Useless Conversation

[Yegolev]

I don't know why.  I almost NEVER eat fast food.

I know why.  Fast food is crap.  Too much fat and sugar. 

I was going to go with "It's outside" but yours is probably better.

[Rasix]

Not sure I can go to fast food anymore at work when the Thai place nearby has my food in front of me within 5 minutes.  I usually don't even get enough time to finish my soup.  God, the wonton soup they made yesterday was heavenly.  I don't even know what the meat was in it, but it was good.

[Nebu]

God, the wonton soup they made yesterday was heavenly.  I don't even know what the meat was in it, but it was good.

Soylent green.

[Rasix]

This was more like soylent hot pink.

[Sky]

Soylent hot pink is foreskins!

[Signe]

Why that many?!

[Merusk]

The few times I've been to America outside of large cities I've been most struck by the fact that almost every restaurant is some chain fast food type place. Most of these places are horrible why are they everywhere? Also why do so many of my relatives think ihop and applebees are great places to eat?

We fear change and difference.  I wish I was kidding.

 Chain stores offer familiarity and the promise of consistent quality wherever you go.  You go to IHOP you know what the smotherered and covered pancakes are going to taste like in Sheboygan , WI because they taste the same as in Orlando, FL.   This is how McDonalds made their fortune.

You never know if the Pancakes at Mel's Diner will be the same as Norton's House of Stack's because Mel & Norton don't use the same national food processing company to ship the exact recipie to each and every store.  It's unfamiliar.. and different.. and scary.

[Yegolev]

This one is for Sky.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

[Merusk]

I completely and absolutely fucking regret not watching Shoot 'em Up earlier.  Good goddamn is that a good move.

[Pennilenko]

I completely and absolutely fucking regret not watching Shoot 'em Up earlier.  Good goddamn is that a good move.

That movie is pure awesome from start to finish.

[JWIV]

I completely and absolutely fucking regret not watching Shoot 'em Up earlier.  Good goddamn is that a good move.

Yes, yes it is.

[Strazos]

I was handed about 6 days severance yesterday, since I've already put in my 2 weeks before starting my new job in a few weeks.

It's ok, I guess, though a bit disconcerting. Also, it will be funny if my old dept gets a big project in real soon and I'm not there to take care of it. 

[Bunk]

Going back to the fastfood thing - do the masses really prefer that all of their condiments be 90% sweetener? I don't get it.

Wendy's right now is pushing their "boneless chicken wings". They are basically chicken nuggets smothered in sauce. You can get three different sauces - BBQ, Asian, or Buffalo. They taste like a mix of ketchup and cornsyrup, or hotsauce and cornsyrup in the case of the Buffaloes. They are slightly differnt colored though, I will give them that.

Not every fucking thing we eat needs to be sweetened - not my condiments, not my peanut butter, not my yogurt.

But don't give me any of that unsweetened iced tea shit.

[Yegolev]

HFCS has many other wonderful properties besides sweetening.  I'm not going to be in the office again until Tuesday, but when I get in I can list off the good things about HFCS as published by my company.  Notably, they all pertain to manufacturing.

[NowhereMan]

Food generally has been getting sweeter and relatively saltier because those are easy to produce, simple flavours that people respond well to. We're programmed to like sweet things and the more we eat them the less sensitive we are to it. Basically the flavours are easy to put in, people like them and as you get used to that kind of taste everything else seems relatively bland or unpleasant and people don't usually want to be challenged by flavours when they eat, like most things. So yeah, short answer people do like sweet, salty things because they're so used to it.

[Sky]

I had some vile things from Arby's a few months ago, stuffed jalapenos. I got some tub of vile red/pink goo and some 'bbq sauce'. The 'bbq sauce' tasted like runny simple syrup and the vile tub o goo tasted like slightly thicker simple syrup with some unidentifiable berryish tinge. Both were utterly revolting and filled with so much sweetener (I imagine HFCS though I didn't think to look as they cartwheeled into the bin) that I was left wondering what the fuck was wrong with the mainstream of humanity apparently consuming this shit.

Also, I stopped going to Arby's.

[Nerf]

That stuffed jalapeno dipping sauce is supposed to be a cherry sauce or something, so no shocker that its sweet.  Also, arby's sauce is the best stuff ever.  I would buy 55gal drums of it and put it on everything.

[Yegolev]

Funny you mention the salt, I have noticed the salt content of my off-the-shelf food to be decreasing, particularly canned soup.

Arby's Sauce is pretty good.

[NowhereMan]

It's something I've noticed over in the UK at least that there's been a general push to lower the level of salt in processed foods. Part of the reason here is the mandatory labelling of nutritional information so people can very easily see how much salt there actually is. Combined with lots of government and celebrity things pushing to tell people that salt is bad for you it's gotten a lot of companies jumping up shouting about how they're lowering salt content.

The only downside is they're doing it to crisps too and so they now all taste bland to me and salt and vinegar crisps no longer have that wonderful effect of souring my mouth and drying all moisture from it (I actually liked that about them).

[IainC]

I've mostly cut elective salt out of my diet. I try not to eat food with a lot of salt on it and I don't add any salt to anything I eat. Eating out in Germany is something of an adventure as they love their salt over here. A maultaschen os some spatzle with cheese sauce over it will have a huge amount of salt in the sauce.

[NowhereMan]

I would have to kill someone who tried to enforce that kind of diet on me. I can deal with low fat, lots of greens and everything else being healthy but you will have to claw salt from my cold, dead (possibly from a heat attack) hands.

[Yegolev]

Not a fan of the douche chips.

[Margalis]

So today I went to Frys and picked up a bunch of computer stuff and Metroid Prime Trilogy. First my credit card is rejected. Then my debit card is rejected. I end up paying by using my debit card as a credit card. (Whatever that means)

I get to my car 100 feet away from the store and there is no Metroid in my shopping cart. On the way out the door they had checked my merchandise and even remarked on me having Metroid. I figured maybe I already put it in the truck and forgot. Nope. Maybe it was stuck to another box or something. Nope. I retrace my steps back to the store thinking it has fallen out of my cart somehow and don't see it anywhere. No idea what the hell happened to it, I don't see how it could have fallen out of my cart, especially without me noticing. I talk to the guys who checked my merchandise and we all agree that it was in my cart as I left the store.

The only thing I can think is that as they checked my merch one of them picked up the box and then didn't put it back in my cart for some reason (Either took it or just misplaced it) I don't see how it could have fallen out of my cart at all, let alone without me noticing. I suppose it's possible that it was up against some other boxes at an odd angle, slipped through the cart walls, fell on the floor without me noticing and someone quickly picked it up before I came back to look for it.

I end up leaving without a copy of Metroid. I'm half expecting to find it under the seat of my car next week.

Then I decide to stop by work and my card doesn't work in the parking garage so I park in visitor parking.

So all in all it was a day of basically nothing working.

[schild]

You've turned into a magnet. Hopefully not a magnet made of cancer.

[Lantyssa]

Did you set your wallet down on one of those demagnetizer strips in supermarket check-out lines?  Or take it with you into an MRI?

[Signe]

I've heard that very strong odour can bugger up those magnetic strips, too.  Do you keep your wallet in your shoe?

[Draegan]

Maybe you brought it into a room with an NMR.

[Lantyssa]

That's what an MRI machine is.

[Yegolev]

Is the "rule of thumb" no longer available for me to use?  Because I want to.

[voodoolily]

Is the "rule of thumb" no longer available for me to use?  Because I want to.

Did you devolve over the weekend?

[Sky]

I'm opposed to the rule of thumb!

[Murgos]

I'm opposed to the rule of thumb!

Why?  Do you have tiny little thumbs?

[Brogarn]

I'm opposed to the rule of thumb!

Why?  Do you have tiny little thumbs?

I thought he was making an opposable thumb joke.

[JWIV]

Is the "rule of thumb" no longer available for me to use?  Because I want to.

You're far enough south of the mason-dixon it may still be applicable. 

[Lantyssa]

Why?  Do you have tiny little thumbs?

He's a duck, fluffing his feathers.  If he had thumbs he would have been finished eons ago.