Goodness, this John fellow sounds like an extraordinary find. Also looks way cute with the lights down. I bet he didn't know you took that picture. Seems too modest for that sort of thing. Do you know him well? I bet he adores you.

Cheeseburgers from a gas station? And good? Those don't seem to fit together. So-called "cheeseburger expert"'s credentials seem dodgey.

What a turncoat!

Cheeseburgers at gas stations, hmm...reminds me of that line of Robert Duvall's in Apocalypse Now, something about the smell of napalm in the morning. None of this does much for my appetite.

With the lights down, many are cute. (That's what Book tells me, all the time.)

Gee, a Taste article about gas station food...

The Sun really has reached an all-time low. I'd state that it couldn't get any lower, but I'm continually amazed that The Sun's standards always seem to go lower than the last time.

Hey Jay C. -- cool down a bit. Done the right way, this kind of story is hilarious, and also useful to frequent travelers.

A few months ago, the New York Times sent Frank Bruni on a road trip to eat nothing but fast food for a week.

It was one of the best stories I read all year.

1) How dare Kate usurp the realm of the BA? Never mind the "editor" title - it's just not right.

2) Sam - your mention of fast food for a week reminded me of the book "Fast Food Nation" and the documentary "Super Size Me." I haven't been to a McDonald's in 5 years because of them. (Gosh, I could go for an order of fries right about now.)

Gas station burgers? Those words do NOT belong in the same sentence! Aren't Mc-fast-food places bad enough? Now we have gas stations whomping up burgers? I have this mental picture of a "gas jockey" slapping a hunk o' meat on a grill out back with his grease-stained fingers. Gack!

Piano Robbo, I interviewed Morgan Spurlock for Super Size Me back in college. It was at the end of the day, and he was still ridiculously energetic -- even after doing dozens of interviews.

I went home and cut almost all the sugar out of my diet. Now I don't put any in my coffee, and I switched from Coke Red to Coke Zero. Now I feel like a million bucks! A billion bucks! Infinity bucks!

Sam ... somehow I cannot bring myself to believe that you have cut all sugar out of your diet. Your post about it was far too perky. Unless, of course, you have substituted caffeine for sugar!

One more step and you can be Piano Robot. I saw something on CNN this morning about the space shuttle and the phrase "Canadian robot" kind of blew my mind.

Sam,
(1) someone from Hollywood having incredible energy at the end of the day? My first guess wouldn't be lack of junk food as much as it would be organic - some organic Bolivian marching powder.
(2) Coke "Red"? As we really doing that? I refer to Coke Zero as Coke Brain Tumor. There's this really cool beverage called water. Seriously, the brain cancer thing is bad. They have also found that artifiical sweteners fool your brain into thinking it's consuming sugar and creates a craving for it, an addiction if you will. This has nothing to do with you, but People why are you consuming artificial substitutes for something you don't need? Just stop. Okay my work is done here.

Get off the Zero man.

And "vitamin" water is really starting to singe my whiskers. And water with sugar in it? Now water with less calories. Stop the madness, let water be water.

Let me just share an e-mail I got from my daughter this morning. The subject was "Unholy Water" and this was the whole of it. She's in New York at the moment, although she should be home packing:

"I thought the water in LA was bad. This water is un-effing-believable. It tastes like Death. And putting it through the Brita doesn't help. It just tastes like filtered dead people." EL

Put down your Glow Stick Sam Sessa!

Sorry Sam, but while Frank Bruni may have done a fast food roadtrip and made it interesting, I have yet to read truly entertaining writing by the Chicago-destroyed Baltimore Sun.

At worst, it's just poor journalism, at best it's a lame imitation of NYT.

And also, cutting out "Coke Red" is not eliminating sugar from your diet. It's eliminating HFCS, which is a good thing for our nation.

Pierre ... but, but, look! I'm having so much fun! Here, I'll write the letter "P" in the air with my glowstick! Whoosh!

HFCS is sugar.