Aside from fucking with its customers for a buck, the whole ad backfires at the moment its employees stand there, unwilling to handle customer grievances. I’m sure Burger King is trying to point out customer loyalty, but you have to wonder what kind of person would be loyal to them after watching this. Wow.

Also, not that I’m really one to care about emo bands, but does Atreyu know about the existence of this ad?

My life has been on a good streak lately, so there’s no real reason to clog it up with negativity, but these things I’m about to tell you, well, they gnaw and pick away at the very fabric of my soul….

The Italian Market = Ethnic Cuisine Amateur Hour
Over the weekend, I went to every store that carried Italian products, inquiring about panelle and arancine. I’ve been itching to have these lately, but was shocked to discover that none of the big names — Claudio’s, DiBruno Bros., Tallutos and so on — carried them. Well, half-truth: apparently Pronto, the DiBruno Bros. to-go store, carries a meat-free, wussed-out version of arancine — excuse me, croquettes. As for the panelle, looks like I’m going to have to take a trip to Bay Ridge or figure out a way to make my own recipe stop sucking.

Blogs I Can’t Fucking Read
Deep down, underneath the mania of Web 2.0, we all desire to be special snowflakes. It’s the motivation behind the countless, endless tweaks of blogs. As you may notice, I’ve fallen prey to the siren’s call time and time again. And I know I’ve put you through some lousy blog templates, but the one thing I’ve never done is made the type so small that it defies the whole reading aspect of it. So I ask bloggers, both near and far to do this for me — make your type size bigger. Please. Em, pixel, pica, point, whatevs. I shouldn’t need to create a Greasemonkey script for cleaning up your design oversight. Just nothing smaller than 11px — I don’t have health insurance, and the eyestrain is really, really taking its toll.

New Slang: “Gettin’ Honused” / “Honus Bonus”
This comes straight from my pal MTV and his sister, coined by being frequently shortchanged on coffee fill-ups by a certain barista-cum-indie-darling. If the coffee cup has way less than you paid for, you “got honused”. Similarly speaking, if your cup had an ample amount of coffee in it, you were the recipient of a “honus bonus”. Seeing the words “honus”, “cum”, and “indie” in the same paragraph = not a bonus.

Tobacco Companies & Their Marketing Ploys Strike Again
Seems like the upcoming Dinosaur Jr. show in town is being sponsored by Camel Cigarettes. It’s not being marketed that way, but if you wanted to know who’s ponying up the cash for the gig, well, there you go. I have this strong feeling that Dinosaur Jr. can command a hefty sum on their own, so why they’d want to get tangled up with R.J. Reynolds is beyond me. Looks like RJR is lobbying against a tax increase on cigs right now, anyway. Aside from the whole issue of bands being stupid enough to take this money, I wonder if RJR feels middle class indie rock yuppie types have the political clout they desperately need to make legislation like this happen. I just can’t imagine West Philly basement punks organizing a show a la Books Through Bars. Funny, I feel like I’ve been down this road before…

(Grace Slick, c. 1970. © Herb Greene)

» Good News! I’m back on WPRB this summer, beginning May 29th. I’ll be on the air every Tuesday from 5-7 PM EST. I promise to fill up rush hour with plenty of hot tunes and “witty” banter. TUNE IN TUNE IN TUNE IN TUNE IN

» Swiped from the jaws of Idolator, Street Census has a pretty great What Not To Do re: publicity. Here’s another suggestion: before you sign me up for your band/project/etc’s mailing list, introduce yourselves. Maybe it’s ego, maybe I just feel like having a clue about who’s behind the email, but nothing drives me crazier than being thrown randomly onto an announcement list.

» West Philly Food Alert: May I please praise the wonder and genius that is Tacos Don Memo (38th St bet. Walnut & Sansom)? This little food truck brings me such lunchtime joy with awesome Mexican goodies. Sometimes the wait is a little long, but the owners make it up with freebies — today I got a free tamarindo drink, other times there’s been fresh tortilla chips to nosh on during the wait. 3 tacos run you 6 bucks; the little slices of pineapple in my spicy pork are pure heaven.

» I love lolcats, Bader over at Daily Miltonian explains why.

» Twee or twee-like seems to be the order of the day: NYC’s Thee Yankee Dollar make the pixelated frequencies of modern mp3’s work in their favor — just think of it as a double-shot of lo-fi goodness. And I’ve always loved this September 67 song. I caught them a few times and while I can’t remember who they opened up for, their songs had a slight snotty edge amidst the pretty guitars that kept me listening, all these years later. Where are they now? Aaanyways, enjoy!

Thee Yankee Dollar, “Ask Me Now”
September 67, “Steve Malkmus Is A Fucking Snob”