Category: Foodstuffs

Half-hearted-oween

Halloween may be my favourite holiday. Not to the extent that Dinosaur Dracula and The Sexy Armpit love it, but it’s definitely the annual occasion that plays to the most of my interests. You’ve got candy, you’ve got monsters, you’ve got pumpkins. All the best things that modern life has to offer. Also, it takes place in autumn, the best season of all.

And yet, I feel like in 2016, I’ve really pooped the bed in regards to celebrating Halloween properly. The fact that my house remains undecorated is more of a by-product of me not knowing if I’d still be living there come October 31st, but I could certainly be dabbling in other ways of showing my appreciation for the best season of all. That said, it’s time for a play-by-play of all the Halloweeny things I’ve done so far.

Foodstuffs

  • I’ve eaten more Oreos over the last six weeks than throughout the rest of the year, and while most of them were Pumpkin Spice flavoured, which is only mildly Halloweeny, there was a pack of actual Halloween Oreos in there. You know, the ones that are just plain Oreos, but with the amazing neon orange filling? Pretty great.
  • I bought a pack of Pillsbury ready-to-bake Pumpkin Spice cookies. While they were maybe not quite appropriate for the holiday, they were the amazing.
  • There are two packs of Pillsbury ready-to-bake sugar cookies in my fridge, and they are in the spirit of the season. One has pumpkins, and the other black cats. I intend to make them next weekend.
  • I bought a box of Coffin Crisp to keep at my desk at work, but that’s been it for Halloween-themed candy. It seems like interesting ‘Ween editions of established candy is getting harder an harder to find. At least here in stupid Canada, where fun junk food is illegal.
  • While at a craft show, I purchased a pack of skull-shaped cookies. They were frosted in an assortment of neon colours, and they were delicious. Not really $1-per cookie delicious, but as a one-time thing, not a bad buy.
  • There is a box of Spookylicious Pop-Tarts in my cupboard that I have yet to break into. I am under the impression that they are regular chocolate fudge Pop-Tarts, but with orange frosting and fun bat-shaped sprinkles.
  • My mom bought me a single box of Franken Berry, which I appreciated greatly. But during all of my travels, I haven’t been able to find another box, or any of the other monster cereals. What awful luck I have.

Media

  • I have played exactly one good horror-themed video game so far this season, and that is Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location. And really, if you’re only going to play one scary game, it’s… decent enough. Like, I think it’s a great game, but there are many more substantial options.
  • I also played one terrible scary game, and it’s called Haunted Hotel. It was garbage.
  • There’s still time to pop in a couple quick horror games, though. I do intend to make a run at the first Silent Hill, as I can reliably finish it in a single sitting. Really, I should have put Paper Mario: Color Splash on the back-burner this month and focused on one of the many horror-themed Steam games I’ve not played.
  • The Shallows and Black Mirror: White Christmas are dramas that lie somewhere on the ‘frightening’ scale, but don’t really fit the spirit of Halloween. But I don’t think I’d feel quite right watching the latter as a Christmas movie either.
  • Emelie and The Invitation are a little closer to the right kind of spooky, as they don’t take place on a beach or during Christmastime, but they still aren’t overly Halloweeny. Definitely a disturbing pair of films, however.
  • I did watch Creepshow and Creepshow 2 back in late September, which are A+ as far as Halloween spirit goes, but honestly, I wasn’t crazy about them. A couple of the stories were really good, but others bored me to tears. I’d recommend looking up “Something to Tide You Over” and “Old Chief Wood’nhead” independently, rather than watching the entirety of both anthologies.
  • The VVitch was really great! So good that I wrote a number of words about it!
  • I really, really watch to watch The Babadook, but just the Google image results have been giving me nightmares for weeks. I don’t think I can hack it.
  • Other movies on the docket, that I probably won’t find time to watch: Hausu, Alien, Burying the Ex, Zombeavers, etc, etc…

Other?

  • I suppose it falls under media, but I choose to note that I’ve been following the Purple Stuff Podcast in this section because it’s a little empty otherwise. Anyway, Matt and Jay have put out a couple Halloween-themed episodes this year, but not nearly as many as they did in 2015. Maybe I’ll just have to listen to those old ones again.
  • My house is so sparsely decorated this year. It’s sad. There’s a weird aluminum pumpkin by the door, and a lights-and-sounds door knocker… on the wall downstairs. That’s it. By the time I knew I’d still be living in the house for Halloween, I had already given up on decorating.
  • I do have a candy corn-scented candle that has been out and lit. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a very strong scent, so it’s more about mood lighting than anything else.
  • My search for better Halloween candles has come up empty-handed. Of course, I haven’t been looking especially hard, but you would think that this kind of thing would just be jumping off the shelves at you during this time of year.
  • I don’t have a costume or plan for Halloween night. I’ll probably spend it the same way I do every other Monday night: at my parents’ house, watching The Bachelorette Canada. Which, you know, is totally fine by me.
  • I haven’t even been to the Spirit store this year. I am the worst Halloween fan ever.

Other things that happen

I’m fairly well-known as the kind of person who doesn’t like to do things that require effort and/or pants. But last weekend, I did a whole lot of things! New(ish) things! Including but not limited to:

  • Talked to the greeter and took the time to craft my own burger at McDonald’s
  • Ate at McDonald’s on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (I’m not proud of this one)
  • Went on a late-night Pokémon Go expedition to the zoo
  • Met and played with a new puppy
  • Checked out an annual craft show for the first time
  • Bought expensive artisanal mustards
  • Was disappointed that I didn’t find a candle that I liked
  • Performed an “Irish Goodbye”
  • Helped my grandparents move into an apartment
  • Went through a regular checkout lane instead of the express checkout at Safeway because I wanted a specific cashier

What an exciting life I lead!

Junk Food from Solo Market

solomarket

Some number of weeks ago -I’ve forgotten already because I’m a senile old fart- I had taken a vacation week off work. And when the cards of fate line up so that my parents and I are on vacation at the same time, that can only mean one thing: a day-long road trip to some places around rural Manitoba.

“Day-long” may be puffing it up a bit, though. It’s more like half a day at most. Truth be told, we all get bored of seeing a whole lot of nothing fairly quickly.

This year’s road trip began with a tasty brunch out at a funky little place just outside of the city. I don’t remember what it was called, but it’s squirreled away behind two golf courses. It was so pretty and rustic and woodly, I immediately brought up how I felt like I had wandered onto the set of Gilmore Girls. To which my father let out an exasperated sigh, and the rest of us enjoyed the rest of the day making Gilmore Girls references.

That’s not really relevant to this post though. I just needed an excuse to bring up Gilmore Girls.

Continue reading Junk Food from Solo Market

Forged in the fires of Heaven

We all know when Bruce Banner says “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” that he’s correct. I mean, at least in theory. I like the Hulk, but I don’t think I’d like to actually be around the Hulk. Or, maybe I would. I don’t know. I think we could be buds.

Anyway, I really blew that transition.

What I was originally going for is that you would like a Burger King Whopper when it’s angry. And even more so when it’s angriest.

Yes, I tried the Angriest Whopper, so you know what that means…

~Now it’s time for… How Did This Get Made?~

Wait, no. That’s not right. Geez, I am really off today.

I have no idea when this thing first came out, but I only learned about it last week, and was immediately in love. I am already a huge fan of the plain ol’ Whopper, and a version that comes on a bright red bun would be enough to send me over the moon. Unlike the black bun they did for Halloween, the red bun actually has hot sauce baked right into it. Hot sauce! Into the bun! Right in there! It’s amaaaaaaazing!

In addition to that, there is also hot sauce on the sandwich. That’s double the hot sauce! Spicy stuff! Then there are spicy onions and delicious jalapenos on there to bump up the heat even more. All that on top of the usual Whopper fixin’s make it an absolute flavour sensation. Also, easily the hottest burger I’ve ever eaten. It was wonderful.

In summary, I love the Angriest Whopper. I’m not gonna marry it, but I would if the law recognized man-sandwich unions. It is by a very wide margin the best fast food burger that I’ve ever eaten, and I literally cannot stop thinking about it. It has been nearly a week since I ate it, and every day I strongly consider finding my way to Burger King to get more. The problem is that it’s a very expensive sandwich. At $8, it’s definitely a “special occasions” kind of burger.

Wherein oats are a meal

I began eating oatmeal for breakfast last week, in an attempt to make my diet more healthy.

What I want to know is, how do people eat this stuff? It is disgusting. All goopy and bland and gross. Bleeeech. I tried tossing some fruit and cinnamon on there, but man, it only helped so much. The flavour is really the least of its problems. I just… ugh.

So yeah, I hate oatmeal. But I will continue stuffing it into my face-hole.

This is the price I pay for trying to be less fat.

Forgotten Film Round-up #1

I’ve decided that my current “thing” is going to be browsing through my movie collection and watching any that I haven’t watched before. You may scoff at the idea that I might buy a product and then never use it, but I’m both very materialistic and busy. Well, “busy.” The idea here is that I’m going to write a thing after every so many movies and then fire off a couple paragraphs about each.

Anyway, I’m sure this won’t last for long. We all know that I have a habit of abandoning projects really quickly. But at least I’ll get one or two articles out of it.

This batch comes from a Midnight Horror collection, the likes of which you will find in the $5 garbage DVD bin at Wal-Mart. It contains a whopping eight films, and as you may have already guessed, they’re pretty much trash as far as cinema goes. Let’s take a closer look at a handful of them, shall we?

#1 – Decadent Evil

Firstly, let’s assume that I didn’t choose this one to start with because it’s pretty close to Resident Evil. (It’s also known as Decadent Evil Dead in the UK, which is just.. ugh.) Also, assume that I wasn’t growling “Decadent Eee-vil” and then giggling to myself constantly between the time when I chose to watch the movie and when I actually sat down to watch it.

Decadent Evil is 67 minutes long. That includes the intro and ending credits. I’d wager that the actual film portion is roughly 50 minutes. This is good for me, as my attention span dwindles by the day.

This film is about vampires. Specifically, a trio of lady vampires that live in a gaudy LA mansion and work as strippers. They also have a little pet lizard-man, Marvin, which they refer to as a homunculus and keep in a birdcage. The head vampire is nearing the milestone of having sucked the blood of 10,000 humans, which will apparently make her an invincible Vampire Queen. Sure, why not? At least she doesn’t get magical sparkle powers.

But then a vampire hunter shows up and, with the “help” of the youngest vampire and her boyfriend, locates and defeats the boss vampire. He dies during the process, but ends up turning her into a homunculus. The final scene is of Marvin porking her in the cage while she makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow  Ow.”

While not egregiously terrible, Decadent Evil is not a good movie. Even the nudity is shoddy.

#2 – Meridian

This seemed to be the most boob-filled flick of the bunch, based on the description on the back of the case, so it got second billing. In that regard, I was not disappointed. There was ample boobage on display indeed.

Please note that this film has the subtitle “Kiss of the Beast” on occasion. This was not one of those occasions.

The movie’s protagonist is Catherine, who moves into a castle in Italy because reasons. Her friend comes to visit and invites a bunch of carnies over and then the carnies drug and rape the both of ’em. Whoops. Also the one that has his way with Catherine is a were-sasquatch. Double whoops!

I don’t know how it turns out because I fell asleep shortly after that point. I do know that there was a ghost of a dead girl, the were-sasquatch was cursed and also knew about a secret passage in the castle that led to Hell apparently, and… Yeah, that’s all I got from the few moments that I drifted back into consciousness.

Meridian, at least what I saw of it, is a much better movie than Decadent Evil. I guess it must have had some people who knew anything about making movies on staff. Sherilyn Fenn is the main character, and she’s a… known actress. It’s still not one I would recommend, because the plot was super dumb, but I could see someone defending it as a decent movie.

Confession: I did go back and watch the rest… It turns out that were-sasquatch was also a ghost. With an evil twin. And the trick to breaking were-sasquatch’s sasquatch-ghost curse was to have him murder said evil twin. If it weren’t so slow and romantic, this could have really been an awesomely stupid movie. As it is, it’s just stupid.

#3 – Backwoods Bloodbath – Curse of the Black Hodag

Where the heck do I even start with this one? Let’s start with the fact that this film is amateur-hour in every way. The story follows the same plot beats as every other slasher, the actors are mediocre at best, and the camerawork is all over the place. I suppose the gore is okay.

One might assume that the director had a glut of red corn syrup, and said to his friends “Welp, I guess we’d better make a slasher movie.”

As the story so often goes, a group of teens goes into the woods for a weekend getaway. Despite a token warning from a local hillbilly, they press on and are subsequently picked off one-by-one by a forest monster. The twist is that in addition to the monster, one of the teens is also a psychopathic killer. So I guess that’s unique. It’s normally only one of the two.

The monster is a big let down. Called a Hodag, the “beast” is really just a dude dressed all in black with predator dreadlocks. It’s given a little backstory about how it has evolved over the years into the shape of its prey (which is people), but that’s still just a lame handwaving for not being able to come up with some decent creature effects. It’s especially disappointing when you find out what a Hodag is actually supposed to look like.

At least the Hodag’s story is kind of neat. The locals are used to a couple people going missing every year, as the Hodag will kill a few folks and store their bodies away for the winter (like the nagging grasshopper). But it just so happens that now, it’s killing at an alarming frequency because it’s got a baby on the way. It’s eating for two now! How sweet! Better than just killing because it’s a mindless monster, at any rate.

Just so that we can tie this one into the common thread of “how’s the nudity?”, I feel obligated to mention that during one of the sex scenes, there is a still, close-up shot of a single breast for about five seconds. The editing in this film is baffling. Also the Hodag keeps one of the girls tied up and alive in his lair, but by the time she is found, it has chopped off her breasts. That’s… not a thing I’ve ever seen before. Backwoods Bloodbath goes to some really strange places.

I can’t in good faith recommend this to anyone. It’s not even amusingly terrible. It’s just terrible. The one saving grace for me is that I was playing Chibi-Robo! Zip-Lash throughout, so it didn’t really feel like I’d wasted those 90 minutes.

#4 – Zombie Dearest

The last one on today’s lineup, as absolutely the best. By a long shot. A really, really long shot.

I have no idea why this was billed as a horror film, or why anybody suggests that it is scary in the least. Because it is not. The last three minutes of the film might be construed as somewhat frightening, but even then, that’s being pretty generous.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’ve become so desensitized to zombies that I cannot fathom how anyone could see them as something frightening.

Anyway, this movie is totally a comedy. Like, it’s not hilarious or anything, but it made me laugh out loud a few times. And, of course, I was laughing with this movie. If I chuckled while watching the other three, I definitely would have been laughing at them.

Zombie Dearest tells the story of a couple, Gus and Deborah, who are going through some severe marital difficulties. They end up moving out to an old family home in the country, and Gus digs up a dead body while trying to replace his septic tank. By some manner of Zombie Wang Magic (yes, it’s a thing), the body comes to life and starts following Gus’s orders.

The zombie, Quinto, puts even more strain on Gus and Deborah’s relationship at first, but eventually they patch things up and grow closer than ever when they decide that they need to re-kill Quinto.

Things do take a turn for the worse near the end, but unlike every other zombie comedy ever, it doesn’t dip into bleak, depressing territory in the third act and forget that it’s supposed to be funny. No, it hangs onto its somewhat humorous tone until it absolutely must push the plot to its climax. But it quickly invokes Zombie Wang Magic a second time to undo the damage and give the characters their (presumably) happy ending.

I am fully willing to put myself out there and suggest that Zombie Dearest is actually a good movie. It’s not a life-altering film, but I was entertained and impressed but it. It may be due to the fact that I was expecting another 90 minutes of garbage, but there’s also a chance that it really is decent. Even if you’re fully burned-out on zombies, I’d heartily recommend watching it. (Fair warning: it’s got only a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.)

My Friday evening

While one of my favourite ways to spend a crisp fall evening is to go for a nice, romantic stroll, it’s not really an activity that I can enjoy to its fullest potential these days.

But snuggling under a thick blanket with video games and a mug of hot chocolate filled to the brim with mini-marshmallows is a good way to pass the time too. So happy right now.

Also there is a piping hot pizza just out of the frame.

The merits of loneliness

Living alone is pretty great. I can make myself a giant plate of spicy potato wedges and broccoli for dinner, and then eat it in bed while watching Adventure Time. And nobody’s going to give me crap for it.

Not that the Ex would have complained about any part of that besides the spiciness of the wedges. But I’m trying to feel empowered here. Stop poking holes, me!