Category: Foodstuffs

That’s not a real bone!

I’ve spent a considerable chunk of my Sunday morning perusing the Commercial Download Center at X-Entertainment, and man it is hitting my nostalgia bone hard. And that’s actually really weird, because I would have been 3 years old at most when any of these commercial actually aired. I guess maybe it’s the fact that they really don’t make advertisements like they used to. Where have all the silly cartoon mascots and stupid jingles gone? Not to mention the terrible acting and special effects. Commercials just don’t catch my interest the way they used to; I watched the McDonald’s commercial and immediately craved McDonald’s. Nowadays I’m pretty sure McDonald’s ads aren’t even allowed to show food (though technically, in this specific commercial all the foodstuffs are puppets).

The other thing that struck me is just how retarded some of these marketing campaigns are. “Underoos are neat to wear!”? Really? “Neat” is the best word you could come up with the describe your product? Even “fun” would have been less stupid. Don’t even get me started on the Pringles ad.

Why didn’t they bring back the “You can smile, America, with Chuck E Cheese!” commercial after 9/11? Totally would have revived the franchise. (Still too soon?)

The fact of the matter here it that in retrospect, I love this cheesiness. It’s great, and gives me the warm fuzzies all over. I truly miss the days when Ronald hung out with McNugget puppets instead of “healthy lifestyle” kids. And I miss cereal box giveaways sooooooooo much. If I’m ever in charge of a cereal, there’s damn well gonna be toys in those boxes. Fuck anyone who tries to stop me.

I also miss the days when I would spend, well, entire days reading X-E. Matt’s completely done away with the front page (beat him to that years ago) and any sort of complete articles now, and made it so that the blog is the main event. Not that I don’t like the blog, it’s still totally X-E, but I like to dig up the old articles once in a while and reminisce about simpler times. Now there are no article links anywhere and I don’t remember the naming scheme he used for the files so I can’t find any! Augh! I’m sure I have links to many of them in my own backlog, but damned if I’ll be searching there. It’s almost nine years worth of nonsense now!

Three things I like that start with “P”

1. Pepsi

2. Pita Pit

3. Posting bloggety stuff in advance through WordPress. The last week of blogging? All written and posted on the 21st. I almost want to go back to 2002 and stab past me in the face for not figuring out how to use this. Or, at least, past me whenever it was that I bought webspace. I don’t think Angelfire would have supported WordPress back then. I’m not even interested enough to find out if they do now.

This is where we’re meant to be

My goodness, it’s been a while since I posted an image here. That big wall of text is all well and good, but best to make sure there’s some pretty pictures in there the keep the dumber visitors happy. How about one that I made all by myself?

I may not have mentioned it, I really can’t be bothered to remember, but there’s currently a weight loss contest going on in my workspace. It’s been so gracefully dubbed “Fattypalooza” and I’ve been more interested in funny situations that arise from it than actually getting the weight off. Remember the cheesecake I told you about two posts ago? That’s this one here.

Also, referencing Pokémon makes everything better.

Really, really fat

It’s potluck day at work. I’ve already eaten enough perogies and veggies that I’m surprised my co-workers don’t have to roll me around. I’m trying to lose weight for the wedding, and going back for more would be very counter-productive to that cause.

But there is a cheesecake in the lunch room.

It beckons me. I can hear it calling; its sweet, gooey voice echoing in my mind.

I don’t know how much longer I can resist…

Itchy. Tasty.

You know I’m bad

I’ve been trying (and mostly failing) to eat healthier lately, but it’s been hard. Turns out you can’t just turn your eating habits around overnight. I suppose it’s possible, but certainly not easy. Anyway, this “Lean Cuisine” business has been working its way into my lunches, but it’s all a bunch of baloney.

Taking a quick glance at the box does not reveal its sinister truths. No, in fact, if you’re not paying attention, you might be tricked into thinking that this meal is healthy for you. But that is a lie. The ravioli is a lie.

Oh, look at this in the corner, it’s the gist of the nutritional information. I know enough about this stuff to know that the six-inch ham sandwich I get at the Subway has less calories and fat than this box of ravioli. Not by much, but this purported “good choice” of a meal might not be all you think it is. But then let’s look at the fine print.

So the truth here is that they aren’t giving you healthy food, they’re just giving you a pittance of the same crap you’ve been eating all along. Very clever, lean cuisine, but not clever enough. My sad little Subway sandwich is healthier than this thing, and there’s more food there. Again, not by a wide margin, but the sandwich is considerably more filling than the even sadder six pieces of ravioli. The only thing that the lean cuisine is able to hold over the Subway sandwich is that the sub costs a bit more.

Maybe some of the other lean cuisine options are actually healthy for you. I haven’t checked them all out, because this is the kind that was in my freezer. Hopefully at least one of the other ones is a little better all-around than the ravioli. I’d much rather eat a bigger portion of healthy food than a small portion of food that’s not good for me.

Eyes of flame

Got me some of the second degree of those new (for a limited time, most likely) Doritos, the Firey Buffalo flavour, and I was not at all disappointed. It was a while back, so I don’t entirely remember how they tasted, but the description was pretty accurate. They were a super-hot version of buffalo-wing flavoured chips, and I found them much more in line with my tastes than the jalapeno variety. Still not exactly a kind of chip I would buy regularly, but there’s more to that than only decent flavour.

These motherlovers were hot. Like, insane amounts of spiciness lived within these chips, and I honestly could not manage to finish the entire bag in a single sitting – and this is one of the small bags we’re talking about. Luckily, I did not manage to buy a Pepsi Lime again, so I had a slightly more effective and much less disgusting glass of water there to help soothe the burn. Though it didn’t. Because they were so hot! I won’t say I’m a connoisseur of spicy foods, but there were definitely up there on the list of the spiciest foods I’ve eaten.

The odd twist to this story, however, lies in the 3rd degree burn Doritos. I’ve been looking for them since I polished off the second half of this bag, but I cannot find them! Perhaps I need to search convenience stores situated a little bit father from my house, but they seem to have disappeared right off the racks. Now I can’t believe that the hottest of these chips is the most popular, because I could barely stand the second level of them, but they can’t have been pulled or recalled because Frito-Lay still advertises them on their website. Perhaps the Scorchin’ Habanero was subject to a very small production run? I may never know for sure, but that may be okay, because I’m fairly confident that eating those chips would quite literally set my mouth aflame. Aflame, I say! I really love getting the chance to use words with a’s tacked onto the front of them. It makes me feel all dramatic and whatnot.

This is not speculation

So I had the items in the picture below as a snack today. Turns out I picked the wrong ones on both counts. I’m special!

First, the Doritos. Doritos apparently have not one, but three questionably new flavours out right now. Each one is assigned a degree of burnination. I guess they’re supposed to be really spicy? Being the lover of spicy things, I went for what I thought was the most spicy of the three. As it just so happens, I have no idea which way the burn degrees go. So really, I picked the weakest of the three, as I was informed after I got home and looked at the back of the package. There’s a little picture of a thermometer with the temperature just above the bottom, and an arrow which informs me that my heat level is there.

But damn, those Blazin’ Jalapenos were hot! My mouth was positively aflame! Well, of course it wasn’t actually on fire, but I imagine it would have been if I’d chosen one of the flavours farther up the spiceometer. Like, they were even more intense than the spicy thai ramen noodles that I love so much. There is no doubt in my mind that the Firey Buffalo and Scorchin’ Habanero will break me like a little girl when I try them (and you know I will). Also, I’m not a huge fan of ha-ha-halapeno, so the taste didn’t even resonate with me very well. Better than eating a straight jalapeno pepper, but not by a whole lot.

The Pepsi, on the other hand, was a fault of both my stupidity and my lack of attention to detail. There was a sign on the chip stand that said if you buy a Pepsi and a bag of Doritos, you get a slight discount. So why wouldn’t I? I never say no to an ice cold delicious Pepsi. I noticed the advertised Pepsi bottle has a green band around the top of the label, and assumed it was just part of the cross-promotion. Well it was, but it also served to differentiate the Pepsi With Lime from Good Pepsi. Of course I also failed to notice this until I got home.

Not a fan of the Lime Pepsi. It’s been promoted before, but I never tried it until now because it sounded like something that I would find disgusting. I don’t really think it’s that bad, but I surely will never drink it again if superior options exist. It’s like someone got 7up all in my Pepsi, but it negated the Pepsi and lemon flavours and just left lime and something that sort of tastes like it might be a creepy uncle in the Pepsi family. 7up and Pepsi mixed actually taste much better. But yeah, the lime flavour is overpowering and I obviously could stand it long enough to finish the bottle, but that’s never happening again. From now on, I pay damn close attention to my Pepsi labels.

Now I’m fine

Huh, it turns out that I almost get more hits when I don’t post. Take a look at this graph of site traffic over the last four months.

Crazy stuff, there. Anyway, back to the task at hand. Remember last June, when I posted links to a handful of my favourite articles on the site? No? Refresh your memory then. I had planned on making a second list of favorites, but it never really panned out. Like most of the things I try to do. But here I am, almost a year later, come to finally post the rest of my choices. Of course, I’d long since lost the list I had selected, but I think these ones are particularly memorable, even if I’m the only one who does.

Cap’n Crunch’s Choco Donuts – Present me loves the Cap’n cereals more than anything, but for some reason back in the day I guess I was inferring that he was a pedophile? Regardless, this was the first article that a lot of my friends complimented me on, so it sticks out pretty prominently in my memory.

Top 12 Reasons MegaMan Rules – My goodness, was I really this bad? I realize now that basically every word I typed here makes me look like a retarded fanboy now, but I suppose at that point I was. Oh well. I remember working really hard on this one, especially on the (now obviously) shitty, shitty banners.

The Squirrel Game – Board game fan fiction. For most people that’s enough reason to leave the site entirely, but I refute that that’s exactly why you should read this article. If only to get a good grasp on why I spend most of my writing time blogging and reviewing as opposed to creative fiction.

The Cup – It’s not about bras, or their contents, sadly. It is about a drinking cup, which is adorable. And speaking of adorable, look at 18-year-old me! He’s pretty hot! And young. Oh, how I wish I could be so young and carefree again…

Hachiemon – I really don’t know how to explain this one. There’s a huge language and cultural gap separating me and the understanding of this game. But I like the article! It kind of makes me want to go back and actually play Hachiemon. At least for a couple levels.

I Hate Socks – Sho ’nuff.

The Ramen Fiasco – It’s hardly a fiasco, but I have a soft spot for any articles I’d written about food. This one is short, but I think it chronicles my cooking prowess pretty well. On an interesting side note, said cooking skills have not developed at all in the 5 years since I wrote this!

I’d stare a lifetime into your eyes

So the other day I went out on my lunch break and bought a bucket of peach rings candy from Wal-Mart. It’s not that I really love peach rings that much or anything, I just needed some candy, and that seemed the most appealing at the time. Also it was like two bucks, so how could I refuse? I ate a few, went back to work, and left them sitting in the car.

Now, this summer’s been pretty crappy, and most of our days have been cold, rainy, windy, or any combination of those three. So of course when I got home and settled into my room and I realized I’d left the peach rings in the car, I wasn’t worried. I’d just take them in tomorrow after work. Of course, I forgot they were there in the morning, and they sat in the backseat all day long. And that was the day the sun came out to shine.

The little bastards melted something fierce, creating a horrible gelatinous peach blob. I was disappointed at first, but quickly discovered that the blob was not only still edible, but it also made a great plaything! The blob was unexpectedly smooth and soft, but it was also sticky as hell, as evidenced by the fact that if I put in my finger, then lifted it out, the whole bucket would lift with it, then slowly stretch back down. See!

Yeah. Sticky. And there’s really not much else to say about that. I showed a close-up picture to people (without telling them what it was) and they were totally grossed out, thinking it was some kind of gore. Then I said it was just candy and they were only slightly less disgusted. I ended up eating most of what was in the bucket, but it hardened back up pretty quickly and it became much harder to tear chunks off. So I’m out a couple peach rings, but I think the entertainment value was still worth the two dollar price. Also an easy blog post!

I suppose I should also mention that I’m going to Canmore again for the next week, so no blogging until Saturday at the earliest. Not that I’ve been keeping up very well over the last couple weeks though… Whatever.