mmmmmm...

In Mega Burgers Pt 1: Is this what we’ve come to?, I talked about this adventure we were embarking on. In Part 2: The Trifecta of Obesity, I broke down the health and nutrition of said burgers…

But today. Today was the day.

At approximately, 7:00pm, on an empty stomach and hungry for burger love, we embarked on a cross Vancouver mission. Hitting Burger King, McDonalds, and finally Wendy’s, Alan Stremel successfully accomplished what he set out to do. Mass Gluttony.

To commemorate the event, Alan and I put a little highlight reel together:

Alan tackled the BK Quad Stacker first. We were told it was 4 patties, but Alan’s ended up having 6, with 6 pieces of cheese. Thats disgusting. Next, for a leisurely Double QP at McD. Looking a little peckish, gassy like a newborn baby, and glistening with meat sweat, we walked over to Wendy’s to complete the course with a Baconator – afterwards declared the best burger of the Mega Burgers.

Cooling Off

What does Alan have to say about his accomplishment?

I’m just all meaty.

-Alan Stremel

I say bravo, and congratulations.

Take a look at the night in photos.

And Be sure to read Alan’s account of that harrowing night.

For me, thats all the burgers I can look at for a while…

Welcome to Part 2 of my introspective into the Mega Burger Trend. If you missed it, check out Part 1: Mega Burgers: Is this what we’ve come to?

Today, in anticipation of the blood bath ensuing tomorrow, we will be looking at the nutritional facts about each burger compared to a standard 2,000 calorie diet. I know Alan has been hard at work getting his body ready for the task at hand tomorrow – Alan is our volunteering guinea pig, eating all three burgers. So lets drop some knowledge on him:

	Recommended Daily Intake	The Baconator	BK Quad Stacker	Double Quarter Pounder
Calories	2,000	830	1,000	740
Total Fat	65g	51g	68g	42g
Saturated Fat	20g	22g	30g	19g
Cholesterol	300mg	170mg	240mg	155g
Sodium	2,400mg	1,920mg	1,800mg	1,380g

Well, every burger pretty much takes up your daily amount of Fat, Cholesterol, and Sodium, leaving you with at least half your daily calories left… thanks! The worst part is when you start adding combos like fries, coke, frostys, or whatever else, the numbers shoot up exponentially. A BK Quad Stacker combo with fries and a frosty is 2550 calories, 130g of fat, and 3430mg of sodium!

So there you have it, Alan will basically ingest 300% his recommended fat, cholesterol, and sodium tomorrow within an hour, not including whatever he gobbles for breakfast and lunch. I’m was getting sick just thinking about it, but then I found this:

The Double Pounder Video

So far I am thoroughly disgusted with humanity… even more so then usual!

Come see tomorrow when Alan goes for the trifecta of obesity, captured on video, timelapse, and photos so revealing, you’ll taste the meat sweats yourself.

Updated: Final part: Setting Short Term Goals

Alright folks. Today is day 1 of our multi-day, multi-blog coverage of something so disturbing, so revolting, so… excessive, it couldn’t be contained in a single intraweb page. As you might have guessed it, I’m talking about the mega-burger trend.

People actually order this... in a combo.

I was taking in a double feature with some friends last week and the movie theatre has a Burger King in it. It proudly displays a new burger being offered: The Quad BK Stacker. This burger has no vegetables, it is simply: 8 strips of bacon, 4 patties of something that resembles beef, and 4 pieces of processed cheese between a bun.

I was enamored.

I could not believe something like this would – heck, COULD – be created, let alone marketable. Burger King’s senior vice president and chief concept officer explains:

The BK Stacker is simple and built with the very ingredients our restaurant guests love best—meat, cheese and bacon … We’re satisfying the serious meat lovers by leaving off the produce and letting them decide exactly how much meat and cheese they can handle.

I was floored, and not solely at their flippant use of the word “restaurant”.

Upon some investigation, I discovered an equal: The Baconator. Wendy’s offering into the mega-burger foray. A burger of somewhat less giant proportions but still battle worthy in the nutritional realm. Needing a third and not being a fast food aficionado, we went with the standard fast-food giant McDonalds. I knew from the beginning that McDonalds biggest offering, the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, won’t quite stack up to the level of the other mega burgers, but I believe it’s a good baseline.

Tomorrow I will look at the nutritional aspects of these three burgers and break it down for y’all. After that, I will cover and interview some guinea pigs who volunteered to eat and discuss each burger. Suffice to say, there will be no winners.

This adventure is in conjuction with Alan Stremel over at The Middle Part.

Update: Next in the series – Mega Burgers Pt 2: The Trifecta of Obesity

The Homar Office

As burgeoning young professionals, its often a good idea to look your best and get yourself out there. Whether it be intelligent video resumes, a beautiful song, or a striking photoshoot – you have to get your face out there in this cut-throat environment.

This truely is the ‘Art’ of business.

-Bryan

I present to you a photo tour of one such group of young professionals striving to attain the best and take the home office market by storm… its not just sweat pants and Rambler hoodies anymore.

StopMiningTibet.com petition is available.

I finished putting up a simple moratorium petition for Students for a Free Tibet’s Stop Mining Tibet campaign.

Mining corporations around the globe, including Canada, are contracting with China to mine the rich Tibetan land of their resources with little compensation going to the Tibetan people. Sign the petition to help put a stop to this great injustice!

“There shall be no mining in Tibet until the Tibetan people can, for their own ends, and with full free, prior and informed consent, control and make decisions about the extraction and disposal of their mineral wealth using the highest standards of participatory governance and ecological management.”

http://www.stopminingtibet.com/moratorium.php

Be sure to visit the site!

I just posted a few pics from the weekend, nothing really special or awesome, just playing poker and going down to Migz with Alan and Gunit.

You’ll also notice that the photo gallery has changed quite a bit. I’ve upgraded it, mostly due to robot spam on the old site causing me to turn off comments. You can comment on this new version and its quite a bit faster too.

Well I took my new camera on its first trip down to the Persian Teahouse and the good old Cambie for Alan’s birthday celebration.

Harrrowwwww!

I’ve put them all up in a New Album.

I’m still learning the camera a bit and the lighting was a little difficult so some of the shots are a little out of focus but all in all I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out. I’ve just become a huge fan of fast prime lenses.

Front page of 24

6 members of Students for a Free Tibet, including two friends of mine: Sam and Mel, along with Executive Director Lhadon, were detained after rappelling off the Great Wall of China and unfurling a banner playing off the Chinese Olympic slogan: One World, One Dream, Free Tibet.

There is all sorts of international coverage of the event, which was the focus of the action, and it was heightened by China’s apparent draconian stance on human rights.

China invaded and annexed Tibet 50 years ago and has systematically tried to assimilate the Tibetan people and culture, often violating basic human rights and needlessly killing hundreds of thousands. Simply speaking of a free Tibet in China is punishable by years in jail. China is using the 2008 Olympics Games as propaganda tool to cement its hold over Tibet to the international community. Actions like the one taken place this week are definitely just the first of many to follow in the lead up to the Games.

Thankfully the 6 members have been released and deported to Hong Kong which was the hopeful outcome under the scrutiny of the international press.

I have included a number of links if you are interested in reading more about it:

• SFT Blog about the Event

• Action Press Release

• BBC Story

• Canada’s National Post Story

• SFT’s Website

Robbie and Jamie Lamb’s friend Aspen is doing a cross country tour and inviting her friends in each city to come play music with her. I scored a couple videos of the show at the Wired Monk. The video quality kinda sucks but the sound is pretty good.

My buddy Robbie played a couple songs. This is my current favourite, “Lucky Man”:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4740858783529100942

Robbie Slade – Lucky Man

James Lamb is a dope singer/songwriter from Nelson and has a couple CDs out that are musical magic. This is his song “Naked” with vocalist Karly Warkentin, who also sings in Jamie’s band:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6619538009741008914

James Lamb & Karly Warkentin – Naked

Aspen (on the right) joined the duo:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4470539874717821905

James, Karly, and Aspen

Beautiful 3-part vocals of Frobisher Bay by James Gordon (I think):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3833584969508392127

Karly, Mona, and Aspen – Frobisher Bay

Aspen and some dudes played an awesome cover of Iron and Wine’s song Jezebel:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6687755196179754664

Jezebel

C’est fini. Coming soon, videos from the Stephen and Damien Marley show and Toots and the Maytals.

Through some correspondence with my new friend Roy over at Aki Ra Mine Action Center & Cambodian Landmine Kids College Fund (thanks to Marilyn and Greg for the introduction!), our two organizations are going to begin exploring ways to work together.

Akira Mine Action Center supports Aki Ra, a former conscripted child soldier of the Khmer Rouge, now committed to making Cambodia safe again by clearing it of all landmines and UXO (unexploded ordinance). Aki Ra and his organization also run a College Fund for landmine accident survivors.

Aki Ra and his team have added a gracious blurb about Footstops on their news page:

…Bryan Rite of Vancouver, Canada has started an excellent new charity fundraising travel website called Footstops which has chosen the AKIRA MINE ACTION CENTRE as one of the organizations it would like to support. Basically, Bryan reports, all the advertising revenues, donations, and merchandise profits from his enterprise are donated to a different charity each month.

YOU can help Aki Ra by merely hitting www.footstops.com and voting (for free) that you’d like to see Footstops’ support be given to the AKIRA MINE ACTION CENTRE this month where 100 per cent of all donations go directly to helping Aki Ra with his work to make Cambodia safe!

Footstops is a very innovative website which is devoted to “giving back” in addition to providing an invigorating and refreshing approach to the world of travel…

I am really impressed with their organization and I plead anyone to get involved or support them if you can. Donations can be made through Footstops.com this month.