Terrible moods occasionally yield brilliance

Hello Readers!

I’ve been in a terrible mood this week. Really, bottom of the barrel. BUT, sometimes it’s in our darkest hours that moments of brilliance shine forth.

I present to you an idea of the future.

The evolution of the drive through. 5 or so miles of property are purchased adjacent to a highway (it’d have to be somewhere cheap – definitely not a city). Above the road? EZPass readers. As a driver drove down the highway, they’d take the fast food exit and their EZ pass account would be charged the cost of a meal. A signal would be sent to the kitchen 4 miles up the road. The kitchen whips up a meal and attaches it to a high speed trolley (think artificial rabbit in greyhound races) which then, using simple feedback controls, matches the speed of your car. Your food is then passed to you at 60 miles per hour.

“BUT WAIT!” you ask with eager anticipation, “How would the kitchen know what you wanted to eat? Where do you place your order?”

Lanes.

That’s right. If you’re in the first lane? A burger, fries, and a coke. Second lane? Tacos. Third lane? Bucket O’ Chicken.

It’s a simple menu, yes, but I think this makes for an even stronger consumer appeal.

Completely Flawless.

5 thoughts on “Terrible moods occasionally yield brilliance

  • 9/3/2010 at 11:26 am
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    Brilliant. Although I don’t think you need fancy feedback controls, it’d be more fun if you had to match the speed of the food delivery rabbit yourself.

    I was thinking about the issue of the small menu, particularly the issue of beverage choice, when I thought of an alternative plan. As you drive down the road of food at 60 mph, every a couple hundred feet or so would be a food station. At the station would be a bag of food on a little hook or something, which you can reach out and grab. There’s a sensor on the hook, so that it detects when the food is grabbed, charges the EZ-Pass of your car, and replaces it with another bag of food. So you’d drive along, see a big sign that says “Tacos!”, and just reach out a grab them, and then a little bit down the road grab a chocolate milkshake. I think you could fit a lot of food variety in a couple miles. At the end of the road you can either get back on the highway or loop around for anything you missed.

    Reply
    • 9/3/2010 at 11:45 am
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      Oooh, nice modification suggestions. I like this a lot!

      Reply
  • 9/3/2010 at 12:48 pm
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    I like this future, but i’m gonna kick it up a notch.

    First, the name: Food Zone.

    Second, I think the food delivery via speed rabbit (or whatever those are called) is AWESOME. I think it should match your speed and if it can make that awesome noise from the jetsons, even better.

    I don’t think that you should limit yourself to using the lanes to communicate your order, because then you’re not able to tell them how many burgers you want.

    The operative question is how do Kurt and Sander get 2 burgers EACH from the Food Zone? (or there are 4 people in the car. whichever.)
    Answer: You call ahead.
    The menu is on billboards or your passenger can pull it up on their phone, then you drive into the food zone and the food is on the speed rabbit to catch up with you.
    I love the ezpass payment and since ezpass knows your email address, that’s how you get a receipt.

    I SEE NO FAULTS WITH THIS PLAN.

    Reply
    • 9/3/2010 at 1:47 pm
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      I think the speed rabbit should chant “Stay on target” until you pick up the food.

      Calling ahead has one issue, matching cars to orders. One way to solve this would be to some how give your EZ-Pass transponder code when you order. Another solution is to have the EZ Pass transponder also send out your order. You have a device that attaches to the EZ pass, which you make your order on, then when you drive onto the AutoFood the EZ Pass sends out the order.

      But what of the poor smucks who live in the city? One solution would be call in your order, then a helicopter is dispatched, which lowers your food down on a cable, which you can grab. Simple, effective, but maybe not cost effective.

      A lot of cities have a bunch of wires on top of all the roads for things like electric buses and the like. We just need to get the speed rabbits to run along those.

      Reply

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