I don't get Arby's. How do they change their menu so fast?! Doesn't it take a few months just to get the soy/soylent-green molds made up? And what is Arby's supposed to be? I had NO idea (until I read it in a Wikipedia article) that Arby's frames itself an "adult" fast-food chain, and I definitely missed their claim to be healthier than other places -- I always just thought of it as the place with the roast beef. (And, like some other people, I kinda even like the roast beef.) But they don't seem to be able to stick to that.

Right now, for instance, they're featuring "Fajita Flatbread" -- with roast chicken. In the recent past (that I can remember), they've also had "deli" sandwiches (like chicken salad on wheat bread), and a line of what was basically bar food -- jalapeno poppers (still listed on their website as, "Jalapeno Bites with Bronco Berry Sauce" but not available around here, I don't think -- not that I've checked lately), deep fried onion flower thingys, deep fried mozzarella sticks, etc. I'm especially pleased to see that they are selling BLTs at participating locations because I was just thinking the other day that BLTs should be a fast-food option!

Even though it seems to go against the whole franchise business model, and smacks of desperation, I appreciate Arby's nimble ways, and think a more flexible, creative franchise has huge potential as a kind of experimental food space to capitalize nationally in a huge way on micro trends. And slow food is just so ... unprofitable.

Here are some things I think Arby's should put their mass marketing and plentiful drive-thru windows behind:

• For the summer, they should try a whole line of "carnival foods" -- corn dogs, caramel apples, caramel corn, asparagus tamales, funnel cake, etc.
• Crunchy rolls -- deep fried/tempura sushi. Forget about the other kinds of sushi -- just focus on what Americans really like -- crunchy breading, cream cheese and salt. I don't even think they should cut them up, they should just sell them whole, wrapped in tinfoil, like burritos, and just as big.
• They should do falafel sandwiches, and they should advertise them as vegan. I know we've got the Pita Pit but surely there is a market for drive-through vegan dishes.
• Tortas -- I've said it before, I'll say it again: some American fast food franchise needs to get into the torta scene. Taco Bell is missing the ball -- maybe Arby's is the one with the gumption to do it?
• Korean tacos -- and maybe Korean food, in general -- kim chi lite or something.
• An all-dumpling menu - knishes, pierogis, empanadas, apple dumplings, etc.
• Maybe an all-pasta dumpling menu, too -- you know, ravioli, pot stickers, etc.
• Biscuits and gravy -- I envision a biscuit filled with gravy to make it more mobile (maybe this would fall under dumplings? sort of a reverse dumpling?) UPDATE! Arby's DOES sell biscuits and gravy, according to their website. They haven't put the gravy inside the biscuit, tho.
• Deviled eggs. Maybe other "grandma's potluck" items, too, like meatballs in bbq sauce and casseroles?
  
• Salad rolls, with ranch dressing

I'm sure I can think of some other ideas -- you can have these ones for free, Arby's, but won't you please let me be your menu consultant after this?

Photo from Roadsidepictures flickr stream

Remember Melissa's idea for Heavy Equipment Driving Camp?

At least two real-world applications of the idea have recently come to my attention:
A German place called Männerspielplatz and Dozer Day.

I note that the idea for Männerspielplatz came to its creator in 2004 whereas Melissa's idea dates back to late 2003. COINCIDENCE??

The Australian Dress Register

From the FAQ:

"Can I put a hat or a pair of shoes on the Register?

At this stage the primary focus is dress and accompanying accessories."

"Can I include an audio recording of an interview providing information on the history of the dress?

Yes. Audio recordings will be able to be uploaded online. "

I'll be psyched to browse this in late 2009, when it'll be available to the public. Also: other countries? And what about hats and shoes? Anyway, I think it's a marvelous idea.

The Australian dress I know best is the yellow one that Sybylla/Judy Davis picks out to wear in My Brilliant Career.

Car/Egg Drops

I'd like to see car crash ratings made into a competitive sport, like egg drops -- well, maybe a little more competitive than that.

I was pleased to read that more small cars are getting better safety ratings. Safety used to be my excuse for driving a big old Volvo -- I figured if everyone else was driving mondo SUVs I should have a little bit of defensive steel around me. But then I thought about egg drop competitions, and decided that you don't actually need mass to create strength.

However, Reuters quotes the senior vice president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (who did the recent safety tests) as saying, "There's no escaping the laws of physics ... People in larger, heavier cars fare better in crashes with other vehicles and in single-vehicle crashes than people in smaller ones."

-- is that really an inescapable result of the laws of physics, though? Isn't the opposite what egg drops illustrate? I feel pretty ignorant about the whole thing (you know, physics), but it seems like the whole point of engineering is so we don't have to make everything out of granite and steel.

Anyway, point is, I'd love to watch a bunch of cars get hurled around, and root for my favorite team. Maybe they could put raw eggs inside the heads of the crash test dummies or something.

And in honor of today's Portland weather, everyone's favorite car crash video:

I was in the parking lot at Home Depot the other day and had a flash of self-satisfaction at the things I had in my car:

• ancient iPod Nano -- not worth stealing (I hope)
• quince (from my mom's tree, for the fresh scent, naturally)
• back scratcher -- especially for those long drives (I use it a LOT!)
• Whoopie cushion -- you know, for hitchhikers
• iPhone adapter (in case the Nano runs out of batteries)
• inspirational Tarot card
• rubber beetle
• ecdysiast button -- this just appeared in my car one day -- I think it might have been left there by a hitchhiker.

Not pictured: napkins, flashlight, screwdriver, electrical tape, hose clamp, rubber belt of some kind (like I'd know what to do with it if I needed it), pens, maps, rags, extra oil, tire gauge, dirt. What I don't have, but should: flares, fire extinguisher, first aid kit, money.

I received my ballot today and will be going off in tomorrow morning's mail -- I'd like to wait for a ballot party, but I know that this is the best way to avoid wasting the time of volunteers calling me to remind me to vote (while I was typing this I got a call).

On Saturday Betsy and I walked around the neighborhood for about an hour and distributed sample ballots from the Multnomah County Democrats -- there's a lot of things to be excited/worried about on this election, not just the president and their endorsements are pretty solid -- you can also check out Just Out's endorsements, or Defend Oregon. It kind of broke my liberal, criminal-lovin' heart to vote "yes" on 57 (the less insane of the two "get tough on crime" measures) -- but after much soul-searching about the meaning of my vote I decided it was, in the end, an act of politics more than of conscience, and it does seem like the alternative is bad.

The Dems don't weigh in on non-partisan races, so I'll share one that I'm particularly excited about: the race for City Council. I enthusiastically support Amanda Fritz -- I enjoyed walking my neighborhood with her during the primary, and here are some of the reasons why I support her now:

1) She's been working with City politics for years as a citizen activist. If we have to testify about land use issues in our neighborhood, or police accountability, or what have you, she's been on our side of the podium and knows what it's like:

A long time ago, when I was new to citizen involvement, I buckled up my three small children into their car seats and drove to Salem for a hearing on school funding. We had to wait more than three hours for my turn to testify; it was perhaps one of greatest achievements of my mothering career that with the aid of industrial quantities of crayons, books, and grapes, my offspring contributed to the cause by behaving themselves impeccably in the packed hearing room. But after I had given my three minutes of input, driven home exhausted, and read that the committee had voted contrary to the urging of all those testifying, I realized it had, in fact, been a Fake Public Hearing. The votes had been lined up ahead of time, and ten times the testimony would still not have made any difference. "Why don't they just post 'Token Public Hearing' on the announcement, so working people don't waste their time going?", I muttered to my friends." (Amanda Fritz 2007: amandafritz.com/blog/3?page=37)

I believe she WILL increase accountability and transparency in City government and I don't think testifying before her will be an exercise in bullshit.

2) She's been a health worker and union member for years. She's Jobs with Justice pledger, and understands the needs of working people. When asked what can be done for unemployment among communities of color at a recent forum, Lewis suggested increased support for small businesses and Fritz suggested the large number of unfilled union apprenticeships. I think Fritz's suggestion makes a lot more sense if you're actually going to create a large number of living-wage jobs, and Lewis's borders on naive -- you just can't have an economy where everyone owns their own business.

3) She's an open and thoughtful communicator - you can see this on her blog, amandafritz.com, which she's maintained since late 2006. It's a great source of information on what's going on in city politics, and she doesn't hesitate to give her opinions. And unlike a lot of people who blog about politics, she doesn't seem motivated by crankiness - she actually seems to believe in the potential for change, and that makes me hopeful.

4) She's a woman and I frankly think that matters. We haven't had a woman on City council since 1998 (Gretchen Kafoury - I'm not counting mayors, but even if you do, we've only had 6 in total) - and I believe that a woman's perspective is important. You can have terrible woman politicians -- I don't need to remind anyone of that -- but Fritz's isn't one of them - she's an experienced, progressive political activist who is also a woman who understands first-hand the particular challenges women face. Charles Lewis is surely a fine person, and he agrees with Amanda Fritz on a lot of the issues -- but even if it were not for the vast amount of experience she brings to the table, I would, all else being equal, vote for the underrepresented person -- and right now we've got an all-male lineup.

5) She has a demonstrated passion and ability for things that a many people find dull, but are incredibly important, like financing and procedure. Amanda's attention to detail and financial nit-picking will be a another reason why she will be an important addition to our upcoming City council slate, especially with Sam Adams (whom I like) as mayor.

For more information, see:

amandafritzforcitycouncil.com
amandafritz.com

I also found this debate
recap helpful.

Anyway, huzzah! hurrah! yay! woot! change is coming!

("Yay" collage from Cute Overload).

The audio from this would make a very nice sleep podcast.

Missing from this video is my favorite part, though, when a bunch of the crowd took a pyramid group photo with the Obamas at the end -- I'm wondering when/if any of the pictures the audience took will find their way onto the internet? I wasn't watching closely enough to see whose camera (or how many) took the group photo.

I found the whole thing very compelling -- much more so than the actual debate.

Other great ideas: TiVoing C-Span instead of CNN or PBS. So much more peaceful without all that chatter.

What we did to make our lawn signs was take a bunch of cardboard (which was handily available because Betsy just got a new dining set from Ikea), cut it into pieces (we should have made them smaller), trim them with masking tape (to make them more water-resistant), and paint them with primer (for water resistance and general beauty).

Then we made some letters to stencil.

My favorite stencil (which I made): "Democatic." It was a mistake that I only noticed after painstakingly cutting out the whole thing.

We used interior house paint to do the painting. There were some experiments with sparkles and stuff, but they didn't catch on. I ended up using giant Sharpies on a lot of them after the paint had dried -- outlining letters and such, and that tightened things up a bit. Then we used a heavy duty stapler to staple the signs to posts. A local lumber yard made the posts for me by cutting some longer piece of wood in half and then sharpening the edges. Cost effective ($.50 per post) but sticky! (pine sap). I had a problem with the staples going all the way through some card board, and fixed that by putting packing tape on top. If I did it again, I might put masking tape down the center before painting them to give the staple something to stick to.

Here are the results -- I made a couple voter registration ones, too:

They look pretty good, if I do say so. One problem I had with the bigger signs is if it's windy, they can sort of flop in half. The smaller signs (like the "Go Bama" one) work better, and if I was going to do it again and had a longer message I'd make a series of them, a la Burma Shave signs.