robo-news adjustment

i'm switching over the SONIC robo-news to once a week to keep from my (continual) flooding of the site.

i know, i know ... you can now live your life so much easier.

unfortunately there is not a sonic drive-in ...

... on the direct route of 24 hours of las vegas this weekend.  the closest one is flamingo SONIC a couple miles off the strip.

that doesn't mean that something won't happen, though.

(follow #24HOLV on twitter starting noon saturday.)

robo-news crackdown

i'm not happy with the raw feed of the google news alerts, so i'm going to start editing them more forcefully.  gone are the days of cha-cha answers and job postings.  expect a much higher percentage of robberies and weirdness from the robot.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

superbSONIC is one year old today!

I celebrated with a vanilla dish at flamingo SONIC and called in a request to SONIC radio for the ventures "hawaii 5-0."  not only did they play my song, they put me on the air for the first time ever!

you might think that superbSONIC is purely the work of one carbo-loading genius, but nothing could be more half-true.

an extra special shout out to lou kije, CD and special K for their work with poltergeist productions behind the scenes.

super thanks to save in NM and eightsusquehanna for following this blog.

a bow and tip of the hat for the unwavering support from SONIC drive-in via anita and celeste at barkley.

and of course, nothing's worth writing if it's not read.  that means hyperactive thanks to anne, suttonhoo and msdrpepper.  and a more normal thanks to YOU dear reader.

here's to another 12 months of happy hour!

golden tot, NOT

remember my glee over scoring the golden tot?  turns out i didn't.  read the original post, through the comments.

the ghost of SONICs past

altoona, IA

where golden tots come from

email conversation with msdrpepper.

okay ms. dr. pepper,

how/when did you get your hands on the golden tot you sent me?  did you buy, like, a zillion wacky packs?  or did you bribe a SONIC official?  ebay?  what?

it's a great present.

thanks so much,

b1

***

No - that was like the first wacky pack I'd bought in like, ages. My 13 year old has been eating adult's food for the past 2-3 years. I wasn't in the mood for a big sandwich one night when we were there, and got the wacky pack. We don't watch TV so I had no idea about the so-called Golden Tot and all of that big mystique. I knew I'd be getting some benign toy (back story: 10 years ago, Sonic and Arbys were my two favorite places for the kids meals because their toys for the kids were the most reasonable, not so much of the "licensed idiot movie character of the month" and kept my son's interest longer. I still have some of the old Sonic and Arby's toys we had back then.).

So I got the pack and it had those silly Drink Pals and one was this "Golden Marshmallow" I originally thought, before I read the packaging materials and learned that it was, in fact, "The Golden Tot".

Then I was curious, like, is this the holy grail? do I get to cash it in for a gift card? what's the significance. That's how I found your blog was by googling for "Golden Tot Sonic" or some such search line. I still don't know if this is like the only one in the whole US of A? (like winning the Powerball??). So who knows, maybe I'm stupid for letting it go. Lemme know what the Mothership in OKC tells you about it.

Anyway, that's where I saw your photos of the previous promo with the pirates and the golden tot done in a gold lame fabric.

In any case, I still couldn't find anything on the main Sonic website about the Golden Tot, and after you sent the card, I was like, well hey, lets send it to you, I don't need any more toys and it might humour you! ;-)

Of course, if you win a million dollars because of having it in your possession from some contest I don't know about, could you cut me about 5 or 10% ?? (finder's fee, ya know??) hahaha

Enjoy!

Oh and by the way, today I read (on the banner attached to their fence) that the Sonic in Bel Aire, KS (really part of Wichita, it's on N. Woodlawn north of 37th) is one of the Semi-Finalists in the DrPepper contest that Sonic employees participate in every year. They even had a few roller skating carhops. Ours in my hometown usually don't bother with roller skates.... So who knows, we might get famous yet!

I was there today during happy hour - got me a lemonberry slush (yum!) and a beef chilly cheese dog. For once I'm not dying of heartburn, but I didn't bother with the bread. I just ate the beef dog and part of the chili and cheese. I'm guessing there's enough antioxidants in the lemon & strawberries in my slush to antidote the otherwise evil effects of hotdogs on my system. Either that, or my guts will be howling in revenge later tonight. *sigh*
Have fun with your new Golden Tot!

msdrpepper

more SONIC TXT spam ...

... now with video!

***

SONIC has 2 new Loaded Burgers & a Double Stuf Oreo SONIC Blast for a limited time. Drive-in & try 1 today. Check them out @ http://bit.ly/SONICYouTube

fanmail from some flounder

msdrpepper has recently discovered my 'blog ... we had a back-and-forth email exchange, part of which i wanted to capture here.


If you're ever in Arkansas, there's a Sonic ohhh what town is it in?? it's on the beautiful mountainous road that goes north from Conway Arkansas (on my way to Branson, MO), and they had the BEST DrPepper! even won some sort of prize in a contest that DrPepper sponsors every year with the various Sonic locations...

oh well...

sounds like you mostly run between Calif. and Nevada. Myself - I didn't have a car when I lived in Pasadena once upon a time way back when, and I've never been to Nevada... but we'll check out Sonics most everywhere else in the midstates and southern states... (although I've not seen the Sonic with indoor seating, guess I need to spend more time in Fl & Ga next time I'm down that way.).



you just gotta love the dr. pepper focus ... her email also included a sig that i believe in whole-heartedly ...

* Watch your thoughts; they become words;*

* Watch your words; they become actions;*
* Watch your actions; they become habits;*
* Watch your habits; they become character;*
* Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.*

trivium of the moment

americans only redeem 3% of all coupons distributed.
source: "extreme couponing" TV show

open letter to MHR bagwell

dear MHR bagwell,

your 'blog needs work.

sincerely,
b1

what is the deal with you guys?

the deep fried grail

if you look at the nutrition guide, there's an item called "pickle-o's" (sic).

a little bit of web sniffing will tell you that they're deep fried pickles that were once on the SONIC menu and then returned (with consensus being that the new ones aren't as good).

i've never seen these on a menu anywhere, but the hunt is on.

oh yes.

now known as "lemonberry"

big companies use style guides to describe the smallest of details and overlords beat on underlings for the tiniest (read: no one actually cares) mistakes.  working near people like this for a few years at apple has made me overly sensitive to the whole situation ...

and that's why i noticed a change in the spelling of what i'll call "the lemon berry concept."

if you look at a SONIC menu board, you'll see the phrase described as "lemon-berry," but the receipt sticker i got this afternoon said "lemonberry."  i like the new spelling ... kind of implies that SONIC may have invented a new fruit in their mad scientist laboratories ...

open letter to SONIC of creedmor

dear SONIC of creedmor,

your 'blog needs work.

sincerely,
b1

shopathome vindicated

if you don't remember my late night diatribe against shopathome, you should go back and read it ... be sure to track on the comments as well.

i'm pulling their response up here so it can be more readily identifiable by search engines ... i'm also critiquing what they said in-line here because i'm bratty and i think it's both interesting and funny in that 13-year-old-kid-yelling-from-the-back-of-the-class-room-kind-of-way.


So glad we stumbled across your blog. 


let's be honest here ... they didn't stumble across my 'blog because they wanted to know something like "what's the number for SONIC FM?" ... they ran across it because some tattle-tale search engine (or outside research company) said i was bangin' on their door.


nevertheless, they didn't have to respond, and they didn't have to be nice about it.




Sonic is awesome! 


let's see ... is this the right approach to take with someone who is completely obsessed with SONIC?  i wonder.




It seems, however, that the Sonic Restaurant Coupons posted on our site were not so awesome. And we’re super sorry about that. We have removed every last one of them. 


front line winner.  from this point they could say probably anything, including, "we're burning down flamingo SONIC in your honor."



While ShopAtHome.com offers some fabulous coupons, deals and incredible Cash Back rebate offers, we realize that some of the content provided by our community members is not quite up to snuff. 


exactly right behavior.  say i'm right and then reiterate about how much of a genius i am.  nothing is more convincing to the psychology of people than intermittent reinforcement.  okay, sure, they said i was right just one sentence ago, but i may have lost track, right?  i mean, i answered two TXT messages in the time in took me to write the last two sentences ... 


and notice too how we get a little ad in there.  nothing like giving a kid a shot after they get the sucker.



The Sonic “coupons” that were previously listed on our site were provided as part of our community contribution program. We encourage our site members to post deals that we may have missed in order to benefit our members. And, we offer an incentive for doing so. That’s good, right?


of course that's good.


what else are you selling?  i'm buyin'!




Well, only when the posts are actually valuable to our members. We make every effort to monitor these posts and ensure they provide valid offers. Unfortunately, sometimes we miss a few. 


the truth of the matter is probably something closer to "we make a small effort to monitor posts until some jackass points out something they consider to be a 'crime' to some goddamn search engine ... at that point we turn the bacon-eaters out with well-written responses and pray to a merciful god that we can get the tigers of the enemy to fall asleep."




And we’re sure sorry that our oversight resulted in your time being wasted and has left you with a bad taste in your mouth for ShopAtHome.com.


hey, i'd almost forgotten about that.  you bastards!  you wasted my time.


oh, that's right, i'm not mad any more.  and that bad taste?  it's probably just the cooking grease being a bit off ... i don't blame you guys.


We don’t always get it right, but we do always make it right. 


oh, oh, oh.  jetblue could stand to learn this lesson.  morgan johnston, are you watching what's going on here?  have you considered this approach?


you will.




Thank you so much for taking the time to write about us and for keeping us honest. We sure prefer to see positive posts, but we appreciate the opportunity to improve our site, our service and our deals!


Annette Nueske, Customer Service Manager


you'd think this would be the end and everything would be "just fine" in the land of yick-yack.


but you'd be wrong.


i got a follow-up to the versatran mailbox and they're gifting me a card to restaurant.com.  (i sincerely hope it's something they get in bulk or pay less-than-face-value for or some such.)


no, thank YOU, shopathome.


BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!


FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE AND READ ON!


i asked the woman involved here, "annette nueske" if she was of the famous bacon nueskes.


she is.


let's back up.  


Q: what's this 'blog about?


A: food.


Q: what kind of food?


A: crappy fast food and spectacular drinks.  which i like.


having a shirt-tail nueske talk to me is like writing a transportation 'blog, complaining about some ghetto kid having his feet on the seats and getting an apology from the illegitimate great great great great great grandson of thomas jefferson, who also just happens to run customer response for the chicago transit authority.


i mean, this is a big big deal.


SONIC could do very very well by talking to a nueske or two and getting their bacon in line.  in fact, if SONIC apologized for their bacon the way shopathome apologizes for their crap users, the whole world could be snackin' on cheddar 'n' nueske's tots RIGHT NOW, man!


"annette" claims that they're not close to the bacon side of the family ... that's WORSE than being a hunt and not being close to the oil side of the family.  


what you need to do, "annette," is talk to every damn person you possibly can and see if you can't arrange a family reunion on some easy day ... say, christmas ... and add, "hey, it'll be so so GREAT to finally meet you ... and don't worry about the food, we'll bring a crappy oscar mayer ham, so you don't have to bother with anything."


and your relatives will just cronenberg.


you'll end up with so much delectable meat products that you'll have to be followed home by a battery of EMTs.


i swear to you, you eat your relatives' bacon and you'll quit shopathome in a (what could be ultimately be your last) heartbeat, just to go work with the 'cuz.


what's that?  it's too much for you?  fine.  adopt me.  i will gladly be a nueske and forgo the greatness that is in my immediate family tree.  i'll do it and we both can reap the benefit ...


... and i just know that the huge feast would all wash down well with lemon slushes.  (those, of course, would be on me.  well, sorta.)  

shimmering ghosts

that damn golden tot is haunting me.

SONIC eye candy

ran across a nice set of SONIC pix on flickr.  very hopper-esque.

food photo trivium of the moment

one of my (many, not surprisingly) ex-girlfriends was the food editor for a major metropolitan newspaper.  an interesting job -- one of the sweetest gigs in a dying industry.

it gave me the chance to eat great and interesting food, and just as fun, talk with people in the food business.

one of my favorite guys was the food photographer.  a highly specialized field, he'd worked with many large restaurants in large ad campaigns ... and because of this, there were some phrases you couldn't say to him without nearly violent response.

for example, "big mac."

you see there's an FDA rule in the US that if you're advertising a generality, say "burger king," you can (and everyone will) use artificial items for your photos.  so in your food spread, the french fries you show might become something like painted styrofoam.  but any ad describing a specific food, say, "burger king whopper," must show a photo of that actual food.  

my pal had to do a mcdonald's photo shoot for big macs.  since mcdonald's had to use a real big mac, they made 200 of them ... every one individually inspected for things like seed uniformity on the bun and cheese over-lap off the side.  

in the particular run he was involved in, there wasn't one that was good enough*, so they bang out another 200 more ...

... and then another 200.

after the champion big mac was found, 599 needed to be "disposed" of, so they gave away burgers to anyone with a heartbeat that could say "yes."

but there's something, i guess, in seeing 600 big macs in an area with mild ventilation that'll just kinda get at you.

and, of course, eating half a dozen yourself probably won't help.

*i wanted to say "pass the mustard," but couldn't bring myself to it.  i know, it's hard to believe i do any kind of editing on here.

shopathome SONIC shame

let's ignore the fact that shopathome.com doesn't work with chrome (a far superior web browser to the ones it does work with) and focus instead on the fact that their SONIC coupons are either lame (hot dog match codes, really?), don't work (when i TXT for 5 closest SONICs, i get a fail) or are already well known (free wacky packs on kids' birthdays for registrants).

i chased this damn link because i saw the SONIC-related ad on blogger after posting my last entry and as a result i wasted ten minutes.

but the good news is they'll have to pay google for the click-through.  and i like google -- i want all my pals to stay employed there forever (or as long as they'd like).

the ice tea takeover

when i started this 'blog, my favorite SONIC drink was the lemon-berry slush.

it still is (although i waggle quite a bit through the limeades and other real fruit slush worlds), but you can see by my margin numbers that ice tea is creeping up ... it will eventually overtake the slushes and most likely -at least in raw numbers- become my most favored drink.

the reasons are two-fold.

one is the raw caloric hit.  a route 44 lemon-berry slush is over 600 calories.  when you consider that i shoot for a 1500 calorie day, that's a massive amount.  and worse, it's mostly what dox would call "empty calories."  you're getting a touch of vitamin C and the lightest tap of iron, but nothing else.

a sugar pack has 15 calories, i put four in a route 44.  that gives 44 oz of super-refreshing beverage for 60 calories (less than half in a can of coke, or a fifth of the amount in a medium lemon-berry slush).

forgetting what it means in a bomb calorimeter, drinking 44 ounces of sugar beverage is just too much.  when i get done i feel like i need to clean my tongue with a weed eater.

i have kind of the opposite problem with ice tea.  whenever i drink that, i just want more.  in fact, there are two different restaurants in the world that when they see me sit at a table, they automatically bring me a pitcher of ice tea.  (and i don't have that problem that's supposed to be a classic indicator of diabetes: peeing too much ... don't ask me where the hell it all goes.)

i get a ton of survey receipts.  i love them (in fact, it's one of the things that drove the SONIC addiction hook deep into my soul).  but when it's time to cash one in, some idiotic SONICs won't let you downgrade to smaller sizes and i'm not always in the mood -or even able- to split one in half for later.

then there's poker.  i play in a mixed game on the sundays i'm in town ... it's surprisingly hard to get ice tea in a casino and the combo of a lot of tea and a lot of ice is perfect for wiling my hours away as i sit.

and SONIC has great ice tea.  fresh brewed.  my pal bo3b (sic) is super-demanding of his ice tea and loves the SONIC.  as long as you stay away from the raspberry and peach artificial sweeteners (and the cloying pre-sweented tea), you're in fine shape.

all of which means that i haven't fallen out of love with the slush ... i just don't like to carry its burden.