More evil than tobacco companies? Yes!

[thistlechaser]

Go Active! The Happy Meal for adults!

At least cigarette companies aren't attempting to claim to be good for you. McDonalds is less honest than them. They're offering a "healthy" (HA HA HA HA HA) meal for adults -- a Happy Meal with a salad. Excuse me while I laugh, but their damned salads have more calories than a Quarter Pounder! Plus you get a "stepometer" (WTF? Your customers are too stupid for you to call the tool by its real name, aren't they?) to count how many steps you take per day.

Earlier this morning, before I walked off my anger, I was growling and muttering that all McDonalds should be closed. Really, what is the purpose of a McDonalds? To put the utterly worst quality food available into people? To sell food which is nothing but fat and salt? Where a single meal gives you more fat, salt, and calories than you need in an entire day?

Alton Brown said that if he had kids, he'd never, ever, ever take them to a McDonalds, and I'd have to agree with him. Despite what McDonalds claims, it cannot be part of a "healthy diet", not unless you eat nothing for the rest of the day anytime you go and eat there (and even then, that wouldn't be healthy). Why is it that a company is permitted to lie like that?

But anyway, this is America, and Americans are free to kill themselves any way they like. Oh, unless they have some advanced terminal disease and have nothing but pain ahead of them for the remainder of their life, then they have to be kept alive as long as possible.

---

Last night I saw a ten minute trailer/preview for The Day After Tomorrow, and boy does it look good! The effects were amazing! I've not been to a movie in more than a year*, but I want to see this one in the theater!

(* There's never much I want to see, and when I do find a movie I'm interested in, I can see it in other ways.)

FFXI went well last night. I went back to Sandy and cooked for a while... and now I'm nearly at the level for the next test! Arg! That means back to Windy again! Fishing went less well, but better than it had in the past. I'm at fishing 29 now, and alas, once I hit fishing 31 I have to go back and stay at Windy so I can fish in the sea there. Le sigh.

I noticed that things are selling better than they used to, I suppose because it's higher level stuff. Meatballs are flying off the shelf (though I still have like 20 stacks left to get rid of), and now pie dough is joining them. Hm. I should probably ship a bunch of the dough to el mule so that she can store it and send it back to me once I move on to apple pies.

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Alton Brown does have kids. :) Or, well, kid, a four year old daughter.

So, I haven't seen you talk about Prisoner of Azkaban yet....would you be at all interested in possibly taking in a late-late night showing at the theater with me?

So, you haven't mentioned what benefit other people have in buying the stuff you cook, or the fish, or whatever...what motivation do they have to buy your stuff? Or, do NPCs 'buy' it?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oooh, does he? Is he married as well? Funny, I thought he was single and childless!

So, I haven't seen you talk about Prisoner of Azkaban yet....would you be at all interested in possibly taking in a late-late night showing at the theater with me?

I'm excited about the movie, but I'm really unsure what I'm going to do about seeing it yet. My current plan is to get a copy of it in non-theater ways to hold me over until the crowds die down and I can see it in a not-totally-full theater of sane people. :) I suspect that in the first couple weeks, even the late-late showings will still be mobbed. If you want to see it a second time later, then that'd be cool!

So, you haven't mentioned what benefit other people have in buying the stuff you cook, or the fish, or whatever...what motivation do they have to buy your stuff? Or, do NPCs 'buy' it?

NPCs will buy anything, but for the most part they don't pay as much as PCs. It works muchly like RL: Someone goes out and gets the most basic raw materials (fish, herbs, meat, water, whatever) either through fishing or through killing monsters. They sell off that stuff and other people (cooks, or in the case of fish: the cat-girl race) use them to cook with or eat. (Eating food gives you better stats for a short time.)

Those raw materials go through many steps to get to the final/best stages. Low Level Cook might buy hare meat and cook it, resulting in grilled hare meat. Since he's low level, he'd sell it at that point (since cooking with it a much higher level). Medium Level Cook would buy the grilled hare meat and add other things, producing meatballs. Then High Level Fisher comes by and buys the meatballs (which catch only high level fish). That's one of the shorter chains.

Pies are a good example:

Someone starts out with milk (raw material). Low Level Cook buys it, adds salt and ice, and results in butter. He sells the butter.

Medium Level Cook buys the butter and adds other things, producing pie dough. Sells it off.

Higher Level Cook buys the dough and lots of other things, and produces apple pies (outstanding mage food). Sells at much profit.

I'm told that fishers drive the economy in the game -- they produce the most money and items. The cat-girl race can eat fish raw, but you can also sell it to PCs or NPCs, plus it's used in contests, special events, etc.

There is gardening as well, but I don't believe that herb production is very profitable. (Though it is fun.)

PrincessGuard Thursday!

[glaciation.livejournal.com]

You should join us for beating up baddies tonight. :)

Re: PrincessGuard Thursday!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm in Sandy, and I'll be staying there all day! Eh, night! Evening! Whatever! So if the party levels are right, I'll be happy to go! :)

Re: PrincessGuard Thursday!

[glaciation.livejournal.com]

I think we're a mix of level 20's and 21's at this point. I hear you leveled up tremendously over the weekend. Congrats! Are we still in the right range?

Re: PrincessGuard Thursday!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's perfect then! Yep, I hit 20! (Woo!) Just barely over 20 (like 400 XP above it), so I should be right in the middle of our party's range.

Yay! See you tonight! :)

[metron-ariston.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think you're exaggerating a little. Aside from the weird Taco salad thingie, the salads aren't really that bad as long as you go light on the dressing, or use your own lower-fat versions (the vinaigrette that comes with the cobb isn't that bad in terms of fat anyway.)

And, yeah, they may have more calories than a quarter pounder, but are likely to be more satisfying, too, and don't come with the near-default fries and soda. If you make it your "main meal" with some fruit of your own on the side, they're a hell of a lot better than most everything else you can get at McDonald's and many other fast food places. (I haven't even eaten one, I just checked the nutrition information.) I mean, even six hundred calories isn't that much for your main meal. Eating three of them a day (with dressing) would net you well (/well/) under 2000 calories, under twelve hundred if you skip the dressing.

*never thought she'd see the day, actually defending McDonald's*

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I closed the McDonalds window, and something about the website (funky Java?) kills my computer so I'm not going to go back there again, but it looked like a couple of the salads had more calories (of course including the dressing). But really, if someone is eating at McDonalds, do you really expect that they'd go light on the dressing or bring their own?

I have to disagree with your whole second paragraph (sorry!). I've never, ever had a "satisfying" salad in my whole life, especially not when compared to a big burger. ...okay, not *everything* in the paragraph, I agree that it's good to skip the fries and the soda. But bring their own fruit? Repeating from my first paragraph: Which McDonalds customer would? I mean, they're going to McDonalds. If you cared about your health, weight, or tastebuds, why would you go there?

*never thought she'd see the day, actually defending McDonald's*

Heehee. :)

[metron-ariston.livejournal.com]

Hah, okay, you are probably right about the average McD's consumer not bothering with eating fruit/using other dressing/etc. (Though when you said "bring an apple with them" I went Whaaa? because I haven't voluntarily eaten /in/ a fast food restuarant in ages.) But I kind of think, at least they're /trying/. And, dude, don't apologise for disagreeing!

And I, personally, really prefer a big salad with chicken and a little cheese or nuts on it over a burger. I've just never /been/ a burger fan (plus one good-sized salad fills me up as well as two burgers would... I can eat a /lot/ before I feel full some days, which is one of the reasons why I'm so fat. *does not think about the time of eating almost a pound of asparagus at once*)

I'll be stubborn and hypothesize that even with the dressing, the salad's calorie count is probably somewhere south of a burger plus fries plus Coke. However, I am lazy and don't want to go back to the site. And, really, people worry too much about calories and not about how those calories balance in terms of fat/protein/carbs and how much nutritional content they actually have. Four hundred calories from a salad with a chicken breast on it is probably better for you than two hundred from a burger with cheese.

(You know, I think the main reason I'm posting this is that Randall's has an unexpectedly delicious Greek salad that IWANTNOW and Greg's asleep so we can't go grocery shopping. *whine whine whine*)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Heehee, sorry for tempting you with Greek salads! :)

But yeah, cheese makes a lot of difference on a salad to me. And yay, if you are overweight, you can join the club! Seems like much of my flist is, so we can all be a jolly group of folks! (Jolly, hee. Want to sit on my knee, little girl?)

I'll be stubborn and hypothesize that even with the dressing, the salad's calorie count is probably somewhere south of a burger plus fries plus Coke.

Oh, I'd agree with you on that. Fries and a coke would make that side way over the salad. I was originally saying salad > burger, not burger and the other stuff.

Zoom, bedtime!