* For those of you who were worried about Hummer going bosoms-up, don’t worry – they were recently acquired by Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company.

But for once, this story of excess doesn’t involve the US. It involves the worlds largest lumbering software giant, Microsoft, and fast food giant Burger King – in Japan. Most of my normal readers know how much I detest fast food, and this just strengthens that. Bigger is not always better.

Ugh...

Imagine staring down the barrel of this bad baby! When I first saw it, my first thoughts were along the lines of Dear God! What is this monstrosity?! That was immediately followed by Prepare the O.R. STAT! We’re going to be having a few quad-bypasses coming this way!

This isn’t a legitimate food offering, this is a challenge – a slap in the face. Let’s get the stats down:

You are looking at a 1.7 pound, 7 patty, 2,120 calorie, ¥ 777 ($8.50, and that’s for the first 30 daily customers… after that, it’s around $15), Godzilla-sized whopper (let’s redefine the meaning of the word WHOPPER). THIS is your entire… ENTIRE daily fat, calorie, sodium, and protein intake in one sitting!!

I think I just threw up in my mouth.

So, someone over at MicroSoft thought it would be a good idea to go over to Burger King and say, “We have this operating system coming out – lord even knows if it’s going to work right – but we need something that will kill our end users before they even get to turn on their new Windows 7 powered computers…”

I think what was worse was seeing CNN’s very petite Kyung Lah “sinking her teeth into a calorific promotional deal.” And man, she ate the WHOOOOOOOOLE thing, all while the big dude next to her sat there and cringed. I crap you negative!

So, onto the letter part of it:

Dear MicroSoft and Burger King,

For the love of God and all that is holy – please don’t do any more cross-promotional advertisements. Ever. There is no good reason in the world to have a 2000+ calorie burger on your menu, even if it’s only for seven days.

Computer and television use already promote a sedentiary lifestyle, so you don’t need to cross-market your latest opperating system with a chunk of meet capable of clogging someone’s arteries in a single bite. You make software. Shame on you!

And Burger King! You should know better! I mean… YUCK!

You have been **erp** uhhh…. m00sed.

(Sweet Jesus! Who would eat that!?! God help us all if this ends up in the states.)

I see you there, lingering just out of my periphery. I think it’s cute, that little tail-waggle-chirp thing you do as you await my passing by to play chicken with my bicycle. But you are a mouse to me being an Elephant. I tick my tongue at you, and you dart from one side of the road to the other, then, as if your mind is changed, double back to your tree on the right side of the road.

What are you doing, Squirrel of Doom? You hang out on a busy bike path, and you’re bound to be hit, or worse! Let’s not forget about your cousin, Crazy Squirrel, who put a full stop on a rider’s century in Austin.

From VeloNews:

Crazy Squirrel + Bike Forks don't mix.

Two weekends ago a riding buddy’s brother was eight miles in to a century when he sucked a squirrel in to his front wheel while traveling at a good 25-30 mph. He fractured his #10 thoracic vertebrae, but there was no spinal cord damage, so he will recover, albeit with some new and permanent internal hardware.

From what we can surmise, the squirrel got in the wheel and sheared the fork in half. The big chain-ring is bent, so it appears he came down on on the ring and then on to his right side, hard enough to damage the shifter, but not bend the bars.

We were all just surprised that a squirrel could shear a fork in half like that. Have you ever seen something like that happen before? I would have expected the wheel to just lock up, but I guess at 25-30 mph the force must be a lot more than I would have guessed, and as I understand it, carbon fiber does not do well under compression/impact. And the squirrel does appear to have hit the fork dead center — at the point of highest leverage.

 While your cousin may have been potentially suicidal, I still don’t like it when you try to get your thrills from running in the middle of the road, and right smack in the path of my front wheel. I would feel horrible if I hit you, and I really don’t relish the idea of being thrown over the front of my bars.

As a Clydesdale sized athlete, I’m aware that I can’t have low-count spokes in my wheel configurations due to the risk of pulling a taco on one of my wheels coming around a turn. Trust me, Squirrel of Doom, I’ve done it before and it’s not fun. But what of those fancy racing wheels; those HED.3’s I want? Those would provide ample room for someone of your size to get stuck in, and not to mention, you could do serious damage to the wheel, the fork, the bike, you, and my moose-ish self, all in one foul fell swoop.

I’m pleading with you, little Squirrel of Doom, please tell the other urban woodland creatures to stay off the bike path, and off the road. If you must cross the street, please look both ways before crossing, and use the crosswalk where you can. I mean, seriously, there are crows in Japan that have learned how to use the crossing signal buttons to stop traffic so they can eat fruits that have fallen from the trees and onto the street. (A crosswalk buffet is safer on a busy road.) If they can do it, you can do it, too! I will do my best to watch for you and your cousins, sworn enemy of mine, but I can’t stop on a dime!

Just remember: playing chicken with cyclists isn’t good for anyone involved!! Squeakity squeak squeaken!

Yours truly,
The m00se

PS- Bastard Goose, you can hiss at me all you want, but you’re next.