sanchez donates dogs (link)
10.28.09 - ny post - by mark cannizzaro

i don't follow pro or college football all that much, but i do follow the news & if you're a new yorker who follows the news, it's almost impossible to have not heard of the NY jets rookie quarterback mark sanchez. for now, the new york papers friggin love him. before he'd even stepped foot on the field for an NFL game, he was a multi-millionaire with a $50 million contract. since he's one of those uber-sexy quarterback types, he appeared in GQ back in may & had been dating sports illustrated swimsuit hottie hilary rhoda, who'd appeared with him in the GQ spread. in my outsider's opinion, he's basically tom brady, but not as good & with less super bowl rings and, at the moment, less swimsuit models. i'm confident he'll one day get a swimsuit model of his own.

this past weekend, sanchez & the jets were out in oakland for a game against the hapless raiders & since the raiders are awful, the jets ending up blowing them out 38-0. by the fourth quarter, the jets were relaxed, so much that the tv cameras caught sanchez eating a hot dog on the sidelines, which is apparently a sports ettiquette no-no. he's young & didn't know any better, but according to the ny post, he's trying to take his silly mistake & "turn it into a positive" by donating "500 hot dogs and 500 hamburgers through a&p supermarket to the community soup kitchen of morristown, nj." i'm not sure why he chose morristown of all places, but he's probably made a lot of folks happy. i can't wait to see what he donates when he gets caught out late one night with a hooker.

head coach rex ryan feels that sanchez has handled the hot dog incident fine, but since he's "an old-school football guy," he's still sort of disappointed in his rookie quarterback. "it is unfortunate. we have a great game, run for 300-some yards, have a breakout game, a 38-0 score, get a shutout, and now the focus is on the hot dog." don't pat yourself on the buck that much. you were playing the raiders. i heard that they lost to a high school team two weeks back. can you really blame the media for focusing on a hot quarterback eating a hot dog?

to complete your day, the windows 7 whopper (link)
10.22.09 - cnet - by scott stein

it's official, geek faces. yesterday, microsoft finally unleashed windows 7, their latest & greatest operating system, on the world. from what i've read, this time, rather than adding a bunch of useless, buggy crap to their new release, they focused on improving & streamlining what they had. that's right. as of yesterday, if you wanted to upgrade your pc's OS, all you had to do was hop on a torrent site & grab yourself a free copy. thanks, technology! we need to get excited people! this weekend, you should throw a windows 7 torrenting party to celebrate!

since they love new technology in japan, they're wicked excited about windows 7. according to cnet, to commemorate the release, japan's burger kings started selling "windows 7 whoppers" yesterday. the sandwich is seven patties & five inches tall & when they introduced it, it was "for a special price of 777 yen ($8.50); at least, for the first 30 customers." burger king's been known for pulling some slightly inappropro promo stunts over the last decade or so & this one has to be up there in the top three.

as cnet points out, it's interesting that they're pairing an OS "touted as 'leaner and meaner'" with a gut-busting sandwich. seriously, i don't see how anyone but kobaishi could eat this thing. as it is, a triple whopper has 1160 calories, so the windows 7 whopper has to be somewhere in the 2500 calorie range. that's like a whole day's worth of calories for a salary man. on a related note, the this is why you're fat book comes out next tuesday. i guess the windows 7 whopper won't be featured until their next book.

report: nkorea opens 1st fast-food restaurant (link)
07.25.09 - the ny times - by ap

hans brix? oh no! oh, herro. great to see you again, hans! why don't you come in & enjoy one of our tasty north korean hamburgers? excuse me...north korean "minced beef & bread." they're really tasty & wouldn't you much rather have a tasty minced beef & bread than worry about which countries have nuclear technology & which ones don't? which ones are letting inspectors in & which ones aren't? which ones need to have people-crushing sanctions imposed on them & which ones don't?

that's right, folks. last month, with the help of a singaporean company, north korea opened up pyongyang's first fast food restaurant. it looks like your average fast food joint, but as the times reports, the menu at the restaurant--samtaesong--"is careful not to call its signature fare a hamburger--lest it give the impression north koreans had embraced the american icon." i know the hamburger's an american icon & all, but i really hope that north koreans aren't over there behind the il curtain, thinking that americans dine on is hamburgers. we're so much more than that. we also like fries with our burgers.

the average north korean can't even afford to eat there, what with the messed up economy & food shortages & whatnot that the country's having. the times notes that "the minced beef and bread at the new fast-food restaurant costs only $1.70...but that would eat up more than half of the average north korean's daily income. south korea's central bank put last year's average per capita income at $1,065." it's too bad, really. the restaurant also has kimchi, waffles & draft beer & "plans to add croissants and hot dogs to its menu in the coming months." it's like a smorgasbord of food items with no discernable theme...except for the NOT AMERICAN theme. after all, we are basically the devil or something & nobody wants a devil-themed restaurant...or do they?

critics cringe at ad for burger king's latest sandwich (link)
06.30.09 - fox news - by joshua rhett miller

over the past decade, burger king's really been vying for our attention by putting their all into creating some of the wildest & craziest fast food marketing campaigns around. a few years back, they launched the subservient chicken website, which totally went viral. they created a campaign on facebook that rewarded people with a whopper if they removed ten friends from their friend list. late last year, they released a body spray that smelled like meat. now, as part of a limited time promotion in singapore for the "bk super seven incher," they've released an ad that's topped them all in terms of its shock value.

...& if you're fox news, burger king has gone too far. the ad "shows the 'mind-blowing' sandwich near the open mouth of a wide-eyed, red-lipsticked woman accompanied by the suggestive tagline: 'it'll blow your mind away.'" as always, when fox news thinks that somebody's gone too far, they've launched what's obviously a "fair & balanced" investigation into the matter & gone to "advertising experts" to get their "fair & balanced" opinions. who are these advertising experts? blogger & ad copywriter mark duffy, scott purvis of the marketing & advertising firm gallup & robinson and mark crispin miller, an nyu professor of media studies. they were all totally shocked & appalled.

their complaints? duffy said it's "among the "worst" he's ever seen in more than 17 years" and noted that since the woman's face in the ad & the sandwich appear retouched, "they obviously didn’t hire a top-notch food photographer." purvis felt that it went too far & is "the kind of ad you might see for a smaller brand trying to get itself noticed." mark crispin miller was quoted as saying that "this is objectionable because it's outrageously exaggerating the pleasure of burger king. it's not that good, even as food, and therefore nowhere near as gratifying as an orgasm. there's no doubt they intended a double entrendre (sp)."  really? burger king's not as good as an orgasm? there's no doubt that they intended a double entendre? i can see why he's a professor...the dude's obviously a genius.

i'm not saying that objectifying women in a fast food ad is a good thing, but it isn't really any different than many other ads out there.  it's just being more blatant in its sexual connotations. plus, as a burger king spokeswoman said in the article, "this print ad is running to support a limited time promotion in the singapore market and is not running in the u.s. or any other markets. the campaign is supported by the franchisee in singapore." it's a limited time promotion in singapore, people. get over it.  that is, unless fox news has already got you all riled up about it, in which case you should probably turn off fox news, get off your couch, scribble up a sign & go to your local burger king to demand that they pull the ad...& since it's not running anywhere in the u.s., a swift victory will be yours.