20 Questions Tuesday: 102 - Lunch

During my now classic 20 Questions Tuesday: 100 – The Century Club, the question “Could you answer 20 questions on the topic of lunch?” was raised. Since I already had a theme picked out for 20 Questions Tuesday:101, it fall to this week’s 20 Questions Tuesday.

So without further ado I would like to thank Sparky, Karen, John P, Capt McArmypants, and Allrileyedup.

On to the questions:
1. Who are your favorite, non-family lunch companions? These are people you actually lunch with and remember I said non-family! (Remember some of your coworkers are reading this...)
Silly question: My coworkers , of course... Hi, Co-workers!

2. If you could drink alcohol at lunch, what would you drink? What would be the ideal appetizer to accompany said drinks?
Beer would be the poison of choice. I tend to not react well with hard alcohols. The ideal appetizer would be pizza.

3. Brunch - better than lunch?
Yes

4. Best lunch under $5, please.
Hmmm…. Scavenged lunch meeting remains. You didn’t have to survive the meeting, but can partake of the bounteous bbq, sandwich, salad, pizza that was not eaten by the meeting attendees. Other than that I like the dollar menu at Wendy’s and the pizza by the slice at Flying Pizza.

5. What is your favorite lunch to eat? favorite place to eat lunch?
I am partial to toasted sub sandwiches in their many guises and names… hoagies, heroes, grinders, bombers, poor boys, torpedos, subs… All that being said, I do not have a particularly favorite eating haunt for lunches.

6. What is your favorite lunch activity…just eating lunch, finishing a digital Thursday pic, calling the family to check in, etc?
Getting the Hell out of the office… This favorite part of lunch has really made it difficult to bring a lunch and eat it at my desk.

7. What was the worst school lunch your cafeteria ever had?
I never partook of the “salad bar” in high school, but I was renowned for its 3 potential salad dressings. The choices were white, orange, and red. They didn’t so much have a different flavor as different chromaticity.

8. What is Little Man’s favorite lunch?
Burger King Hamburger with ketchup only, onion rings, small root beer. That or “chickies” with ketchup.

9. Lunch meat…please explain?
It is thinly sliced roasted meat that is fully cooked and able to be eaten cold. It comes in a variety of meats and a panoplea of flavors.

10. Do you think it would advance western (and perhaps eastern) civilization if we moved brunch from just a weekend endeavor to a full fledged workweek event?
If brunch is available all the time, it loses its appeal, the specialness that makes it great. Sadly I feel that brunch must be only available on weekends and then only partaken of rarely lest it become commonplace.

For questions 11 to13. While I am not as known for my sophisticated palate as you are. I have come to the conclusion BK and McD's have embraced the "Taco Bell" business plan something that most of the other chains have failed to truly really grasp. (except Taco Bell of course, but they have pigeonholed themselves with Tex Mex too much to capitalize on what was clearly their idea and in all honesty considering what they are selling I bear them not ill will.) Uuuh... where was I? Oh yeah, Their business plan in short: The average American can not discern average food from craptacular food. There was a time when BK-McD food was cheap and tolerable and thus oft consumed by people such as myself. However, since like 1998, I can not help but notice that these titans of lunch now actually cost about as much as your "fancier" lunch places like Qdoda, Panera and Chick-Fil-a. (Please excuse the sophistry.) No, Sophist!

11. What gives how do they do it!?!?
Well, it has taken some time for this process to occur. Rome wasn’t built in a day and the relative suckation of mass market fast food also took time. Initially to drive costs down the heavy hitters in the world of fast food sacrificed quality for price. they noticed that their clientele didn’t reduce with the reduction in quality and then decided to push prices to increase their profit margins. They found what people were willing to pay for their now inferior product and it turned out to be similar to what people are willing to pay for “higher quality” fast food with much tighter profit margins. That is why you will see a Qdoba or Chipotle fail and rarely a BK or McD’s. The profit margins are much different, while the consumer costs are similar. This is of course, just a guess.

12. Why do people still go to these places when they about cost as much and provide so much more suckiness? I mean admittedly most chain lunches are passable at best, but when you compare the 7 dollar meal at Grinders to the 7 dollar mean at McD's why does anyone still go to McD's?
Consistency. If I go to Anchorage Alaska or Edinburgh, Scotland, when I walk into a McDonalds, I know what I am getting.

13. How awesome are McD's fries though huh?
When they are piping hot? They are incredible

14. When you go out to lunch, how do you pay 1.50 for the accompanying drink. How does one embrace paying so much for a wax cup of flat soda? I mean do you have to start your training on this as a child? Have I missed my window? Do you think it would help if I brought my own "glass" glass? (maybe a fancy wine flute)?
Some of us are addicted to caffeine and are too proud to sully ourselves with coffee. $!.50 is a small price to pay to make the headaches go away. Glass, plastic, paper, it doesn’t matter, just make the pounding in my temporal lobe go away. Uh… umm…. What I meant to say is that it is highway robbery.

15. Some people often (every work day) have a large Breakfast, a medium sized Brunch and a medium sized Lunch. (mmmmm I love me some brunch....errrr.... I mean some people do love me some brunch...er.... I mean some people do love themselves some brunch.mmmm brunch) Do you think this brunch should it be more breafasty or lunchy in composition? Do you factor in left overs about to go bad into this decision?
Brunch is a late breakfast to me. It typically consists of more breakfast food items than lunch items, but it has eschewed the juices, coffees, and milk products for carbonated headache reducing elixirs or wine.

16. What is your fantasy lunch (sort of a 'what would eat as your final meal' question, but happier and midday)?
My final meal, lunch or dinner shall always and forever more be all you can eat pop-corn shrimp. There is always room for another popcorn shrimp. The warden would come to ask me if I were ready to go off to my execution, and I would say, “No, I think I will have some more shrimp.” I could honestly do that forever.

17. Did your mom or dad pack your lunch in grade school? What was the worst lunch surprise you ever received?
Occassionally my mom would pack my lunch for me, but typically I ate what the cafeteria was serving. After a while I just stopped eating lunch all together so that I did not have to go into the lunchroom. My junior and senior years in high school were completely lunchroomless for me.

18. What is your opinion on luncheon loaf?
I am not knowledgeable about this… “luncheon loaf,” yet I am afraid of what it might be

19. What is the difference between lunch and luncheon?
Trays

20. If Sony or Nintendo offered your unlimited amounts of money to create a video game, and the only thing was that it had to be called Lunch, how would you go about it?
Well, firstly, I would adopt a Blizzard strategy in game releases and production cycles and milk that unlimited cash cow for as long as I could. Secondly, I think it would end up being a first person tactical horror shooter involving the player being hunted by aliens so they can make him into a lunch item.


To recap:
Little Man got spooked by the lightning and thunder last night
That made this morning rather difficult
He was up for 3 hours between 2:30 am and 4:30am
Then he fell out of bed at 5:30 this morning
It was a rough night
My allergies are all acting a fool and I am all out of allergy medicine
Listening to Fire Woman by the Cult