Foodstuffs – Page 24

Juiced Up Power Pigs!

I love candy. That should be obvious. I mean, who doesn’t like candy? Squares, that who. And those squares are one day going to make something of themselves unless we stop them while we can. They don’t deserve any better. Damned candy-hating squares. They’re probably the same morons who think animals don’t deserve to be eaten. If animals weren’t meant to be eaten, then they’d be the ones eating us. But you know what, I bet those stupid hippies would probably like that. “If the animals enjoy eating me, then it’s worth being eaten” they’d say. It’s called the food chain, you idiots! That’s just how it works! Are you going to start going after lions and tigers because they eat other animals too? No? Then you’re hypocrites as well as stupid hippies! So ha!

That was quick. Usually it takes me a couple paragraphs to start rambling about something totally different than where I was intending to go. So to get back on topic, I was talking about candy. Yes, delicious candy. While parents all over the world generally discourage mass consumption of the sugary bliss, it’s certainly the high point of the food world. Well, right below pastries anyhow. So what am I talking about candy for? Check this out:

Yes, that’s right. I came here to tell you about pig-shaped candy. To those out of the loop, it may seem a little silly, but the rest of you who’ve eaten these things know exactly where I’m coming from. These things are so good that I couldn’t justify not writing an article about them. Yes. That good. Their shapes may be a little misleading, as they don’t taste at all like bacon (which I refer to as nature’s candy), but that’s probably a good thing. No, these little oinkers are strawberry-flavoured, as it says there on the bag. They also come in three sub-flavours, which I will get to in a bit.

There, that should be a little clearer. Strawberry pigs and awesome ear flavours and what-have-you. Though I didn’t realize that they made this candy before the ear flavours came into the picture. Guess I’ve learned something from this. That makes this my most educational article yet. To top that off, after a little research, I learned that not only did the pigs come in strawberry-only, but there are other “Juiced Up” species such as bulldogs and worms. Astounding!

Ah yes, you should also take notice of the little warning on the side. It’s at a bad angle, but it says “Warning: May contain pig butts,” or as the French call them, “derrières de porc.” I think the French term sounds a little less offensive, and without that offensiveness, the joke isn’t nearly as good. But aside from that, there isn’t a whole lot of interesting on the front of the package.

NOTE: While the package makes claims of “power pigs” this candy has no tie-in with the mediocre SNES platformer “Power Piggs of the Dark Ages.”

Here’s the only part of the back of the package that bears any interest at all, the small corner devoted to the ear flavours. They come in apple, watermelon and orange, but to tell the truth, the ear flavours are almost negligible. You barely notice them at all unless you go right ahead and gnaw off the ears. I wouldn’t really count that as a strike against the candy though, as the strawberry flavour alone is more than enough to win my love. I like that they even went the extra distance to give the little guys names. The only thing more satisfying that eating something that had eyes is eating something that someone cared about enough to name. I’m a monster.

Behold the power pigs in all their sugary glory! Even more impressive than the fact that they all have names is the fact that they’re molded really well. Just look at how close they are to the package art. Sure, the colour is a bit runny, but it varies from pig to pig, and wouldn’t be a big enough issue to detract from the experience. Speaking of which, why else are the piggies so good? For one, they taste like awesome. And let me tell you, awesome tastes pretty good. I’d put them right on up there with the Charleston Chew on the candy scale. There’s also the fact that they have the most perfect consistency ever crafted by man. They’re thick and chewy like a gummi should be, but they don’t stick to your teeth at all. Come to think of it, the consistency is at a level I doubt man could achieve, and these were probably produced by some sort of otherworlders or an elite race of super candymen created by the government that the public has no idea about.

So yeah. That’s that. The basic idea behind this article is that Juiced Up Supercochonnets are the greatest gummis I’ve had the privelige to chew on. You should go out and get a pack right now. Unless you’re a hot chick (preferably with no self-esteem), then I have something even better than candy for you. Just gimme a holler and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

PS: Fortunately (I think?) there were no pig butts present in this particular bag.

Rocky Snow Ice Pops!

Summertime is finally dawning upon us here in Canadia, and with summer comes many things. Air conditioning, shorts, yardwork, hot girls in skimpy clothing, fat girls in skimpy clothing, etc etc. I never said they were all good things, did I? One of my favourite things about summertime is that it’s the only time of the year when the ice cream trucks come ’round. Some would say I’m too old for such things, but in my world you’re never too old for ice cream shaped like Wolverine.

While the truck with the horrible old-timey tuneses drive around delivering the primo stuff, most parents tend to go a little cheaper when it comes to frozen goodies. Freezies are a popular pick, as they’re unbelievably cheap (much like a certain mother of yours) and normally come in numbers that would make any mathemagician cum. Wow, that’s two off-colour jokes in one sentence. Anyway, freezies come in many colours and sizes, and while they are a budget snack, they do a good job of it.

I was recently “blessed” with a bit of an oddball pack of freezies. Just look at it. Odd stuff, wouldn’t you say?

Okay, so it’s not that different from most cheapass freezies, but there is plenty to pick at here. And pick I shall. The Rocky Mountain Ice Pops are pretty normal at a glance, but if you look closer, you’ll notice many an issue with the innocent little ice pops. Just the front of the package alone will have you scratching your head and poking fun at the artists.

Look at that peach! While one would assume that the fruits are without gender, the peach is clearly a female. A female that needs to cover her shame! Whoever drew the peach must have a plethora of mental issues, not the least of which is clearly a fruit fetish. Hey, that’s actually really fun to say. Fruit fetish fruit fetish fruit fetishshshshhhh. You know, he might have also just been a big Bruce Campbell fan. I mean, I’ve never seen a vag that goes all the way up to a girl’s chin. And I spent six years in Arubastan looking for one.

The other thing worthy of note here is the pineapple. The rest of the fruits seem to be using the ginormous ice pops as skis of some sort (except the peach, who’s totally getting off on the bumpy ride), but the pineapple is placed mysteriously behind the pop-skis. Maybe he’s got a pair of regular skis back there? Maybe he’s riding a small animal? Maybe whoever put this package art together is a sloppy jackass who doesn’t know how to use layers properly? It will riddle human kind for ages.

What you can read clearly says “EXCITING FLAVORS” You’ll see later that this is a Canadian product, so join me now in loathing of improper Canadian spelling of “flavours.” It is important to adhere to regional idioms! I mean, I’ll never pronounce it “leiftenant” (if you want to pronounce it old-world style, spell it old-world style), but I’ll harangue any who don’t add in those extra U’s until the end of my days.

What you can only make tails of says “8 FRUIT FLAVORED ICE BARS.” Another point of demerit for our friends. On the bottom corner it states that the included flavours are orange, cherry, grape, and bubble gum. Okay okay okay WHAAAAAT? I’m no scienceologist, but I have read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, and it doesn’t say anything about bubble gum being a fruit. And that last sentence will be 100% true if you replace “Encyclopedia Britannica” with “side of a Cheerios box.”

This is the back of the package. I’d talk about stuff on it here, but I have close-ups of everything notable, so I’d better not.

Oh yeah, but just note that the nutritional information is simply a sticker, and not a part of the package itself.

I know they’re called Ice Pops and all, but do you think they need to be frozen? It’s amazing how stupid they assume people are. Just look at this! It mentions not once or twice, but threece that the pops should be frozen before consumption. And you’d think that something so pronounced would be important, but no. The way these things are made, they’re much more enjoyable as an ice-free liquid. Yes they taste a bit better cold but… you know what, I’ll get back to that in a bit.

You know, I’m beginning to think that whoever proofread this package was not in fact a native English-speaker. There’s so much poor grammar here and more typos than even my articles. The lack of and S on “Direction” would signify that there’s only one step, but there are three! You need your esses! Come to think of it, couldn’t steps one and two be condensed into a single step? They basically say the same thing, but add different details.

Awww. Québec? Jeez. No wonder this product is so shoddy.

You also notice a number hiding in the shadows there. 1986. Damn. that means that these things have been in production since… me. Or sometime around there anyway. I don’t believe that this particular package is 20 years old, I just think that those damn lazy frenchies were too busy smoking and crying for separation that they never bothered to update their freezie packages.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m really reaching here. They’re fucking freezies. How much could there possibly be to write about? I only decided to go through with this article because I’m lazy and I already had the pictures (which I took like two weeks prior to this writing). Also because it made for a fun banner.

So check that shit out. An odd shape for a freezie package, no? Yeah it is, and it’s totally impractical too. The thing is (if you read the direction, you’d already know) that you’re supposed to freeze them and then snap ’em in half. Only not in my entire life has one of these damn things worked for me. Unless you freeze it real good, that plastic inn’t gonna snap like you wannit to. Nnnope. Instead, you’ll rip it a little, and some melted stuff will spray out and temporarily blind you and dye your eyes purple so when you an see again everything has a purple tint. Fuck I hate these things. Grape sucks.

Basically the best way to eat freezies so unfortunately packages is to just cut the little top nub off and drink it. Even if you chop it in half while frozen, the bottleneck in the middle makes it so you have to crush the things to get ’em through, unlike normal freezie packaging which lets you just slide it out as far as you like. Worst. Design. Ever.

I don’t have much else to add. At first I hit the S key by accident and typed “add” as “ass.” There really isn’t any good way to go out on such a craptacular article as this. I haven’t really been trying, and it was just a shitty topic to start with. Would have been better in a multi-topic article, I think. But it’s 11:37PM right now, and I promised I’d have an article done by midnight and I still have to do a quick scan for typos. Yeah. That’s all you get. Fuck you.

It’s been a long year

You may have heard a really high-pitched sqee of joy echoing around the world last night around 12:45. Yeah, that was me, after watching the Super Smash Bros Brawl trailer. I was already pumped for Wii due to the last two days of E3 coverage, but once I saw SSBB – and subsequently that Solid Snake would be a playable character – my head nearly exploded. Anyone who knows me remembers what I was like waiting for Super Smash Bros Melee to come out, and to them, I say that it’s gonna be like 20 times as bad this time around. HOLY FUCK I NEED THAT GAME NOW. With any luck, we’ll see some more playable Konami characters (like Django), and better Wii support from Konami than they gave the GC.

In other news, I was going to get me some breakfast yesterday, and I opened the pantry to an odd surprise. You see, up by where the cereal sits, there was a bag that looked mysteriously like a bag of dog food. I was bamboozled, but then took a closer look and saw that it was, in fact, cereal.

Surely, you can imagine that from the side, it does bear a frightening resemblance to some sort of pet food and I’m not just a moron. But anyway, it was cereal, and quite the cheap-ass cereal to boot. They can’t even afford to package it in boxes. I’d like you to note right now that the cereal seems to be of an Australian theme, what with the “Mateys” and the kangaroos (named “Cool Blue” and “Li’l Oaty”)down on the corner there. This will come into play right after the next picture.

Now you get a look at the marshmallows. While the front of the bag would lead you to believe that the “Mateys” in the title was just some kind of butchered Australian catch phrase (they do just say “mate”, right?) because of the kangaroo, the cereal is, in fact, pirate-themed. Now what kangaroos and pirates have to do with each other, I have no idea. Perhaps whoever was running the package design had really bad short-term memory, and forgot what theme he was supposed to be going for? Maybe Malt-O-Meal is just run by idiots? Their website people seem competent enough. Maybe it’s just the package designers.

Wait… No. I’m the idiot. Upon closer inspection, the kangaroo is just their mascot that they tack onto every cereal. I wish I hadn’t looked up that website. That point was like the bulk of this post…

The other thing of note about the cereal is that they claim to taste just like Lucky Charms. Now it may be just because I’m a cereal connoisseur, but these things taste nothing like Lucky Charms. The oaty bits are nowhere close to the right taste, and the marshmallows, even though all cereal marshmallows taste the same, taste completely different as well. So boo to you and your false advertising, Malt-O-Meal. Boo to your dumb name too. And your poorly designed bags. Damn things rip apart rather than opening.

In conclusion, Marshmallow Mateys suck. They don’t taste horrible, but I’ve fostered enough distaste for Malt-O-Meal in the fifteen short minutes it took to write this that I’m going to say that all their products suck. Each and every one of their rip-off cereals (which are probably all touted to taste the same as the name-brand stuff).

The Great Ramen Fiasco

I’ll get this out of the way quickly: despite what I may have told you to get you in here, I’m not rich. Wait. No, what I meant to say was “there’s isn’t really any fiasco.” Sorry. I’m just used to having to clear that up with girls the morning after when they wake up and ask why I live in my parent’s house. Yeah, so in summary, there’s no fiasco, it’s just a buzzword to get you reading. Wait. Fuck.

So if you’ve decided to move on to the next paragraph, congratulations! You’re in for a good ten minutes of boring crap about me cooking noodles!

Now that that’s out of the way, time for the back-story! For a while now, my interest in cooking has been rising, possibly piquing. I’m not sure if it’s just a phase or if it will grow into a notable part of my life, but for now, it’s just a fun thing I do from time to time. And it’s not any really big cooking either. Usually just pancakes or pasta or something simple. I think the most elaborate thing I’ve made to this point is hamburgers. The important thing is that I’m slowly learning to prepare more diverse types of foods, and I’m really enjoying it.

All this stuff aside, I am still learning the basics. And that’s why some simple things can still pose me a problem. Like ramen noodles. And that’s where my latest foray into the world of food preparation has taken me.

Oh yeah. When you’re on the internet as much as I am, you hear about these bad boys all the time. All the anime-loving geeks eat ramen and pocky like they were imported straight from the Garden of Eden. Or at least that how the stereotype goes. I’d never really eaten the stuff before, but I couldn’t imagine it being any different from any other noodles I’ve eaten in my lifetime.

So I’d picked out what I was going to eat for lunch, and now I would obviously have to prepare it. But in that was my first problem. There were no cooking instructions on the bowl, and there was no way I had enough experience to just improvise. Or did I? My first thought was to fill the thing with water an microwave it, but then I noticed that the bowl said specifically not to mic it. So plan one was boned right away. I was going to have to find another way to get this done. I should mention that I know at least a handful of people who, by lifestyle alone, should theoretically know how to prepare ramen, but with me, human interaction is a last resort, so I stroked my stubble-covered chin hoping for something to click.

And then I saw it. The one thing that could get the job done. My round, squealing salvation. The tea kettle. Before you could say something with about ten or so syllables, I had cow-shaped kettle in hand and was filling it up and ready to rock. I set the stove the max, set ‘er down, and began to wait. Because I assumed the water would take a couple minutes to bring to a boil (it does when it’s in a pot…), I decided to get the ramen opened and ready for wettening.

Inside, I found a block of noodles and two small packages. One was a package of flavouring – “spicy thai” flavouring to be exact – and the other was a very saddening package of dried vegetables. Now, I appreciate the thought, but two peas just ain’t gonna do it in a whole bowl of noodles. When I have peas and noodles, I need to have a decent balance of both in each bite, and I’m thinking that even with the help of the corn niblets and carrot flakes, those peas don’t have much of a chance to satisfy my obsessive-compulsiveness. So rather than drive myself nuts with a poor vegetable-to-noodle ratio, I just tossed the veggies.

At that point, the kettle started whistling (far quicker than I has predicted that it would), so it was back to the task at hand for me. I quickly tore open the spicy thai flavour and poured it on the noddle block, and proceeded to dump the hot water into the bowl. At that moment, however, I was struck with another small dilemma: what now? Should I just mix the noodles up while they soak? Won’t the heat escape? Uh-oh! But then I had another great brainstorm: Hold the lid-flap-thing closed while the noodles soaked! They wouldn’t get mixed much, but all the heat would stay in. Neither of my dogs had any better suggestions, so that was the plan.

Lucky for me, it worked! After a couple minutes, I lifted the cover to find the noodles pleasantly soggy. I mixed them up a bit to make sure the flavouring didn’t clump, and then proceeded to dump the water. It wasn’t until I went to make the banner for this article that I did a GIS for “ramen” and discovered that you’re supposed to leave the water in. Oops. Well, you live and you learn, right?

Ah. Beautiful, no? There she stands; lady victory in all her spicy thai glory.

I have to come clean with you on something again. I didn’t actually use the chopsticks. I’ve tried over and over, but I can’t for the life of me figure the damn things out. But you know, I can’t be totally perfect. As long as the world never needs to be saved by my good use of chopsticks, I’d say we’re gonna be okay. Besides, those chopsticks have probably been there since we moved into the house, and while I’m sure that wood has no expiration date, I can’t help thinking what may have happened to them in that many years.

You think the story ends there? No. I haven’t told you about how good the noodles were yet! Simply put: they were awesome! Spicy thai is wicked tasty and spicy. I made the mistake of drinking what was left in the bottom of the bowl, and my lips felt like they were on fire for a good half-hour afterward. But damn were they good. Sadly, wrangling wet noodles is not something I do often, and I ended up making a huge spotty mess (which was actually like 3 tiny spots, I’m just a total neat freak when it comes to eating), and that made me sad because I never spill. Except today.

One thing that did bug me about the noodles was the package. Not only did it lack any form of instructions, but it also teased me with a picture of delicious toppings for my noodles. The top shows a crab claw and a plethora of peppers, but what did they provide me with? A meager (to be really nice) packet of dried vegetables. Not cool, Noodle Time. Not cool. But you know, aside from that little hiccup, I enjoyed the whole experience. I got to spend fifteen minutes in the kitchen, and the payoff was totally sweet. I highly recommend picking up some spicy thai ramen, as it’s frickin’ awesome.

The Surprise Bag That Time Forgot

Surprise bags have been a part of Torrential Equilibrium ever since its inception, and they will likely keep coming back again and again as long the site exists and as long I keep visiting dollar stores in other towns. They’re just so easy to review, they cost like $1.50 at most, and there’s always something interesting inside. Of course, I use the word “interesting” in its most literal sense, because the objects are curious and draw your attention. They are never in any way good, useful, or tasty. With the Nintendo Surprise goodies being the only exception to this rule.

The other great thing about surprise bags is that it’s always fun to try to find the oldest one. Now, I was pretty excited about the Nintendo Surprise, and as far as I can remember, they were about a year and a half old when I found them. Since then, finding old surprise bags has been my raison d’être, and you can imagine how happy I was when I came across Dick Turtle. I never found a year on those things, but forensic evidence, carbon dating, and some other impressive-sounding things have proven that eating the candy they contained was probably a bad idea. The last type of surprise bag I reviewed was wasn’t too old. Hell, it probably hadn’t even reached the year-old mark. But I had a whole bunch of them, and you know how it is here – quantity over quality.

So anyway, if the opening spiel, the link you clicked to get here, and that totally fancy title graphic that I spent way to much time on didn’t tip you off, I’m reviewing yet another new species of surprise bag. I’ll tell you now that based on age and disgusted reactions, this is by far the best surprise bag yet. It’s going to be hard to top, because it’s provided me with tons of material and I’ve got myself so hyped up about how great it’ll be that I worked extra hard on the title banner and put a huge amount of effort (in comparison to how much effort I usually put into an article) into the bonus that will be featured at the end.

I think I’ve prattled on for long enough. So now I present to you the oldest, most generic surprise bag I’ve seen in my life:

Oh yeah. Paydirt. It’s no more than some white paper folded up and stamped with clipart and some vague words. I would have loved to be the guy who designed this bag, simply because he got paid for literally doing something a three-year-old could do better. Or at least that’s how I imagine it went down. For all I know, it could have been made by a whole pack of slaves who tried their damnedest to prove that they should be paid for their work. The one thing I am sure about is that we’ll never know anything more about this surprise bag, because it doesn’t bear a single mark that could help distinguish where it came from. No company name, no date, no trademark or anything. For all we know, this could have been put together by some meth chefs during the off-season. Though now that I think of it, is there a meth off-season? I mean, it’s not like when dope farmers have to close up for the winter. Unless they have a greenhouse, I guess. But that’s all besides the point. I think. I’ve kind of forgotten what my point was.

Considering the cheapness of it all, I’m pretty impressed at how different those question marks are. They’re different colours, slightly different fonts, and they’re filled in differently. To tell the truth though, I can’t remember at all why I took this picture. It doesn’t show anything different than the big picture did, and there’s nothing to really read there either, so it’s a mystery to me.

I do find it a little sketchy that it says “candy or toy” on the bag. The interesting part being the “or.” Dick Turtle and the more colourful generic clown bag suggested that you’d be getting some of both in every bag, but this one is all about getting one or the other. Is it an accurate statement, or will we be surprised to find both toys as well as candy in the bag? Only time will tell, and if it proves wrong, I’ll have one more reason to hunt down the people who made these. Bad grammar cannot go unpunished! Unless it’s a typo in one of my articles. We can let those slip.

Do you think they just printed out every ingredient that’s ever been in anything, just so they could throw anything in there and their asses would be covered? That’s my theory. I’m pretty sure the only other place I’ve seen some of these ingredients is on shampoo bottles, so I’m kinda hoping that it’s gonna be just the toys this time around.

Also note that back of the bag features just as few noteworthy marks as the front. Unless you can trace objects by their barcodes, it’s like they wanted to make sure that we’d never be able to find them. And there would be good reason for that too. You’ll understand once we get in a little further.

Now do you see? It’s all candy! There are some cards too, but they don’t really count as toys or candy, so we’ll just write them off for now. After considering how ratty and uninspired the bag it, I wasn’t overly thrilled at the thought of how old the contents could be. I’ve never heard of any of these candies, but I guess that’s not so different from the situation presented by the other surprise bags. Well, that one other clown one did have a Chupa Chups lollipop in it, and that’s a brand that’s pretty easy to recognize. This one is all stuff that even the most prolific candy know-it-alls would likely be hard-pressed to identify. Hell, some of it doesn’t even have proper packaging. I was truly frightened by the prospect of putting some of these things in my mouth, and I’m still a little shaken by the whole experience. Fortunately, I didn’t have to suffer through it all on my own, but more on that later. Let’s have a look-see at what’s here.

You know, these little guys look oddly familiar. I just can’t put my finger on it… Well, I guess maybe they’re not ripping off Tic Tacs entirely. After all, the sticker indicated that they came from Barcelona. Yeah. What? That doesn’t sound so bad? Do you even know where Barcelona is? It’s in Spain! Spain is a long way away. I’ve never been, but one day maybe… Anyhow, it also shows that Hit is produced by a company called Nutrexpa, so I took a look to see what the ol’ internet had to say about Nutrexpa. This is their site. But don’t expect to learn anything unless you’re fluent in their language, as you can click the English option a many times as you like, but the site will still be mainly in this “castellano” they talk about so much. I, in my infinite wisdom, was able to surf the site without any trouble, but didn’t uncover anything. It’s a nice-looking site, but there’s almost nothing there. (Actually, the site just doesn’t get along well with FireFox. If you browse it in IE or whatnot, it’s all English and there are plenty of informaciónes.)

With all that red tape cleared up and out of the way, there was only one thing left to do: eat one of them. The bag was old and shitty, but the Hit container and the Nutrexpa website seemed pretty up-to-date, so I figured it wouldn’t be all that bad. Then I noticed the little black numbers on the front of the plastic container. 30.07.02 Now, there’s no proof that it’s the expiration date. It may be the “packaged” date for all we know, but history has proven that when there’s only one set of numbers that they signify when the shit inside will go bad. And this stuff passed its prime three and a half years ago. Ouch.

With my confidence shaken, I decided that I’d bite the bullet anyway. What kind of entertainer would I be if I didn’t put my physical wellness on the line for a laugh? After convincing myself that there’s no way tiny little mints like these could go bad, I took it like a man and popped one in my mouth. At first, it wasn’t so bad. Then I started to bite down, and a horrifying chill went down my spine. I quickly spit the thing out and looked at it. These babies my look like Tic Tacs, but they’re made more like regular hard candies. Regaining my courage, I put it back in and chewed it up. It wasn’t so bad. A little more brittle (for lack of a better word) than I’m normally comfortable with, but there wasn’t anything overly wrong with it. The issue was all in my head, and now that I had a little confidence under my belt, I was ready to take on whatever else this bag threw at me.

Okay, maybe I’m not that ready. You know, I’m not sure if the fact that there are no indications whatsoever of what these are, where they came from, and how old they are should comfort or frighten me. They could date back to the American Civil War for all I know, or on the other hand, they might have been produced a week ago. Based on what we’ve seen so far, I’m not exactly overflowing with confidence. There’s nothing to really make preamble out of here, so I’ll just cut right to the chase.

As you may have guessed, they were hollow gumballs. Okay. That’s not so bad. I’m pretty sure that gumballs are like cartoon characters and never really age no matter how long they’re around for. They were almost as hard as jawbreakers on the first bite, but they ended up being just as chewy as normal gum, so I can’t say it was a bad experience eating these things. Chalk up another victory for me. This surprise bag may be outdated, but it can’t possibly defeat me. Nope. No way in hell.

At least that’s what I thought at the time. But just how dead wrong I was, even I wasn’t prepared to find out.

Enter Dubu gum. It looks pretty normal, right? Nothing overly suspicious about it. Well, that’s how it seems at a first glance anyway. Further investigation of the package reveals that this stuff also hails from Spain. No year on it, but our adventures in Spanish candy haven’t been too thrilling so far. The other notable thing is that it’s peppermint-flavoured gum. Well, it’s not really notable, but now we know exactly what it’s supposed to taste like. Peppermint gum isn’t exactly hard to come across. Sadly, this shit was anything but peppermint.

This gunk was grody. And I mean “roadkill covered in diarrhoea” grody. If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that if I have to suffer, I do my best to make sure someone else suffers with me. So since I was “blessed” with so much of this dubious Dubu, I decided the only logical thing to do was to have my family eat some too. Below are some of their comments.

-Eric: “Tastes like wax and toothpaste. Smells… Horrible.”

-Mom: “It smells like pee!”

-Dad: “Smells like somebody peed on a mint. I’m not putting that in my mouth.”

-Patrick: “I like it. Tastes good.”

I kid you not. Those quotes are verbatim. Down to the punctuation. As for what I thought? Well, have you ever had one of those Christmas tree ornaments that are supposed to smell like candy canes? I do, and if you haven’t ever seen/smelled one, I’d be glad to show you sometime. Anyway, the gum smelled almost exactly like that, except slightly more rancid. I can’t believe that after smelling that thing that I actually put it in my mouth, but I did. Almost without thinking. As soon as I bit down, I spit it out all over and almost vomited. But, you know, that would have been alright. Vomit tastes way better than old Dubu gum. It was probably the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. Ever. And I’ve eaten oysters (By accident. I’ll tell you the story some other time). The consistency was… well, since one of my brothers actually liked the stuff I guess it was like that of normal gum, But I didn’t have it in my mouth anywhere long enough to know for sure.

On the upside, that’s one more lesson learned for me. If I ever see Dubu gum again, I will hold onto it and offer some to anyone who angers me even in the slightest. It would be a great – and relatively harmless – form of revenge. And maybe torture too…

Sensor chewy candy. Oh, hey! It’s strawberry-flavoured! How could this go wrong? This is how. It’s got approximately a year on the Hit candy. I’m not gonna be putting a very large bet on this horse. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this experience so far, it’s that candy has an expiration date for a reason. It may seem timeless, but the shit does worsen with age. Maybe not as fast as say, milk, but it happens.

Being me, I was enticed by the claims of “chewy” and “strawberry” all over the package, so I popped one in. You’d think I would have learned by now.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I can’t remember the last candy I ate that was advertised as “chewy” that was not dissimilar to chewing on a rock. You see that image above? It’s a little blurry, but you should be able to tell quite well that it’s split very finely in two. Why do I point this out? Chewy candy does not split in two! I hurt my teeth when I clamped my jaw down on that little sucker! You could probably take a hammer and chisel to one of these things and find fossils inside. Needless to say, there wasn’t a whole lot of strawberry present either.

I’m kind of a slob, so when I was done with the stuff I just left it sitting on my floor (I got the bag and took the pics about a good week before I started writing this article). A couple days later, my dogs wandered in. Poor little guys didn’t seem to like the stuff either, as one of them came out with a piece in his mouth, gnawing desperately at it in hopes of putting a dent in it. The other one ate the leftover red gumball. It was funny at the time, but then I realized that since I’m the one that stays home with them all day that I’d likely be cleaning up the resulting doggy vomit. As luck would have it, that’s just what happened.

Well lookie here! These not only look contemporary, but they also seem to be North American-made. Things are finally starting to look up! Upon closer inspection, it turns out they’re actually produced in Hamilton, Ontario. That’s the best news I’ve gotten all day! They even advertise their website on the package. In an unlucky twist of fate, said website is currently broken. Or something like that. Maybe they’re just doing maintenance right now and by the time you read this it’ll be back up and working. God knows that I’m not going to be trying to get there anymore.

Sadly, that wasn’t all the information listed on the package. They also included a “best before” date. That date reads 30.01.03. Yeah, just over three years. But, at least it says “best before” and not “expires.” There is a difference between the two.

There’s actually an interesting note about the gum here. While most gumballs are round or oval, these ones are shaped more like fat barrels. And by that I mean they’ve got two parallel flat spots, rather than being entirely round. I’m not sure if they were meant to be this way, but considering that all three gumballs in the package are shaped the same way, I’m willing to bet that it was intentional. But now I’m just trying to drag it on. Let’s see how they’ve stood up against the test of time.

To start, they smelled like dust. A bad omen if I’ve ever smelled one. But I put the Dubu gum in my mouth after smelling it, so I have no excuse to chicken out on these things. It came as a bit of a surprise that the one I “ate” actually tasted like dust as well. Dust with a hint of lemon. The sourness was definitely gone many a year ago, and they actually managed to taste like old. Keeping in mind, of course, that I don’t know exactly what old tastes like. I’ve never licked anyone’s grandma. Not surprisingly, the gum was pretty damned hard. Not as hard as rocks like those red gumballs, but hard enough to deter me from continuing to try to eat one. If these guys were best before January in 2003, they likely expired two months or so after.

You can’t really tell by the picture, but these suckers appeared a bit paler that usual. There’s not really anything to go on from here, unfortunately. It’s a good thing I’m close to the end. I don’t know how much more of this crap I can take.

While there was a slight hint of something I didn’t recognize, the suckers actually tasted pretty normal. Not great, but they didn’t activate my gag reflex, and that’s always a plus. I still wouldn’t recommend ingesting one, because only God knows what that little mystery taste is. It might just be old, but it could be something far more frightful. The thing about surprise bags like this is that the mysteries don’t end one you see what’s inside. The products I’ve seen so far prompt more questions than they answer, and my overactive imagination isn’t a great trait when I think about why these things taste as horrible as they do.

Wow. Just wow.

I didn’t realize the “Otoban” was popular enough to have it’s own gum. And they even come with stickers! Check it out. But why bikes? Oh well.

Upon opening the Otoban gum, I was surprised to discover that it looked exactly like Dubble Bubble gum. Except gray. Well, that’s not good. As with the Dubu gum, I had given it a try prior to writing this article, and I have some comments on this stuff too.

-Eric: “Still tastes like gum, but it’s freakin’ hard.”

-Mom: “Disgusting, vile. It’s like eating chalk.”

I didn’t get enough of this stuff to go all the way around, but three impressions are better than one. As for me, I again popped it in my mouth without really thinking of the consequences. There was no initial taste, but when I bit down I got the worst surprise. The damn thing splintered into a billion tiny fragments and I immediately spit out as much as I could. It had about the same texture as glass. It was like there were a billion shards of sadness in my mouth. It did not taste like gum, and I have no idea how my brother managed to get any flavour out of it. All I was left with was the feeling of having a thick layer of dust caked on my tongue. It was similar to eating dried-out Play-Doh, except without the unique Play-Doh taste.

The final group of items in the bag were, thankfully, not edible. The cards were a huge flashback for me, because back when I was between four and 11 years old, I collected all sorts of cards. Sports, movies, dinosaurs, video games – anything that came in card form, I would collect. But there were a couple things about these cards that stood out.

First off, I’d never even heard of the movie “Baby.” From what I can glean from the cards, it seems like something that may have influenced Jurassic Park, but of course, I only know small bits of the story. In any case, there’s a pretty good indication of why I’ve never heard of this movie on each card: it was released in 1985. That’s a year before I was even born. Before I was conceived, even. That also makes these cards the oldest dated items found in the bag. Probably the oldest items I own, too. The other thing is just a personal annoyance. On the back of every card, the assumed tagline for the movie reads “Great New Adventure Movie.” Does that sound overly Engrish to anyone else? It’s also a shitty tagline.

I did a quick IMDb search for “Baby,” but the only movie with that title that was produced in 1985 is this. Call it a hunch, but I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for. I don’t care enough to do any more searching either, so Baby will remain a mystery to me until the end of time. I don’t rightly care though.

As happy as I was to find a perfect Surprise Bag to write a review of, I can’t say I was overly thrilled to have even put some of that stuff in my mouth. It was really bad. Like, the Nintendo gum at least just tasted bad, it wasn’t vile. I had to go to some rather extreme measures to wash some of those horrible tastes and residues out of my mouth. But hey, on the upside, it got easier as time went by.

Rest assured though, that a bad experience will not deter me in my quest to find and review as many surprise bags as humanly possible. Of course, if you hate the surprise bag articles, that’s not a good thing, but you’re going to have to deal with them. I’ve got a good thing going here, and if you think I’m going to give it up, you’re dead wrong. I don’t know really how to go out here, so I’ve attatched a sweet little gallery to the end of the article. Enjoy!

Bonus! – The Baby Card Mini-Gallery

Between my surprise bag and the two my brother got, we claimed quite a few of these “Baby” collector’s cards. Seeing as they’re moderately interesting, I’ve scanned both sides of every card at a respectable resolution and put them all up in this spanktastic gallery for you to gawk at. Just look at how much effort I put into making the thumbnails! What a waste of time!

Baby Stickers
What could the big picture be?

Changes abound

Well, that snow sure didn’t last long. Being so close to the internet equator probably isn’t helping. The fact that I got annoyed with it might have something to do with it too…

Secondly, there are tiny little updates all over the sidebar. Okay, two. First, I added a link to Comedy Napalm, a fancy-pants new website which I have signed on to write for. Whether it will get exclusive content, I don’t know, but my full articles and psedo-articles will remain exclusive to TE. Only time will tell what goes down. I also changed the forum link to go straight to the Comedy Napalm forums. As you might have been able to tell.

I really haven’t got much else, so here’s a couple links

An Xmas gift via DeviantART

JINGAL ALL DEH VAY PART 2!

In case you missed it, this year’s Jones Soda Holiday Pack

Holiday Viva Puffs! The Xmas Season Starts Now!

Another year has come and gone. And it went rather quickly at that. I mean, the site is going to be three years old soon, and it seems like just yesterday I was getting excited about making it to two. Of course, this is not the only reason that I’m particularly infatuated with the month of December. Clearly, the thing that’s currently on the minds of the masses at this time of year are the holidays. Be it Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever the Hell else that goes on at this time of year, people all over are feeling a little more festive, and everything starts to reflect that.

Supermarkets are no exception to the festivization that December brings, much like when Halloween rolls around in October, everything gets new boxes to reflect the season. While PC groups wouldn’t dare admit it, the world – or North America at least – starts colouring everything Christmas. Red and green start to appear everywhere, and products will take on shapes of trees, snowmen, and Santa. Everything comestible is either dyed or wrapped up to match the colours of Christmas, and today, I will take my first step into the holiday madness.

What better place to start than cookies? I love cookies, you love cookies, everyone loves cookies. And if I get wind that someone doesn’t like cookies, let’s just say they’d better watch their back. Nobody’s gonna make my broad statements false.

For the sake of accuracy, I’ve never really thought of Viva Puffs as cookies. They hardly fit the bill, but what else could they really qualify as? I guess if anything they’d fall under the s’more umbrella, though it would seem that s’mores are also sometimes referred to as cookies. I’m going to have to look into the cookie family tree to resolve this issue, but that’s going to have to wait, because I have to type a bunch of words about these cookies right now. Mmmm… Cookie tree…

I like to think that I’ve driven the point home that this article is holiday themed by now, but, you know, just in case you missed it.

It’s kinda funny, that without this little banner the Puffs really wouldn’t officially be holiday themed. Aside from the fact that candy canes are to Christmas like painted eggs are to Easter, there’s nothing on the box that really denotes a holiday theme. People celebrate Christmas and the like in plenty of places that may have never even heard of snow, and there are lots of things with green boxes that aren’t “holiday editions.” Oh well.

If you know Viva Puffs, you know that they’re already pushing the envelope of how many elements you can mix into a single cookie. Not only is it a marshmallow coated in chocolate, but it’s also got a crumbly cookie-esque base and that red goop in the middle. Like I said, it’s already a very complicated snack, but they’ve decided to take it yet another step and add a fifth part to the mix by injecting it with minty goodness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for stuff tasting like candy cane, but that’s a lot of very different flavours to take in at once. I know I was going somewhere with this, but I’ve forgotten entirely, so let’s take a look at hot skiing girl.

Upon closer inspection, I think my statement was pretty accurate. She’s got no rack at all, but that can be overlooked because for some reason winter wear is inexplicably attractive. You may think to yourself that I’m nuts for saying that piling on more clothes is a good thing, but you know in your heart that it’s true. I know it. You know it. Hef knows it. I’m just wondering about those boots. Sure, it might just be the ski boots, but those are some mighty big clodhoppers. You know, I think I may have seen her Italian cousin the other day.

But I must digress. As much as I like judging cartoon girls, there’s cookie to be investigated. The back of the box boldly claims that Viva Puffs are “THE cookie with attitude.” That’s bogus on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start.

Firstly, the Viva Puff is not nearly good enough to deserve both capitalization and bold. It’s barely even good enough for one or the other, but using both is just ludicrous. Don’t get me wrong here though. I love the Viva Puffs, but there are so many other cookies that I would choose first. Namely the scrumptious offerings of a certain Dad. Secondly, Viva Puffs have no attitude. They’re actually quite tame. Sure, they have more flavours packed into a single cookie than most three-course meals, but none of those flavours really gets you thinking “Wow! I really need to eat more of these! They’re delicious!”

The box continues to make wild claims of the wickedness of the cookies and how they pop when you bite them. Now, I’m fairly certain that the writers don’t actually mean that it pops when you bite it, but let’s assume they do. Viva Puffs do not pop. Maybe if you were to put them in a microwave or something, which would probably just end up making it bubble up and make a huge mess, but the point stands that biting a Puff will not make it pop. That would be cool, and highly dangerous. Chocolate shrapnel is one of the leading causes of death in North America, you know.

Near the bottom of the box, they go on to promote the other offshoots of the Viva Puff line. Let’s face it, the goo in the middle is all that separates one Puff from another, and it’s not the tastiest stuff in the cookie. I’ll go on record as saying that the raspberry and strawberry types probably taste identical, whilst the fieldberry would just add some sort of sickly blue to the mix. The fudge Puffs would no doubt be the best, and I have an irrational hatred of any caramel that isn’t in a chocolate bar.

You may also notice the banner that asks you how you eat your Puffs. It implies that the website might care about this information, but I’ve been there, and it most certainly does not. I did, however, learn that Dare has a nut-free policy. Go Dare! Nuts only serve to make cookies and other baked goods gross and inedible!

Now we get to the real high point of the box. This little area challenges you to eat the Puffs in many different ways. And when text goes in a half-circle like that one there, you know that you just can’t walk away. It would insult your masculinity to walk away, and if you’re a chick, I’m pretty sure the box is calling you fat. Are you gonna take that? I didn’t think so. It’s time to crack out the puffs.

Ah, there she is. Our first victim. It’s sad that the Puff, like any product that consists of a marshmallow coated in chocolate, is consistently cracked. I would have thought the Puff was better than that, but I guess there is no coating that can survive the terribly difficult trial that is sitting in the cookie aisle.

Now, the box has presented me with four challenges. It says that I should be able to peel, smash, bite and twist these Puffs, and while I shall do it all without remorse, there is a chance that there is going to be some prejudice. Possibly of the extreme variety.

The first challenge I accepted was to peel a Puff. No problem, I’ve seen lots of things get skinned thanks to my vast experience with the internet and movies. Little did I know that the Puff’s chocolatey shell was much different than flesh, and it did its best to stick to the marshmallowy mantle. The fissure down the middle of the shell did help in the matter, as it gave me a good place to start picking at.

In the end, while it was a messy and far from complete operation, I think I made my point pretty well. The next Puffs will surely turn tail once they’ve seen what I’ve done to their comrade.

I weighed the rest of my options pretty carefully, and I chose to take the biting challenge next. Not only would it be the easiest of the four, but it would also prove to be the least messy. Indeed, after a mighty chomp, there were very few crumbs to be seen, and I was left with a pretty cross-section of the Puff. Well, maybe it’s not so pretty, but it surely wasn’t as mutilated as the Puffs which I smashed and twisted turned out to be. I also quite like the green dye in the marshmallow of the Puff. It’s kind of soothing, in a green sort of way.

The next Puff in line was destined for a fate worse than… No, wait, this was pretty much death. The Puff didn’t even see it coming. My fist smashed down on the poor little thing like the big boot on the purple grape. Actually, it was a lot harder than that. And only once.

In all fairness, I have to say that I’m surprised at how well the little guy held up under the circumstances. I guess I shouldn’t be, because it’s essentially made of fluff, which is essentially invincible, but I have to say that I did expect bits to go, well, flying. Essentially.

The last Puff was easily the worst off of the quartet. This one had to suffer through the agony of being twisted. Truth be told, I had no idea how to go about doing this at first. Twisting a dome-shaped object is not something that one normally does, so I had to think about it for a bit. I wasn’t sure whether holding the top and bottom and twisting would be for the best, or if I should hold it at opposite sides and give ‘er. It was a tough decision, and I had already eaten like half the box, so I couldn’t afford any more Puffs and went with the lengthwise twist.

I have to say though, that the twisting did end up with the messiest result. The poor Puff was in shambles, bits of chocolate and cookie strewn every which way, and gooey core spilling out everywhere. I would not wish this fate upon even the worst of my enemies. Well, okay, maybe the worst. What can I say? He’s one-upped me too many times for me to show any mercy. But that’s a whole different story. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t wish the twisty fate upon even my second-to-worst enemy.

Technically, I’m not here to review the Viva Puffs. I just wanted to poke fun at the box and mutilate some cookies. But it’s probably a good way to go out. So the holiday Puff is easily the best Viva Puff ever released. The addition of the minty flavour makes it delicious. As I said before, I love when they add “candy cane” flavour to anything. I spend lots of time during the Xmas season plotting ways to thieve candy canes off of our tree. Last year I managed to get a whole bunch of the stripey treats, and my stash lasted me well into February. And uh, Viva Puffs are funny.

Month-end wrap-up

Ah, the end of November is upon us, and it’s both excellent and tragic.

Bad news first, eh? Well, seems I failed to complete two articles per month during October and November, as I expected might happen. The drive just isn’t there. But I did add a lot of little things in October, and I was pretty blog-happy during this last month, so it all kind of evens out.

So then why’s the end of November excellent? Simple: it means the beginning of December, and bar the snow and cold, December is an awesome month. Firstly, it’s holiday time. While the world is now almost entirely non-specific about it, I’m getting psyched about Christmas already, and with the Xmas comes the themed goods. I’ve got an article almost ready to go up (should be done tomorrow), and it’s gonna kick off the TE Christmas season. I don’t know how many seasonal articles I’ll do, but there will be at least this one and the yearly Xmas haul overview. It all depends on how much red and green coloured crap I get my hands on. Chances are also good that we’re going to be seeing some sweet Nintendo Wi-Fi action here pretty soon, so there’s gonna be that to write about too. My brother’s really spearheading that operation, and even though I tried to resist the Mario Kart, he’s had his way with my self-control and well… Tony Hawk’s American Sk8Land is also a must-have, but that can wait for now. I think that’s everything that needed to be said. You might also see some minor changes in the main page’s colour scheme, but that’s just a “possible, not probable” at this point.

Sowing the seeds of boredom

You know what’s cool? This is almost perfectly accurate as far as what goes through my mind during a day. Especially the Lucky Charms bit. You have no idea how often I forget the Lucky Charms jingle and spent hours trying to remember it. And who would put Reese Witherspoon at #100 on a list of 100 girls you want to sleep with? She’s gotta be at the very least around 15 to 20. In any case, it’s kind of a relief to know I’m not the only one who has entire conversations with my brain.

I’ve been thinking about buying webspace lately. It’s become a serious thought, even though my site has no visitors and such a venture would end up being a huge waste of money. But first, I need a domain name. And while I’m currently drowning in options of webhosts and domain name providers, I have a much more troubling conundrum. What should I use as my domain name? I seriously have no idea. “Torrentialequilibrium.com” would be too long and hard to spell (sadly, many of my friends are horrible spellers), and I don’t really want to use my name at all. It’s a very important decision that will require much thought and many opinions. This would be a question well suited to be posted at a certain message board, but alas, said message board is long dead.

Hearts, stars and horseshoes, clovers and blue moons. Something about a rainbow, then a red balloon. I’m sure an internet query would solve my dilemma for good, but then I’d have one less thing to do with my free time.

In case you’re wondering about today’s slightly-more-random-than-usual post, I’ve decided to stay up all night, and anything that passed through my mind that I deem important will end up here.

To answer another question that may be floating around in your noggin, yes, I do actually have a day planner where I’ve written down what I should be doing with the site each day for a couple weeks in advance. Currently it’s just a text file, but someday I hope to acquire some piece of technology that will be able to perform a similar function.

I don’t know how this will go over, but I’ve come up with a new genius scheme to attract more visitors. It came to me a while back when I linked to the Sneeze and I checked my referrers page to see that he had visited my site from his referrers page. So for the next however long, I will be making regular plugs to various sites in hopes that their webmasters will check my own. This will work as long as you make sure to click on any link I post. And I promise that no more of them will lead to anything potentially scarring. Sheer idiocy, or pure genius? You make the call.

Lastly, I’ve signed up for a deviantART account… thing. It’s a lot easier to upload stuff there than it is to add to my handmade galleries. Oh, right. The link. There’s also one on the sidebar.

The Super Article – Triple Surprise Bags!

It’s here, everyone! The “Super-Article” I’ve been teasing you about is finally upon us! And it’s not so super after all! Ha ha! You’ve all been duped and I am a genius. Hey, why don’t we just forget about all my attempted hype and get to the article. Yeah, it’s about surprise bags. You all love them, so here’s a really big article about them with big pictures, some package scans, and even a video. This is gonna be the best article ever!

The surprise bags are getting to be sort of a mainstay on the ol’ site, and I’m thinking that they’re gonna be sticking around for quite some time to come. I mean, they’re easy to review, and there’s always a cornucopia of interesting stuff inside ’em. Movies are tougher to review (at least for me) and video games usually end up being way too similar to one another, so surprise bags are a good alternative.

The only problem is reviewing the same kind of surprise bag. See, the first time you do one, you’ve got the bag and stuff to review as well as the contents, but the second time, you’ve gotta skip the bag or paraphrase what you said last time. Course, you could always think up new stuff to say, but that’s aside from my point. It’s time to bust out a new type of surprise bag. We’ve seen the legendary Nintendo Surprise and Dick Turtle has spawned two articles, now you will tremble in fear as I introduce the Surprise Sac Bag!!

Yeah, I know. It’s really just Surprise Bag. But some fools out there who don’t know French might be confused into thinking that it’s actually called a Sac Bag. Though really, “sac” should have a “k” at the end, but I’m just reaching now. And it’s only been three and a half paragraphs so far. So now that I’m off to a terrible start, let’s take a look at some package scans! The most logical place to start would be the front of the bag. So there it is. Time to do some reviewin’.

Well, this one’s got a clown on it. Not quite as cool as Nintendo characters, and not nearly as inconsistent as Dick Turtle, but he certainly fits the bill. I think. I mean, clowns are known for entertaining kids, and the bag is for kids and stuff. So it works out. It also makes sure we know that the bag contains toys and candy by having it printed on the bag a thousand times. There are even a several spinning tops pictured on the bag, so I’m hoping that I get me a spinnin’ top. I love them tops. But I don’t love TopMan. Particularly TopMan.EXE. Stupid old geezer.

The back of the bag is just as eventless as the front, and maybe even a bit less entertaining. Among the few bits of information we can glean from the back, we noticed that this particular line of surprise bags is produced in Quebec. Later on, you’ll find that the origin of the contents of the bag might be a little more… overseas. Anywho, the back also sports ingredient lists (which would help show that the edible contents are standardized) and a Nutrition Facts box. There is no nutrition in candy, so it’s really just showing how much sugar is in the stuff. Yeah. Asinine, I know. But it’s standard protocol, I guess.

But enough of that crap. There’s nothing on the back to talk about. So let’s see what’s inside this baby.

Notice immediately the lack of spinning top. I am both disappointed and filled with rage. But there is quite a bit of interesting looking crap there, so we’ll take a closer look and find out just what’s going down. That big red bubble thing is just calling out to me.

First up we’ve got a buncha candies. The package says that they’re called “Chik”. Stange name for a candy. A little too strange if you ask me. They seem to be produced by a company called Gomy, but this Gomy is an elusive fellow. I searched and searched, but the best I could come up with is this. Elusive indeed. Perhaps they should rather be called… um… I don’t know. But to get back to the candy, the Chiks are actually gum rather than candy. They’re not too bad, and have a surprising longevity as far as retaining flavour goes. The downside being that not only do they resemble cinderblocks in shape, but also in toughness. My teeth would have probably been better off if I were chewing on a brick.

Wow. Just looking at it makes me think of the good times. I don’t know why, though, because this round lump of plastic is like the biggest mystery I’ve never solved. It’s got a ring stuck into one end, so I’m guessing that it’s supposed to go on your finger or something. But that’s about as far as I get. It might be some kind of very low-budget water squirting device, but it doesn’t lend itself very well to being squashed. Hell, it could even be part of some group of objects that were split up and placed in random surprise bags to be spread around the world and then collected and assembled to grant you a wish or something. No, wait. That’s a Dragon Ball. Damn. So much for my lead.

If you have any idea whatsoever of what this doodad might be, I urge you to send me any information you might have. Not knowing what this thing is will plague me until the end of time! I request your aid for the greater good! Or something like that. Until then, I’ll just go around sporting a bulbous hunk of plastic on my finger in hopes that some passerby will be able to identify it for me.

These, my friends, are Gestitos. While it sounds similar, they are not in fact tiny burritos. Rest assured, the world weeps right along with you. What they are is… well, foreign hard candy. While I can’t find anything at all about the candy, according to a Google search, “Gestito” seems to be some sort of Spanish slang. And Urban Dictionary didn’t help much either (not that I truly believed it would), but I do love to get in a good man nap every once in a while.

To summarize, the Gestitos are pretty good. I ate an orange one. I didn’t even open the others to see if there are different flavours. Why? Well, there’s a chance that these are infected with many different diseases, what with coming from a Spanish country and all (Would you consider that racist?), and I’m only taking as much for the team as I have to so that I can file a decent report, not even a tiny bit more. That means I’m only going to ingest one piece of any types of candy that are contained within the confines of a surprise bag. Except Nintendo surprise. Nintendo doesn’t have a reputation for spreading foodborne illnesses. Yet.

OOH! A lion! And it’s one of those rare white lions to boot! Look at that display of majesty and his king-of-the-jungleness as he stalks his prey of stray hairs and Dorito crumbs. I should probably vacuum my floor every once in a decade. Well then. Maybe the white lion isn’t as impressive as I thought it to be. Or as rare.

Chupa Chups. Nummy nummy. Chupa Chups. Some people are freaks.

I was a little disappointed at the false rarity of the white lion, but here’s a rare beast for the aaaages. Entei! King of Fire! But alas, Entei is most certainly not Pokémon number 93. This I know because I am a loo-hoo-hooser. Also known as “grown man who likes Pokémon”. Meh. I’m not the only one.

The Entei disc-thing is a little curious not only in it’s numerical error, but also because while it touts that it was made in the U.S.A. I have a really hard time believing that claim. Do you want to know why? Well, I’ll tell you a bit later once we get some more evidence rounded up. As they say, “gotta catch ’em all”. It makes sense in my head.

And so concludes this surprise bag. Ah, but wait, I promised a Super Article with bigger pictures, scans, and a video? Well I most certainly delivered on the bigger pictures bit, and did a half-assed job of scanning stuff, but I guess you caught me on the video bit. You could have also gotten me by noting that the length is hardly even fit for a sidekick, nevermind a full-fledged Super Article. Well, if you think it’s really over, I’ve got a surprise for you. That is, if you didn’t already just scroll through the whole page looking at the pictures. You cheater. I oughta have you banned. But nay, you shall get what I deserve, and have to read about…

Two more Surprise Sac Bags! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha! The look on your face is most delicious! Soon you will be consumed by the monstrous monstrosity that is the rest of this article! Prepare for DOOM, infidels! DOOOOOOOM! Hey, I warned you in the title. You signed the proverbial waiver.

So I noticed something interesting on the back of the packages. Check this out.

A HAH! I knew it. Those dirty Mexicans (literally, I have nothing against them except for the filth, really) are behind this, and only using Quebec as a front! And I bet those damn separatists are happy to help the Mexicans peddle this shit (n. Things; items.). This also further proves that the Entei disc was not made in the U.S.A. as it would like to have us believe. And there will be more, my friends. More and more and more and more. And then maybe even some more. But that would be the end of it there.

The second Sac Bag didn’t yield any more spinning top than the first, so I’m putting all my chips on lucky number three. Or third time’s a charm. What?

Yeah, not too much new in this bag, so it’s gonna seem like familiar territory for at least a while. Just keep your limbs and head in the vehicle at all times and try not to vomit on your seating partner.

What a surprise. More Gomy Chiks. but it seems that these ones are of a different race. The last ones were red, and these yellow. But what’s that in the background by that mostly empty CD rack? A purple Chik? This is astonishing, and a very interesting development in what we know about the social lives of Gomy Chiks. It would appear that Chiks will only hang out with those of their own colour. This closely resembles the social habits of the marshmallow Peep, which will only very seldom, almost never even, be seen with Peeps of a different colour. Too many links makes Ryan’s article look boring and too full of links.

Chupa chupa chupa chupa. Chu chu chu? Chupa chupa Chup! Chupaaa… >:(

Cuadri Gum. Of all the things I’ve seen and am going to see, I’m pretty sure this one is going to be the one that is the most essential to Google. And after said Googling, I found one single result. And I’m pretty sure that page wasn’t written with sanity in mind. However, this was using quotations, so I probably could have found more, but we’ll say that the internet doesn’t recognize the existence of Cuadri Gum. Honestly, I got results for gum, and Cuadri, but none for both. I don’t want to eat the Cuadri. Don’t make me eat the Cuadri. Please?

For the sake of good fake journalism, I’m gonna bite the bullet here. After five minutes of trying to separate the wrapper from the gum, I was horrified to find that it was already well moistened. Light was literally gleaning off the wet bits, and I was totally not prepared to put it into my mouth. Hell, touching it scared me enough. But every good captain goes down with his ship, and while that has no relevance to this situation, it’s an honourable gesture. So the gum was gross. At first it tasted like normal, but then it grew more and more vomit-inducing. Here’s a tip. If you ever come across Cuadri Gum, take it to the nearest church, have it exorcised, and then shoot it repeatedly with a bazooka. I swear that this stuff was not made in Mexico, but in Hell itself.

Oh come on! Screw you guys, I’m no eating this one. Though the word “caramelo” did at first trick me into thinking that it may have originated from Italy, I quickly reaffirmed that “caramelo” is Spanish for caramel. I’m not a big fan of caramels anyway. Especially not the suave ones. That’s just what I need, freaking caramels that are better with the ladies than me. Wait… Forget that last one. I’m excellent with the ladies. In fact I have plenty of ladies right here right now. They’re all fighting over me and other things that ladies do. You know. Things.

Oh ho ho. Here’s an interesting one. Since my ability to take pictures ranks up there with my ability to create matter, I scanned the package for all to see. A Google search for Sobre Sorpresa didn’t bring up much, but I did find some Indian graficas. You know. Like tomahawks and teepees and shit. But that’s not important. the tatuajes are where it’s at!

According to the package there, you can look for 60 designs! ¡Colecciònalos! It also describes that it should contain one normal tatuaje, one holographic tatuaje, and a dulce. Whatever a dulce is. Sorry, my Spanish is a bit rusty. Upon closer translation, a dulce is a candy. Unfortunately, this package of things did not contain a candy. I’m thinking there are two possibilities. Firstly, the candy could have fallen out and gotten mixed with the rest of the Surprise Sac Bag stuff (I’m thinking the caramelo). That’s not likely at all though, so I came up with the second possibility: it never contained a dulce at all! Bastardos! Hey… Upon closer inspection, the Sac Bag package itself shows that dulce is Spanish for candy. Damn, missed that easy one.

I bet you wanna see the tattoos, don’t you? No, you really don’t. Trust me.

OK, Entei was only off by the number, but why do they call Togetic “Togechikku”? Because it’s his Japanese name, that’s why! < /obvious > So the Togetic disc’s got two strikes against it. Not only is the number wrong, but they used his Japanese name, and no Mexicans would bother doing that. No normal Americans would either. There’s only one breed of freaks who would. Anime purists. Those fetid scum who refuse to use any American names or stuff when it comes to anime. Sure, a lot of the American versions of stuff gets butchered pretty badly so I can let most of it slip by, but if you’re using the Japanese names for Pokémon and you don’t live in Japan or speak Japanese exclusively, you’ve likely got some issues and are probably gross and addicted to Pocky.

Yo, …yo. Like a Transformer, there’s more than meets the eye here.

Aww, isn’t that cute, a Marril that’s missing an “R” and a grossly deformed Pikachu. Yeah. I thought the Pokémon discs would end too, but now we’ve got a whole litter of the things. But since you can’t see how terribly fudged up the Pikachu disc it, I had to extract it from the craptastic Yo-yo. Here’s the scan. Notice how this one is spelled oddly as well? Yeah, something’s up. These discs must be horrible bootlegs, or made in Japan and then just stamped with “Made in U.S.A.” to make people who buy them feel more patriotic or some bull like that. Either way, I’m disappointed in Pikachu for scaring the crap out of poor little Togepi like that. All he can do to retaliate is Metronome. Goddamned almost always useless Metronome.

Finally we reach the final bag. It’s got a lot more interesting stuff than the previous bag, but I’m pretty sure I’ll end up typing a couple one-sentencers in for this one too. I guess we’ll see. Yup. Almost done. I’m actually as relieved as I imagine you must be. I foolishly rushed this article, and now it’s making me want to half-ass all the way from here to the end. But I’ll give it a shot, see how far I get, you know the drill. But at the moment, it’s dinnertime, so maybe you should go get a snack to see you down the home stretch.

Lookit that, it’s a hodgepodge of candy we’ve found in the other bags. It seems that while the Chiks don’t associate with other colours of their own kind, they get along quite well with other candies. Or some bullshit like that. I’m sorry, I’m bored. I can’t write about the same kinds of candies over and over.

What’s this? What’s this? A Toy Pop sits right there. What’s this? What’s this? It gives me a right good scare. I see the word “caramelo” on the package and I decide against opening it. Plus, it promises no actual toy, it’s just called a Toy Pop. Mostly, though, I don’t savour the idea of a caramel-flavoured lollipop. Then again, the package also mentions that it’s raspberry flavoured. Raspberry caramel. Yum yum. I’m-a gonna pass this one up, if you don’t mind. You can have it if you send me any amount of money (at least 6 cents) via Paypal. (Local only. I’m not shipping this thing should I have some unknown foreigner reading my site.) My E-Mail’s at the bottom if you need it.

It’s a tiny plastic comb. What do you expect?

The final Pokémon disc is upon us. Look upon it, with all its majesty and roundness, and fall to your knees in awe. Or fall off your chair in awe, whichever is more applicable for your current situation. So Mew looks like he just pulled a pretty good prank. All sneaky-like, trying to hide his laughter. I still won’t believe that these things are made in U.S.A. until someone flies me down to the plant.

Lastly, but oddly enough, not leastly, we have the Magi-Ojitos. Or if you prefer, the Magic Eyes. On the upside, these are not in fact strange pictures that hide a secret that only witches can see, but rather some googly eyes that you can put on your fingers to… stuff with… and things. Ah, the back of the package has some ideas for things to do with the googly eyes. This bag promises candy as well, but again, does not deliver. It was open, so maybe it just fell out, but I’ll assume the worst.

Well that was a surprise. I didn’t think I’d have to put the Magi-Ojitos together. Oh well, there could be worse things that it could make me do… Woah! Take a look at this! It’s the uncommonly seen North American Elephand! Such a majestic creature, it’s just too bad he spotted us. I’d have liked to get a closer look at the beast. Possibly stick my thumb up his bumhole. Someday I’ll find another of these beautiful animals, but at least for now I’ve got video evidence! And you’re pissed off about how much I hyped up that video, and how much of a cop-out it was. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I win!

Yep. that’s the end of it all. You’ve seen all of the crap I promised, my friends. I gave you bigger pictures, package scans, and a video, even if it was the worst video ever recorded. Plus it’s a decently long article to boot, so as long as you weren’t expecting entertainment, you don’t have anything to complain about. It wasn’t very super, no, but that was all part of my plan to piss you off. Now if only I really had hyped it up. I mean, a single graphic isn’t quite enough to build up a good hype for something. Especially when it’s likely to be a video game review.

That actually wasn’t so bad. I was thinking that maybe I would explode before I was finished with this one. Which is too bad… I wanted to explode… There’s nothing more to say really. Nothing more than to tell you to go out and buy surprise bags! If nothing else, you can throw the things you find inside at people or just make fun of Mexicans for producing such shoddy products. I mean geez, those tatuajes could be a lot higher quality than they are. And the Magi-Ojitos are kinda crap too. But whatever. I like the lion, he’s got a place on my dresser. I’ve got nothing else. End.