Anyone else remember the gas companies' 3-card monte in LA back in '74? They let high-volume stations run low, while hiding gas in the tanks of closed or lower-volume stations, creating a false sense that the "shortage was real, blowing up demand and forever obscenely driving up it's cost per gallon.

20-some years ago I learned from a neighbor's kid who worked at Mickey Deez after graduation that every item on their breakfast menu was processed...including their infamous crotch-burning coffee. These days, I've begun to notice how bland fast food and supermarket frozen entries has increasingly become, almost as if they are seeing how much profit they can squeeze from every point of sale by reducing either the size and/or the amount of ALL key ingredients.