Kablammo!
The doom of a planet...Crush Punch!
McBeef
May 29, 2008Speaking of corn… Considering that the cows that provide the beef are fed a diet of corn and basically every other ingredient is sweetened with corn, you could argue that McDonald’s really serves cornburgers.
And speaking of speaking of corn, what a fortuitous billboard to drive past while having the above discussion:
????????
What is it supposed to mean? Is it some kind of puzzle where a picture of a Big Mac represents a certain value? Is it a rebus? I really can’t be sure.
The most obvious interpretation might be “100% beef”. But that would mean that “Big Mac” symbolizes zero. I doubt that suggesting McDonald’s’ flagship product equates to nothingness is what Ronald’s ad mavens had in mind.
Yet the only other plausible interpretation I could come up with [1] was “1% beef”, just outright ignoring the non-ASCII characters. [2] And that seems even more ridiculous, and even less like it would be the desired message.
But if it’s “100% beef”, it’s unclear what the percentage would be referring to. The only antecedent on the billboard itself is an entire Big Mac; buns, cheese, Thousand Island secret sauce, and all. Unless they’re making their bread out of beef these days, the overall beef percentage in a Big Mac is well below unity, regardless of whether you’re measuring by weight or volume.
…
A lot of these problems could have been avoided if they’d just used hamburger patties as zeroes, and put a huge Big Mac behind the text. Patties are a good deal rounder than entire burgers [3], so they’re a more straightforward stand-in for zeroes [4]; and equating a patty to zero wouldn’t be as belittling to the brand. Plus, the patties themselves are (or should be) an awful lot closer to 100% beef than the sandwiches as wholes.
Though now I’m tempted to try a proper hamburger sandwich (think “bread sandwich”, but with hamburgers rather than slices of bread).
[1] I’m assuming base 10 here. This billboard is from McDonald’s, after all, not Google.
[2] Is there a Unicode codepoint for “Big Mac”? How about “hamburger”?
[3] Were this a Wendy’s billboard, their square patties would present an entirely different set of problems. But that’s for a different discussion.
[4] Of course, zeroes usually aren’t perfectly round either, which I’ve been known to complain about in other advertisements. But no matter how you render your zeroes, they’re going to look more similar to hamburger patties than to hamburger sandwiches, so the point remains.
On Facebook
December 8, 2007
Blogmeme
November 13, 2007Time for a blogmeme.
» » Continue reading . . .
On comics.
October 27, 2007It’s been pointed out to me, and rightfully so, that my last post has more than a little in common with the Wondermark strip excerpted below:
While I can’t really disagree with that, there’s another comic that does a better job of summing up my life as a whole right now. It’s excerpted below:
Go ahead and read the whole thing. It really hits the nail on the head, except for minor details like the typewriter (people use computers nowadays) and the convertible (I ride a train). I’ve had Work is Hell for 12 years or so now, and of all the cartoons in it, that’s the one that’s stuck in my mind the most—especially the last panel—because it seemed like it portrayed such a singularly unpleasant and stultifying way of life. Now, though, I know better, because I’ve lived it. It’s really not all that bad… until you start thinking about it. Which, in a way, is really the whole point of the last panel.
How my time is spent
March 12, 2007or: Wasn’t Notes from Underground meant as a guide to happiness?
Doubting, qualifying, hesitating;
Waiting for the moment
to pass me by.
Dithering, agonizing, considering;
Wishing to be left alone
then wond’ring why.
Doubting, fearing, loathing;
Watching men of action make
decision look so easy.
Distracted, disgusted, defensive;
Wondering just what it is I want
then having a drink.
Getting rather sick of this.
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty
March 11, 2007So, after an enjoyable week or so in Danmark, I find myself right back where I was before I left. Hopefully I’ll have something more substantive soon, but for the moment here is a “teaser”.
Elton
November 2, 2006When I was little, I was afraid—terrified—of Elton John, because I’d seen this picture of him and he looked like some kind of horrible monster:
(The whole outfit is pretty awful, but I think it was the sunglasses that really did it.)
more coming
April 18, 2006As seen on Yahoo:
Everybody could use more coming, I figure.
Wilderness of hope
January 10, 2006So it goes.
Something glowing from inside
October 20, 2005Indeed.
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