i went to burger king | 5/25/25

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mike (who i worked with at fanbyte and is a legend) said that burger king (the fast food establishment) is kinda like the hit 2012 video game journey.

it would be impossible for you to guess the context of that statement so i will provide it.

is that helpful?

it's fine if not. just know that i think it's one of my favorite online interactions i've had in a minute. thank you mike.

anyway, between this conversation and the incessant burger king advertisements i am subjected to during NBA coverage, i felt like it was maybe time for me to go to burger king.

i have not been to burger king in a long time. this is for multiple reasons, including:

• the food isn't good

• there isn't one close to me

• the food isn't good

but then i thought about it and like? do i even remember why i think the burger is bad? i haven't refreshed that thought in a while. so i asked myself the age old question:

should i go to burger king?

the last time i went to burger king i was in nadi, fiji.

that was in july 2023. it was 6am when i arrived. i got chicken nuggets and fries. here's what those looked like:

they tasted wack. they were dark meat (which should be good) but gummy, somehow. they weren't good. the fries were also completely different from a burger king fry in flavor profile. but it is probably because they are using wholly different potatoes (probably from australia and new zealand)!

prior to that, my burger king experience was limited. there wasn't a burger king near either of the places in LA i lived in 2023. there was a burger king near the place i lived in providence, though.

specifically, it was this one at 280 Broad Street, Providence, Rhode Island, 02907.

but just five (google maps) clicks north, at 343 Broad St, Providence, RI 02907, was this:

so i went there every time.

(this mcdonald's is where i had the steak and onion mcgriddle. if i were to rank the worst ways i've ever spent $10, the steak and onion mcgriddle combo i got from the mcdonald's at 343 Broad St, Providence, RI 02907 would be really, really high up there.)

all of this to say: i have not been to an american burger king in a long time. so i decided to go.

i prebuilt my order using the burger king app. this way, i could have it my way. here it is:

i forgot i was eating the meal as i was eating it. a wholly empty experience. 8 chicken fries is an unfathomable number. every time i reached into the box it felt like there were 3 more of those cardboardy, peppery logs. the whopper jr. would have failed the joe is hungry temperature test, but gang – they always do. i do not understand how burger king's burgers are literally always cold. they cook the burgers over open flame. look:

that's the machine they cook the burgers in. it is on fire all of the time. the burgers move on a conveyor belt through the flame box and come out on the other side cooked. how could every single bite of the burger be cold? infuriating.

the churro fries, which i got because of the novelty, tasted mostly of oil. there are swaths of people in this country whose churro experience will come from this item at burger king and they will swear the confection off because of how bad these ones are. bummer.

the fries were good!

this experience confirmed what i'd always known: burger king sucks. and it's not like journey (2012) at all.

fujifilm just released a camera called the x half. it has a 1" cmos sensor oriented vertically, which emulates the way that a half frame 35mm camera splits each frame in two, doubling the number of exposures you get from one roll of film.

the vertical orientation of the sensor means that holding the camera horizontally results in a portrait image, and vice versa. it's a $700 camera that actually costs $850 because of tariffs, so it will be destined for a cadre of a the most annnoying instagram/tiktok/youtube photographers you know. it only shoots jpegs! that's wild for a camera that costs that much money.

the interesting thing about the x half, though, is the film camera mode. when you switch the camera into this mode, you select how many exposures you want in the "roll," then select the film simulation. after that, you lose the ability to view the photos you take, but the view on the display is replaced with this great little display readout that looks like a late era film camera. i think it's delightful.

the skeumorphism doesn't stop there, though! there's a physical film winder (you can see it in the photo above, it's the tab above the still/movie switch) that you must actuate to take your next photo. the photos you take go into "rolls" that you then access in a separate folder on the SD card or through the fujifilm app on your phone. you can make contact sheets out of the photos in the roll, as well as process the individual images. it seems like a really smartly designed little camera that costs way too much. you shouldn't buy it unless you're buying one for me.

we had giant bomb dot com's dan ryckert on the vgbees podcast this week! it was a really fun episode and john taught us a lot about star citizen against our will.

there's a bandai namco sponsored arcade at bmo stadium and they have two walls of gachapon machines. it's basically impossible to get any of them, as the change machine (which has a posted $20 card minimum) charges your card $10, doesn't dispense any coins, and then refunds the $10. it sucks, because i really wanted to get one of these:

catch y'all next week.

-

niki