tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post2418743907363258006..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Friday FourGus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-57411584819294991592015-07-06T08:57:45.260-06:002015-07-06T08:57:45.260-06:00BB,
Hah!
I agree that pricing may be a problem f...BB,<br /><br />Hah!<br /><br />I agree that pricing may be a problem for them, but I think it's part of a problem. A bigger problem is that better capability of McDonald's at mass-producing menu items at peak times (as opposed to, say Burger King's one-at-a-time assembly line, is not as big an advantage as it used to be. As George Will indicates (in the column linked after Item 3), there is a cultural shift in what people expect out of fast food. Perhaps that is possible in part due to faster assembly lines, and perhaps people are more willing to wait around than they used to be. <br /><br />That last is speculation on my part, as a time-deprived dad who has become increasingly impatient about wasted time over the past few years...<br /><br />GusGus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-22027790940413484232015-07-06T08:37:04.509-06:002015-07-06T08:37:04.509-06:00Gus,
Your post on McDonald's 10pcs McNuggets ...Gus,<br /><br />Your post on McDonald's 10pcs McNuggets gave me a chuckle. Only after I bought the 10pcs did I realize it would have been more cost effective to buy the value meal. I'm of the view that the reason McDonald's sales are in decline is due to their pricing methods. I guess the franchisees' and corporate are looking at the high cost of food ingredients in general. In any event, I had a head slap moment with those nuggets.<br /><br />Bookish Babe Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-64487601036253555112015-07-04T19:31:06.723-06:002015-07-04T19:31:06.723-06:00Snedcat,
Regarding plays, it's the annoyance ...Snedcat,<br /><br />Regarding plays, it's the annoyance of having character names, staging directions, and other such things. These are distracting enough to make me not enjoy plays.<br /><br />Steve,<br /><br />Good point!<br /><br />Gus Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-55928739340780016292015-07-04T12:48:52.334-06:002015-07-04T12:48:52.334-06:00'Whaaaaat?
Not only did people buy the 10pcs ...'Whaaaaat?<br /><br />Not only did people buy the 10pcs option, they bought it far more frequently than the 20pcs option, even though both cost the same.<br />So why is the supposed decoy the most popular option? After hours of research and endlessly staring at The Crumbs' extensive analytics effort, unfortunately I still have no clue.’<br /><br />I found it at first frustrating and then amusing how this guy was so perplexed by something which is so obvious that even a MacDonald’s executive could grasp. The key? I simply put myself in the place of the customer and when I realized I too would pick the 10 nugget option, I asked myself why? In fact it is most surprising that 26% actually picked 20 nuggets. I bet if they added 10 cents (maybe even 5 cents) to the price of 20 nuggets they could bring that number close to 0%.<br />But it is a refreshing reminder that human beings are complex creatures; not everything in society boils down to the laws of economics; one more reason why central planning cannot work.<br />Steve Dnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-89203182060324630672015-07-04T03:49:24.956-06:002015-07-04T03:49:24.956-06:00Yo, Gus, you write, "I am pretty sure I have ...Yo, Gus, you write, "I am pretty sure I have the play, but since I don't really enjoy reading plays, I have not read it." I am pretty much of the same temperament: I enjoy watching plays and have gone through stages where I read plays with pleasure, but it has to be a really good play; my taste's quite selective. For instance, I remember reading Ibsen's "The Lady from the Sea" shortly after seeing a retrospective of George Bellows' paintings, and the feel of the play went well with paintings like <a href="http://www.worcesterart.org/collection/American/1929.109.html" rel="nofollow">this</a>; I imagined similar techniques and treatment of color in the staging and greatly enjoyed reading it as a result. (The painting is vast and the online image doesn't do it justice.)<br /><br />--Which in itself is a bit peculiar because I'm not nearly as sensitive to painting as I am to literature or music. It's one of the differences in temperament that amuses me: Some people devour every play they can get in their hot little hands in the same way I devour music, poetry, or fiction.<br /><br />It's also good to keep in mind when I hear someone with reasonable taste in literature say something like, "I really only like film music. It has to have a strong visual connection. I can't stand boring abstruse stuff no one can get into, like Brahms" (pretty much an actual quote), or people for whom the pinnacle of musical art is ABBA. (I think I like ABBA better than you do, but they really shine out to the extent they do solely against the background of the wretched decade they did less than others to debase. --Seriously, a couple of their songs are quite good songs as songs and only a couple do I utterly abominate, but a little of them goes a long way.) I figure people in the visual arts would consider me an uncultured barbarian from my lack of interest, so I usually ignore similar gaps in musical or literary tastes.<br /><br />But it is odd, thinking about reading plays. Just looking at it abstractly, one would think plays would be right up my alley--a little bit of staging for the actors and readers, but otherwise pure dialogue; as I like (some) difficult poetry, plays should be a piece of cake, yet reading them just doesn't interest me much.Snedcatnoreply@blogger.com