* * * * *
Future Shock at McDonalds
So where did I end up having lunch?
McDonald's. [1]
Steak-n-Shake [2] was busy and …
Okay, excuses aside, this particular McDonald's [3] was decorated in a 50s
style; chrome, linoleum checkered floor, 50s car out front, a large scale
model train running along the ceiling, 50s pop music blaring over the loud
speaker, the old fasioned logo (the running chef, which I couldn't find with
Google [4]). I'm inside, waiting and looking at the menu deciding on what to
eat when I noticed it moved!
Well, not the physical menu itself, but there I was, looking at a picture of
the McFish Combo meal (#9) when it suddenly cut to a smooth Madison Avenue
produced product placement ad for a McFish Combo (no sound though). Then it
flipped back to the standard McFish Combo picture and a few seconds later,
one of the other combo meal pictures started moving.
Animated banner ads on the web are bad enough—I don't need them in my fast
food restaurant.
Looking closer at the menu board, I noticed that it was five huge flat screen
monitors. Then I noticed the even larger flat screen TV screen to my left
with John Travolta [5] and Olivia Newton-John [6] were singing and dancing
their way through Grease [7] (of course! What else do you play at a 50s
themed restaurant?).
At that point, looking around at the decor that wouldn't seem too out of
place 40 years ago, except for the flat screen TV (Television) and animated
menus, I began to think on what changes our society has been through in the
past 50 years; even a span of twenty-five years has a tremendous amount of
change (Internet? PDA (Personal Data Assistant)s? DVD (Digital Video Disk)s?
CD (Compact Disc)s? How much memory in your home computer again?); heck, even
my Dad is now asking me about ripping MP3s from his large collection of tapes
and CDs. At the same time, things have stayed the same (Coke, which is over
100 years old, and the Big Mac, which is 35). As I was sitting there,
pondering all this, I imaged a hypothetical conversation where someone in a
coma since 1979 would have upon waking up in 2003.
[1]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/09/01.1
[2]
http://www.steaknshake.com/
[3]
http://www.vicinity.com/mcdonalds/startprx.hm?CMD=FILL&SEC=mapprx&FAM=mcdonalds&IC=26.2852842:-80.201075:mcdoarch:&BizName=McDonald%27s&GAD2=4480+N.+SR+%237&GAD3=COCONUT+CREEK,+FL+33073&GC=X:-80.201075
[4]
http://www.google.com/
[5]
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000237/
[6]
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000556/
[7]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077631/
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