Foodstuffs – Page 15

Oh No(MoWo)

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been listening to No More Whoppers a lot over the last couple of months, and it’s had a very profound effect on me.

See, despite the fact that it’s called No More Whoppers, ever since I’ve been listening to it, I have had an insatiable craving for Whoppers. It’s not like the BK News segment even shows up very often past the first dozen episodes. I just can’t shake the need for a Whopper these days.

I have only submitted to my craving once in this time, and it was because I was having a particularly bad day and I needed to eat my feelings. I don’t know if I can stay strong for much longer though.

That’s all. Just a weird little story today. Happy Sunday.

Filler time: Articles for grown-ups

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me: I’m a child living an adult’s life. I appreciate a lot of things that people my age aren’t supposed to, if advertising and demographics have anything to say about it. Marketing is all a big load of crap, anyway.

I guess the point is that I don’t have any ideas in my head at the moment, and I don’t have the gumption to type up the weekly Dark Souls entry. Wait, no, that’s what I wasn’t supposed to say. I’m supposed to make it seem like I’m doing something inspired.

Anyway, I type about a lot of goofy things that are emblematic of childhood. Cartoons, Nintendo games, candy. If you scroll up from the bottom of the article list, you’ll see that it takes a long time to get to anything very grown-uppy. Or at least, that’s my interpretation of it. So that’s why today, I’m going to link you to a small selection of old articles that stand out as somewhat more mature among the sea of childish crap that I’ve written.

28 Days Later (2003) – The first movie I ever reviewed, and it’s a scaaary one. Probably because it’s one of the first (if not the actual first) movies with fast zombies. So it turns a kind of slow, tense staple into something much more fierce and immediately frightening. Please note that I have not watched this movie since then.

Catherine (2011) – Undoubtedly a truly mature game, as it deals with many very grown-up themes. Also there are boobies and monsters, but the heart of the game is literally about growing up, accepting responsibility, and figuring out what you want to do with your life.

Chicken Wings (2005) – Chicken wings are undoubtedly a fun finger food, which is pretty child-like, However, wings are most prominent where? Bars, that’s where. Kids don’t go to bars. They’re also one of the staple foods of sports-watching, or so I’ve been told, and sports-watching is a pretty grown-up kind of thing.

Mate1.com Hates You (2006) – To date, still the most popular thing I’ve ever published, if fan e-mails are anything to go by. Mate1.com, if you’re not already aware, is an online dating website. Those are most definitely not for children. It’s not really for anybody, as far as this article is concerned.

Remembering the Cottage (2007) – Yeah, it’s an article entirely about childhood memories, but that in and of itself makes it kinda grown-up, right? I mean, kids don’t reminisce. You have to be old and at least a little world-weary before you really understand nostalgia. Some might say that I’m not old enough to say something like that, but I respectfully have no comment.

True Crime: Streets of LA (2003) – The first video game that I wrote about that earned an M rating from the ESRB. I guess that’s all I really have to say about that. I haven’t written about a lot of games that feature non-laser guns.

Cadbury Creme Egg Biscuits

The Easter season is long since over, but I still have some things to say about it!

I still have one thing to say about it.

It’s not even really about Easter, per se, but more about a thing that only showed up when Easter rolled around. And that thing is Cadbury Creme Eggs… biscuits.

Yes, that’s right. Cadbury went ahead and crammed down the essence of their Number One Treat into little cookie shapes. This might seem like a step in the wrong direction, as half the fun of Creme Eggs are biting into the chocolate shell and then letting the goopy insides ooze out. But let’s not jump to conclusions, shall we?

It says that these kajiggers are new on the package, and I’ve certainly never seen them before. I’m going to take it ad face value and assume that 2014 is the first year that these have existed. I’m so ~~lazy~~ confident that I’m not even going to do a Google search to verify it.

The package is very similar in size to that of standard Reese Peanut Butter Cups, so I figured that there would be three biscuits held within. Turns out that there were actually six! The little guys are much thinner than you might expect, so there’s more of ’em crammed in there. Otherwise, they cut a pretty standard figure. If I had to compare them to anything, I’d say that they look like a squashed Viva Puff.

Lo and behold, they are even more Viva Puff-esque on the inside! Yes, that’s right, there’s a cookie base in here. At first it seems like a blasphemous addition to the tried-and-true Creme Egg formula, but let me tell you a thing: …we need to set the scene here before I tell you.

Picture me. Sitting at a desk, talking across to you. I’m wearing a dress shirt that visibly has not been ironed in weeks, but isn’t too wrinkly because I hang it up as soon as the dryer cycle finishes. I have a stern look on my face. It contrasts significantly with my normally jovial demeanor; you know that whatever I’m about to say is very serious. I breathe in deeply. I look you square in the eye and your heart begins to beat a little faster. I pound my fist on the table to emphasize my point as I declare:

“These biscuits are Goddamned Delicious!”

Tacoception

Hi, may name is Ryan. I’m an addict. I can’t stop eating Doritos Locos Tacos chips.

They’re just exactly what I want in a Dorito, and it’s killing me that they’re only a limited time thing. In fact, I was looking for some just last weekend and I couldn’t find ’em. I’d be more worried that they’re already gone, but I freely admit that I didn’t look very thoroughly.

The real kicker here is that I’ve never had the actual Doritos Locos Taco. I’m sure I’d like it, but Taco Bell is just so far away. And also that would mean that I’d have to eat at Taco Bell. I don’t generally have an issue with fast food, but even I find Taco Bell a little off-putting.

These chips, on the other hand, I feel pretty safe about eating. Also I get to explain to anyone who hasn’t seen them before that it’s a chip that’s based on a taco that’s based on a chip. Hence, tacoception.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go out and find me some more of these babies. And if they’re already gone? The razor and I have a date in the bathtub.

The Easter Candy Parade 2014

Let’s not shilly-shally around today. I like doing three-paragraph intros to my articles, but this one is the shallowest, most originality-free thing I’ve written in forever, so it doesn’t deserve an intro like that. Today, we’re talking about Easter.

Specifically, the absolute truckload of Easter-type goodies that my parents and in-laws gave us. Being creaky, old, mortgage-paying adults, we’re not really the kind of people you’d think would get so many Easter goodies, but our parents spoil the crap out of us and I’m thankful for that every day. Hooray!

You know, now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure that the last two Easters, when I’ve been moved out of my parents’ house, have been the most lucrative Easters since I turned 18. I can’t recall the Easters between then and marriage at all, so they must have been pretty tame.

See? Two bags full of chocolate and candy. We (and by “we” I mean “I” because I’m a big fatty) don’t need this many sweets at all, but we certainly won’t turn away a bunch of free candy. That would be stupid. If properly rationed, this could last us halfway through summer. It likely won’t, but it could.

Continue reading The Easter Candy Parade 2014

Pepsi That Came After The One Before It

Wifey and I were out at the groceteria pickig up some fruit and veg the other day (also a pie), and an endcap happened to capture my attention. It was an endcap filled with a new Pepsi product, Pepsi Next. Being a member of the Pepsi family that I’d never seen before, I was intrigued. Learning that I could save four bucks by buying two cases was the factor that convinced me to buy in.

Pepsi Next is not a new product, but like I said, I’d never heard of it before. I chalk it up mostly to the fact that I don’t watch TV at all. Oh, and I guess some of it has to do with the fact that only in the last couple weeks has it become available in Canada. Yeah, that’s probably the one. It’s been sold in the States since 2012.

Pepsi Next is a Pepsi for a world where the acceptable daily amount of sugar for an average human is six teaspoons. Or something like that. It claims to have less 30% sugar than the “regular leading cola” has. Whether that’s normal Pepsi or not, I haven’t a clue, but Pepsi Next still has 26g of sugar per can, so that’s still almost double the daily recommended amount.

It’s still an alright compromise though. I love the taste of Pepsi, but am a little wary of it’s horrible effects on my body. Pepsi Next is less horrible for you, and it still has a pretty decent taste. Somewhere squarely between Pepsi and Diet Pepsi. I am not at all a fan of Diet Pepsi or any of the other low/no-calorie sodas, but Pepsi Next is far enough away from it that I can still enjoy drinking it. I’ve been trying to cut down on my sugars, but I’m not ready to let go of soda, so I think Pepsi Next is going to be my go-to soda from now on.

And let’s not forget the best part: that can! Oh my God, it’s such a perfect shade of blue. My horrible photography skills don’t even begin to get across how achingly beautiful it is. It’s the same shade of blue as the water that you see in travel agency pictures of beaches. That particular blue is my absolute favourite blue, if you couldn’t tell by me draping my website in similar shades.

In closing, Pepsi Next is quite alright. It’s not a straight-up substitute for real Pepsi, but it’s a good ever-so-slightly healthier alternative. Though it might be more accurate to say that it’s ever-so-slightly less unhealthy, because no Pepsi has ever even had aspirations to have a health benefit.

Trouble a-brewin’

So I got this message in my e-mail inbox a couple days ago:

ROCKY SNOW POPS.

Hello:
I need you to REMOVE this site immediately!!!
This is effecting my business and I will be forced to take legal action.
http://www.torrentialequilibrium.net/art0070.html
times have changed….everyone seeks internet today
and to get negative feedback from retailers is not acceptable.

I expect a response back immediately.

So yeah. That happened.

I did reply with a sternly-worded message about how I’m in the clear and that criticism is just something people have to deal with. Also I made fun of the broken English, but in a semi-professional way. I’m not entirely sure that this isn’t some weird new kind of spam, but we’ll all just have to wait and see if I get a response back.

I don’t get e-mails regarding TE and/or its content very often, but when I do, they’re always wildly entertaining. Or you could flip that W for the less hyperbolized version.

You maniacs! You blew it up!

Yeah, so, I guess I haven’t had Froot Loops for a while, or else this change in the box art is really recent…

I suppose it was inevitable that they’d eventually render Toucan Sam, but I just didn’t want to believe it. It’s totally for the worse, too. He looks absolutely awful and more than a little bit creepy now.

Kellogg’s, please listen to me. Make Sam two-dimensional again. You don’t have to go all the way back to thick black lines and solid colours (though I’d certainly appreciate that), but this… this is just an abomination. Even though I’m not comfortable with it, I’ll accept that most of the time, change is a good thing. I’ll even argue for it in some cases, but this is not one of those times.

Dear God… I don’t even want to think about what’s happened to Tony the Tiger.

X-Mas Gift Roundup: 2013 Edition

Hey, so Christmas happened a while back. Maybe you’d noticed? I sure did, because I got a freakin’ amazing haul of gift this year, and you know how much I treasure material possessions. So obviously I want to ~~brag~~ talk about them on the internet.

I don’t really have any sort of screed to come in on, I just wanted to note that I haven’t done an X-Mas gift round up since… 2007!? Holy cow! That’s even farther back than I’d thought! Man… that was a pretty great Christmas. Looking back on those pics, I can even remember it pretty well. Yeah, I was so excited that morning that after The Unwrappening was over I fell asleep while watching Bender’s Big Score.

So, uh, let’s just get started then, yes?

Continue reading X-Mas Gift Roundup: 2013 Edition

Monthend Video Game Wrap-up: November 2013

The good news is that winter is here and I no longer have to feel bad about spending all my time inside playing video games. The bad news is that… well, there isn’t any bad news at the moment. It’s December that’s got all that holiday business to it; November is fairly smooth sailing as far as having free time goes.

That said, real life tried its best to get in the way, but November was still a fairly productive month for gaming. This month, I continued my recent trend of finding games that I could finish in an afternoon, and I think I’ll be keeping that up for a while. It’s fun to dive into epic games that take the better part of a year to finish, but sometimes the thing that really hits the spot is a game that I can start and finish in one sitting.

I don’t have any new categories for this feature this month, so that’s good. I figured that my tendency to obsessively categorize things would have me introducing a new one each month. But that doesn’t seem to be the case… yet.

~ Now Playing ~

Adventure Time: Explore The Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW! (Wii U) – It was a small pain in the butt to actually secure a copy, but it was worth it. Between the abundance of Adventure Time charm and having another game that The Wife will play with me, I’m pretty happy with this game. It’s also a lot of fun too, being a dungeon crawler that hearkens back to old-school fare like Gauntlet. Games like this aren’t really made any more, which is too bad because I quite enjoy them. We’re currently 50 floors down.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-up: November 2013