Not only is he starring in a new Subway TV ad—the first since his little controversy (smoking of drugs illegally and saddening children)—but he's once again plastered all over Subway's website (they never technically dropped him as an endorser, they just hid him in a secret "stash box," in the closet).

There he is, right on the website, telling children how to get "Fresh Toasted." If we make any more weed jokes we will probably puke, right on the floor here, but feel free to browse around the site and make your own. "Phelps Phlavor"? Ha right he likes the different flavors of marijuana to smoke on, I bet! Those colors behind him in that photo probably drove him loony when he was high on the marijuana, I bet!

Going to throw up now. Eat Subway, ladies and gentlemen.

The special sponsorship with Subway is enabling NBC to bring back the series, executives said, in a deal they described as made possible by a decision to go to advertisers earlier than usual in what NBC called the "infront," to ask for ideas about interweaving brands into shows.

You read that correctly: the fucking Subway product placement is enabling this show to be on TV, period. All the other stuff in there is just extra low fat mayo. How hardcore is NBC willing to get here? Hardcore to the bone:

"Chuck" appealed to Subway for reasons that included its audience, which is mostly the type of younger consumer that buys a lot of subs at malls. The show takes place in a mall, and Chuck's girlfriend, Sarah, is a C.I.A. agent who works under cover at various stands in the food court.

It is no great leap to believe she could be selling Subway sandwiches next season. An NBC executive said discussions have been under way about the specifics of the tie-in.

We hope you're very happy about the success of your "Buy a Subway Sandwich to Save NBC's 'Chuck!'" campaign now. Sandwich whores.
[NYT]

Poor college kids: no longer will football players be able to stack their cafeteria trays three-deep with plates surrounded by cupcakes and ringed by six separate glasses of fruit punch to selectively spill on nerds. Because now colleges across the nation are eliminating cafeteria trays, allegedly "in hopes of conserving water, cutting food waste, softening the ambience and saving money." Really it's because there is not enough food to fit upon them, any longer.

Everybody is standing around Manhattan wearing sandwich boards shilling this and that. Just to earn a few lousy bucks. [Whoa that pays $17 an hour, plus commission? Damn!]

Luckily there are lots of extremely fancy restaurants getting ready to open in NYC. Luckily for the bankruptcy industry. And for lovers of fine cuisine, who like to dumpster dive!

Sandwiches in cafeterias; Sandwich Boards; Fancy restaurants that probably don't even serve sandwiches. I think we've demonstrated our theme here. Sandwiches are the food of the recession? We're all living in a shit sandwich? You could go a few different ways with it. The point is, if things don't work out, you can always move to Phoenix. Cheap! Anybody?

I had the good fortune to mistakenly watch this show last night, so let me just describe for you two instances of drama and intrigue, accompanied by copious dramatic music and editing, that went down in this one episode, and which were broadcast out to the world, by choice, to illustrate the dramatic perils the Homeland Security department faces while keeping us safe:

• A dude coming into America claimed to be an American. Turned out to be true.
• Somebody attempted to bring a sandwich into the USA.

The sandwich is a breaded chicken breast garnished with two pickles — exactly what Chick-fil-A offers. It was thought up by a group of McDonald's franchisees in Atlanta, where Chick-fil-A is based. And it comes in breakfast biscuit or sandwich form, just as it does at Chick-fil-A.

According to Chick-fil-A, a promotion in the Atlanta area for McDonald's has promoted the fact that the Southern Style Chicken Sandwiches are available on days ending in "y" — an interesting approach, given that Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sundays.

Chik-fil-A is so bruised by this fight that now they've "focused on its own new menu effort, a line of healthy foods." What is happening to the world when Chik-fil-A offers healthy foods? You have to feel for the little guys. Thankfully, McDonald's hasn't yet figured out the real life Southern Chicken Sandwich recipe: chicken-fried chicken, on white bread, topped with American Cheese, topped with barbecue sauce, topped with gravy. Microwave and re-fry. Enjoy four.

[NYT]

I pondered this as I took my first mouthful of Despaña's 'El Quijote' sandwich or "bocadillo." Its name, a reference to the hero of Miguel de Cervantes's famous novel 'Don Quijote de la Mancha,' seems to indicate that this sandwich might be inclined to tilt at windmills, eg, attempt to surmount seemingly impossible challenges. While the challenge of 'being delicious' is not actually insurmountable, this sandwich might make you think otherwise.

While it may be true, as Cervantes writes, that "A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty," it's hard to imagine that even this sandwich's creator could love it. The bread is chewy, like a piece of chewing gum. This chewiness makes it tough to bite into: tough, like a tough piece of overcooked meat or a fruit leather or something else with a hard, chewy texture.

The sandwich's contents are delicious, though: salty cured pork loin and manchego cheese contrasting with sweet quince paste like light and dark, black and white, weak and strong, hot and cold, loose and tight, or peace and war. Like old and young, or men and women, or good and evil, basically. The two things played off each other well. The cheese and meat was the yin to the quince paste's yang, or possibly vice versa.

Still, overall, I thought this sandwich could've been better.