#happyhour

May 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I think we all need to have a frank conversation about what exactly constitutes happy hour because quite a few food establishments have been taking that name in unholy vain.

Happy hour is a magical time of the day where reduced-price cocktails and select food items are to be consumed with glee and abandon. You know what it’s not the time for? Frappuccinos, Taco Bell slop and alcohol-free sugar bombs. Ain’t nobody got time for that when they’re trying to get their happy hour on.

Don’t you see? These restaurants are trying to trick you! They’re playing off the incomparable happiness you feel when you hear the words “happy hour” and I for one am appalled.

starbucks happy hour

(via)

First of all, a two hour happy hour is a weak move anyway, Starbucks. And being amped up from the caffeine, but also lethargic from the pound of sugar you just consumed is exactly the opposite of how I want to feel during happy hour.

taco bell happy hour

(via)

Taco Bell is really trying to bamboozle us with those drinks that are definitely supposed to look like real cocktails. WE CAN SEE THROUGH IT GUYS. I will say though that these mocktails seem like they could be pretty OK receptacles for the adult treat of your choice, but it’s still a mockery of happy hour. You already know how I feel about those grillers.

sonic happy hour

(via)

What Sonic is doing here is particularly cruel when you consider the fact that we’re constantly bombarded with their commercials but actual Sonic restaurants don’t seem to exist anywhere but four or five states. ALSO “hours may vary by location.” WTF is that? That is not how it works, homies.

Let’s make this clear guys, happy hour this ain’t. Please stop sullying the name of my favorite time of the day with your sham marketing.

-K

Filed Under: Food

#dominoslive

May 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The marketing team at Dominos deserves some sort of vacation or detoxing getaway because they’re really pushing it with their latest ploy: Dominos Live.

dominos live

(via)

You will soon be able to watch a live stream of the pizza making process at a Dominos location in Salt Lake City, Utah. “Why would I want to watch that? Why Salt Lake City, Utah?” you ask. Well I got nothing for ya because none of that makes any sense to me either.

dominos live

Take your pick of five cameras and watch, from start to finish, as we make delicious oven-baked food. And because this is a real store, we’ll be busiest between 7:30pm ET/4:30pm PT and 12:30am ET/9:30pm PT

I mean, just why? I sort of understand the appeal of watching your personal pizza be made, if there is literally nothing else going on in your life, on television or the internet. But even then, if I wanted to be that involved in the process, I’d just make the damn pizza myself.

I will admit that the online Dominos tracker they have now can be pretty entertaining. I used to answer the door already knowing the delivery person’s name and would ask them how the person who made the pizza–Bob/Joe/Whoever, was doing. After a few times though, the weirdo, stalkerish novelty of it all wore off quickly.

I really hope that Dominos Live is not the future.  Note to other restaurants: Uh uh. Resist please. I understand that the idea behind this is that we’ll get to see that Dominos pizza is, in fact, handmade with fresh ingredients blah blah blah, but honestly, when I’m ordering pizza from Dominos, freshness is just not my main concern. Let’s be real, if we cared how Dominos pizza was made, we probably would’t be eating it. Ignorance is delicious, delicious bliss.

-K

Filed Under: Food, Why is this a thing? Tagged With: , ,

#budweiser

April 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Budweiser has really been doing a lot lately with their marketing tactics. I mean, is it really that difficult to sell cheap beer to  20-somethings when it’s available literally everywhere they’re bound to be?

This time, Budweiser is testing out a social media cup and the poor beer drinkers of Brazil are the lab rats. The Budweiser Buddy Cup is linked to your Facebook account and when you toast your glass with another person’s Buddy Cup, you automatically become Facebook friends.

Budweiser Buddy Cup

Oh man, where do we begin?

Budweiser Buddy Cup

I’m sure we’re all eager to be drinking out of something wired with electronic hardware, no? Nothing inopportune could ever come from that, right?

Budweiser Buddy Cup

The Buddy Cup makes the ridiculous assumption that your Facebook friends are automatically your actual friends, which was perhaps true in 2007 but I think we all know that that ship has sailed.

Budweiser Buddy Cup

What if you toast with someone’s cup and later realize that they’re a creepy rando who can now stalk you on Facebook and download all your pictures? Even worse! What if you accidentally bumped glasses with someone and didn’t realize? HOW IS THIS EVEN LEGAL?

Baseline and all other concerns aside, this is just dumb. Imagine waking up after a night out and realizing that you decided to pour it up with half the bar and now they’re all writing on your Facebook wall and posting stupid pictures of you. WE DON’T NEED THIS.

Considering that the Buddy Cup is quite obviously directed at the millennial generation, I am quite offended.

Budweiser Buddy Cup

TOASTING DOES NOT NEED AN UPGRADE. We’re good! We’ve got it, yo. If Budweiser is saying that we can’t even make friends while we’re drinking without the help of technology, then we have much bigger issues at hand.

-K

Filed Under: Food, Why is this a thing?

#subway

April 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

POP QUIZ GUYS: What in holy hell is this?

jarvis jones sandwich

If you guessed: “A Subway sandwich sculpture of NFL draft prospect Jarvis Jones” then, sadly and oddly, you would be correct.

Sweet everloving Jesus this thing is HORRIFYING. Subway, was this really the best way to to represent Jarvis? Because honestly honestly, a cardboard cutout would have sufficed. Or just a really big sandwich not molded to look like him. Or you could have just named a sandwich after him. Or a whole laundry list of other things that won’t give grown adults nightmares.

I don’t really know who this Jarvis guy is, but I’m guessing he’s pretty good because Subway clearly wanted to get on that gravy train rurrrl quick.

jarvis jones subway

To their credit, it really does kinda look like him–although someone at Subway needs to work on their hair braiding skills because his real locs are way more dope than that. Jones told Bloomberg News that they used raisins for his hair and onions for his eyes. God help us all if they ever reveal what pliable, grayish meat they used to construct his face. The barbecue sauce lip gloss is a nice touch though. #poppin

I find it utterly hilarious that they made him wear an actual Subway polo because if I didn’t know better, I would have guessed that this guy was selected as Employee of the Month.

Let’s also take a moment to recognize that this thing is enormous:

jarvis jones subway

What are they doing with it when they’re done parading it around daytime televsion? Would you eat this? DOES JARVIS HAVE TO EAT IT?

Jarvis, homie, I hope you’re getting some boucoup money for this terrifying shit

-K

Filed Under: Food, Sports Tagged With: , , , ,

#pizzahut

April 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I no longer play video games for the same reason I no longer do homework–I am not 16 and I graduated from high school. However, some of you do and Pizza Hut and Xbox have set their sights on your money and possibly your self respect.

Pizza Hut and Xbox are launching an app for the Xbox 360 that will allow you to place a pizza order directly from your Xbox console. NEAT! Because we all know how difficult and time consuming it is to order pizza using your phone or computer these days.

pizza hut and xbox

(via)

On one hand, this is brilliant because I’m quite certain avid Xbox users ain’t hankering for a salad; but do we really want to make life THIS easy, guys?

We’re going down a slippery slope. Ordering calorie parties while playing a sedentary game that sucks you in for hours and hours of inactivity? I know we’re basically already able to do with our computers and smarts phones but don’t we have to draw the line somewhere?

The Pizza Hut for Xbox app makes the chain’s entire menu accessible to users, who can then build their own customized pizzas and place orders via Kinect motion controls, voice commands or the controller.

Holy hot hell. VOICE! You can just lay there on your bean bag chair and roll your neck around like a newborn baby and have a pizza delivered to your lap? What is this? The future!?

After submitting an order, users can share their choice with friends via Facebook.

Nope nope nope. No one cares. No one cares that you’re eating pizza and they for damn certain don’t care if you ordered it through an app without disrupting your eight hour Halo-thon. Do not post this.

The real issue here is that Xbox partnered with Pizza Hut–the company that continues to sully the name of pizza around the globe. Was Domino’s not available?

-K

Filed Under: Food, Why is this a thing? Tagged With: , , ,

#budweiser

April 18, 2013 by 1 Comment

Budweiser is being rurrrrl extra, yo. Your favorite beer to chase tequila shots with introduced what they’re calling the “World’s Most Unique Beer Can” as if breweries all over the world have been breathlessly competing for this title.

So what’s the big catch? It’s shaped like a bowtie:

ANHEUSER-BUSCH BUDWEISER BOWTIE CAN

(via Budweiser)

 

Wooooot woooot!? Umm ok, sure. Apparently the bowtie is an homage to Budweiser’s “iconic” logo. Did you know that Budweiser’s logo was a bowtie? Because I certainly did not. I’m guessing that anyone drinking Budweiser with any regularity probably isn’t paying close attention to its formalwear choices.

But here we are. I imagine you’ll be seeing a lot of these at your summer bbqs and other outdoor drinking activities because people lose their minds over novelty shit. Budweiser is calling the can “innovative” because they have absolutely no idea what that word means.

The only real exciting thing here is that the bowtie-shaped cans will be sold in eight, YES EIGHT, packs which is something I can get down with assuming that the price is the same as a six pack. Otherwise, what the hell is the point?

All this is really going to do is make it easier for bros to crush beer cans on their foreheads–they’ll have way more leverage now. So there’s that.

Budweiser is very excited about this announcement–much more so, I’d like to point out, than they were for the launch of the far superior Straw-Ber-Rita.

“This can is certainly a conversation starter: eye-catching, easy-to-grip, trendy and – according to our research – very appealing to young adults,” McGauley said. “It’s a beer can like no other.”

Young adults! Because getting them to drink moderately-priced beer is such a challenge?

By far, the most important thing about this announcement was that the press release TOTALLY buried the lede:

In other packaging innovations on the horizon in the U.S. for Anheuser-Busch, the company is announcing it is test-marketing in 10 states a new 25-ounce can that replaces a 24-ounce serving – giving consumers an additional ounce of beer. Sales of this new can will begin this summer.

AN EXTRA OUNCE! This is the real news, guys. Of course I’ll buy your silly shaped can if you put an extra ounce of beer up in there. Someone pick me up an eight-pack!

-K

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: , , ,