The neighboring McDonald's

My co-workers are constantly amazed and appalled about my obsession with [McDonald’s trivia][stuff i should know]. Most common comment once I get started: “How are you **not** writing the Wikipedia article about this?”

One of the weird talents is the knowledge of every McDonald’s in San Francisco (I’ve been FourSquare mayor of most of them). There aren’t that many.

Because of this, one of the strangest pairs are the two McDonald’s on Market Street which are less than a half block from each other. You can actually see the one from the other.

I thought about this while I stopped by one as I picked up [breakfast][mcmusings] at one and walked passed the other on my way to work. Are people so lazy that they need to put two McDonald’s right next to each other? In fact, there are four McDonald’s within a few blocks of each other here, but there are none north of Golden Gate Park where I live. Is McDonald’s too high brow for the Avenues that it can only be services by a Jack In The Box and Taco Bell?

Then it occurs to me that the clientele is notably different between the two. It’s mostly because one has nearly no seating and therefore doesn’t smell like a bathroom got backed up, which is doubly odd because the smelly one doesn’t actually have a bathroom.

I’m thinking of calling one the “[high class Market McDonalds][]” and the other “[low class Market McDonalds][].” (I’m adding the term “Market” because the one on Front Street is actually nicer than both.)

My faith in the world of business was restored.

If you’re ever in the Financial District stop by all four sometime and you’ll know what I mean.

[stuff i should know]: http://terrychay.com/article/stuff-i-should-know.shtml “Stuff I should know”
[mcmusings]: http://terrychay.com/article/mcmuffins.shtml “McMusings”
[high class McDonald’s]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-san-francisco-10 “McDonald’s SOMA San Francisco—Yelp”
[low class McDonald’s]: http://www.yelp.com/biz/mcdonalds-san-francisco-27 “McDonald’s SOMA San Francisco—Yelp”

Stuff I should know

I went on a morning run for the first time in months. I ended up running to the Stuff You Should Know podcast, which turned out ironically to be about “How McDonald’s Works”. Audio file:
[audio:http://podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2010-04-01-sysk-mcdonalds.mp3]

You see, along with the running kick, I decided just this week to stop eating at McDonald’s for a while. I was in danger of taking back my FourSquare mayorships of all the fast food places in SoMa—and my stomach was starting to revolt.

(I finally lost my FourSquare mayorship of those and the Fisherman’s Wharf Burger King. Burger King! I thought I’d have that one forever. Who eats at the Fisherman’s Wharf Burger King more than once?!)

Though I knew most of the stuff in it, I found the podcast interesting because I had forgotten about the McLibel case and its impact on fast food.

Now the podcast is old so all the corrections have probably been aired a hundred times, but I thought I’d mention the ones I noticed on during my run.

Any regular at McD’s knows the double cheeseburger is on the Dollar Menu ($1) most everywhere except in places like San Francisco, where I happen to live. There, it has been replaced with the “McDouble.” What’s the difference, you say? One slice of cheese. Even here, the double cheeseburger isn’t more than about $1.29. (Yes, that’s 30 cents for a slice of cheese. Believe me, I’ve been dreaming up some serious McDonald’s arbitrages over the last few years.)

Oh yes, I go to McDonald’s way too much. Three months ago, I was disappointed to find out that they built my sausage mcmuffin with egg backwards. Last week, they made my double quarter pounder wrong.

(FYI, I was able to avoid my fast food craving by stopping by the Prather Ranch Grill stand in the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market on the way back. So much better, and with drink, only $2 more than McDonald’s here.)

Blame it on Bollywood

Yesterday, I walked onto a Bollywood set.

Literally.

On my way back from McD’s, my apartment building was lit by three lighting/grip trucks. The lights were overpowering the sun.

Lighting my building

Lighting my building
4th and Brannan, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P2, Panasonic Lumix G 1:1.7/20 ASPH.
1/4000sec @ ƒ1.7, ISO200, 20mm (40mm)

Carrying McDonalds and shooting from the hip at the same time. Take that, Leica!

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