Resistance is McFutile

Did you know that society has hit an all time low…all while productivity has reached an all time high? I was at a McDonalds drive through today and I noticed something in the window. McDonalds…or at least some of them now have conveyor belt systems that completely take care of getting the drinks ready. Apparently the person pushes a button…they may or may not have to insert the cup into the automated system….then the cup starts moving in a cup holder looking thingy and the first stop is for the ice…the second stop is for the soda…then a pause for the carbonation to settle…then it fills a bit more and moves to the end of the line. Basically all the person has to do is put the lid on the cup and hand it to you. How much more automated does the fast food industry have to get? Have we not yet reached a plateau of efficiency in the fast food industry? Is five minutes too much to ask a person to wait for a fat filled artery clogging meal? What is going on here? When will it just be good enough? I started thinking what if the technology in the fast food industry has yet to come close to peaking. What I offer to you our listeners, is a potentially disturbing look into the future of McDonalds….a look into the fast food industry…and sadly, an ominous look at the future of mankind. In 2004, Jim Catalupo, 60 suddenly dies of an apparent heart attack. Jim Catalupo was the CEO of McDonalds. Soon afterwards The Board of McDonalds named Charlie Bell McDonalds new CEO. Sadly Charlie Bell’s stint of CEO of McDonalds was short lived. Only 7 months after being named CEO Bell resigned because of his battle with Cancer. Sadly Bell recently lost his battle. The next guy up for the position of McDonalds CEO was Jim Skinner. Recently the anniversary of the happy meal was celebrated with special toys. One toy maker seems to me to be an awfully odd choice. The Toy Company Sanrio…responsible for the hello kitty phenomenon. The Sanrio toy company is based out of Japan. That’s right; Japan…the same Japan that is responsible for the humanoid robot creature referred to Asimo. Asimo is an advanced robot who stands about four foot tall and is capable of self mobilization, sound recognition, body language recognition, as well as the ability to do simple tasks. Can you say conspiracy? Today McDonalds has an automated drink conveyor belt. How long before there is a team of Asimo robots manning McDonalds. Obviously McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner and Honda CEO Takeo Fukui are developing a technological takeover of the fast food corporation…..Ok you’re right I have no proof that Honda and McDonalds have any relations what so ever. I don’t have any hard evidence…………except that in June of 2000 Honda and McDonalds teamed up in Australia for a contest where Honda automobiles were the grand prizes. The game pieces were of course conveniently located on McDonalds Food products such as the large and medium drinks, shakes as well as fries. Hmmm…seems to me the seeds have been sewn for beautiful disastrous relationships that will no doubt bring the other fast food companies to their knees. Just imagine all the human McDonalds workers…unemployed, banished, nay…replaced by Asimo robots. Pure efficiency in work. Sadly however as we all saw in the recent irobot movie starring Will Smith, the machines may very well rise. What if these cute little Asimo robots follow the road of the robots in the movie? What if they turn on the world? Ok, you’re thinking big deal, a couple of crazy four foot tall robots. Sure, but you haven’t considered the grandeur of the situation. OBVIOUSLY, the robots won’t turn at first, they’ll be well developed and they will have replaced all human workers in the McDonalds chain worldwide. Those several cute and crazy robots quickly jump to an entire army of savage robots. There are over 31,000 McDonalds worldwide, and an excess of over a million and a half workers….or in this scenario, blood thirsty savage killer robots. That’s an imminent threat people. Imagine Asimo’s running throughout the community spurting hot French fry grease at innocent children. Or even worse…grease plus flame equals flamethrower. Imagine people running in terror from the little robots picking them off one by one….oh yeah in that day and age the robots would be advanced enough to have superhuman strength, speed, and communication….and probably build in rocket thingies for weapons….that’s granted. I say we trash all the technological innovations in the food industry. Let’s bring it down to basics. One man, a grill, and a plan. That’s what I think we need to do. I don’t want future family line to be killed violently by power hungry robots. You won’t have to worry about the cholesterol from the food killing you…you’ll be more worried about the robots. I say instead of jumping on the next quickest way to make your drink faster we go back to the good ole reliable system of manpower. It’s the right thing to do for McDonalds, the fast food industry, and yes…the world. For when the millions of robots attack it’s obvious that Resistance is McFutile.

Vegetarian's dirty little secrets

Food is yummy. I like it a lot. I’m your typical meat and potatoes kind of guy. Give me a nice juicy steak, a big honking pork chop, or even a nice chicken breast…and I’m a happy guy. Carnivore…that’s me. However on the other side of the metaphysical coin are vegetarians. They may or may not enjoy meat, however they’ve decided for whatever reason, that they don’t want to eat the animals. I respect this…or at least I did respect it. I did some deep thinking and realized something. Vegetarians are cold blooded killers. Ok… just a second…no need to write those emails or post those comments just yet….just hear me out here. I do have a point. I swear. I mean that wouldn’t be very good for someone to make an outrageous claim that vegetarians are cold blooded killers without some logic hiding somewhere. I can hear the arguments already. “Vegetarians aren’t killers we don’t kill the animals, people who eat animals are killers…if not directly they support the cause by eating meat, therefore supporting the killing of animals.” This is partially true. Among the carnivore sector of the human race there are indeed those hypocritical people who scold hunters…however eat meat. My good friend Mike is a devoted hunter and is definitely a pro-hunting activist. He makes the previous point quite often. If you’re going to eat meat you have no right to complain about an animal getting slaughtered for eating or consumption purposes. Given this point, I feel I must give vegetarians credit. Not only are they against the killing of animals for food, but they back up the talk by walking the walk. Good for you, I think that’s great…I really do. However I invite you to take a step over the edge for a moment…to a place I like to call…..”Outside of the box”.

Perhaps there is great harm being done to animals by Vegetarians. That’s right; perhaps the vegetarians aren’t quite as innocent as they’d like to believe they are. What exactly do animals eat? Let’s see here…well there’s grass, vegetables, plant life, fruits, grains, and other animals. I’d say that is a pretty accurate depiction of an animals diet give or take depending upon the carnivorous or herbivorous nature of the animal. Why does this matter you ask? Well bare with me here. What is known to be found in salads? I know from personal experience that you can easily find lettuce, tomatoes, and green peppers. I also know that there are often croutons in salads, croutons of course containing your bread or grain portion of the food pyramid. Occasionally in salad you will find fruit of some type, an even the occasional lemon grass or humus. You can even find meat in salads, be it pieces of ham and bacon, if not other animals. What does it all mean you ask? It’s simple. Vegetarians are eating…with the exception of other animals…exactly what the animals they love so much are eating! Vegetarians are stealing all of their precious animals’ food. Think about a poor momma bunny gathering food for the young. Only momma doesn’t have much luck. You see the garden the mommy bunny has been sneaking carrots from has been emptied by the humans. That’s right a look inside the kitchen window shows a huge salad as the center piece of the dining room table. All the humans gathered around getting ready to indulge in the homegrown salad complete with tasty lettuce and carrots. Cut to the other side of the window…the mommy bunny watches the family rip into the carrots and lettuce. It’s getting cold outside now and the baby bunnies back at home will surely be starving. Where’s mommy bunny. She’s looking in the window watching what would have been her babies dinner get eaten by these greedy vegetarians. A tear slowly runs down the furry face of the mommy bunny. Looks like her babies will spend another night without delicious carrots…or scrumptious lettuce. Momma bunny can only hope her babies will have enough strength to make it through another cold cold night.

Vegetarians are slowly starving their beloved animals to death. By consuming the identical foods that they consume animals are loosing they’re food sources. Don’t think so? Well look at mad cow disease. How does this whole phenomenon begin? Cow cannibalism. That’s right; cows…out of food desperation. Resort to cannibalism. Now a vegetarian may argue, “Hey but you’re killing the animals because you eat them!” To this I say, yes I eat animals because I’d much rather see an animal come to a quick death then to take the path of the vegetarian and slowly starve the animals to death. I don’t believe in torturing the animals. I think that a quick painless death is the way to go. I also don’t believe in eating all the animals’ food. I don’t sit at home eating all my cats’ cat food in front of her while I mock her. Of course not…that’s just wrong. I eat animals, so that animals can continue to have food. I’m eating the animals for their own good. I’d rather have a quickly and humanely killed tasty bunny in my tummy then look upon a den of dead baby bunnies, starved to death by the well intentioned family of vegetarians.

This folks is satire. However upon doing some research I did however find interesting articles about myths of vegetarianism. As I mentioned before I do enjoy eating meat. However I also enjoy the occasional salad. I don’t truly believe that vegetarians are cold blooded killers. I think it is important to bring to light some of the ways livestock are treated at huge corporate slaughter houses, where there is no purpose of life for the animals other then death. It is an issue. That is why I think it is important to promote the consumption of organically raised meat products. Animals that have been raised with organic foods and without all the chemicals found in the large corporately run slaughter houses where profits are the only concern. In closing, eat what you want to eat…but I’d stay away from the cannibalism though.

Fun foods...past and future

Food. We hunger for it and we need it to sustain life. In the
beginning, for mankind, the act of eating was a brutal means of
extending your bleak life. From hunting down the saber-toothed or
mastodons to ripping into the cold uncooked flesh. Needless to say,
we've come along ways as far as the human race goes. So far that not
only is food easily available without all the work of hunting it or
staring…but now food has become associated with fun! I say this
because now we're doing amazing things with food that our hair-covered
ancestors would have never dreamed of. I came to this realization the
other day at work. I was tearing into a bag of funyuns…which is of
course onion ring flavored snacks. I thought to myself. John…which is
strange because my name is actually Travis…but hey it's MY internal
monologue and that's none of your concern...oh I know what you're
thinking…this guy is crazy right...well think what you will but I will
not be oppressed. Let's see where was I here. Ah, yes. So upon eating
these funyuns I was AMAZED at how much these lovely snacks actually
tasted like onion rings. Not only did they taste like onion rings, but
they sincerely looked like them. It's incredible that food and science
has come as far as to imitate onion rings as accurate as this. I then
pondered…if making "onion ring-esque" snacks weren't enough. Somebody
actually invented the onion ring. How did that come about I wonder?
Well it's funny that I ask…the onion ring has a bit of controversy
surrounding its invention. Much like terrorist acts, there are two
parties laying claim to inventing the onion ring. Now let me rephrase
this slightly, there are two parties laying claim to "DEVELOPING" the
onion ring. Apparently one party a Mr. Sam Quigley began the process
of perfecting the onion ring in 1955 where eventually he sold them in
small amounts in his Nebraska storefront. The other story of
development claims that Pig Stand Restaurants a food chain with Texas
origins, invented the onion ring in 1920's. Ok you're probably
wondering the same thing I'm wondering. How in the world did someone
think to invent the onion ring? Well…I did some digging. According to
the Pig Stand Restaurants' history, it was an accident. Apparently in
1929 a clumsy cook accidentally dropped a ring of onion destined for a
hamburger into a bow of batter. Then he thought for a second and
picked it up, threw in vegetable oil. And there you go...the onion
ring. Now I have some doubts about the creditability of this account
because the same source also claims that The Pig Stand Restaurant was
the first restaurant to offer the following things: Curb side drive in
service, the first restaurant use of neon lights, air-conditioning in
restaurants, as well as the first use of fluorescent lighting. Oh but
wait there's other food innovations that sprung from the seemingly
common restaurant. Texas toast is another credited to a Mr. Royce
Hailey...a former carhop turned food inventor. Not long after the
creation of Texas toast, Hailey struck again when a breaded and fried
piece of steak found it's way between two buns and became ever known
as "Chicken Fried Steak". Now this source conveniently states that Mr.
Royce Hailey, food visionary never thought to trademark any of his
ideas therefore the fame spread of his creation, unfortunately no
credit. Nor money followed. I understand though Mr. Hailey…you are an
ARTISTE! Money was not your motivator; it was the love of the food. I
think that counts for something.
Now that was a long way to go to find out the story behind the onion
ring, nonetheless I'm going to bring the pondering back around full
circle now. Food is now thought of as fun. Do you think that people in
the 1950's would have dreamed of having multi-colored ketchups? What
about Smucker's Goober spread…which is of course the peanut butter
together in the same jar. Would our grandfathers have dreamed of spray
butter? How about Lunchables, the quick meal in a box, which kids
love. I guess my point is that food has grown beyond being a necessity
for living; it's become almost a toy. The marketing of food now has a
creative team. "Gee bob I wonder if you could some how actually put
mosquitoes into mesquite bbq sauce...then have "now with real
mosquitoes" on the label".
I'm not so sure that I have any problems with creative and fun food, I
mean, I'm a creative person and respect intelligent creative thinking.
I think I'm more concerned that the food industry is running out of
real work and that their now playing god with our somewhat simpler
foods. Don't believe me…. well perhaps you don't remember the square
watermelons that the Japanese were toying with? What scientific
purpose are experiments like that serving anyways? Food can be fun,
that's for sure, but when you have to spend that much time making food
fun, That's when I begin to get worried. I get worried what the future
of food ideas may hold. Who's going to be the next food visionary such
as Mr. Royce Hailey, who will bring the next food innovation into this
great world? Whose name will forever live in…well I guess not fame...I
had to do a lot of research to find out about Mr. Royce Hailey…so to
rephrase once again…. Whose name will forever live buried deeply in
google search results…as a food visionary? I simply do not know.