McDonald's and Sony Offer Music Downloads 446
J ROC writes "CNet reports that McDonalds and Sony are teaming up to offer free music downloads to customers who buy a Big Mac Extra Value Meal. The offer, which begins on June 8, offers customers an access code to download one free song at Sony's Connect online music store. Hmmm, let's see, about 600 calories in a Big Mac, an average of 12 songs on a CD, so that's about 7200 calories you will need to consume in order to get an album's worth of music (and I'm not including the calories from the fries and softdrink). Does this offer also include a free gym membership?"
The gym membership (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The gym membership (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The gym membership (Score:2)
Actually (Score:3, Funny)
Getting hungry just thinking about it. Wonder if I can get McDonalds to offer a McLard combo, with a side of extra lard. That would definitely get me the "McLardass of the Year" trophy.
Fat people with headphones fetish (Score:2)
Re:Supersize (Score:3, Funny)
What happened (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What happened (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What happened (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What happened (Score:3, Informative)
Check it, from connect.com's EULA [connect.com]: (emphasis mine)
Re:What happened (Score:5, Funny)
In this case, destroy all the evil music downloaders (or as the RIAA calls them, "freeloaders") with greasy fast food. How dare they ruin their overpriced music dreams!
This whole "online musical revolution" thing has been a thorn in their side for too long and they are ready to DO something!
Think ABOUT IT, man!
Re:What happened (Score:2)
Re:What happened (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What happened (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What happened - health food at McD's? (Score:2)
I saw the funniest thing at a McDonald's last weekend... they were selling an "Adult Happy Meal". It was a bunch of iceberg lettuce, a bottle of water, and a pedometer!
I wish I was making this up... but it's true.
Re:What happened - health food at McD's? (Score:3, Interesting)
God I hate it how they dumb things down for Americans.
Re:What happened - health food at McD's? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What happened (Score:3, Insightful)
The free downloads would appeal more to people in their teens, and they aren't the ones worried so much about fat and calories.
Re:What happened (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What happened (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What happened (Score:2, Interesting)
It's probably more like "Ugh, I'm sick of the neighbourhood Subway, but the only other place open and/or nearby is a McDonald's. Damn. Well, what's the *least* horrible thing on the menu..."
The first song I'm getting (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The first song I'm getting (Score:3, Informative)
No, no, no, not that song. How about the "I'll take a Big Mac, McBLT, a quarter pounder with some cheese, filet-a-fish, a hamburder, a cheeseburger, a Happy meal....". I can't remember the rest. No one ever seems to remember that promotion.
Re:The first song I'm getting (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The first song I'm getting (Score:2)
that's where my memory taps out.
Re:The first song I'm getting (Score:2, Funny)
special sauce (Score:5, Funny)
The secret of the special sauce, revealed! (Score:4, Informative)
"'Cause Knowledge is power!"
Re: McDonald's ...Offers Music Downloads (Score:2)
How about a fucking hamburger that tastes good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Clown. Hamburger. That combination alone is bizzare. Now we're supposed to think Clown+Hamburger+MP3 is sane?
Re:How about a fucking hamburger that tastes good. (Score:2)
Re:How about a fucking hamburger that tastes good. (Score:2)
Second Attempt
I don't think Clown+<Anything/> is sane.
Re:How about a fucking hamburger that tastes good. (Score:2)
Obviously you have never experienced the "joys" of Clown++.
Re:How about a fucking hamburger that tastes good. (Score:5, Funny)
You've got ronald mcdonald, a scurvy-ridden freak who's the prime representative of mcdonalds to the public. He's got major nutritional problems, besides his chalky-white face he's got bright-red hair and eye problems. Kind of like Joker when he fell into the vat of acid. Makes you want to think twice before biting into that cheeseburger, doesn't it?
Then you've got grimace, who's name is a synonym for making a face like you just ate something nasty. Actually, merriam-webster gives this definition : "a facial expression usually of disgust or disapproval" And what kind of mutant blob is he supposed to be? How many big macs did his mom eat while she was pregnant, to mutate him so much?
Fry-guys. Okay, so the french fries there don't even come from potatoes but from some obscure animal lifeform. Are they driven to extinction? Maybe they're last remaining hideout is in some corners of the Amazon rainforest. Or are they a collection of fries that, due to the toxic chemicals they're made from, suddently acquired a collective concious. Hmmm.
And the hamburgler. Yup, eating at mcdonalds makes you so addicted you resort to stealing to be able to get your next big-mac fix.
Seriously, what a bunch of weird-ass characters to represent a company. They are like their own X-Men or similar.
Sony's format sucks... (Score:5, Interesting)
I admit that iTunes is only offering DRM Protected AAC, which is almost as bad, but at least AAC has a pretty high quality. By comparison, ATRAC3 sounds like you're hearing the music through a tube. Not to mention that ATRAC3 has some of the worst DRM and restrictive software I've ever seen.. You have to check music into and out of your portable player device, I believe. It's just wacky as hell.
Re:Sony's format sucks... (Score:4, Insightful)
For the 12 billionth time, who the hell wants a crippled product, even if it *is* "free". Yipee! I have my regular music collection PLUS 4 "free" crippled songs! When I want to play any of those 4 songs I am required to switch to a different crippled music player! Yipee!
I'll stick with Winamp and shuffleplay ALL of my non-crippled files at once thankyouverymuch.
-
Re:Sony's format sucks... (Score:3, Informative)
You forgot to mention that the DRM that is there is also relatively simple to remove [hymn-project.org].
McAlbums (Score:5, Funny)
McD: You want Frey's with that?
Re:McAlbums (Score:2)
Re:McAlbums (Score:2)
I found your joke pretty funny...anything that makes me smile in the middle of the working day was worthwhile. Don't worry about ACs in future...they're only here to boost the web advert impressions.
More? (Score:2, Insightful)
But wait, they don't *do* healthy things.
Re:More? (Score:2)
Required reading (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course there is also Super Size Me [supersizeme.com] the movie about the guy who ate nothing but McDonald's for a month & the effects on his body. I haven't seen it yet (I'm waiting to finish "Fast Food Nation" first) but I hear it's good.
Re:Required reading (Score:2, Informative)
After (Score:2)
Q.
Re:Required reading (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Required reading (Score:2)
The author of Fast Food Nation actually says many times that he likes fast food, but the system that produces your meal a
Re:Required reading (Score:5, Insightful)
You should see the movie because that's the whole point. Personally I can't stand fast food, and lately my girlfriend and I have been cooking most of our meals, avoiding processed foods, etc.
But if you see the Supersize Me documentary, it shows you just how 'entrenched' our society is with all this fast-food and junk foods. The movie opens with a large group of little kids singing a song about pizza hut, kfc, and mcdonalds. It's more than just pop culture, fast food images are embedded into their heads through tv commercials, public school meal programs, and even summer-camp songs (as that song demonstrates).
In the movie they talk with the lobby group (i forget the name) that represents mcdonalds and all the other huge multinational fast-food and other food companies. They have tons of power, and lobby the gubmint to pass favorable legislation for them, etc.
Another point brought out by the movie is that this crappy food is so cheap that for many people it's what they depend on. And one really does have to go out of their way to avoid it completely (not just mcdonalds but all fast food and other questionable food companies like kraft, heinz, etc that load their foods w/ sugars/fats as well).
Re:Required reading (Score:3, Insightful)
The hook for the movie is that the guy tried an all fast-food diet for a month, and he blimped. Gained something like fifty pounds. But he was eating approximately 5000 calories a day. It doesn't really matter what form those calories take. I don't care if you're on Atkins, or a vegetarian, or eating an all snail diet: at 5000 calories a day, you're going to get supersized.
Re:Required reading (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny, but it's not "good". (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very funny and well made, but his point utterly fails. First off, he does something inordinately stupid.. he comes up with "rules" that virtually guarantee he'll eat the biggest, most fattening thing that they offer. And then when he becomes sick, he expects you to have not expected this in the first place.
This is one of those "well, duh" moments. It's like when researchers announce that they've done some 3 years of studies and found that kids don't like to go to school. Well, duh.
If you eat nasty fattening shit all day, every day, you won't be healthy. If you override your body's desires for foods that it needs with some arbitrary set of rules, you won't be healthy.
Health isn't a matter of what kind of foods you eat. Not really. Health is a matter of balance. Sometimes you need fat in your meal. Other times you need salad. If you eat the same damn thing all the time, it doesn't matter *what* it is, you're not eating healthy by definition.
He's trying to make a point that this food is unhealthy. In this, he fails miserably. The food is not unhealthy. His behavior in eating nothing but that food is unhealthy. If he wanted to prove that any particular chain was unhealthy, he should have tried to eat a balanced diet using only foods from that chain. They have a big menu for a friggin' reason. They do offer salads. They do offer healthy choices (admittedly, not many). Just because they offer a lot of fatty foods doesn't mean you have to eat nothing but those fatty foods.
So the movie, while funny, utterly fails to make any commentary that has any real meaning. It's a mockumentary at best. He didn't actually prove anything that anybody wouldn't have known from hearing the premise. "Well, duh."
The world is not that black and white.... (Score:3, Informative)
No, I'm not. Obviously you can only grasp binary concepts, however the real world is not black and white.
Food is just food. There's nothing inherently healthy or unhealthy about any particular food. It's silly to state that this or that food is unhealthy because that's oversimplifing the situation.
The reality of the matter is that what's healthy or unhealthy, at any given moment, depends on the individual and their current dietary needs. Charactizing any
Re:Required reading (Score:2)
To quote from youre website: "Unlike him, she accepted the responsiblity of eating wisely from their menu, and ended up losing weight and having her cholesterol go down. "
i.e. She, unlike 95% of customers, ate the "healthy options".
Q.
Wasn't there a previous deal with Apple? (Score:2, Informative)
band wagon (Score:2)
Only problem is i doubt the Sony setup will be to the same quality as the iTMS setup.
The joke has become reality (Score:2)
This is sad, before I started reading the article the first thing that came to mind was making a joke that they would be offering free music downloads to customers who buy a Big Mac Extra Value Meal.
Well, the Adult Happy Meals ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, the Adult Happy Meals ... (Score:2)
My girlfriend bought one... (Score:2)
Wonder... (Score:3, Funny)
Time for me to be... PEDANTIC! (Score:2)
You do not have to consume the food in order to get the free song. Therefore, your math is completely wrong.
No.. (Score:2)
Re:No.. (Score:2)
Maybe. But if you're buying lunch for your friend or something, you don't have to consume it.
In any event, that comment was meant as satirical.
Re:No.. (Score:2)
Oh, the mainstreaming of /.... (Score:5, Funny)
Be proud of the ketchup stains on your t-shirt, goddammit!
Re:Oh, the mainstreaming of /.... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's just another thing for the people who don't believe in personal responsibility to latch on to... The evil corporations are forcing people to eat fat! How dare they!
I wouldn't be surprised if that new "documentary" about the guy that ate only fast food for a month wasn't funded by the various lawyers that stand to benefit from class action suits against fast food.
Fast food is the next tobacco in the real life slippery slope of litigation that hing
As Jerry Seinfeld once said, (Score:4, Funny)
but wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
A Rant (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, it's a bit sad that they market their product so strongly to children - but adults have no reason to complain. If you don't want horribly unhealthy food, don't eat there - or at least get one of their moderately healthy parfaits or salads or the new veggie burger.
The only thing that really pisses me off about McDonalds is that when they finally started making a Veggie Burger, they made it taste like shit. There's lots of veggie burgers out there that taste great, but McDonalds had to make one that could never compete in taste with their real meat patties.
This is Andrew Q Ranter, signing off.
Re:A Rant (Score:2)
A rant answering a rant... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was a vegetarian for about 4 years of my life, and it made me much more selective and concious of what I was eating, and thus I lost a considerable amount of weight and became more aware of my body's needs calorically, etc. Then, about 2 years ago, I went back to eating meat, and ballooned up at least 20 pounds. Why? Because it just became food food food all over again. Burgers, steaks, whatever. Much like you stated with the common American food consumption mentality, you get in a mindset where it becomes so hard to moderate yourself, you really lose a grip on your food intake and just go hog wild. Even an INCREDIBLY active person can not sucessfully maintain a healthy body if they were to participate in the diet of "fat" Americans.
I went back to being a vegetarian about 3 months ago and have also gotten my ass on a treadmill, and I'm starting to shed off those pounds I gained from when I started eating meat again. I'm not advocating that vegetarianism is the means to lose weight here. Rather, I'm just stating that personally, for me, being a vegetarian puts me in a mindset where I'm just so much more concious of what I'm eating that I see HOW BAD most food sold in America really is. And the sad thing is, it seems people aren't necessarily always living to eat rather than eating to live, but they just can't get a decent healthy meal anywhere else.
Re:A Rant (Score:2, Funny)
but
Re:A Rant (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't that kind of like claiming your a virgin because you've only slept with 4 or 5 people?
Re:A Rant (Score:3, Insightful)
The question is... (Score:3, Funny)
Rethinking 'free' music (Score:2)
(1) Do people want to go to 'all that trouble' for a free song? When you have to download software, setup an account, (and perhaps provide a credit card), then find the song you want and download it, just to be unable to play it on your choice of
Slightly OT, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like the food at McDonald's, buy your food somewhere else. Is it too much to ask people to accept some personal responsibility for their lifestyle choices?
Wait a minute (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot to factor in what scientists and dieticians like to refer to as the BAAM factor (not to be confused with Emeril's [emerils.com] BAM!). Which many believe is McDonalds way to actually decrease the weight of their customers, a diet of sorts.
BAAM is expanded as Barf At Abhorrent Music, which would not only eliminate the 600 Big Mac calories, but whatever else that had not yet been digested. Depending on which Pop band's CD you buy, you can actually end up at negative calories for the day.
Don't eat the food (Score:2, Informative)
And, BTW, a big mac extra value meal is probably closer to 1000-1500 calories depending on the drink. For those that don't know, that supplies at least 75% of the calories that many of us need for the entire day, as well as most of the fat. However, it supplies much less than 50% many other nutrients.
Continuation of collaboration.... (Score:2, Funny)
Why not just download it for free (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why not just download it for free (Score:2)
Fast Food is not the enemy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fast Food is not the enemy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is McDonald's marketed as an indulgence, or as something that should be daily consumed? Here are the themes from McDonald's advertising:
McDonald's is Your Kind of Place (1967)
You Deserve a Break Today (1971)
We Do it All for You (1975)
Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucechees e pickleso nionsonasesameseedbun (1975)
You, You're The One (1976)
Nobody Can Do It Like McDonald's Can (1979)
Renewed: You Deserve a Break Today (1980 & 1981)
Nobody Makes Your Day Lik
Standing Tech Support Issue With Sony (Score:2)
If it can't, then I don't care. I paid $500 for that ipod and I'm not going to pay even more for a silly Sony device. And the last Sony Device I bought was my Clie, wow you got to love their support for products.
Ted Tschopp
p.s. It's called sarcasim.
Windows 98SE or higher? (Score:2, Funny)
And the artist get . . . (Score:3, Funny)
The artist who wrote, performed, recorded, published, and promoted the music will get a coupon for a free super size upgrade.
Why I hate product tie-ins (Score:2)
Deal? or "The fat capatalist perspective" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Deal? or "The fat capatalist perspective" (Score:3, Insightful)
And how do you support musicians? By writing them a personal check?
Re:Deal? or "The fat capatalist perspective" (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
man.. the super size guy must be ticked (Score:3, Insightful)
e.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They did make an Adult Happy meal (Score:2)
Hey now! I'll have you know that my wife loves her Stepometer! She's always checking it after going for a run. And do you know the pain I had to go through to get it?! The drive-thru people didn't put it in her "adult meal", so I had to drive all the way back and wrangle it out of them!
Oops. Did I just say that out loud?
Re:They did make an Adult Happy meal (Score:2, Funny)
Wouldn't it have done you more good to run back to the place?
Re:They did make an Adult Happy meal (Score:2)
Believe it or not, it was raining that day. And to be perfectly honest, I was already pissed about the pizza guy who never arrived. We had ordered a pizza from our favorite pizza joint, but their new driver was such a f***up that he couldn't find a friggin' high rise building along one of the best known highways in the Chicago Loop area. Even after I gave the guy EXPLICIT instructions, he STILL couldn't find the place. So, with two hungry kids w
Re:They did make an Adult Happy meal (Score:3, Insightful)
Like we're supposed to believe that just because McDonald's gave her a stupid step counter, that she's not going to be lazy and take the elevator.
Come on... you know she took the elevator.
Re:Now why would I... (Score:2)
So once you get lipo, there are no fat cells to expand.
You would end up looking pretty odd if you get lipo and start gaining weight again.
The only description I can think of is...dented?
Re:Want fries with that? (Score:5, Funny)