Classification: Convenience
Netflix is a truly remarkable product with a comprehensive comfort-of-home delivery method that’s convenient and fairly priced, but it’s growing more difficult to harvest anything useful on it. Even though I’ve sampled only a microscopic fraction of their product offerings, there are limitations on what captures my interest. Usually, I'll choose to watch A Few Good Men for the 60th time rather than gamble with Netflix's recommendation algorithm. So it’s always fun to discover something new that can entertain me for a spell, and when my son suggested the mini-documentary series Explained, I was somewhat skeptical, but I quickly grew to enjoy the quick pace and unique variety of topics. Or more accurately, I enjoyed it until I watched the episode about the next pandemic, which brings us around to the modern pizza buffet.
It's been my observation that whenever I've had the chance to sample both a restaurant's buffet and their menu items, the menu is always superior. There are zero exceptions. Which isn't to say that buffets are without value; no, the concept of walking into a restaurant and experiencing food-in-mouth within three minutes is a powerful one indeed. But I'm now 80-85% certain that the next global pandemic will begin spreading its deadly tentacles at the neighborhood pizza buffet, conveniently located at the unhappy intersection of overexposed and improperly prepared food, masses of crowded and undiscerning adults, and marginally supervised strain-carrying sneezy children. And I will be dead within the first 24 hours. In general, I'm staying away from all of them unless the three minute principle absolutely overwhelms me, which remains a possibility. I'm glad to have survived buffets as long as I have, but I've chosen to no longer press my luck. (1 of 10 stars)
Note: I'm secretly thrilled when Pizza Ranch offers their all-you-can-drink Slushie machine, so they're awarded an extra bonus point.