I made the grave mistake of ordering Pizza Hut online once, about eight months ago. I had a craving, I read about the online ordering, and I went for it.

...Big mistake. First, it was way too expensive. Second, I happen to live in one of those delivery netherworlds - between the boundaries of one delivery area and another - where the delivery dude refuses to visit. This, however, was not made clear to me on the website - I was easily able to enter my address, and the system informed me that my food would arrive shortly.

Two hours later, no pizza. I wearily called up my local Pizza Hut branch, and a pissed-off sounding teen answered. "...Yea? Pizza Hut?"

"Um...I ordered online, and it still hasn't arrived. Do you happen to know...?"

"Oh. Yea," she said, snapping her gum. "We don't deliver there." (This, mind you, was about .75 miles away). "You can come pick it up."

...And then the e-mailing began.

Ah, The Times. Often, so behind the times. Oh, sure, I'm still an avid reader. But occasionally I just shake my head, like: they're just now discovering this phenomenon? (See: hipster librarians, Philadelphia's awesomeness, and the latest: Insomnia Cookies).

Insomnia Cookies is the brainchild of some UPenn students who smartly thought that college kids, up late cramming for finals, might crave warm cookies delivered to their door. Bam, the company was born. It has now expanded to thirteen campuses and offers more than just cookies (brownies and cookie cakes, anyone?)

Have you ever had a craving for a nice Big Mac and those tasty french fries, but were too busy to go to McDonald's (or its drive though)? If you live in Shanghai, China then you don't have to wait much longer. The Big Mac giant will soon be taking orders for delivery.

In an effort to compete with Yum! Brands', which has twice as many restaurants in China (Pizza Hut, KFC), McDonald's in Shanghai has been building up a supply of 300 scooters. That will help the burger chain deliver to about half of the city's 14 million residents.

That's a good start, but the company really wants to expand. This year will see about 125 new franchises and probably 150 next year. First they'll catch up with Yum! Brands, then surpass them. McDonald's will start slowly with China, then take over the world! Mwa ha ha ha! Oh, wait, haven't they already done that?

If you're hungry and willing to fork over the cash, there are plenty of companies that will be willing to deliver you a meal. MSNBC recently noted a few companies that are now bringing their goods right to your front door (or, in some cases, your kid's school).

• For $100, California-based RAWvolution will send you a box filled with two soups, four entrees, four side dishes and two desserts, all - you guessed it - raw and organic.
• For parents who are way too busy to throw an apple and a pb&j in a paper bag for their kid, they can schedule to have Freshlunches deliver Junior a healthy, organic lunch (about $4-$7 per day), just like mom would make. Except...she didn't. Some company did. Oh, well - guess it's better than Lunchables, right?
• Three Potato Four will send you a week's worth of food (or so they say), which includes four organic vegetarian entrees, two side dishes, soup, salad, dessert, and bread. Heck, they even throw in some flowers for ambiance!
  

Now, these options are all well and good, but if you want healthy food delivered to your family, why not join a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) program, and support your local farms while going easy on transportation emissions in the process? And if you need some company to make your kid's lunch every day, maybe you should re-assess your super-busy schedule, no?

Almost a year ago, we made some confessions. Sometimes, we're just so lazy on a weekend night that we just want to order-in, and not just order-in, but go the way of The Nasty and order-in pizza from one of "those" chain places. Yes, we order pizza from Papa John's, and not only do we get pizza, but we get buffalo wings, breadsticks, and maybe because we haven't gone to the market in three weeks, we have to throw in a couple of 2 liters of soda. The worst of it? We're sooo lazy, we won't even get up from our desks to call the order in, we just do it online from our laptops.

For almost a month now, Papa John's has made it even easier to get your breadsticks all up in a water-and-garlic-powder "sauce" that you shaelessly take down like a shot of vodka by accepting orders by text message. All 2,600 Papa John's restaurants are in on the racket.

Yes, we know you can't believe the convenience either!

If you live in a developing country, that is: In the U.S., land o'plenty, so the golden arches will always remain a convenience as a drive-through window, but in cities that are congested and land is scarce, McDonald's has taken to delivery.

Where would you have to go to get your Big Mac and fries delivered right to your door with a delivery charge of anywhere from 50 cents to a dollar? Ronald McDonald commissions fleets of delivery people in cars or on motorbikes in cities like Manila, Taipei, Cairo, for a total of about 25 cities, with a half dozen more in the works.

Really, I think L.A. is congested enough of a city that McDonald's delivery could work here. I can't tell you how many times I've woken up on a weekend morning craving an Egg McMuffin, but was a little too, uh, "dehydrated" to get in the car and get to a McDonald's before 10:30AM!

Mail-order steaks aren't necessarily anything new or innovative. We've seen Omaha Steaks, I've tried Montana Legend, but this one just makes me laugh.

Donald Trump has his own line of premium steaks. Did I miss a season of 'The Apprentice' where the winner got to run a new food business for The Donald?

Available from the Sharper Image, the Classic Collection contains two Filet Mignon steaks, two "Cowboy" Bone-In Rib Eye steaks, and 12 Trump Steaks Burgers. Nothing unusual about that selection, right?

Except that it costs $200! Good grief. Mr. Trump better deliver it himself for that price.

Thanks to Sarah, we now know which universities the Princeton Review thinks have the best on-campus food, but most college students will be happy to tell you that off-campus food is almost always better. With schools starting up right and left, students need to be prepared to find those places because greasy pizzas and pb&j gets boring pretty quickly. CampusFood.com is a website that allows users to search for lists of off-campus eateries and order their food online from the menus published on the site. Their ever-growing database includes independent restaurants and chains. Delivery is up to the individual restaurant (some only allow pick-up orders), but not only is this a boon to college students who want to really streamline their days, it is good for small restaurants whose primary business comes from college student, making them more accessible to their tech-savvy (and hungry) customer base.

By the way, the services offered by the website are not limited to college students - anyone can order food online as long as they are near enough for either delivery or pickup.

Australian actor/comedian Paul Fenech (Fat Pizza) recently made a 12,000-mile pizza delivery, from Austraila to New Zealand, via Spain and South Africa. The three-day trek was done to raise money for 13-year-old Niko Apostolakis, a non-hodgkins lymphoma sufferer in Wellington, New Zealand, and to raise awareness for CanTeen, a youth cancer charity group. To make getting through customs easier, the pizza was cheese-free. Apostolakis didn't have to eat the three-day-old pie once it arrived, Stuff reported. Fenech apparently took down a slice upon delivery, however, according to NineMSN. Oddly enough, the previous record was held by another T.V. show, Neighbors, for a London to Australia delivery.

It's a constant battle for celebrities to stay fit and look good on camera, and in Hollywood, even non-celebrities feel pressured to slim down. Some celebrities take their dieting too far, but others, like Janet Jackson, have lost weight and stayed healthy with the help of Fresh Dining.

The company offers prepared gourmet meals that are delivered straight to your door (before 6 am) in the Los Angeles area. Their menu is based around a plan of lean proteins, fresh fruits, vegetables, good fats, and low glycemic carbs, and an all organic option is available as well. Each day includes three meals, a snack and dessert and a total of 1000 to 1400 calories. A sample menu includes cranberry and walnut oatmeal, Chinese chicken salad, grilled filet mignon with chipotle butter and veggies, shrimp cocktail (as a snack) and blueberry crumble for dessert.

The LA Times described it as "as fabulous as anything you'll have in pricey restaurants" and their other press has been equally glowing. With prices that start around $40 a day, it isn't something that has to be limited to celebs, either.

It is likely that many pizza delivery people have second jobs. It is possible that some of those second jobs are in funeral homes. And the number of people who are delivery people with second jobs in funeral homes and who think it is acceptable to transport pizzas in the same car as a corpse is exactly one.

A Domino's delivery driver in Pennsylvania, who also happened to be driving with a suspended license, was pulled over for failing to have an inspection sticker on his bumper. The officer noticed that there was a stretcher in the back of the 1993 Buick, whereupon the driver explained his second job was transporting corpses. This does not violate any health ordinances in that county (though perhaps it should), despite the fact that the pizzas were sitting by the stretcher amidst "rubbish and wet clothing."

I don't live in Pennsylvania, but just in case, I'll stick with carry-out. Better yet, maybe I'll go with frozen or homemade.

Papa John's is planning to roll out pizza to consumers in 10 minutes or less! The third largest pizza delivery chain in the United States is releasing what will be the fastest made-to-order pizza ever. Guaranteed.

Basically, Papa John's is promising that its Papa's 10 Minute Carry-out Customer Guarantee will have your pizza made-to-order and completely ready for handoff in not more than 10 minutes or it will be free. The offer will apply only to carry-out orders during lunchtime, but a company spokesperson said that they are in the process of upgrading their ovens in one third of their stores, cutting total pizza baking time from 6 to 4 minutes. The company is currently missing the 10-minute mark less than 1% of the time at its test stores. The move is designed to allow thechain to compete with fast food establishments like Jack in the Box and Wendy's, where customers can spend an average of 10 minutes in line at the drive-through. 

A Pizza Hut spokeswoman said "In our experience, freshly baked, high-quality pizza takes more than four minutes. And we think it's worth waiting for." If the Papa John's promotion fails, it could be costly for the company. If customers don't perceive a change in the quality of their pizzas, though, this could en enough to make other pizza companies reevaluate their timing, too.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal's Cranky Consumer column went grocery shopping - online. Many grocery stores now offer the option of shopping online, following in the footsteps of companies that sell groceries online, like Freshdirect and Peapod, but have no retail stores. To take full advantage of the retail location and see how the process worked, the WSJ opted to order online and pickup in-store from 2 national and 3 local supermarkets: Albertson's, Pathmark, Sam's Club, ShopRite and Waldbaum's.

The products at each store were generally found to be of good quality, though a few items were closer to their expiration date than the WSJ might ordinarily have selected. All of the stores took care to ensure that frozen and refrigerated goods were kept at appropriate temperatures until the very minute of pickup and some even had dedicated checkout lines for online shoppers.  But none of the stores were entirely without problems.