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Let me preface this story by stating that never before in my life have I eaten fondue. As I am always open to new things, I decided it couldn’t hurt to try this peculiar style of food preparation. After all, many people that I had spoken with had nothing but good things to say about fondue. So, without much hesitation, I threw on a sweatshirt and walked out the door to the waiting car.

The place we were headed to was The Magic Pot Fondue Bistro in Edgewater, NJ. Now, for those who don’t know, Edgewater isn’t exactly the nicest place on Earth, but that’s understandable as it’s right near New York City. We pulled into a municipal parking lot and walked across the busy traffic on River Road. The moment we walked in, I knew that I was completely out of my element. To begin with, I was wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, an orange ‘Goat Brothers’ t-shirt from the Goodwill store, and a pair of Jnco jeans that I’ve likely had for years. Looking around at all the die-hard yuppie scum, I quickly realized that I had seemingly stepped into the wrong restaurant. We were seated and given menus, at which point I noticed a single line of text glaring at me from the front page of the menu, taunting me: you are welcome to bring your own wine.

At this point, I started to get very concerned. Not only did this place seem like a place that Hummer driving middle aged men would take a lovely twenty-two year old intern, but they didn’t even serve alcohol. This point is worth discussion — what kind of classy place doesn’t have a bar? Seriously, if they sold the wine on premesis they’d make a killing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that anything else at this place would have been better, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

As I mentioned, I had never tried fondue before. So, I told the people I was with to order something for themselves that I could then try. The waitress came back and first took our drink order — I think she was a little bit miffed that five of us asked for water. Frankly, I was afraid to order anything else considering the prices on the menu. Upon bringing back our beverages, we placed an order for an appetizer. Literally, it took about three minutes to order. During this time, the waitress was pressuring us to buy two of the most expensive meals on the menu. When we told her what we wanted, she once again reminded us that ‘the best thing to do’ was order this ridiculous $88 platter — not just once, but twice. The people I was with seemed to have a hard time telling her no, so I told her to come back in a minute. In any event, when she came back, she once again tried to pressure us into buying two of these $88 meals. We just told her no and placed our order anyway.

Who ever knew that it took so long to grate cheese? We sat waiting for about fifteen minutes before our waitress came back out with grated cheese, bread, and apples. Yes, apples. Whoever thought to mix apples and cheese is completely retarded. One of the cheeses was very much like any kind of sharp cheese that you could buy at a supermarket. The other cheese was Gruyere cheese. The smell of this nutty, yet picante cheese made my friend Mike vomit. Once again, I will reiterate that he vomitted from the smell alone. This, mind you, was only the appetizer. At this point, my favorite food was the slices of apple, without being tained by cheese.

Another half hour at the least had passed before our entrees were brought out. Of course, this is when I found out that the entree consisted of uncooked — not undercooked — but uncooked meat, plus sliced mushrooms and broccoli, which could then be dipped in a broth. We ordered the beef. It was not impressive. In fact, the best part of the entire dinner was taking the slices of mushroom, boiling them for a moment, and then dipping it in this indeterminate sauce that resembled teriyaki. Everyone else ordered desert, but I was, at this point, thoroughly unimpressed by everything else, so I just drank my water. This brings up a good point — you are welcome to bring your own wine to this place, right? What if you bring the Lord Jesus Christ, and he turns the water into wine, right on premesis. Is that acceptable?

In any event, to summarize our experience at The Magic Pot Fondue Bistro, it took too long to drive there, we waited too long to place our order, the waitress was pushy, the bar was non-existant, the odor of the appetizer caused a member of our party to vomit, the best part of the meal was the vegetables and teriyaki sauce (which would have probably cost about $4 at a supermarket), the meat was presented raw, and, to top it off, the place was filled with yuppie scum that seemed intimidated everytime the miscreant (myself) would stand up. Those yuppies would have been the only people that could afford a place that was as ridiculously overpriced as this. What cost so much anyway, you cook your own food, so there aren’t even any chefs to pay!! Final rating: 0 / 10 stars, I will never go there again nor recommend it to anyway.

In closing, I am reminded of a scene from Stealing Harvard (2002).

“What’s this?”

“Its Gruyeres cheese. It’s good.”

“Oh is it good? Is it nutty yet picante in flavor, aged for 2 years and from the Gruyeres region of Switzerland? I know what Gruyeres is. I’ve been to Gruyeres!” (Throws cheese at her)

“Gruyeres is in France…”

Black Friday — the epitome of consumerism and materialistic prostitution. To some, Black Friday is a day in which all holiday gift shopping must be accomplished with no exceptions. For others, Black Friday is a day to seek revenge on the corporate whores that exploit the average individual’s wallet the other 52 weekends each year.

This year, there were reports that dedicated shoppers (or, colloquially, total losers) were present and waiting patiently at the gates of the mall since 3AM. By the time I arrived at 6AM, I was shocked to find that not only was the parking lot in the Palisades Center approaching capacity, but also that the underground parking garage was locked down completely, with scores of holiday shoppers immigrating into the mall’s cavernous hallways. [Read more →]

Yes, we have updates for McDonald’s Monopoly 2008

The online version of the game may be vulnerable to giving out unlimited free game plays if a user clears their flash cookies.

Click here to read more about how to clear Flash cookies to possibly play McDonald’s Monopoly free

LAST UPDATED: 10/26/2004 @ 20:00 EDT. The 12th of October was a special night for me. As a loyal customer of McDonalds and avid connoisseur of fast food, I pulled into the drive-thru intending to get a dollar menu snack complemented with the obligatory large diet soda. As I opened my window to exchange payment and retrieve my order, my eyes opened wide and I gasped excitedly. The cup I was handed had a small, waxy paper object affixed to it: a peel-off game piece that could win me anything from a free breakfast sandwich to $1 million! I joked with the cashier and spoke of my fondness for the promotion, and discussed it’s history of sordid business practices.

McDonalds Monopoly was the particular promotion that we were discussing. Of course, in the past, millions of people flocked to their local McDonalds restaurant hoping to win one of many available prizes – many individuals can afford taking the chance on a cheeseburger that could make them a millionaire. Few know the tale of the marketing firm that ran promotions for McDonalds between 1996 and 2001. As it turns out, a group of eight people were arrested on peculiar charges, such as conspiracy to commit mail fraud (which is punishable by a maximum fine of $250,000 and a five year imprisonment term). What was their crime? Over the course of those six years, they usurped the winning prize pieces from public distribution and used a complex network of patsies to redeem them.

When all was said and done, they were accused of stealing a total of $12.3 Million, along with a Dodge Viper in 1996. Now, if my math is correct, forgetting that these scammers are facing time in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, they are only liable for paying a total of $2 Million in fines, far short of the amount that was stolen from the American public. I remember distinctly being a small child eagerly asking my mother to buy us McDonalds as my brother and I drooled over the missing pieces on our official game board. When I learned that the entire McDonalds Monopoly promotion had been a farce, I was crushed. I felt lied to. I also felt like this should have received greater media attention. With the 2004 Monopoly promotion now in full swing, I will dissect the game as I play it.

For more information on the McDonalds Monopoly McFraud, click here. For the official McDonalds Monopoly site, click here.

First it is useful to discuss an interesting twist to the game: as they did in 2003, McDonalds has teamed with Best Buy to put “Best Buy Bucks,” predominantly of $1 denominations, on large fries and chicken selects packaging. A few lucky folks will receive larger denomination coupons. What is particularly interesting about the Best Buy Bucks coupons is that coupons may be added up to a total of $300 during a single in-store visit. Also, each coupon contains a non-unique bar code. The bar code serves as instructions to the point-of-sale terminal to reduce the total by the denomination designated on the coupon. Interestingly, this could lead to severe coupon fraud, as a single $20 coupon could effectively be reproduced without means to trace its origin, even if the reproduction contained only the same bar code without the McDonalds Monopoly peel-off style printing. For example, a plain paper printout of an identical barcode would still function as a coupon to the cash register with no way to differentiate a ‘good’ barcode from a rogue one. This problem is exacerbated by the additional flaw resulting from the redemption scheme via BestBuy.com. Each coupon is tagged with a unique identifier that is not recorded at the store. This serial number is used to obtain a $1 credit via BestBuy.com. Since the stores accept the coupons without referencing these codes, considering that there are 78,000,000 Best Buy Bucks out there, it is highly likely that people will ‘double-dip’. These issues are worth consideration from Best Buy in the future during any type of mass-coupon distribution involving unlimited price reductions to non-specific items.

In any event, I am also interested in instant win pieces and the odds of receiving them. Below is a stem-and-leaf tally of the pieces I have received thus far.

Thursday, October 21, I learned that an online McDonalds monopoly game existed apart from the collect-and-win game that is so heavily advertised. Interestingly enough, everyone wins a computer game during the online redemption. What is particularly concerning is that the vendor of the software, WildTangent, is notorious as a spyware vendor. Even worse, I was required to register an email address to check my pieces. After redeeming the maximum of six pieces, I checked my email to find seven mails from McDonalds alone — six telling me that I ‘won’ the games by WildTangent, and another confirming that I had indeed registered to redeem game pieces. I have since changed my communications preferences via the ‘unsubscribe’ function. It will be interesting to see how McDonalds complies with my privacy wishes. Additionally, it will be interesting to see how many of the online codes redeem anything other than this software. It is my understanding that there are indeed confirmed winners of Sony mini-disc systems.

Another strange discovery today was that of the mysterious hidden game found when entering codes online. The placemats, game boards, and advertisements advise us to enter our game piece codes at playatmcd.com. On these advertisements, there is an illustration of a McDonalds Monopoly Illinois Ave Game Piece, with the code I6L6V4N4T2 (think “I’m Lovin’ It” with descending numbers in there). Well — it turns out that if one enters that code in the online redemption system, a very bizarre game can be played. Try it out and see for yourself!

Some interesting statistics, based on official McDonalds Monopoly Odds available at the official site:Odds of winning anything worth over $50 in McDonalds Monopoly: 1 in 26,559 (0.0038%).

Odds of winning McDonalds Monopoly considering Best Buy Bucks/Gift Certs, any prizes over $5 in value: 1 in 2,751 (0.036%).

Chances of winning a food prize: 1 in 8.6 (11.62%).
Chances of winning ANY prize (not including $1 Best Buy Bucks which are guaranteed): 1 in 8.573 (11.66%).
So: 99.69% of the times that you WIN at McDonalds Monopoly, you will have won a food prize such as a small soft drink or breakfast sandwich.

The question is — are you feeling lucky?

I promised that I’d get better about updating the site, and I intend to fulfill that promise. Within the last couple of weeks, I’ve received a substantial number of comments about my shirt that reads “EAT ME” in Greek letters (Sigma Delta Tau Mu Sigma). Some people here at RPI see the shirt with varied reactions. For example, I’ve had two folks ask me where I was a ‘brother’. I assure everyone that I am in fact not a fraternity brother in any form. More amusingly, perhaps, was the fact that someone also proceeded to read the shirt as “the sum of the change in temperature divided by the mass’s sum”. “EAT ME” is in fact not a mathematical equation. To those that do not immediately get the joke, I invite them to stand back and behold the glory of the “EAT ME” t-shirts.

Click here to purchase the shirt that reads ‘EAT ME’ in Greek Letters!

Since I have received so many affirmative comments regarding these, I’ve decided to just offer them for sale. The prices are a little bit steep, but that’s CafePress.com’s fault, and not my own. While you’re there, don’t forget to pick up a wall clock with my face on it — sure to brighten up any room! And ladies, there is both a girls version of the shirt and an official INeedAttention.com thong available!

The mens’ shirts are available in black/white, blue/white, and red/white (pictured). The girls’ shirts are available in black/white, pink/white, and baby blue/white. Click here to purchase one of these lovely t-shirts that boldly declare: EAT ME! to the fraternities and sororities at your school.

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So what exactly is Interrobang anyway‽

• Interrobang is business casual in it’s demeanor
• Interrobang is life; the rest is just details
• Interrobang sells records.
• Interrobang is sick mosh.
• Interrobang is unknown to the online 20 questions game (which, by the way, is today’s link of the day)
• Interrobang is here now and forever at the Winter Garden Theater

Really, the interrobang was a punctuation mark invented in 1962 as a way of combining the exclamation point and question mark. I learned of it the other night, and have since become fascinated with its history and use. So much so, in fact, that I intend to use it frequently. A quick query of the site revealed that a combination ‘?!’ character has been used in at least three articles since I started posting to the new site format. Consider this — it is technically gramatically incorrect to use such a combination of marks. There are conditions in which the English language requires the conveyance of both interrogation and exclamation. Examples include “Where the f-ck are my keys‽” or “What the hell is that green puss emanating from your cooter‽” Oh, and for you sick folks out there, a cooter is a turtle. I’ve heard stories, such as this one from Florida, about the uproarious events that transpired when a bunch of commie pinko liberals decided that cooter was a dirty word, and thus the annual cooter fest should not take place. This, my friends, is an example of the left wing equivalents of Orrin Hatch and Rick Santorum — it’s politics gone too far.