San Francisco's City Government at its "Best" - McDonald's Toy Ban

So our Board of Supervisors (or what I call the Stupidvisors) approved a law where fast food restaurants that serves higher than a set standard on fat, sugar, and other content, cannot give away free toys with their meals. Basically, the is targeting the McDonald's "Happy Meal," but can also affect other fast food chains in the city as well.

But from what this article from the Chronicle says, the owner of a majority of the McDonald's in the city found a creative way to go around it, just have the toy sold as a separate item.

I've known that this law is a joke from the start. Instead of selling a $5 Happy Meal with a free toy, just sell the meal itself for $4.99 and charge the customer an additional one cent to "purchase" the toy." In the end, it's still $5 for the meal and the toy.

Here's another way to look at the argument: Let's say buying a pack of cigarettes comes with a pack of matches free; a city law similar to the Happy Meal toy ban makes it illegal to give away the matches for free, so therefore a business can easily just "sell" the matches for a penny. If the law was different where selling matches was banned, then one can argue in court that a cake shop can't sell them too so customers can light birthday candles on their cake.

So Board of Supervisors... what's the point of the "ban" on giveaway toys in kids meals, when the way around it is so simple? Is this just a way to encourage us San Francisco citizens to go across the border into Daly City (San Mateo County) and pay a smaller sales tax?

Fast Food Tax in San Francisco?

If you thought our city has gone insane with new fees and existing ones going up the roof (like a $15 hike on a Muni Fast Pass), try this one for size: Would you pay a tax when buying food from a fast food restaurant?

Well, get ready San Francisco, you could be paying taxes for the "pickup" of the fast food trash.

The Department of Public Works wants to tax citizens for the litter on our streets, other than cigarette butts which will have a tax imposed soon for "cleanup," they claim it's the fast food.

In my opinion, I think it's a stupid idea to add additional taxes. We already pay 9.5% sales tax on the food we purchase at any establishment, so why the hell should I pay extra just because some irresponsible person littered their burger wrapper on the ground? If I bought something from a non-fast food joint, so I don't pay the tax?

Doesn't this just seem to just be a way to tell fast food establishments that they are not welcomed in our city? We don't welcome big box retailers in our city, and that plastic bag ban doesn't help too; so they spend their time opening up shop down in Daly City and Colma where the local government welcomes them with open arms, and also snatches taxpayer money from San Francisco citizens who decides it's better down south than in our city.

So what is the definition of a "fast food" chain that would be taxed? Could Costco's food court be in the same category as McDonald's, Burger King, and Carl's Jr.? How about Noah's Bagels? They serve their stuff fast and have multiple locations in the city.

OK, the city is poor. Do what you should be doing city government clowns, chase down those who didn't pay their property taxes, have multiple parking tickets, and start making your employees drink tap water instead of that bottled crap. And while you get a chance, why not take a bigger pay cut?

Hell, I'm doing all my business in Daly City. My office is just a few minutes away from the border.

McDonald's sold me an EXPIRED Fruit and Walnut Salad

If you eat at McDonald's and order the "Fruit and Walnut Salad," I highly suggest you should read the expiration date on the packaging before you leave the restaurant.

I was at the Stonestown (20th and Winston, San Francisco) location today and I ordered the salad with a breakfast sandwich. When I arrived at work, I was going to put the salad into the refrigerator and I noticed something brown with the apples and grapes. Nearly half of the apples and all the grapes were rotting.

So I flip the package and look at the front cover. It said to consume the item by "March 09" in which I feel the item is EXPIRED, like 17 DAYS EXPIRED. I think the restaurant folks thought the item expired on the last day of the month.

Well well well employees, why not FLIP THE DAMN PACKAGE OVER AND LOOK AT THE ROTTEN FRUIT before selling it?

Unfortunately, it was too late to return the item, I took it to-go and drove the item to work and my shift was about to start.

I gave a call to the national customer service center at McDonald's and told them to add an expiration year to their packaging. Since McDonald's mass packages the Fruit and Walnut Salad (they used to have each restaurant do it by hand), I think it would be easy for them to add the digits: "2009."

So look out folks when you buy that product, if you buy it this year and it says "09," you better have purchased that sometime before the 9th of that month. My advice, get the freshest fruit salad by buying it between the 1st of the month and the 9th of the month so those folks don't screw up that badly.

McDonald's the Video Game!

This has to be one of the most funniest and amusing games I've played in a while.

Plus, it's free!

http://www.mcvideogame.com/game-eng.html

I found this game while reading the "articles" of Playboy magazine and this game caught my eye because the game features you as the corp executive of McDonald's and what you have to do to feed the hungry, and make a hell of a profit. Every time I've played, I've made the company bankrupt (be careful of not going over $35,000 in debt).

The game is great, not much complaints.

Let's summarize my rants:
McDonalds... hmmm, there's what in the meat?
Wow, at least I don't work for minimum wage.

Fast Food: Choice of Words

Does anyone watch those McDonald's commercials? Their recent ad is about their new "grilled" chicken wrap.

I think it's intriguing to note that they have two different types of chicken, one called "grilled" and the other is "crispy." Seems odd that they would call the healthy one as "grilled" (a cooking style) while their other one that has a lot of fat is called "crispy" (as the texture of the product), but wouldn't it be fair to just call it "fried" because of the cooking style?

The same thing goes for KFC... the don't have the "extra tasty deep fried chicken," they've got the "extra tasty crispy chicken."

I also thought it was amusing when McDonalds changed their chicken meat in their nuggets. Their restaurant ad said that "now includes white meat!" I wonder what meat they used to use before they changed?

Sometimes I wonder about the fat content of some of the fast food stuff. Can you believe that the salads cost more and still have more fat than the popular burger (The "Big Mac," "Whopper," or that "Double Double")? What especially adds the calories and fat is the cheese, bacon, dressing, and your choice of "grilled" or (what I call) "extra greasy fried chicken."

Let's summarize my rants:
Grilled, crispy, fried???? So many choices!
What's really in a nugget?
Salad... more fat? No way!