than it already is. Maybe Coke still supplies McDs but are no longer willing to have their brand directly identified with something that'd make "maidens water" look like a strong drink.
FTR : I do like McD's food which is why I visit once every few months. But I also feel "familiarity breeds contempt" would be very true if I visited more than once every few months.
>Side note: Would any third party even be allowed to sell their own cola-flavoured soft drinks, if Coca-Cola was a new invention under today's IP régime?
Yes, for the same reason that multiple companies can offer cherry flavour drinks - they didn't create the kola nut/tree or the cola genus.
It /is/ highly likely that there would be a lot of litigation along the way driven by greedy idiots in inexplicably high positions in the company, so the legal people would make out like bandits as usual.
Whilst I disagree with OP's post, in that Mc Donald's (UK) certainly do cell Coca-Cola, I do believe "Coke" is a trademark of the Coca-Cola company.
I don't think it's a registered trademark and I'm not sure how generalcide would affect a court's ruling if Coca-Cola would ever take someone to court.
I think COKE (and by extension, Coke) IS a registered trade mark.
In the EU, registered mark EU002091940 protects the name from being used for the relevant class of goods:
Class 32 Beers; mineral and aerated waters and other non-alcoholic drinks; fruit drinks and fruit juices; syrups and other preparations for making beverages.
It also protects the name from being used in a wide range of less obvious products, including edible birds' nests. If you try selling "Coke" birds nest soup, you can expect a letter from their lawyers.
https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/4/EU002091940
There are other registrations for the same name, presumably covering even more obscure product classes.
If the original Coca-Cola was released today as the first of its kind then this seems to apply:
https://www.business.com/articles/can-you-patent-a-recipe/
This is a U.S. article and light on details and aimed at restaurant menus (with McDonalds included), but I gather it goes two ways: patenting and publishing the recipe, or making the recipe a trade secret. Maybe you could do both: patent the recipe but also add a trade secret ingredient? I don't know.
Patents end, and establishing a trade secret involves binding your employees with secrecy contracts, apparently. Both mainly just give you the power to sue competitors, which strictly you could do anyway but with less chance of winning.
Oh, and the original special not-secret ingredient of Coke actually was cocaine. But not very much of it, in case this sounds like the energy drink you've been looking for. And today they use hardly any at all.
Maybe you could do both: patent the recipe but also add a trade secret ingredient? I don't know.
Not sure if there's a patent involved, but KFC did pretty successfully keep their recipe a secret for I think over 100 years.
From what I recall the stuff was made in part in separate plants, mixed in another, and shipped ready-to-use to the "restaurants".
ICBW, and wish there was an easy way to check my facts without visiting a library or encyclopaedia... :)
It also goes the other way, if someone asks for a Pepsi, you aren't supposed to substitue it with Coke just because that's what's in the dispenser. Its been this way for decades and I know this because one of my relatives was owner or general manager at several bottling plants during his carreer at the Coca-Cola company.
While we're on the subject of fairness, I've eased off my criticism of "junk food" in recent years, as it's become increasingly clear that pretty much all "pre-made" food (i.e. not grown in your allotment) is essentially junk anyway, especially the stuff labelled "healthy". Not to mention the fact that the Powers That Be® constantly flip-flop between claiming something is an essential elixir of life and, basically, it'll kill you. In other words, I no longer know what to believe, so I have to assume that all claims, one way or the other, are just speculative bullshit.
Now I just eat whatever. Mostly bacon butties. I've often wondered why there has never been a multinational "Bacon R Us" in the vein of MacDs, Hell, it'd be my No1 feeding trough, if it ever happened. Seriously. Sod those utterly tasteless, virtually fat-free patties of minced beef from Hamburg. Give me huge wads of artery-choking bacon any time. Really, any time. Wake me up at 3AM on a Tuesday, if you like, just make sure you come bearing huge pallets of bacon butties, shrinkwrapped for freshness.
As for the arguably inappropriate use of Windows for, well, pretty much anything other than the PC Desktop, meh! I used to care. I used to stand on my upturned (and now empty) bacon box and scream obscenities at anyone daring to suggest using Windows for display terminals etc., spitting bacon bits onto the crowd (of one ... typically a bemused policeman) as I vented my spleen. But once I realised how much precious bacon I was wasting, in my futile efforts to bring salvation to the unwashed masses, I just gave up and went back to eating bacon full time, thus guaranteeing a short but blissful life.
I mean seriously, who wants to live forever anyway, especially without bacon? This irrational obsession with immortality is ill-conceived. An eternity without bacon isn't a good quality of life, it's a cruel and unusual torture. You might as well say wouldn't it be great to live for 200 years, where every day I have someone driving knitting needles through my eyeballs, while hedgehogs chew on my testicles. Well no actually it wouldn't, now that I think about it.
So bring on the greasemongers, and super-size me!
I'm prepared to be down-voted to hell and back and I will caveat this with by saying it could be the way the my other half cooks, it but I find bacon to be the most disappointing meat going. It smells really nice when cooking but such a bland taste unless you douse it in gallons of ketchup which seems to defeat the object.
I won't downvote you for expressing an honest opinion, I know what you mean. I do like bacon, but it does smell nicer than it tastes and the same (IMO) is true of fresh baked bread and also coffee, at least when purchased from any high street retailer (not something I do regularly). Al Murray agrees on the smell of bacon too (Highly NOTSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyWN5017wD8
Have to disagree on the ketchup though, brown sauce for me on bacon if it's on a roll/sandwich.
"The same (IMO) is true of fresh baked bread and also coffee, at least when purchased from any high street retailer "
That's the exact reason that Boulangeries are still alive and kicking in France and much of the continent. Their bread not aonly smells good but tastes good.
Coffee can be a difficult one though, OK the British vesion of coffee is really bland, I agree but in France, Italy or nearby you are far more likely to find a good Espresso in accordance with your personal preference. ( Although there are also some bloody nasty Bistros who provide pathetic coffee as well, but they can be avoided with experience)
'Sadly actual bakers are largely a thing of the past ...'
So make your own bread. It's not rocket science - the recipe below is flour,salt,yeast and water. And preparation takes 10 min. (After that the yeasty-beasties do the work)
https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/no-knead-bread/
I often wonder why people who can put together complex apps in half a dozen computer languages can't assemble a decent pizza..
This one's a favourite, and no hassle if you have a mixer with a dough hook
Thanks for that! Rosemary going on the shopping list (never tried it, woe is me!). I know what I'm making for Thursday and Friday dinners now! (or maybe invite a mate round I haven't chatted with in a while).
My mixer came really really cheap. Stuck motor brushes. A little worn, but they'd jammed in their holder rather than moving out as they wore down. So it was tossed where a quick thwack probably would've got it working.
I figured a dust/grime issue when I found it, opened and cleaned and noticed the stuck brushes.. Quick clean and rebuild and away it went.
Might work if you half the mixture and make 2 loaves so it's a bit thinner. It's great as an alternative to garlic bread with Italian meals though, E.g. mopping up sauce with lasagne or spaghetti and meatballs.
Grumble grumble.. Lasagne used to be my speciality - it's been probably 20 years since I've had any! :( Perhaps about the same for truly decent spaghetti and meatballs.
I was looking forward to Pizza tonight but someone's dropped in a load of stuff that we need to use up, so that'll be next week now. Shall be the first time I've done a stir-fry in 20 years tonight. If the stuff is as fresh/crisp as it appears at first glance (otherwise, some form of vegetable-laden stew - the tastebuds are wilting as we speak)
I'll make one batch of that bread as intended so I know how it's supposed to come out first, then look to do changes. While I seldom follow the recipe much at all, I do like to try something as intended first :)
--> We lack a "stuff cooking in a pot" icon, but I bet she's quite familiar with pot.. )
I often wonder why people who can put together complex apps in half a dozen computer languages can't assemble a decent pizza..
I can!
I found a "pizza oven" unused in a 2nd-hand shop a couple of years back. Didn't take me long to be making my own bases and so on from there. The most 'processed" ingredients I use are the pre-ground flour, or the pre-packed yeast, or the cheese (mix cream and tasty cheeses), or the salaami/pepporoni (work much the same but depends on my mood and the outside temp)
The bases themselves are so simple - dunno why I never started doing it earlier and even wasted money on pre-made bases.
One thing I did quickly discover... The big franchises like 'Pizza Hutt"? Their stuff is really not that great when you make your own, and unless you live within half an hour of one of their stores (including wait times etc) you might as well make your own at home...
"but it does smell nicer than it tastes "
That does seem to be true of supermarket "every day" bacon, especially the unsmoked variety. If you go for the higher priced better stuff, or better yet go to a decent butcher, then bacon usually tastes as good as it smells.
I'll not mention the argument about red or brown sauce though. Oops!
I think I can solve that mystery. The problem is that all the actual flavour of any given food is locked into hydrophobic molecules, and thus can only be released in the presence of the aforementioned artery-choking fat, which sadly in the case of nearly all Stupormarket® meat these days is almost entirely absent.
The sad fact is that fat-free is, pretty much by definition, tasteless.
It may be a bit of a challenge, given that they're now virtually extinct, but try to find an actual butcher shop, and ask specifically for untrimmed bacon, preferably with a lot of marbling (i.e. lots of fat on the inside, not just a thick wad of it under the rind).
Feel free to conservatively trim the rind, but leave all the fat. Your taste buds will thank you. You'll die in your 50s, but at least you'll die with a big smile on your face. That's my plan, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.
Stupormarket® meat
--> Thanks very much. Yoink - stolen!
It may be a bit of a challenge, given that they're now virtually extinct, but try to find an actual butcher shop,
Same for green grocers etc. That shite they sell in the Stupormarkets® shouldn't be fed to your worst enemy let alone someone you say you love!
You'll die in your 50s, but at least you'll die with a big smile on your face.
A bit of variety and exercise (try walking around a supermarket looking for quality food - you'll burn a billion pounds of fat before you find something worth eating!) can keep you healthy enough to enjoy good food for many more years than just "in your fifties". Have some ambition, aim to be a fat drain on the public health system well into your 90s - and telling people loudly about how they don't know know anything about food, health, or bad fad diets! :)
Mcbacon. It has to be that you’ve only gotten mcbacon to taste. It is the kind of backon that looks nice and doesn’t stain your shirt, but it doesn’t taste anything like the real stuff. Fat dripping, a bit crunchy, simply delicious bacon... it tastes even better than it smells, that divine nourishment.
Mmmmm, bacon.... I wish I had some in my fridge.
BTW, an alternative with vegetables and dairy products for those who wish to watch their shape: fried sauerkraut and bacon mixed with thick sour cream and chopped lacto-fermented gherkin.
Have a deserved upvote..
And teach the missus how to cook bacon!
The first part of cooking delicious bacon that isn't a let-down is to actually buy decent bacon. There really is some watered-down crap out there. Yes, it is possible for some places to sell bad bacon - usually amongst what the supermarkets laughingly call "meat". I haven't had bacon from a butcher last more than a few hours - if I wanted bacon for lunch on Sunday then I better be at the butcher no earlier than 11:30am on said Sunday, or have someone put it in a safe in a bank vault, in a dis-used lavvy.... If I brought a couple of kg's at 5:30pm on the way home for the family dinner.. Did you know you can cook bacon on your exhaust wrapped in tin foil??? Strangely I always forgot to get the bacon, and the family went hungry while I was rather stuffed...
(yes, I was addicted... Made myself sick of it :( )
Er.. TL:DR - buy decent bacon first, then get someone who knows how to cook it right. Try various styles of cooking and flavours of bacon till you find a few that make you happy..
And I agree.. There's nothing more disappointing to walk in to the lovely smell of cooking bacon, and sit down to badly cooked supermarket crap.
"Bacon R Us"
If they would do a proper bacon sandwich, which is to say: slices of lovely bacon between slices of lovely bacon, instead of what you usually get, slices of bacon between slices of bread, something that is technically a bread and bacon sandwich, I would go there.
In other words, I no longer know what to believe, so I have to assume that all claims, one way or the other, are just speculative bullshit.
It might be a big surprise to some here but I've made some moves to growing my own stuff in recent times....
I agree that anything pre-made isn't quite of the same quality as that which you grow yourself (though it can often be vastly cheaper - your head of cabbage is more than just the seeds or seedlings, there's the soil, watering, nutrients, protecting from bugs (though I've found a narrow mesh does a great job of that!)...
As to diet... Eat a balance, and enjoy what you eat. Most vegans I know are horribly unhealthy. The one who isn't has recently changed to veganism so give her time - she's on a high from her body getting nutrients it never used to and from learning new tastes and textures, but her body will run out of stuff in time and she'll be telling you how natural it is (it isn't, our gut isn't set up to fully process vegetable matter) while swallowing a truckload of supplements each day - supplements meaties don't need.
And those who eat high-meat low-fruit/veg diets aren't much better off, with many issues sometimes very early in life.
Eat a balance, enjoy what you're eating but at least once a week eat a meal for your body. Vary as much as you can (all sorts of cheap ways to do that), so you give your system a range of nutrients but also you give your mind a range of different stuff.
Me? Anyone who knew me a couple of years back would never have thought these words would come from my mouth but.. I'm over bacon, and I'm over chocolate as well.. But that's because I've had too much of both, and got sick of them, although Cadbury's various betrayals of brand fans and maxing out the sugar content so much that most of their flavours now are just "tastes the same as white sugar" didn't help. Whittaker's, now they know how to do chocolate! (though the "Milky Bar" is still the best white chocolate I know - which is probably a very sad statement on the quality of white chocolate I've had!).
Er, yeah anyway.. Eat a variety, exercise some (sitting on your arse all day doing nothing useful will ruin your health just as easily as a bad diet!), enjoy what you can and forget what you can't.. And ignore the fad diets - at least until someone finds a very tasty creamy greasy meal that's perfectly healthy...
I've seen BSODs on those new digital billboards that are getting in the way of pavements everywhere.
And McDs, those screens, the printer never seems to work so you need to quickly remember your allocated number. Though it does save the trees, at the expense of not availing of a £1.99 burger and chips with a survey code.
Actually mostly they own the franchise and dictate where the ingredients are bought and what you do with them.
The whole point of a Franchise is that the local manager actually puts up the capital and is a supervisor following a script. The advantage is the known product which is mostly identical everywhere and the corporate advertising.
They might own the buildings in some places.
Also may mean the "Manager" is self employed and employing the staff in some places, reducing McD liabilities and costs.
My SO convinced me that it would be a good idea to cut out meat for a month after a heavy meaty Xmas. This led to us being in a local McDs with the one choice being their 'Veggie dipper' offerings. Being the good partner I am I went for the veggie wrap.
For the benefit of my fellow readers if you feel the need to go to a McDs and are tempted to have one of their flesh-free offerings just don't. They're like a very shit veggie finger your mum might have bought you 25yr ago to go with the processed 25% pork sausages. Think, a few pieces of corn in orange coloured veg slurry. It makes the pink goop that nuggets are made from look appealling.
The grease-monger has also been installing touchscreens in its restaurants to save customers having to bark orders at staff.
More likely because as more states move to a $15/hr minimum wage, it has become cheaper to replace staff with self-serve signage.
Just waiting for someone to invent a restaurant where the kitchen staff are hidden behind a wall of compartments, and you just put your money in on the side of the compartment to pull out your food selection. Maybe call it something like "Automat"...
This is about cost savings...and people who should be unemployable.
When companies put these types of signage up, they remove most of the idiot-factor the same as for petrol stations with digital (including 7-segment LEDs here) outdoor signs. If the signage and the pumps and the cash registers are all tied to the same database, it makes it infinitely easier to keep them synced...and you can undercut the station across the street with the push of a button.
Also, in the restaurant, they're much easier to keep clean than plastic signs with sliding letters. On the down side, we no longer get the amusment of someone trying to spell a McProduct name.
"Just waiting for someone to invent a restaurant where the kitchen staff are hidden behind a wall of compartments, and you just put your money in on the side of the compartment to pull out your food selection."
It exists! FEBO in Holland. Not sure how long they've been doing it for, but quite some time.
Actually, I was making a flippant reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat, just wanted to see if anyone would get the joke.
I'm afraid that unless one was old enough or travelled enough, one would not have met these things and would not automatically get the joke...
Yes yes, I'm going... :)
There's a drive thru' McD's in Tagaytay here which -aoart from being covered in volcano ash - is on such a small site that the kitchen is above the counter and the food arrives on a belt suspended by hooks.
people no longer go to see the volcano but to ogle at their food arriving above the tills.
There's a McD I have visited a few times recently that's got one of the drive through displays showing a Windows dialogue box in the middle advising us that it's running a "DEMO licence" (their caps) of "Copyright 2007 K-POS."
BSODs on the indoor screens are so common I've stored bothering to take pictures of them now. As are the touch screen ordering terminals that ignore you touching them until they are rebooted.
Maybe it’s due to starting to feel like I'm getting old that I dislike the self service screens in McDonalds or maybe it's because it's killing my nostalgia. We can all agree McDonalds isn't the healthiest of meals but, for me at least, it has become part of my Pop Culture of the 80s and 90s, despite eating it less than I used to (I feel dirty after I've eaten one now so rarely do). It was everywhere back then while growing up, seemed like a magical place, you could have your parties there, you could get place mats for home, Ronald McDonald was still fucking creepy. It popped up in all the movies, in Santa Clause the movie with its shameful product placement (I still don't care, I still like that bit with the homeless kid looking in longing for a McDonalds). We have the film Falling Down with its store like McDonalds with the, now, old style way of serving.
But now, we have these self service screens that are fucking unresponsive. I used them once when they were new and took ages to find stuff and the screens were, as I said, unresponsive. I would then wait for my food. What's this? There is now just a big queue of people waiting for food. The orders have all been taken but there is a big queue for the food. This can't be right.
I then sat down and watched The Founder, while eating a McDonalds (it had to be done). I winced at first thinking it was a shameless advert for McDonalds, then realised it wasn't. How much of an arsehole Ray Kroc appeared to be (not sure how accurate the film was). It was really interesting hearing how the McDonald Brothers invented the fast food kitchen. It worked well it would seem. But now we live in a digital age. If someone can make self service they will. Cuts down on cost, they make more profit, you get no benefit of cheaper products despite having to now serve yourself. One of the few benefits is not having to talk to the person on the till and them not getting the order wrong. However, watching this all happen I started to see more and more people queuing for their orders.
How is this helping I thought, how is this making service faster? It’s clearly not. They’ve changed the counters as well and the production bin. If you have a problem with your order no one is looking at you anymore. They all have their back to you, looking at the order screen and the new laid out production bin/shoot. It all looks so different, where has my childhood gone! Why is it all rushing away from me….anyway! I thought it was me being a moaning fuck, not understand the change. But no, it appears staff at McDonalds, especially in the kitchen, also hate the self service screens.
And here’s the reason why. They have said, if you want your meal quick, go to the one till that is still serviced by a human. When you get served by a human, your order gets sent to the kitchen in real time. Order a cheeseburger, it starts being made before you order the next item. However, order it from the self service screens, your order doesn’t end up at the kitchen until you’ve paid for it. This annoys the kitchen staff because they then get a big order all at once and have said a lot of the kitchens aren’t being upgraded to compensate with how many orders come in from the self service screen. Which is why you end up with a large group of people waiting for food. Order a coffee from the self service at the same time a family hit pay for their massive order. You end up having to wait for their massive order to be finished before your coffee is made, so its always quicker to go to the human till.
A long post just because.
Maybe it’s due to starting to feel like I'm getting old that I dislike the self service screens in McDonalds or maybe it's because it's killing my nostalgia.
McD's has killed a lot of things that helped make their stuff a bit nicer.
One of the things many strangely hated was the old heat lamps they had. They used to make a pile of stuff ahead of time and leave it sitting in a heat source. If you were really lucky, you could get a burger that'd been there around 20 minutes. This had let the flavours really develop and the burger was actually quite good. Now, unless you do that yourself, you just cannot get that sort of flavour again.
There's the loss of the staff and having these silly boards (drive-through may be a better option, then park your car, get out, take your food inside... :) ), and much more of the old effort seems to have gone.
Sadly, people do care less about what goes on around them. As much as I'm not exactly into Christmas, I used to love the effort some people would go to for lighting. These days I could probably beat the best house in the region just by putting up a 2nd coloured light.
When's the last time you saw a family at a picnic near a lake? I guess OSH would have a fit, or someone would want the kids taken away due to dangerous exposure to fun and outdoors.
Have computers/consoles/phones done all of this, or do we just suck at living in general these days?
Re: burgers queued up under heat lamps, if the staff had guessed wrongly how many burgers they might need to meet expected demand for the time of day and had made too many, there might be quite a lot of food waste if they had to throw out those that weren't sold in the permitted time.
I've a feeling that the time limit might have been more like 10 or perhaps 15 minutes, I have to say the thought of eating a burger that had been hanging around for as long as 20 minutes really doesn't sound very appealing or hygienic.
Reducing food waste is definitely a good thing, and having to wait maybe 5 minutes for a more freshly cooked burger isn't such a bad thing.
Reducing food waste is definitely a good thing, and having to wait maybe 5 minutes for a more freshly cooked burger isn't such a bad thing.
Oh, I'm all for reducing waste - though there are better options for handling unsold food than just throwing it in the landfill, even if it's just sent off to a compost factory or something like that (also options for helping poorer people out - which is why I've both eaten more KFC than anyone I know and don't touch it that often - at a time of being very poor a friend used to drop stuff off on her way home from work)
Also all for fresh food - I grow much of my own fruit and veggies and putting tomato, lettuce into things... Did some home-made spaghetti bolognase last night to get rid of some excess tomatoes. Some of the tomatoes were on the plant 2 minutes before I started washing them, none had been off the plant for more than 5 minutes, and I often have burgers where the time between plant and mouth is less than 5 minutes.
Anyway, yes I love fresh food BUT there are some things that you have to let simmer for a while for the flavours to really come out. McD's patties are like this - if you let them fester a bit they can start to develop a great flavour.
You're right on the 10-15minute time limit, which is why it was really rare to get anything that had been there for 20 minutes. Twice, but maybe 3 times I've had this in my life. You had to hit a busy time and order an un-popular burger to have a chance.
Appealing? The flavour was well worth it! Hygenic? Well, they do tend to be pretty hygienic in these places (at least as far as the food handling goes).. But if you're eating in a kid-friendly joint with local toilets, playground, and tons of people with who-knows-what illnesses or personal hygiene standards then you've pretty much given up the 'hygiene' battle anyway :) Besides, all this making everything always clean and massive use of "anti-bacterial" everything isn't great for your immune system (helps resistant bugs to develop and grow while knocking back the good bacteria, also (according to some I've heard/read) weakens your immune system from under-use.
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