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Observations at a Burger King
Today, while waiting for my chicken tenders and strawberry shake (more on that in a moment) at a food court Burger King, I noticed a sign that reads: “14 and 15 year olds can only bag fries”.
I immediately imagined the following scenario:
The scene: a Burger King kitchen. A manager is speaking to a new employee, who is 14 years old.
Manager: So, we’ve got some rules here at Burger King…
New Employee: [nods]
M: The first, and I can’t emphasize this enough, and most important— [pauses and peers at NE]—rule is right here. [points to sign] See that?
NE: [eyes widen, nods]
M: It says, “14 and 15 year olds can only bag fries”. Do you know why that is?
NE: Um, no…
M: See that man back there? [points to a man handling a mop with one arm, his dirty jumpsuit’s left sleeve is pinned to the shoulder] He started here back in ’62. Before the Law. The Fry Law.
NE: The fry—
M: He decided he was old enough to bag a cheeseburger. Wasn’t 16. Couldn’t hold it together. Had to give up the arm.
NE: [eyes widen]
M: So! Now we measure you for your uniform!
So, once I got my strawberry shake, the first Burger King shake I’ve had in quite some time, and started to drink it, I noticed something odd about it. It tasted good, and it seemed OK, but there was something not quite right about it. It was as though the texture was shake-like, and the flavor was strawberry-like (and good), and the thickness was decent, but the parts didn’t fit together. The sensation of drinking the Burger King shake was something akin to getting all of the sensations of a shake, but having them held together by their coincidence in time, rather than their coming from something that had all of those properties inherently; as though the taste, texture, thickness, and other attributes were applied. That doesn’t mean I didn’t drink the shake, or like it, but it was an odd sensation, let me tell you.
Thus, I dub it ‘the Burger King Simulation of Shake-Like Sensations, featuring Strawberry Stimuli’. The tenders were pretty good.
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“Two-thousand Five, Alive!”
Welcome, welcome. There are seats for everyone here, and it looks like our progress towards the End of Time is proceeding smoothly into the latest chapter, as measured by western civilization. Normally, a new year signals not much more than a big party and about three months of mis-dated checks for me. This year, something feels different. Who knows what’ll happen? I know I’m looking forward to it, particularly since we got to start it off in Philly with friends.
Our group of friends (which is really more of a loose, ever-shifting collective) congregate in one of our respective cities each New Year’s to celebrate and, now that we’ve spread out over the country, to prove that we aren’t just a bunch of web-based response programs interacting on a bboard every day. It’s always awesome, and this year was no exception. So, thus far it’s been: NYC, Burlington (VT), Philly, Boston, Ocean City (MD), DC, Philly. That’s seven years running so far.
There’s too much to cover from this year, but it was great fun. Great food, lots of good drinking, and warm weather. All with close friends and new ones. Plus, we didn’t watch a lick of New Year’s coverage on TV. In fact, we counted down using my great uncle’s watch. There was something telling about that group decision, which happened spontaneously about 5 minutes before the final countdown. Those who were aware that the countdown was being orchestrated all agreed: we’re from different time zones, and different cultures, but here we are, together. And, by being together for these few days every year as a group, we are creating our own New Year.* So, with a watch that’s been across the ocean, kept time for a group of men defending Europe, been handed down from generation to generation, and needs to be wound and set each morning, we counted down to our New Year: another cycle of seasons as friends, even as we change and grow. And together we cheered.
Maybe that’s what makes the opening to this year feel so different. Perhaps this year we won’t be watching the world move as much as we’ll be part of making it move. Here’s to that.
*I’m articulating it with perhaps a bit more cohesiveness here than was actually present that night.
Check out some of my photos in the extended entry. I’m waiting for photos from our other friends, as well.
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Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Reading Mary Roach’s Stiff reminded me of having a really great party conversation with someone who happens to have a small volume of esoteric knowledge. It’s witty, a pleasure to absorb, chocked full of anecdotes, peppered with wonderfully weird trivia, and isn’t something you’re likely to get anywhere else. But, like any party conversation, it isn’t meant to go on for too much longer than the duration of the party, which is the only flaw in this otherwise thoroughly entertaining and creepy look at how we treat ourselves after we aren’t ourselves anymore.
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Blood: The Last Vampire
There are plenty of animated films with superb drawing, and plenty with stunning computer animation, but I haven’t seen many that blend them with the effortless success of Blood: The Last Vampire, which I bought today.
The premise is well worn: there are vampires, we need to kill them. How do we do that? Well, how about an ambiguously vampirish-but-human assassin? The plot itself is fairly basic, but the execution is completely solid and visually stunning in a completely unassuming way. The simplest or most innocuous scenes often grab your eye the most. A bus turning, a plane taxiing on the runway, or the motion of the camera amongst the army base setting often cause a bigger ‘wow’ moment than the dramatic fight scenes. The more obviously dimensional computer graphics are truly integrated into the style of the production and fit seamlessly into the over production design. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen any film do it that well yet (Blood was released in 2000). It’s worth watching it just for these beautiful moments.
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Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
Prima Games’ making-of book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar is a good read and a worthwhile purchase, if you really enjoy the Half-Life series, the story of the universe Valve has created, and are interested in game design.
Unfortunately, the most interesting part of the book is also the least prevelant: the writing. While the sketches, early character, vehicle and monster models, level designs, and other visuals are gorgeous and fascinating, and provide the subject matter for the text, they are just a large collection of pretty pictures without the narrative. And, frankly, the text that is there is great.
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Toddler Cocktail Party
I’m sitting in a community coffee shop with my book, my laptop, Alisa, and lots of other people’s children. Watching the people around me, I’ve determined that cocktail parties, and really any adult social gathering, would be infinitely cooler and more fun if they ran the way small children interact when meeting each other for the first time.
Imagine, instead of sitting at the intersection of two couches in someone’s living room, trying to balance your crappy box wine in one hand and 85 cheese cubes on a dish the size of a silver dollar in the other, you were piled onto an arm chair with 3 other people. Two of you are upside down, dress/bulky sweater over your faces, another one is wandering away clutching a cup the size of their torso (possibly singing), and the last one is kind of bopping to an internal rhythm, bumping into the person next to them, who is totally cool with it.
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Airbag Industries
To celebrate a few random things, including some minor site maintenance, I’m going to bring some web-based light and goodness into your life.
It’s been a while, but I just recently rediscovered Airbag, a great blog by Greg Storey, who is funny, intelligent (or he reads that way, at least) and designs a damn nice blog.
Do yourself a favor and browse his site.
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Half-Life 2
They’re right, the critics are right. Half-Life 2 is one of the best games, if not the best, I’ve ever played. The original Half-Life is probably the only game that offered such a rich, full experience. But HL2 exceeds it in almost every way, and not merely because it’s newer. It has the crafted, focused thrills of a well-designed game, the gritty, intense roughness of combat, and the bleak, varied immensity of a ravaged Earth.
Because of this, HL2‘s greatest weakness is also its greatest strength. Valve has created a world bristling with such variety, intensity, struggle, possibility, and life, that I ache for more. I want to break the fence and drive over the mountain, smash down a new door and walk an unseen avenue of City 17, or see the rest of the Earth through the eyes of Valve. HL2 feels like the stunning beginning of something that will balloon into a universe beyond even its creators’ expectations (largely due to their openness to the gaming community and the modders). There’s no way for HL2 to encompass every desire it creates, even after exceeding so many expectations.
I’ve beaten the game over 2 times now, and I can see already that I’ll be playing it over and over for quite some time. There’s so much to cover and so many surprises that I’ll warn you before you continue reading: SPOILERS AHEAD. Don’t read below if you want to play HL2 with an unformed view.
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Never, Ever See Paycheck
John Woo’s Paycheck is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Never see it. In every way you can think of it is bad. John Woo must have been drunk or dead the entire time. Philip K. Dick’s work is getting pissed on, and it’s excruciating to watch.
That is all.
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I Am Become Gordon Freeman
Picture taken at 1:55 PM: I can smell the ashes already…
Note the bandage on index finger. I showed that motherboard who’s boss!
Just to clarify, the motherboard is the boss.
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