Want to know how many calories are in that kimchi-and-short-rib-stuffed burrito you just wolfed down at Kogi Korean BBQ?

Well, you could ask, but then you’d be labeled as one of the “Nutritional Nazi’s many minions,” according to a recent post by Kogi Korean BBQ’s Alice Shin.

Shin, the popular food truck’s social media presence, responds to the question at hand in a diatribe meant to tell people to stop asking for the numbers. I saw it while searching the Interwebs for Kogi nutritional information ahead of its stop in Mission Viejo on Wednesday.

“On a superficiaL, ego-leveL — when it comes to caLorie-counting, you wouLd not ask it of Jar. You wouLd not ask it of Mozza.  You wouLd not ask it of JitLada, nor wouLd you ask it from Soot BuL Jip,” Shin writes of other popular Los Angeles eateries. ” … You might ask it from McDonaLd’s, you might even find it easiLy enough on the website of AppLebee’s.” (Her bold type and strange capitalization, not mine, in all instances — her “L” key seems to be on the fritz).

True, you can find the (shocking) info at McDonald’s and Applebee’s sites, but that’s because they have more than 20 units in operation. That’s the qualification in a recent health care bill that requires businesses to post calories on their menus. Mom-and-pop shops, like Kogi, whose owners run four food trucks and Chego restaurant, aren’t required to do so by law.

She goes on — but not before likening nutritional labels to straitjackets — to explain her reasoning against the labels, which can be summed up in the following ways: 1) posting nutritional information would somehow take away from what  “it means to grow up as the chiLdren of immigrants and what it is to feast on something that tastes aLive; 2) Not every Kogi item is uniformly made, so calorie counts can’t truly be accurate and 3) “(She’s an) Aries. DeaL with it.”

If she feels insulted by having people ask her what’s in the food, I’d argue that it’s 10 times more insulting to be scolded by Shin, who says we’re probably better off eating one shred of lettuce than chugging three bottles of Viatmin Water, that zero-calorie items contain artificial sweeteners and no nutrition, and that we should be more concerned with where our food comes from than the nutrition it represents for our bodies.

Her advice for keeping things in check at Kogi: “Get one taco instead of three.”

I get the idea — she’s preaching freshness and portion control over inhaling processed grub, and I fully agree — but I still think a business serving people food should be able to provide this information. I understand the calorie count wouldn’t be spot on, but a guideline would help. Check out Cafe Rio, which I think sets the bar in this arena. I don’t mind doing the math either, so long as I have the numbers.

And while I would love to see every truck, or other food service establishment post that information, I know that’s not happening any time soon. But certainly a business as popular as Kogi shouldn’t be so brash in pushing the notion aside, or flat out telling people not to come.

“If the lack of nutritionaL information is keeping you from trying our trucks, then that’s fine by me! HonestLy!,” Shin writes in the comments.

When I’m at home, I use Calorieking and am able to calculate what exactly I’m putting in my body. If Kogi’s ingredients are all natural and not processed, as Shin says they are (I’m not arguing the fact, Kogi’s food is legit), then it shouldn’t be hard to calculate the calories and protein, carbohydrate and fat content of your food.

Now, I don’t want to front. Not only do I write a food blog where I indulge in gutbombs on a regular basis, but until about a month ago when my doctor told me it was time to slim down, I was also likely to be the dude in front of you at the drive-thru, slamming back chicken nuggets with a sweet and sour sauce chaser.

But on that advice I decided to change for the better. I’m keeping myself to about 1,500 calories per day, and I’m very strict about it. I eat poorly once a week and I’ve lost some weight, just by eating right and walking most nights.

I say it not to brag (though I am proud), but as an example, and balance, to Shin’s rant. It may not matter for everyone, but for some people, heck, even for just this one person, it does.

And I shouldn’t be criticized for that.

If I’m going to put something in my body, I should have the right to know exactly what it is, even if I choose to use that right irresponsibly.

Especially when I’m the one paying for it, both out of pocket, and with my health.

Talk back: What do you think of the calorie counts at eateries? Does it matter to you? Are you fine not knowing exactly what the nutritional value is of places like Kogi Korean BBQ?

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Kogi: Health-conscious work for ‘Nutritional Nazi’ is a post from: Fast Food Maven

When I left on vacation two weeks ago, Carl’s Jr. was making headlines with its wacky foot-long cheeseburger test in Orange County.

Today, I return to work to find Jamba Juice marketing a menu eye-catcher: a Cheeseburger Chill smoothie. The chain promotes the so-called “new” product in this YouTube video:

Turns out, the video is a joke.  The intention is to mock fast-food burger chains such as McDonald’s, which launched its smoothie campaign earlier this month.

“Jamba Juice is not getting into the burger business, but it does seem some burger chains are getting into the smoothie business—which to us, is about as weird as a Cheeseburger Chill Smoothie,” Jamba Juice marketing reps say.

As part of the YouTube-only commercial, Jamba Juice is offering customers a $1 off coupon at www.cheeseburgerchill.com.

My take: Jamba Juice must be worried about the debut of McDonald’s smoothies, otherwise they would not have come up with such a crazy — and gross — marketing stunt to grab our attention.  I would rather see a “mano a mano” comparison between the burger chain smoothies and  similar drinks sold at Jamba Juice.  A blind taste test would have been good, too.

Tell us: Would you try a cheeseburger smoothie? Also, how are the McDonald’s smoothies?

Related stories:

Jamba Juice menu tease: Cheeseburger Chill smoothie is a post from: Fast Food Maven

The news was published on Bean’s Twitter account, @IvyBean104, which regularly informed followers about Bean’s deteriorating condition over the last couple of days.

“Ivy passed away peacefully at 12.08 this morning… Im sorry it took me so long to tell you but it was a very difficult thing to do,” the tweets said.

Bean was a popular Twitter user with more than 56,000 followers at the time of her death, as well as a fairly active one, with more than 1,000 tweets. As one might expect, Bean was also an avid Facebook user; she joined at the age of 102.

Mrs. Bean’s example showed that social media truly knows no boundaries, and that tools such as Twitter and Facebook are open to everyone who wants to participate. We’ll miss you, Ivy.

More About: ivy bean, social media, trending, twitter

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Felicia Day and her lovely cast members are back in action for Season 4 of The Guild, the web-based comedy series that revolves around a World of Warcraft-like game and the lovable nerds who play it.

And what better way to kick off the new season than with an extravagant, hilarious, Bollywood-themed music video?

Attendees of Comic Con were treated to a sneak preview of the vid, which is a natural follow-up to the smash hit “Date My Avatar,” a fantasy-laden number that rolled out around this time last year.

The plot of the video (as if it actually needed one!) is simple and sweet: Nerd boyfriend (The Guild character Zaboo) convinces erstwhile-nerd girlfriend (character Codex, played by Day), to continue playing a MMORPG. The rest of The Guild cast makes appearances, along with some deliciously pixelated, faux 8-bit set pieces. There’s even some homage to the hilarious “Bollywood music videos phonetically ‘translated’ into English” meme.

What do you think: Is this new vid better than “Date My Avatar”? More importantly, how stoked are you for the return of The Guild to the tubes?

More About: bollywood, date my avatar, felicia day, game on, music video, The Guild

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Work will be suspended at the company’s Palo Alto offices for the next two days so that employees can embrace their inner Zerg. If you visit the Smule website, you’ll see that a “day off” notice has replaced the splash page usually reserved for its apps, which include I Am T-Pain, Magic Piano and Glee.

StarCraft II is one of the most highly anticipated games of all time, with more than 800,000 pre-orders estimated in the Americas alone. The original StarCraft was released in 1998 and has sold more than 11 million copies.

We imagine Smule isn’t the only workplace dismissing any pretense of productivity and logging onto Battle.net, but its announcement is certainly one of the funniest we’ve seen in quite some time:

“Alert: iPhone App Developer Smule Declares Starcraft II Company Holiday

Smule, developer of best-selling iPhone apps I Am T-Pain, Glee, Ocarina, and Magic Piano, has declared Tuesday, July 27th as StarCraft II Day at their Palo Alto offices. Work will be suspended for two days in order for Smule to enter into the modern-day equivalent of a ‘LAN party’ to play the game together. The office will, hopefully, return to developing Smule applications again on Thursday.

‘All our base are belong to StarCraft II,’ said Dr. Ge Wang, Smule’s Co-founder, Chief Creative Officer — and Starcraft n00b since 1998. ‘There is no realistic hope that we’d get any work done anyway, so we will instead embrace the occasion. We’ve pre-ordered copies of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty for the entire office, scheduled food catering, and channeled our inner Terran, Protoss, and Zerg in preparation for this long-awaited day.”

‘I require more Vespene gas!’ exclaimed Spencer Salazar, Lead Software Overlord, whose expanding creep has obstructed the placement of pylons by Scott Bonds, VP of Engineering, whose management cannon has gone unpowered for several weeks.

Ge reflected on the rich influence Starcraft has had Smule: ‘The original StarCraft, for us, symbolizes the pinnacle of real-time strategy gaming. The fluidity, the impeccable balance between the three races, and ever-evolving strategies border on — if not define — a new interactive art form. StarCraft II seems poised to take all of that to the next level, and to further decimate our productivity. Experiences like these inspire us to make better products and experiences for our users.”

So, tell us: Are you getting any work done today or are you busy playing/downloading StarCraft II?

More About: Smule, Starcraft, Starcraft II, video games

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Lumigon announces unveiling party for first smartphone, invites everyone on Facebook originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Users of competing platforms have had the ability to configure unique "profiles" - a particular setup of wallpaper, launcher, ringer and dock settings - for different times of the day and different scenarios for some time now.  It hasn't been until now, with Profiles (which can be downloaded from the PreCentral Homebrew app gallery) from homebrew developer Diov, that webOS users have had an easy to install way of configuring and managing profiles on their phones.

Profiles allows you to configure up to 11 profiles, each with its own unique launcher, dock, and wallpaper set up.  The program comes preconfigured with both Day and Night profiles, and users can create their own by setting their phones up how they like, hitting "edit mode", and tapping one of the profiles.

Like many of the custom app launchers that have sprung up in the App Catalog in recent times, I find the Profiles to be inelegant namely due to the minute-long restart of the UI manager - which causes the phone to be completely unusable - every time you switch profiles. That's certainly not the developer's fault, however. 

It should also be mentioned that this is beta software.  Accidently tapping a profile without first saving your current configuration will cause it to be erased - meaning that any launcher page settings will be gone. A few of us here at PC HQ have also experienced some conflict with customizations based on launcher patches. Update: this has been resolved in the latest version. Be sure to check out the forum thread for the app.

Thanks to Braden for the tip! 

Maybe there should be an age limit on Yellow Pages delivery. 70 and over?

Submitted by: dunno source via Submit Page

Bottled water is healthy water -- or so marketers would have us believe. Just look at the bottled water labels or ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks ... In reality, bottled water is just water; however, that fact isn't stopping people from buying a lot of it.

Here are some solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit from our friends at Term Life Insurance.

Source: Term Life Insurance

The latest "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" declaration from sex researchers: Young men are more emotionally influenced by the quality of their relationships, while young women are affected by whether they are single. The takeaway: Men's happiness depends on having an emotionally-supportive relationship, while women's happiness depends on not being alone, period.

Photo by LEGO

Wow. This morning, we woke up to find some amazing news out of St. Louis. According to the Riverfront Times, last night, Kings of Leon cut off their set at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater after just three songs. Understandably, the crowd was pissed. So why did the band leave the stage so quickly? It seems that the pigeons that live in the rafters of the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater aren't Kings of Leon fans.

As the Riverfront Times reports, last night, KoL drummer Nathan Followill Tweeted, "So sorry St. Louis. We had to bail, pigeons shitting in [bassist] Jared [Followill]'s mouth. Too unsanitary to continue....Don't take it out on Jared, it's the fucking venue's fault. You may enjoy being shit on but we don't. Sorry for all who traveled many miles."

Today, the Riverfront Times has a statement from the band that confirms what happened.

It says: "An infestation of pigeons living in the rafters of the Verizon Amphitheatre in St. Louis, MO, forced th

A federal judge ruled this week that Vitaminwater will not, as its labels promise, keep you "healthy as a horse." Nor will it bring about a "healthy state of physical or mental being". Instead, Vitaminwater is really just a sugary snack food; non-carbonated fruit coke disguised as a sports drink. Because it's composed mostly of sugar and not vitamin-laden water, judge John Gleeson held that Vitaminwater's absurd marketing claims were likely to mislead consumers.

Coke tried to explain away claims like "vitamins + water = all you need" as "only puffery." The judge disagreed.

By including the suggestion that the product will “keep you healthy” or “help bring about a healthy state of physical and mental being” alongside such statements, the quoted language implies that the nutrient content of vitaminwater may help consumers maintain healthy dietary practices. I conclude, therefore, in light of the language and context in which they are used, that the statements on the “defense” and “B- Relaxed” labels constitute implied nutrient content claims which use the word “healthy.” Such claims are in violation of violation of FDA regulations because . . . vitaminwater achieves its nutritional content solely through fortification that violates FDA policy.

Lawsuit Over Deceptive Vitaminwater Claims to Proceed [CSPI] (Press Release)
Order on Motion to Dismiss [U.S. District Court] (pdf)

TDK inflates to BDXL, bringing 100GB writable Blu-ray discs in September originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading AmpliTube for iPad available, Yngwie Malmsteen en route to Apple Store

AmpliTube for iPad available, Yngwie Malmsteen en route to Apple Store originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

iPhone headed for T-Mobile USA in Q3? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.