Air, $1 a cup for a limited time at McDonalds!

Ok, I admit it. I “luh-huv” the old McDonalds strawberry shake.  But I bought one recently and was disappointed. Rather than the triple-thick frosty shake that I remember, they instead served this whipped foamy thing mostly devoid of flavor and strawberry goodness.

Anyone who has left the whipped cream out of the fridge knows that what’s left behind after the air has escaped out of it is one tenth the original volume. So here I sit staring into my “Strawberry shake” which is now 1/3 full of whipped air-cream and served in a cup 1/3 smaller than before; and I'm wondering what percentage of strawberry shake is actually left?  On the plus side, they dropped the price 18 cents!!  So for a 3.5% drop in price, we got 66% less shake in our shakes.

Who was it who said, “You Must Whip It”?  Was it Devo, or the Hamburgler?  Corporations keep looking for new ways to give you less and charge you more for it. Well, I for one, will be waiting for the “limited time only” to end!

Highway Hypnosis

As a part of my daily commute, I remember experiencing “Highway Hypnosis” on more than one occasion.  It is a little startling to arrive home and realize you don’t know how you got there. So I can understand why people think of it as dangerous. There’s the assumption that I must have been unconscious of my surroundings if I don’t remember the act of driving home; but I don’t believe that’s true.

I believe what’s really happening is far simpler. Your brain is a master at multitasking. There are many things your brain can handle simultaneously without consciously focusing on them. You can breath, stay within the lines and even brake and exit without ever focusing your attention on these activities.  You are free to daydream about tasks you have upcoming or the argument you just had with your boss or coworker.

I believe that what enters your short term memory is what your attention is focused on. So if you spend half your commute daydreaming about something, that is what you’ll remember; rather than the details about drive home. Later, you think there’s a gap in your memory because you have no new memory of the drive.

This simply couldn’t happen if you were driving somewhere that was unfamiliar. Taking a new route would of course demand your attention, and create lots of new memories. But when a drive is familiar, so familiar that there are no questions (do I take this exit or that?), your mind is free to relax and wander.