Rant #698: Wendy Crowns Burger King

McDonald's is the top hamburger chain. Nothing comes near it in sales, and I mean nothing.

Its sales alone trump everything in its sight. Last year, McDonald's reportedly took in $34.2 billion in sales, which was much more than the No. 2 and No. 3 hamburger chains' sales combined ... and I mean much more.

But what are No. 2 and No. 3 anyway?

Wendy's dethroned Burger King as the U.S.'s second biggest hamburger chain based on sales last year.

According to research firm Technomic Inc., Wendy's reportedly had sales of $8.5 billion in 2011, and Burger King wasn't far behind, with $8.4 billion, so Wendy's is now the No. 2 hamburger chain in America, but not by much.

Worldwide, Burger King remains in second place behind McDonald's, as it has far more restaurants than Wendy's does in other countries, so if you add everything up, Burger King is still No. 2 worldwide, a very distant second to McDonald's.

But what is the No. 2 restaurant chain overall?

It is Subway, with $11.4 billion in sales in 2011, and Starbucks is No. 3 with $9.8 billion in volume.

But as far as strictly hamburger chains, Wendy's is No. 2.

Yes, I eat fast food. I know that is such a negative comment today, or seemingly it is, with everyone talking about eating healthy, but I do eat fast food on occasion.

My family and I just had Wendy's the other day, and I don't think it is as good as it once was. I had its new Big W sandwich, and it really didn't have that much taste.

It was OK, but nothing that special.

McDonald's deserves to be No. 1, because its food tastes better than the rest.

And its fries are excellent.

Burger King is Burger King, meaning that you don't get that much when you go there, but you know what you are getting.

It is less expensive than the other two chains, and that is reflected in the food there.

It is OK, but McDonald's and Wendy's are a couple of notches above Burger King.

I also like Taco Bell, Arby's and the like, but honestly, the best hamburger you can get remains the one that you cook up yourself at home.

But if you are on the go, and don't have the time to make one yourself, the fast foods do offer an alternative.

And no, you don't go to them if you are dieting or watching your weight.

They aren't to blame for any weight issues you might have.

But if you want a quick bite, the fast foods are the best place to get full in a hurry.

So congratulations to Wendy's. I think they deserve to be where they are, although I was a bit disappointed the last time I went there.

Rant 697: The Way the Ball Bounces (Is the Same)

It's good to be back. I had some personal things to get out of the way, which I did, and now I am back in the saddle.

These things were somewhat involved, but toward the end of the day on Friday, I finally had a lot of fun.

I saw two basketball games virtually back to back, and the only thing that tied them together being the way the ball bounces.

The school district that my son is in, along with several other school districts in Nassau and Suffolk counties here on Long Island, have joined together to create a Challenger Basketball League. What that means is that Special Ed kids--the kids most likely to be forgotten in high school, and the kids that certainly feel left out when it comes to athletics--compete against one another on the basketball court in a slate of games against different schools.

My son is a Special Ed kid, and he also loves sports, so this league has been a godsend to him.

Sure, they bend the rules a bit to get all the Special Ed kids involved, but it is a fun time for all.

My son has wanted me to see him in one of the games, but since they are played during the weekday afternoons, I haven't had a chance to see them.

However, one of my goals for Friday was to finally see him play, and that is what I did.

Even though his team lost 42-26, I really enjoyed myself at the game, but the kids who played enjoyed themselves the most.

Whatever their ability, they were able to run up and down the court and feel good about themselves. Both boys and girls played at the same time, and a few of them actually showed some athletic ability.

But for kids who often feel left out of activities like this, this was a great thing. The season ends this week, and I hope that it spreads to other schools next year.

Right after the game, my son and I whisked off to see the New York Knicks take on the Indiana Pacers at Madison Square Garden.

It has been a rough stretch for the Knicks, as they've changed their coach and hopefully changed their attitude. As you may have read in my previous post, it has been a frustrating time for the team's fans too.

Anyway, with a new coach in tow, they have recently won three games in a row and look like an excellent team again. The game that my son and I saw was the middle game of this mini-winning streak, and it showed that a different mindset can do wonders for a team that was floundering.

Preaching defense, the Knicks put away the Pacers early. Although the score was 115-100, the Knicks were ahead by 30 or more points for a good part of the game, so for once, my son and I saw what amounted to a relaxing game at the Garden.

So we saw two games, and two good games at that.

One was much more important, in the grand scheme of things, than the other, and I will let you decide which one I am talking about.

Rant #696: Out With the Old, In With the Old

As I am sure you already know, the New York Knicks have a new coach, because the old coach went ahead and quit because he lost the team during its recent trials and tribulations.

Mike D'Antoni, who was brought in three years ago as head coach when the team was in complete and total disarray with bad contracts and bad deals it had to answer for, felt that it was for the betterment of team for him to step down.

Fans have been after his head for nearly the entire season, and a small dose of "Linsanity" didn't last too long.

Actually, the refusal of his top player, Carmelo Anthony, to conform to his program doomed his status, and rather than coach out the season in losing fashion, D'Antoni decided to take the proverbial hike, and take two of his assistants--one his brother--with him to never never land, a place where doomed coaches retreat to, only to come back leading another team in the near future.

The team has given over its leadership to Mike Woodson, one of D'Antoni's assistant coaches, who was basically in never never land himself, having once coached the Atlanta Hawks before being fired.

This situation really went down the tubes because when you lose your star player, you basically lose the team.

The NBA is the only professional sports league that I know of where the players basically have more power than even the coach to help make decisions that are supposedly for the betterment of the organization. Teams rely on players to keep coaches in the right perspective, or the perspective that the players deem is right, and in this case, since Carmelo wasn't jelling with D'Antoni's vision, the coach had to go.

Can you imagine if Derek Jeter told the Yankees that he didn't like what Joe Girardi was doing to him by dropping him down in the batting order or not playing him on certain days of the week, and that, perhaps, the manager should be removed?

That will certainly never happen.

But in the NBA, even though Carmelo Anthony denies it, he has the ear of owner James Dolan, the Cablevision mogul, and even though D'Antoni supposedly resigned on his own, I somehow doubt that he wasn't going to be fired soon anyway.

It's called saving face.

And the Knicks went out and did what they should have done. They were so perplexed by what happened that they whooped the Portland Trailblazers by 42 points, stopping their losing streak.

Rooting for the Knicks, I'm afraid, is like rooting for the Mets. The Knicks haven't won a championship since 1973. They are in a perpetual state of losing and rebuilding. But they never seem to get it right.

This year, they were supposed to compete with the big boys like the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics, but all they've done is compete with the Mets as being New York's laughingstock team.

They are the true gang that couldn't shoot straight (sorry, Jimmy Breslin), and they seem to continue to shoot blanks while other organizations prosper.

Thank goodness the Yankees' season opens in less than three weeks.

And I am taking the day off tomorrow, so you will have to wait until Monday for my next pearls of wisdom.

Speak to you then.

Rant #695: Lukewarm Reaction To Warm Weather

I hate to shovel snow, I really do.

I figured I would start off this Rant with that information, because I want to prepare you for what I am going to say about the current warm winter weather we have been enjoying in the Northeast part of the country this year.

I am not happy.

Sure, I don't have to do any snow shoveling. I think I shoveled once, and it took me about 10 minutes to clean up everything.

What I am saying is that the unseasonably warm weather we have been experiencing here--today, it is going to be 70 degrees again--is upsetting my body clock and making my allergies go haywire.

Look, I don't want to go back to the winter of 2011, when seemingly every day we had snow, and I must have shoveled more than a dozen times.

No, I don't want to go back to that again.

But the current spate of incredible and unseasonable weather here is throwing off everything else inside of me.

As the birds chirp, the pollen increases, and every day I wake up barely being able to see with seemingly every pore in my body clogged up with something.

My nose runs the entire day, and I often have to clear my throat because all that junk is making it difficult for me to speak.

Look, I expect this type of thing in April--certainly the weirdest month for weather, with extremes from snow early on to 90 degree temperatures later--but I don't expect it in February and March, which is what we've had this year.

We really can't blame anybody for this, except if you want to get into the global warming thing, which I am not going to get into here.

But the very early warm weather--and the possibility, say some meteorologists, that unseasonably warm weather will likely last into at least the real spring season, which begins on March 20--isn't doing me that much good physically.

Look, I feel for those who have had terrible winters, like the people of Alaska, who have had more snow than even Alaska normally gets this time of year, and the people of the Midwest, who have had to put up with deadly hurricanes. Many European countries have also had deadly winters this year.

But back where I sit, this winter hasn't been a good one, it's been a weird one, especially for people who suffer from allergies.

Sure, no shoveling, but on the other hand, way too much pollen as a result of it being too warm early in the year isn't making me a happy boy this year.

I almost long for some snow ...

Remember, the operative word here is almost.

I hate to shovel snow, I really do ...

Rant #694: Ticket Snafu

As most of you regular readers know, I am a Yankee fan, have been my whole life, and will be when I leave this earth.

I have rooted for them through thick and thin, during good years and bad, during championship years and years where they fell flat.

But each year, I am becoming more incensed at their ticket policy for the peons, the people who go to the games maybe once or twice a year.

The new Yankee Stadium seats around 54,000 for baseball, and less the higher-priced seats, the team basically sells out each and every game.

That's 81 games where the only seats that can be had are the ones that cost $1,000 or more.

Sorry, not in my league.

But the very last seat in the house, in the very last row, is a season ticket seat, no doubt.

This year, with seats at a premium, the Yankees has instituted a policy where they are running a lottery just to have a chance to buy single-game tickets from them.

That's right. To get tickets to one game, you have to be put into a lottery. If you are one of the "winners" of the lottery, you have the opportunity to buy tickets from them for single games.

Yes, it has gotten ridiculous. Soon, they will be selling seat licenses like football does.

How does a family who wants a day at the ballpark manage to get tickets?

They don't, that's how.

Or they go on one of the ticket broker sites. That is really the only way you can get tickets to a single game at Yankee Stadium, but you will pay for this privilege, paying much more for the ticket in nosebleed land than it is actually worth.

That's what I am probably going to do. My family and I want to go to one game, just one game, and it's doubtful that we are going to win any ticket lottery, so we'll have to go the StubHub route.

I wish some of our politicians would look into this.

Sure, there are bigger problems, but what the Yankees are basically doing is catering to the elite fan, those who can afford season tickets, while shutting out the average Joe who can just afford a single game.

And that is wrong.

We go to Florida each year on vacation. Since we are in Orlando, we usually try to take in a Rays game in St. Petersburg, and we will do so this year.

No problem there. They are lucky if they get 10,000 fans per game, so you have your choice on tickets.

And with the Rays, sometimes if you go through a broker, you can get a better deal on a ticket.

That is what we've done, and we will be sitting right behind the visiting team's dugout for the game we are seeing at Tropicana Field in July.

Look, the Yankees are the Yankees. They are the most successful sports franchise in the world, and they can basically do what they want with their tickets.

But not to offer families some sort of deal to take in a day at the ballpark is ludicrous.

I am sure I will pay an arm and a leg to see them this season, just for the one game, when I go the broker route.

But there's nothing like being out at the ballpark to see a game, so I am going to have to manage.

But it just isn't fair.

Rant #693: John Carter of Tars

My family and I went to see a movie on Sunday. We don't go to the movies much anymore--too expensive, and lack of films to take the family to--but we decided that this Sunday, we weren't going to vegetate at home.

Oh, how I wish we would have.

We saw probably the worst movie of the year, if not the worst movie I have seen in many years.

Disney's "John Carter," about Edgar Rice Burrough's second most famous character--a distant second to Tarzan, of course--is an absolutely horrid film, overblown with special effects, horrid acting and, ultimately, not making much sense at all.

It is 150 minutes of boredom from beginning to end.

And funny, for a film touted as "the first blockbuster film of 2012," there were about 10 people in the audience besides us.

I can't even really tell you what it was about. It is sort of a cross between "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Star Wars," about interplanetary traveler John Carter, an archaeologist who ends up on Mars, saves that planet, and marries the girl.

And it stars Taylor Kitsch (I kitsch you not) and Lynn Collins.

Yes, it is really, really bad.

And evidently, I am not the only one who thinks this movie is ready for the trash bin already.

"John Carter" opened in second-place at the box office with $30.6 million. That's an awful start based on the $250 million that Disney reportedly spent to make the film, a movie which received generally poor reviews that some think could hurt its long-term prospects.

The movie's salvation could come overseas, where it opened in 55 markets with $70.6 million, giving it a worldwide total of $101.2 million.

"We would have hoped for more considering the larger economics of the film, but are still encouraged with how it's been received by audiences that have seen it and hope to see that generate positive word of mouth for the balance of the run," said Dave Hollis, Disney's head of distribution.

By the way, the top movie was Universal Pictures' "The Lorax" at No. 1 for the second-straight weekend as the animated adventure based on the children's book took in $39.1 million. That raised its 10-day domestic total to $122 million, making "The Lorax" the top-grossing movie released this year.

So, "The Lorax" is really "the first blockbuster film of 2012." Dr. Seuss is laughing about all of this, I am sure.

"John Carter" is an example of movie bloat, where a director is given x amount of dollars and does everything he can to spend every penny--except create an interesting move.

And thank goodness we saved a little money by seeing the non-3D version of this bomb!

On top of that, I swore I was watching an umpteenth rerun of "I Love Lucy" when I was watching this movie.

Why, you say? What's the connection?

Well, it isn't much of a connection, but you know how in "I Love Lucy," when they had a famous guest star on the show, they mentioned his/her name about 100 times in the show--and not just "John," or "Wayne," for John Wayne, but they would say "John Wayne" all those times during the episode?

Well, the name "John Carter" must have been said--and remember, I said "John Carter," not "John" or "Carter"--about 200 times throughout the film, if not more, as if to remind you what you were watching.

Why, I don't know, third base!

At least "I Love Lucy" was funny.

This film is just plain bad. Stay away at all costs.

(And a shout out to my mom, who celebrated her 81st birthday yesterday. She is the greatest mom that there ever was--heck, she put up with me, my sister and my dad through the years, so she has to be great!)

Rant #692: Keeping the Flame Burning

In the mid- to late-1960s, there were three teen idols that ruled the roost, that were the epitome of a level of fan frenzy that many attempted to attain, but really only three did.

Davy Jones, Peter Noone and Mark Lindsay were the three, and with one recently passed, the standard bearers continue to be Lindsay and Noone.

Today, Mark Lindsay, former lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders, celebrates his 70th birthday.

And like Jones, Lindsay's stardom was not only on record, but directly tied into television, too.

Lindsay was the star of the Raiders, the lead singer with the pony tail sprouting out under his tri-corner Revolutionary War hat.

Appearing originally as the house band on Dick Clark's afternoon rock and roll show, "Where the Action Is," the Pacific Northwest-based band soon basically took over the show, with Lindsay as its frontman.

They had many, many hits during that period: "KIcks," "Just Like Me," "Steppin' Out," "Ups and Downs," "The Great Airplane Strike," "Hungry," "Good Thing," ... the list goes on and on.

And Lindsay was the focus. He was sort of a Mick Jagger-lite, but that pout and that ponytail turned on female viewers during that period.

They even had one contest where the winner received his queue, also known as his ponytail!

Lindsay and his ever-changing cast of bandmates were regularly featured in Tiger Beat, Flip, and those types of magazines, competing for space with Herman's Hermits' Noone and a little later, with the Monkees, and primarily Davy Jones.

As the 1960s progressed, music changed, but the Raiders continued to have hits as they starred in their own shows under the "Happening" banner. They lasted longer than Herman's Hermits and the Monkees did, and even had one monster one in the 1970s, "Indian Reservation," as Lindsay's own solo career heated up.

He had one real big hit as a solo artist, "Arizona," and he kind of mellowed out as his former teenybopper fans grew up and out of the Raiders fandom clique.

He lasted with the Raiders and as a prominent solo artist until about 1974 or so.

Lindsay has supposedly been on the outs with bandleader Paul Revere for years, so over the past nearly four decades, the Raiders have had their own career as an oldies band, and Lindsay has had his own career as a solo act singing his old Raiders/solo hits.

He puts out a record on occasion, and plays oldies shows around the country.

Yet, he, like Noone and Jones, will always be remembered for their 1960s personas at the top of the teen idol list.

And with the passing of Jones, he and Noone have that "teen idol" mantle to keep going.

Happy birthday, Mark. Keep on going on for many years to come.