It Was Groundhog's Day At The Local KFC

Man, I wish I had blogged about it while it was still on.

OK, so the local Kentucky Fried Chicken (there is a closer one, but my friend, who was working fast food in high school, says that that one is dirty; they've remodeled in the past year, so maybe it's different now) a couple years ago, I think, spiffed up its room.  They had a jukebox where it appears as though you could spin an old 50s or 60s record for a quarter, or something.  They also put up a few flatscreen TVs where they would show what appears to be special, only-for-KFC programming called "The Bite," which may be the worst name for anything you can see on a television-type screen since TruTV.  It was a rapid-fire series of celebrity gossip, clips of music videos, previews of new movies, showcases of new gadgets, trivia questions where you can text in your answers, and promos of what's new on TV.  I remember specifically a teaser piece of Allegiant.  Or is it Divergent?  Guess it's Divergent ... you know, the first movie in that series.  They also had a somewhat long commercial for NBC Sports' coverage of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, which was held in February 2014.  So while you're eating you get to watch that.  Oh, and keep track of the time and temperature, both of which were put on the screen during the rest of the programming.

Not a bad idea.  It's something to actually look at instead of staring blankly against the wall, although it may have been just in front of the advent of everyone using their smartphones while doing everything including eating.  But you would think that this programming would be, you know, updated.  That the new promos for movies of the latest music videos would replace the ones before it, right?

You would be incorrect in believing in such common sense.  I went into this KFC once in a while since, and every time when I sat down to eat and look at "The Bite," I saw the same goddamn thing.  It was the same text questions, the same music video clips, the same gossip ... and they kept plugging Allegiant the Winter Olympics.  In fact, when I was at that KFC last month they were still showing it.  The fucking Winter Olympics was almost two years ago and they were still promoting it.  What the fuck?!

Obviously something happened, and my thought is someone with KFC came to his or her senses and thought, "Wait, why the hell are we paying for programming when we're just a chicken store and everybody will be playing on their phones?" and pulled the plug on it.  An indication of that may have been the time and temp readings.  At an early point in "The Bite"'s life, those things did not update.  Guess that the programming had been plugged into a worldwide network that automatically updated those two pieces of information based on location, and when that connection was severed, well, that's the reason there were dashes where the time should have been.  It struck me as funny, however, to see that for the current temp, today's expected high, tonight's expected low, and the extremes for tomorrow they showed the glitch, "NaN°"

As I kept eating there and seeing this shitty programming on loop I wanted to do something.  I never had the balls to talk to one of the guys who worked there and say, "Hey -- what's with the TV, man?"  To see the same damn thing over and over again ... that has to damage you psychologically.  Once back in the fall I tweeted KFC letting them know that one of their franchises was stuck showing two-year-old promos.  Never got a response.  When I tweeted that I wanted to blog about it here, but I was scared that if I did both at the same time Kentucky Fried Chicken would know my real identity on Wailing And Failing and thus out me here, and so I wanted to wait to put them on blast through a different medium.

Well, it might be too late.  I went in there yesterday (Wednesday) for lunch and the TVs were turned off.  I don't know if they're off because "The Bite" finally went completely off closed-circuit TV or if the workers there went so crazy with seeing the same shit for two years that the manager or owner just shut the sets off.  (Maybe they shut them off because of my tweet!  Maybe not.)  Honestly, I wouldn't've minded seeing the promotions for the Winter Olympics again, more than two years those Olympics were held.  Oh, well.  It was one of those weird things that might have made the news if they kept showing the same crap for another year or so.