For reasons, I’ve begun to re-upload some of my video content over on Rumble. Apparently it’s all monetizable from the get-go there, so while I don’t really expect to make any money from this venture, it would be great if you’d go over there and just like… set one of my videos on repeat for a while? Please?
Here’s the first episode of Ryan’s Pop-Tarts Review. ‘Member the first episode?
I don’t know if you follow my YouTube channel at all -and if you don’t, that’s fine- but I took a couple months off from posting anything in April and May. Mostly because I was starting to lose the passion for “creating” video “content.” Putting all those hours into editing just wasn’t feeling worth it for the pithy amount of views I get. But I’m back now! For how long? Nobody can truly say, but I do have videos lined up to at least midway through August, so there will be new stuff going up over there for at least that long.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been going on at TE-Video throughout June:
Continue reading Return of the VideoIt’s been a while!
Probably should have posted this a month ago, when it actually went live, and was relevant, but… you know me. Big ol’ scatterbrain!
Please validate me by liking and subscribing and keeping it on repeat for a few hours because that watch time goes a long way.
I linked to this in the last post, but here’s a full-on embedded version for you. This video was published nearly two weeks ago; I don’t know why it took me so long to cross-post it here. General ineptitude, I suppose.
Earlier this year, I went on a little trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota with my family. You can read all about how poorly I ate during said trip here. As something of a follow-up to that post, now I’m going to write about all the candy I bought while I was there!
So, there’s this store called It’s Sugar in the Mall of America. I don’t really know much about it, aside from the fact that it’s a big ol’ candy store. I actually first encountered this establishment when I was in New Jersey last year. In the American Dream mall, It’s Sugar is a three-story-tall paradise with an Oreo-themed café on its top floor. MOA’s version isn’t quite as big, but it’s still basically the promised land for people like me who suffer from an insatiable sweet tooth.
The biggest appeal of this store are the bins upon bins of bulk candy available to mix and match at one’s discretion. Both of my trips to It’s Sugar ended with me buying a bag of assorted gummy candies that was roughly the size of my head. I won’t say exactly how much they cost, but it’s somewhere in the ballpark of fifty American dollars. So, yeah. Look, I’ve never once claimed to be good at money. These bags of candy lasted me weeks though, so the cost was justified enough for me.
Now that you have context, I am going to describe every different type of gummy candy that I selected for my big bag of candy. Because that’s interesting. Right?
Continue reading Minneapolis 2023 – Big Bag o’ CandyIt’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Let me know how I did in the comments. (On YouTube. Or here. But preferably YouTube. Viewer engagement doesn’t really matter here.)
You might think that September is my favorite month because it’s where my birthday lives. And you’d have been right up until a few years ago! Now, however, September is the best month because the first two weeks are Le Burger Week, when restaurants all across the country cook up special burgers that are only available during the event period. I wrote a thing about it last year.
Yes, it’s absolutely a thing that exists to stir up social media buzz one way or another, and because of that I should ignore it on principle. Counterpoint, though: burgers.
As usual, there are tons of options, and many of them are actually quite appealing. My first Le Burger Week burger of 2023 was ordered based on convenience alone; I looked up several restaurants on both Skip the Dished and DoorDash, but only one actually had their entry on the Skip menu on the first night of the event. So the glory goes to State & Main‘s How Do You Like Them Apples? burger.
“We are bringing on a taste of fall with this sweet & salty burger! Two beef chuck smash patties topped with warmed goat cheese, crispy fried onions, and peppered bacon sitting on a toasted brioche bun. Finished off with a creamy slaw and fresh cinnamon sugar apples like grandma used to make.“
I’ll tell you what I told my family when they asked what I thought about it: this burger might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten.
This burger already has a whole lot going on with just the “regular” ingredients that are present. Goat cheese, crispy onions, bacon, and coleslaw are all flavourful enough that they could have easily carried the burger without its namesake feature. But then you hit those apples. OH those cinnamon sugar apples.
I’m no stranger to combining meat with apples and cinnamon. Pork tenderloin with cinnamon applesauce is one of my all-time favourite things to eat. But on a burger? Could it possibly work? YES. Yes it can. The moment that the cinnamon flavour hit my tongue, I knew that there was nothing more that life could offer me. Nothing richer than the experience that I was having at that very moment. It would truly all be downhill from there. But I munched on through the existential crisis, making sure to savour every bite, every morsel, every greasy, sugary fingertip.
I’ve known many loves over the course of my few short years on this planet, but none so pure as the How Do You Like Them Apples? burger.
Am I being a little hyperbolic? Maybe. But the fact remains that I’m strongly tempted to go back and order another one of these (or more) instead of trying out other different Burger Week burgers. And that’s a first! So good job, State & Main. You’ve won. And I literally don’t need to even sample the competition to make that call. Nothing could possibly match the pure bliss that was your burger.
It’s just a shame that after September 14th, it will be lost to time forever.
