So I’ve been trying to figure out this Glaceau Vitaminwater billboard that’s up by the newspaper stand on the corner of Delancey and Clinton Streets. REAL VITAMINS NOT AVAILABLE ON CANAL STREET, it says. CHINATOWN GETS THEIR VITAMINS. That’s all it says. Totally confusing. (Even if you ignore the grammatical error, which, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s intentional.) Even then, what does it mean? Is it like, “You should drink Vitaminwater because it has real vitamins, and you can’t get real vitamins on Canal Street because the people in Chinatown always get there early and snatch them all up?” Or is it, “The people in Chinatown get their vitamins from Vitaminwater, as opposed to on Canal Street, where there are no real vitamins available, so so should you?” Or is it, “People in Chinatown understand vitamins, and so… something?” I don’t understand.

Answers, or clues, or even any pictures of the advertisement don’t seem to be available on the internet. (That’s a photo of a different Vitaminwater billboard, in a different city.) I emailed a query to Glaceau headquarters last night (after filling out all eight required fields to submit, Jesus!) and have not yet received a response, so company brass are obviously stonewalling. What are they hiding? Who are they trying to protect? And where’s Yayo on this? Oh, right. He’s in Aspen.

Update: Glaceau contacted us with a statement: “We are just trying to say that Chinatown gets it’s vitamins by drinking Vitaminwater®.”

It has been brought to our attention that there is another publication called The Awl! Unfortunately, it seems to have ceased publication sometime in the mid to late 1840s, even though it was only first published in 1843. Documented in Norman Ware’s fantastic The Industrial Worker, 1840–1860: the reaction of American industrial society to the advance of the industrial revolution, which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1924. This bit of history was brought to our attention by the widely-read Aaaron Swartz, praise his name. Let’s do some reading!

First, let’s let Mr. Ware set the scene of the time, the hot and bothered 1840s. This is an incredible passage.

IN THE MIDST OF THEIR HILARITY!

And now let us look a bit at the progress of industry and the conditions of the working person-which resulted in an outcropping of radical publications. One complaint was that the efficiency of the machines was adding vast wealth to the owners of those machines and was providing not so much for those who would now operate those machines.

You don’t say!

And now, let us turn to this examination of the shoemakers of the time-and their exquisitely well-named publication. (This section is a condensed version of the chapter, with some omissions.) If you have the time, it is a truly great read.

“Shortly after the American Academy of Pediatrics called for a redesign of hot dogs (to prevent accidental choking in toddlers), we learned about Chicago-based Big Hot Dog…. The Big Hot Dog is a hot dog-shaped, 7-pound blend of veal, beef and pork. It’s 16 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. The idea is to divide it into burger-patty slices and cook the slices on a grill.” [Via]

“Friendly nations who have been assisting in this investigation have indicated to the police in Dubai that the passports were issued in an illegal and fraudulent manner.”
–Dubai’s state media office issued a report saying that it now believes there were 26 people involved in last month’s assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, and that the suspects travelled on passports from England, Ireland, Austria, France and Germany. This time last year, M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” was a top 5 hit in countries all around the world-including Israel. (As always, any excuse to watch that video.)

“The 3:30 a.m. email bizarrely ended with a reference to the movie Footloose.”

Parents are no longer content to give their child the same name that everyone else has, and Science has a theory about it! “[R]esearchers suspect the uptick of unusual baby names could be a sign of a change in culture from one that applauded fitting in to today’s emphasis on being unique and standing out. When taken too far, however, this individualism could also lead to narcissism, according to study researcher Jean Twenge, of San Diego State University.” Twenge, who has already written a couple of books about narcissism, notes that, “There’s been this cultural shift toward focusing on the individual, toward standing out and being unique as opposed to fitting in with the group and following the rules. I think it is an indication of our culture becoming more narcissistic.” You hear that, Mahddyisen? Your folks are FUCKING YOU UP.

You may have noticed some very glowing stories this morning about the Washington Post Company! The AP says: “Washington Post Co. quadruples 4Q profit”! That is true! Now, this is a company with many different arms. Two of the wings, the cable TV stations and the Kaplan education services, provide fully 75% of the company’s income. But what about the newspapers and magazines, you ask, from which the company takes its name? Well they are in the toilet, actually, and had a very bad year.

The newspaper division’s annual loss was actually 15% less than last year-even while 2009’s revenues were down 15% from last year. So this year, they had an operating loss of only $163 million-while for 2008 that loss was almost $193 million. (Last year: terrible. This year: bad.)

The company’s magazine arm, however, had a significant downturn. That division “had an operating loss in 2009 of $29.3 million, compared to an operating loss of $16.1 million in 2008.” So revenues for magazines there were down 27% over last year.

There was a similar decrease in their profitable television division, even! Revenue for that department was down 16% in 2009 from 2008, though it had an operating profit.

So let’s look at some recent history!

The operating income of the newspaper division in 2005: $125,359,000
The operating income of the newspaper division in 2006 $63,389,000.

That’s a decline of almost 50% between 2005 and 2006.

In 2007, however, they held pretty much steady with operating income of $66,434,000.

So you can imagine that their operating loss in 2008 of $193 million was stunning.

Let’s look back at the trending of the newspaper division’s yearly pure revenue, setting aside the final income numbers:

2003: $872,754,000
2004: $938,066,000
2005: $957,082,000
2006: 961,905,000
2007: $889,827,000
2008: $801,265,000
2009: $679,282,000

So revenue began trending down from a 2006 high and then, in 2009, massively sagged. I don’t really need to graph that for you, do I?

Well we’ve known this for a while, so I guess now it’s confirmed. Just a couple months ago, we discovered: the Internet is… making people… nicer? For instance, Tumblr was designed in a way that ensured that it “didn’t have a lot of avenues for negativity,” according to that first story! And in today’s (actually very charming) Observer story, “There’s a lot of incentive and positive reinforcement when you use Tumblr,” is what Tumblr founder David Karp said. David Karp is your Internet mind-controller, because he will not install a button that says “I HATE THIS” on his blog platform! Still it is true I guess that no one has killed anyone by way of MySpace recently, so good job, you horrid wenches!

Using SCIENCE, this video pretty much explains everything you would ever need to know, including that just under 1 in 5 people on ChatRoulette on a weekday afternoon can be classified as “perverts.”

Even the biggest food snob has to admit that at one point or another, either out of convenience, drunkenness, or lack of other options, he is going to eat fast food. And while I myself have no shame in admitting that I am a bit of a fast food connoisseur, in light of the most recent invention of the new Burger King broiler, I might claim that even the snobbiest foodie (they hate being called that!) could feel at home at their local Burger King.

On this particular rainy Tuesday afternoon, a number of writers from the Daily News, the New York Post, GQ, Gawker, assorted food blogs and, inexplicably, myself were ushered in past a velvet rope (seriously) outside of a Burger King in beautiful midtown Manhattan by Penn Station to learn all about BK’s new “secret weapon,” a brand new broiler that would change the way fast food was perceived, made, and consumed (again, seriously).

Honestly, the sincerity with which they presented the whole thing, the way they believed in the broiler and what it was capable of, made the whole Burger King team of high level executives really seem amiable. At one point Burger King’s Top Chef of Innovation (not to be confused with America’s current Top Chef Michael Voltaggio) came by to explain to us the strength of new broiler: the fact that the new broiler offered the same flame broiled heat from the bottom that America currently loves (which is how there are grill marks), but also a serious amount of heat from the top to provide a char that was prevalent on everything on the menu, while also causing the meat to be cooked from the outside in, rather than inside out as is the case with other methods of fast food cooking.

So what was served? First was a list of existing or soon to exist Burger King items:

• The Whopper — I mean, what else would they start with? The flagship of Burger King hamburgers, this guy was pretty much what you’d expect him to be.

• A.1. Steakhouse XT (pictured) — Called the “XT” by those in the biz (that would be the people explaining the burger to us), this was a pretty serious hamburger that was SEVEN OUNCES of beef (WTFOMFG), topped with mayo, crispy onions, A1 “Thick & Hearty” steak sauce, American cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. The crispy onions added a crunchy texture that was a good way to imitate/offer an alternative to the salty crustiness that you get on the beef from a burger at Shake Shack-my gold standard of hamburgers.

• BK Fire-Grilled Ribs — This was probably my personal highlight of the meal, these St. Louis style, still on the bone char-broiled ribs came three in a box with a side of BBQ sauce. According to the Top Chef of Innovation these take 5 minutes to cook in the new broiler and are coming to the menu soon. It’s definitely a departure from standard fast food fare, and you can really see the top heat from the broiler add some serious, delicious, crusty char to this thing.

• BK Fresh Apple Fries — Now these weren’t done in the broiler, but they’re still pretty great! It’s an apple that’s cut to look like a fry (and it really does, kind of freaky/weird!?) that you dip in a low-fat caramel sauce. [Ed. Note: A WUT sauce???] This is apparently going to be offered as a not-fried alternative in kids meals!

The next round of things were items that would probably never make it on a BK menu but were intended to showcase the abilities of the new broiler-they referenced this multiple times as their “car show” moment. I’ve never been to a car show so I’m not quite sure what they meant.

• Filet Mignon (pictured) — YEP! So this sliced filet was a dry-aged tenderloin, flame-broiled (OBVS), served with a Port Demi-glace, pearl onions, and baby portobello mushrooms. Presumably Burger King is not going to start offering this on their menu, and really, it’s probably okay if they don’t. It was fine and all-my plate was clean, and I’m impressed by the broiler, but it’s kind of hard to prepare a filet the way you really want it done in a Burger King kitchen, which is where all of this stuff was cooked.

• Mixed Grill — This was a combo plate of chorizo, pork tenderloin, rib eye and organic chicken with a romesco sauce. This was probably the low light of the meal for me, the meats seemed dry and pretty meh, and I mean, I love chorizo (lol, Cho-rizo?!) but I don’t hold this against Burger King. I don’t foresee myself ever going there for a plate of mixed meats served in a various ways, one of those ways being alongside a romesco sauce.

• S’mores (pictured) — The last offering was a desert that was just pretty much a deconstructed S’more. Charred, smokey, marshmallow, on top of this is pretty rich and delicious tasting graham cracker and chocolate thing. I’m not super into sweets, but if you don’t find the Momofuku Milkbar cookies and pie to be too sweet (which I do), then this is probably right up your alley.

So there you have it, Burger King has a new broiler with which they can prepare a whole variety of things that, if you like fast food are, in some ways, a cut above the rest of the fast food landscape.

David Cho is the publisher of The Awl and he eats a LOT. The Awl has no financial arrangements with Burger King or its parent company Burger King Holdings Corporation.