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Anyway, the ad with the mom looking for her "date" who probably has his shoes untied (which is really her little SON, HA HA HA!!) makes me want to stab my eye. The couple who goes out to celebrate the Tuesday (not an anniversary or anything, silly stupid waitress!) makes me worry about society. Why? Who would go to Olive Garden to celebrate anything?
I guess each of these were better than the old ads, back a few years, where Italian-Americans would treat visiting relatives from the Old Country with trips to Olive Garden. Seriously, do you think Nonno Federico really wants to eat that Americanized big-box crap? That ad made me hate America and all Americans, including myself.
I guess I don't really understand that whole class of restaurant. You know the class: the ones which are nicer than fast food, nicer than family restaurants, but super casual? Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Applebee's, Longhorn Steakhouse, Outback Steakhouse, TGI Fridays, etc. I really don't understand these places because, for the prices they charge (around $10-20 per person) you could eat a real meal in a nice independent place. Instead (and perhaps inexplicably) people choose to eat at Applebee's, pay $15 for the equivalent of a TV dinner (and yes, I am right in this metaphor because at Applebee's, the "cooks" open a bag and heat it before serving it... it just has better flavoring chemicals than the crap in your freezer), and get generally bad and way-too-casual (for-the-price) service (if I wanted to be served dinner by a "friend," I'd go to a friend's house, which is usually free... and I wouldn't pay a himbo/bimbo a significant portion of my weekly wages to be my friend at a restaurant anyway, because I could join a fraternity for that) in a somewhat shitty (and usually really loud) dining room.
Even odder, these restaurants make a huge portion of their profits in alcohol. Just like how the old 99 cent buffets drew in hungry gamblers in old Vegas casinos to waste their childrens' inheritence, places like Crapplebee's (jeez, I'm so clever, I should write Olive Garden commercials!) draw people in with their mediocre food (but without the work of eating at home, and without the annoyances of fast food or family restaurants) and convince them to consume alcohol. I mean, what's the first thing that a waiter/ress does at these places?
"Hi, I'm (insert himbo/bimbo name here), and I'll be TAKING CARE (another word usage pet peeve, considering the high rates of drop-and-runs, but that's a subject for another time) of you tonight. Can I get you folks something to drink, like a (stupid name) Cocktail or a (another stupid name) Margarita tonight? Or we've got (ridiculous sized) (this beer) and (that beer)..." They're always bouncy and somewhat flirtatious during this part of the exchange.
[Sidebar: a "drop-and-run" is the age old waiter/ress trick where, once your food arrives, the check is stealthily dropped during the same trip and the waiter/ress never returns, and for all intents and purposes has fled the country. Seriously, you could file a missing person's report, and you'd never see that fucker again. This is a common practice in family joints like Denny's, Bob Evan's, Shoney's, and Steak 'n' Shake, where there is a cash register at the front. Amazingly, the trend is reaching these casual places where you're supposed to pay the server. What makes this frustrating at casual places isn't only that the practice is the benchmark of terrible service, but the fact that while not only will your drinks never be filled nor your plates cleared nor dessert offered, but now you have to figure out which one of the faceless himbo/bimbo mass is yours and track them down, just to give them money. And then, after 10 minutes of active searching by you to pay so you can leave, they wonder why their tip sucks.]
And how they GLARE when you order, not even the $2.79 Coke (which promises and lies about endless refills), but the complimentary ice water. The flirtaciousness definitely leaves the building - in fact, you're lucky if you see the waiter/ress more than twice more after this (once to drop the drinks and get the order, and once to drop of the food). (Oh, Ice water doesn't add money to the bill, which makes a smaller base from which the tip is drawn, and waiters/resses HATE it because they still have to work to fill it if you drink it down.)
Regardless, with alcohol being the big profit machine, you'd at least think they'd be able to improve the food quality somewhat, right?
Here's my proposal. Send a message to these crappy big-box restaurants: either don't go (easy enough with the lack of a budget these days and the number of really good independent places around here), or if you do, NEVER order alcohol. Remember, if you choose to drink (which is something I'm officially over), you can get a whole six-pack of microbrew for the prices some of these joints charge for one beer. And if you go with Peebers, then you're even better off. Now, I realize in many cases (Applebee's and TGI Friday's especially), you have to be pretty drunk to enjoy the food. In these cases, I would avoid visiting these restaurants at all costs.
And to add to this: make fun of anyone who does. If your friend goes to Applebee's, give them crap about it for the next week. "Did you enjoy those $15 riblets? Really? Or, would you have enjoyed three trips to Wendy's more? Or even one trip to Wendy's and a ritualistic torching of the leftover ten-spot? Oh, yeah... that's what I thought." Etc.
Oh, and one other thing. I'm also proposing an absolute boycott of Olive Garden until they pull those absolutely horrible commercials off the air.
Well, in the case of something as nasty as Olive Garden, I'm guessing my personal boycott will last much, much longer.
Can I just say how beautiful today was? There's nothing quite like a college campus on those really nice days, especially the first few nice ones after a longish winter. Everyone is outside, plenty of skin is being shown, cars are driving around with windows down, drivers are talking to pedestrians (if they're not bumping tunes).
I purposefully let my class out 25 minutes early today so that they could go out and enjoy the day. It's northeastern Ohio. We get a grand total of probably three 70-degree-and-sunny days every year.
We took advantage by crusing around Akron in our newly-borrowed minivan (Plymouth Voyager rep-re-SENT! Okay, embarrassingly enough, it's a pretty sweet ride) bumping Michael Franti & Spearhead. We took the critters to the Dog Park (where about 45 million dogs were playing... it was as busy as I'd ever seen it) and later took a trip to Swenson's for Salad Boys (veggie-burgers). Swenson's is a local drive-in, and I would definitely say our experience was better in our borrowed mini-van than it would have been during a trip to Applebee's.
I didn't get shit done tonight, but that's okay. Yes, I am going to pay for my inactivity (like always) but... like I said, only maybe, MAYBE three days a year are like this in these parts.
I would have really wasted something if I had actually worked tonight away. Tomorrow calls for massive cooling (after thunderstorms) in the afternoon.
Friday calls for snow again.
Ca plane pour moi.
Posted by Your Friendly Neighborhood DJ on March 13, 2007 10:33 PM | Permalink
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