Category: Holidays

TE’s Bargain Shop Adventure!

So I was in Lac du Bonnet the other weekend. Not something that’s going to be happening all that often in years to come, even though it used to be a trip the family made many times a year. Me and the girlfriend went to see the Canada Day fireworks display (which had been rained out in July and postponed to August 1st), and it just so happened that her uncle runs the Subway down there, so her whole family was there too.

Before hitting Lac du Bonnet itself, I decided to take her around the surrounding area and show her some places I used to frequent, like the cottage that used to belong to my grandparents, and the legendary Pinawa Burger Boat. It was a long morning/afternoon of adventuring, and we finally headed to Lac du Bonnet and made camp at the Subway. There were still many hours to kill before the fireworks began, so we had to busy ourselves in town. Reading her Cosmo and playing CrossworDS (guess who was doing which) only lasted so long, and we were forced to explore the small town to eat up the rest of our day.

Fortunately, that meant doing my absolute favourite Lac du Bonnet activity: scouring The Bargain Shop for interesting goodies. There’s also a dollar store that’s so generic that I can’t even remember what it’s called, but ever since my brothers and I were tots, I’ve loved prowling that The Bargain Shop. It even moved across the street into a bigger building a few years ago, making room for even more crazy crap. I bought a whole bag full of stuff that day, and all for less than $15! Let’s take a look-see, shall we?

Probably the last thing in the store to catch my eye (the first being shitty Transformers clones with absolutely horrid grammar on the box, sorry for the lack of pictures), but easily the best thing I bought were the Butterfinger Buzzes. They were three for two bucks, and my curiosity was piqued by the allegations that it contained as much caffeine as the leading energy drink, so I dove right in. It bears mentioning that the woman is currently addicted to/dependent on energy drinks, so it was easy to convince her to take one. I like Butterfingers, but I’m not a glutton.

Now, a Butterfinger is pretty good on its own, and the promise that it’s brimming with caffeine is even more enticing, but I was a little turned off by what I found when I opened the wrapper. For whatever reason, “loaded with caffeine” is apparently synonymous with “dyed an unnervingly bright red”. I guess it’s just that I was used to the golden Butterfinger, but the insides of these bars were bright, bright red. Possibly dyed with the blood of a thousand neon children.

In the end though, it was just a Butterfinger. Flamboyant colouring aside, it tasted perfectly normal, and despite promises of giving me the caffeine rush of a lifetime (I ate two!), I felt no more energetic after consuming them. Overall, I’m not disappointed though, because they were cheap and as I’ve stated at least twice by now, I like Butterfingers.

What I’ve never cared for, however, are Hot Tamales. Not sure why, but they just never caught on with me. I love cinnamon hearts, so it’s not the flavour or anything like that. Maybe the chewiness doesn’t mesh with the cinnamon in my head for some reason. Maybe I just don’t see the point of getting a box of Hot Tamales when you could get the far superior Mike and Ikes that are always right beside them. I may never know.

What I did know, however, is that I absolutely had to get the box of Hot Tamales Ice. It makes no sense! It’s so wonderful!

So as you can see from that box shot up there, these are minty flavoured instead of cinnamon, and as far as I’m concerned, are much more enticing. They give off that same cool aura as spearmint leaves, but have the smooth, pill-like texture of Hot Tamales. I don’t know if it was just an old box or that Icy Tamales are naturally hard, but these ones in particular were a bit tougher than your garden variety Hot Tamales/Mike and Ikes. This problem was circumvented when I left the box in my hot car one day and they became soft and more like their forebears.

On the note of this possibly being an old box, I could find no mention of the Ice Tamales on the official website, however it did show me that they’re producing a product that opposes the Ice Tamales even more than the original: Hot Tamales Fire. It is now my lifelong quest to find the Fire version. And then procure another box of the Ice, so that I may put Fire and Ice on display together as my most prized possessions. Sadly, this requires at the very least, a three-hour trip back to Lac du Bonnet. I guess I can just hope that they’re still there next year.

As an end note, I’m still a firm believer that Tropical Typhoon Mike and Ikes are the best of this candy family.

And speaking of tropical things, look at what we’ve got here! It should be known that I’m also a huge fan of Dots, even moreso since I’ve learned that Wal-Mart carries big ol’ boxes of ’em and I don’t have to wait for Halloween for my Dots fix. Even then it was a gamble. Dots always topped my Halloween candy wishlist, even though they’re not even close to being the best candy. You were always guaranteed to get a king’s ransom in Reese peanut butter cups and Tootsie Pops, but Dots, Dots were the rare candy that always made my Halloween.

The Tropical Dots, however, are not my friend anymore. I gave them the benefit of the doubt at first, as they come from good stock, but then I ate one. They come in five flavours, all listed in the image above, and none of them are any good. They all taste vaguely similar, and kinda waxy. The Wild Mango and Paradise Punch stand the best chance of being deemed “acceptable at best”, but I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what happens to the rest of them. Very, very disappointed here. I’m talking last-episode-of-Seinfeld disappointed.

Also, there’s a math puzzle of some kind on the back of the box. Boo, Tropical Dots! Not only do you taste bland, but you also use your box activity to attack my weak point! Massive damage! I hate Tropical Dots.

To add an extra level of woe to my already melancholy situation, I purchased two boxes of these chewy little abortions in my excitement of seeing a new brand of Dots. Eating two boxes of Tropical Dots does not make one a happy camper. I really hate Tropical Dots.

These suckers are less interesting than most of the other stuff I picked up, and in fact you can easily find them at most dollar shops or Zellers. Usually as a feature item, because they’re two for a buck. These really only made their way into the bag of swag because the girlfriend is totally nuts over suckers. And why shouldn’t she get a good tongue workout? Oh yeah. I went there.

The nice thing about them is that there are a ton of flavours, and most of them are awesome. Root Beer and Banana Split, which I have pictured here, are my favourites. Cherry Cheesecake and -strangely enough- Grape are also worthy competitors. There’s even some kind of margarita flavour, so there’s really something for everyone. I should also mention that they are incredibly tasty and much bigger than the average sucker, so you’re getting a great value with these little guys. If you see a stand next time you’re picking up cheap greeting cards, don’t hesitate to buy a couple.

This big ol’ lolly is both more and less interesting than the previously showcased suckers. It’s more interesting because look at all the colours! Whoo! they swirl so brightly! Also it’s much bigger. But the real amazement lies on the backside of this lollipop…

BAM! It came with a toy! For a dollar!

Yeah, I know it’s the cheapest-ass toy ever made, but still! Little motorcycle dude will reside in my room for possibly weeks or months to come, until I finally get too annoyed with his poor construction. It’s too bad, because despite his small stature and cheap build and training wheels, I really like Moto Dude.

The real tragedy here is actually that big lollipop itself. I’ve had many lollies like this one, in different shapes and sizes, with different colour patterns, and different characters emblazoned on them, but I’ve never had one like this. Not even close. This was hands-down the worst lolly I’ve ever had the displeasure of having in my mouth. Initially it had no taste at all, so I figured it was some kind of shitty coating that caused the lack of flavour, so I sucked some more, and eventually it just started to taste like plastic. The colours weren’t running at all despite the mass amounts of saliva being slathered upon it. I couldn’t even bite the damn thing. I’m beginning to think it was just a prop lollipop packed in as an easy way for whoever made this to sell their shitty little Moto Dudes.

Sadly, I’ve got to be one of the very few suckers ever to fall for it. Pardon the half-pun.

Okay, now this can’t possibly disappoint me, right? A sucker version of a Kinder Surprise? This has gotta be awesome.

But just one thing bothers me; how exactly did they get the toy and giant chup in that egg? Certainly the toy must be held in an egg within the chup, just like a fruity version of a Kinder Surprise. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

What!? It’s just a regular sized chupa with the stupid toy taking up the rest of the space inside that humongous egg? I’m outraged! Mostly.

On the upside, the Chupa Chup is a sucker that you know you can depend on. They will always be good, as they always have, even if they aren’t bloated to an unbelievable size, as the packaging had led me to believe. Seriously, I only bought this because I thought I was getting a ginormous chupa with a toy encased within. If I had known it was a regular chup, I probably wouldn’t have been nearly as excited about it.

To dishearten me even further, the toy included inside was not at all the pencil topper that the various images on the package had promised. I mean, it’s a robot cat, which is cool and all, but Robo-Cat does not top pencils. He doesn’t even try. He just rolls back and forth whilst bobbing his head. Despite the fact that my fat sausage fingers weren’t nearly dexterous enough to assemble Robo-Cat without an hour-long fight, I’ve become quite attached to the little guy. He now sits atop my Wii with Moto Dude. I give them about a week before my dog eats one of them, having caught the scent of facetious suckers on them. I do not relish the thought of having to hold a tiny funeral for the tiny, unfortunate soul.

And that’s what I got. It may seem like I got taken to the cleaners for spending just under $15 on this mostly disappointing junk, but you’ve gotta remember that that comes out to over 130 words per dollar, so it more than evens out on a penny-to-word ratio. If I hadn’t written this completely pointless article, then the only thing I’d have had to walk away with was the enjoyment I got from the few candies that were good. Also a Robo-Cat. And that’s more than enough to satisfy me. Case closed.

TE Hits the Road: Fargo ’09

Hi all! Yeah, it’s yet another article about the once-again yearly trip I take down to Fargo/Grand Forks. I say once-again because there was a stretch in there for a few years where we didn’t go at all, but for the last three years, it’s been an essential part of summer. The only difference is that now, instead of going down with my family, it’s me and the woman. There are pros and cons for both parties, but I don’t really care who I go with. The Fargo/Grand Forks trip is the only summer staple I still have left, so I’m holding onto it as tight as I can.

That aside, I’ve decided that this year I’m just going to mash up all the pictures I took instead of trying to do anything more inspired with them. No categories, no long-winded stories, no character commentary. Nope. Just going to put them on the page and make some quick notes where I deem necessary.

Also there are tons of pictures,. Enjoy 😉

This is a cake. This is what Stephanie and I ate for breakfast. Actually I had a bowl of Reese Puffs cereal beforehand because she was taking a really long time to get to my house. But yeah, cake for breakfast. Woo!

We struck a deal before we left that she would drive there, and I would drive home. I wasn’t told until we’d arrived at the hotel, but apparently I had been voted to drive everywhere while we were in Fargo.

GPS. Lifesaver.

I bought a huge jawbreaker on a stick at the Duty-Free. It’s been ages since I’d had one of these bad boys, and I felt it was absolutely necessary. My mission was to finish it by the time we got home. I did one better and finished it before we were even back in Canada. The passport is there for scale.

She opted for the jawbreaker’s smaller cousin, the cherry Jelly Belly sucker.

I think I might have had a better chance of getting in here when I used to come down with my family. The girlfriend seems wholly opposed to entering a restaurant so garishly decorated. But we went to TGI Friday’s, so I don’t know. Maybe she’s got a fear of aliens?

I feel it’s important to mention that I used that baby pool to its full extent.

Our facilities. This is the most interesting photo ever.

Aah! Too much sunlight!

“Take one of me on the couch!”

“Now take one of me on the bed!”

See? TGI Friday’s. Hard on the eyes though it my be, no trip to the United States is complete without a stop in either here or Chili’s. I wish Canadian chains or those that extended into Canada knew how to make such wonderful fries.

Dear God! Six years with this camera and still I take blurry pictures! I’m a horribly lazy photographer.

So good.

Also awesome, but far less new to me.

For years, I’ve refused to believe that this DVD exists. Well ,outside Amazon, anyway. But I found it! I really found it! Now I can’t say Hot Topic never did anything for me.

More crap I bought. Teenage Zombies was ten bucks, and the rest I consider to be things absolutely essential for me to own. I was hunting Friday the 13th and American Dad Vol 4, but Ghostbusters Vol 1 came out of nowhere and made me the happiest girl in the world.

Like the trip to Fargo itself, no summer is complete without a small tub of Americone Dream.

TGI Friday’s was having a two-for-one burger day, and I had ordered a burger for dinner, so they gave me this second one to take home. I ate it that night and forcefully regretted eating two giant cheese-slathered burgers in one night. A task a younger me would ahve faced with aplomb.

The main dresser on our first morning. It’s covered in crap we bought and other such things. The Playstation 2 is there because I hate overpaying for movies I don’t really want to watch and every time I bring my DVD player I forget the remote.

Seriously. You’d think I would know how to take a not-blurry picture by now.

I usually grab a jug of Hawaiian puch on my southernly adventures, only this time I picked the “light” version. Trying to watch those calories…

West Acres mall. It’s huge, and wonderful. It’s probably the best mall ever. It’s not a lot better than Winnipeg’s biggest mall, but I only get to go there like once a year and I don’t get bored of it. Also I looooove Mrs. Fields’ cookies.

We went to the Lone Star Texas Grill on our second night. We’d never been there, but were pleasantly surprised. The steak I had was excellent (especially since I hadn’t had a steak for several weeks at that point), and there was a pail of peanuts on the table to keep me busy while we were waiting for the food to come.

That evening we ventured over into downtown Fargo, and on our way back, we ended up accidentally driving through some sort of classic car show-off night. Don’t know for sure what was going down, but we took a bunch of pictures.

I used the Fargo onion to determine that we were going the right way on the way back into the hotel/shopping part of the city.

I guess it’s just out of habit that I keep taking pictures of the Fargo TRU. We didn’t go in this year, but it looked just as sad as ever on the outside.

All packed up! I don’t subscribe to Nintendo Power anymore, but I felt like picking up an issue for old time’s sake. This one was the perfect candidate, because the only things I really want to read about are the new Mario & Luigi game and Wii Sports Resort.

This is how many towels we used over the course of two days.

I’m going to miss that wonderful continental breakfast buffet. It’s really the highlight of all my best hotel stays.

On our way home we stopped in Grand Forks to investigate the Columbia Mall among other shops. It’s just as boring as ever, if not moreso because they don’t even have the cookie place in the food court anymore.

Evidence that she does eat.

There was a completely random mailbox on the side of the road nearl Kohl’s. I felt that I should capture its soul incase it disappears between now and next year.

This makeup is all blurry! Let’s go somewhere else.

I bought these movies at Best Buy. Zombie Strippers is pretty hilarious, Zombie Diaries was disturbing, and Trailer Park of Terror-though I expected the most from it-was merely okay.

No, I did not buy Friady the 13th twice. I don’t know how it got into this picture. On the other hand, Jason X was five bucks and was the last missing piece in my collection, and the Elm Street four-pack was $10 and completed its own collection. Mallrats I couldn’t understand why I didn’t already own.

We hit Rock 30 games on the second night, and I picked these up there. I have no idea why in God’s name I had sold Donkey Kong, as it is one of the greatest original Game Boy games ever, and FF8 I own on PC, but would rather play through my PS2. I will not say how much I paid for either of these items. I will say that one was just a little more expensive than it should have been, and the other was hideously overpriced. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.

And that’s pretty much it. Following in the general spirit of this “article”, I really don’t have much more to wrap up with, so I’ll leave it at that.

~FIN

Rudy’s on a train

I’ve always secretly loved Valentine’s Day. Not because I’m a big fan of love and mushiness or anything, but because it always gave me a good reason to mope. I looked forward to the day because it was a day where I could lock myself in my room and be gloomy and have a “legitimate” reason for it. It was a day that celebrated couples, and I was single; in theory everyone who wasn’t in a relationship should be bummed. But not me. I love being sullen and whatnot, so it was always great for me. Don’t know why I enjoyed being alone and moody so much, that’s just how I was.

But now in 2009, I’m in a serious relationship, and Valentine’s Day is exactly the opposite of what it used to be. I got home from work and had to work my ass off to get everything cleaned up and dinner prepared in time. I spent the whole night with her instead of being all by my lonesome, and for the first time ever, I had a ton of fun on Valentine’s Day with someone other than myself. We didn’t do much, just had a nice home-cooked dinner, played Rock Band, ate a cake (yes, we ate an entire cake between the two of us), and muddled around on Facebook for a while. It wasn’t fancy or expensive, but it was perfect.

And now I’m sitting here thinking that despite the fact that this V-Day couldn’t be any more different from the old ways, there is one thing that they have in common: both types made me happy, just in different ways.

Live fast, ’cause it won’t last

Ah, a new year. We’re already a few days in, but let’s talk about it anyway. I know I’m usually more of the cynical type, but I’ve got a good feeling about 2009. Not that 2008 wasn’t a good year. Oh no, quite opposite in fact!

2008 was a pretty great year in and of itself. There was that one rough patch in March-ish, and the last week of the year was a little touch-and-go for a while, but overall I’d say 2008 was a rousing success. The belated release of Super Smash Bros Brawl was more than enough in itself to make me happy with last year, but let’s not forget some of the other great things that came to us like No More Heroes and Fable II. Oh, and Tales of Vesperia too, which I am still spending a solid chunk of my free time playing (damned achievements!).

I also got a promotion earlier in the year, and though I enjoy the little bit of power I’ve been granted, it’s still not nearly enough to make me like my job. But that’s okay, because recently a really huge opportunity has shown its face and I’m really hoping it works out. I won’t go into any more detail because the more I talk about it, the less fate will think I deserve it, but I will say this: it would be my dream job.

Obviously, and most importantly, 2008 is the year that I started dating my girlfriend. It’s been fantastic, and while there are a few very minor drawbacks (I sometimes miss having copious amounts of free time), I finally understand just why people always seem so desperate to be with someone. We’ve been on several vacations together already, and have a designated movie night. Working at the same place has its perks too, of course.

So yeah, 2008 was good. Maybe not perfect, but that’s what 2009 is for, I guess. Hopefully this year I’ll make a little more time for my website(s) and write up more than five articles. I mean, that’s less than one every two months. Unacceptable! Perhaps I’ll finish refurbishing the “Spare!” comics. Who knows. Though I’m fairly sure I’ve mentioned that at least a million times in the last few months and nothing’s come of it.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. Here’s to the new year and even better times!

Promise not to stop when I say “when”

Well, it’s now the 24th of December, and I have successfully made one news post every day. Guess maybe I did have it in me after all. I know a couple were a bit crappy, but sometiimes that’s just how she goes.

Today, I was intending to talk about the best DLC for Rock Band, but I’d rather just make a bit of a spiel about how I hate working on computers that aren’t mine. See, I’m making this post from my girlfriend’s laptop, as I will not be home at all today, and I had to make the last post, right? But anyway, I’m finding this very uncomfortable. The whole compressed keyboard thing is a pain to adjust to, and making my typing way slower. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a vey nice laptop, and I wouldn’t mind owning one myself, but I just can’t stand adjusting to a new keyboard.

Much more of an issue is the fact that it’s running Windows Vista. Oh my God I hate Vista. It took me nearly half an hour to figure out how to access my FTP site or whatever through the network connections, and it really shouldn’t be that hard. I don’t think I could even do it again. And why doesn’t the “choose program” under “open with” have a bunch of default programs? I had to dig through the whole Windows directory to find the stupid Notepad. Notepad! And yes, I do all my HTMLing in Notepad. I’m sure it would be a lot easier with a program that would pick out wrong and useles code, but whatever. I’ve been doing it this way for six years, why change now? I hate change.

On a lighter note, we watched A Christmas Tale from that 6-movie set last night. It was actually a lot funnier than it was scary. The plot was about a bunch of kids who found a dangerous criminal who had fallen into a pit. She had robbed a bank, and the kids were trying to get her to give them the money before they’d help her out of the hole. Then there was voodoo and zombies and a slightly ambiguous ending. It was okay, nothing special. I think my favourite part was that there were four boys, and when they were coming up with nicknames to use while talking to the criminal, they named themselves after the A-Team. That was funny.

So yep. That concludes the 24 Days of Materialism. Hoped you enjoyed it as much as I hated finding a way to make a blog post every day for 24 days staight.

If you don’t know, honey

It’s been a long and sketchy night. I havn’t done it in forever, but tonight I decided that it would be a good idea to reinstall Windows on my PC. Yeah. I was up all night last night backing everything up, and I’ll be up all night tonight trying to get everything back to normal.

Considering that fact that I’d pretty much forgotten what I was supposed to be doing, I think things went alright! Windows in back, and I’m connected to the internet. That much should have been obvious. It took me a while to figure out how to reconnect the website as a network place, but then I finally remembered to use “ftp” instead of “http”. I was sweating there for a while! There were also some issues with graphical drivers, but I got that sorted out easily. I still haven’t found my audio drivers though, and let me tell you, trying to blog without music is like a day without sunshine. If I remember correctly, I had a hell of a time trying to get my audio working last time I did this too. Let’s hope I figure it out quickly.

Today’s review is not really an object that can be bought, but rather more of a Christmassy memory for me. It’s also relevant now! More on that later though.

I would just like to take a couple paragraphs to talk about Ninja Turtle stockings. Yeah, I suppose I should have grown out of these a long time ago, but my TMNT fanboyism is hardly waning. The fact that I’ve kept my turtle stockings (not pictured) over the many years is not a tribute to my everlasting love of the green guys, but rather a testament to what a pack rat I am. But these are cool so they get a free pass! How could you throw out something like that?

So anyway, I bring up the turtle stockings because recently they have become part of The World’s Greatest Coincidence. See, I have two turtle stockings, Leonardo and Donatello. I suppose they sufficed when I was a child, but I’ve had a secret longing in my head to own the other two for as long as I can remember. Imagine my surprise one day when I was visiting my girlfriend’s house while her family was unpacking their Christmas decorations and I saw that they had two as well: Raphael and Michelangelo. Meant to be together or just dumb luck? I like the first option. It’s like we each had half of a pendant and came together to form the whole. It is clearly our destiny to be together.

So yeah, that’s going to be my greatest Christmas story for years to come. You might wanna get used to it now. I will totally be telling our children and grandchildren and various other relatives this story, and I figured it was perfect for a blog entry too. Of course, it’ll still be some time before all four turtles are united under a single roof (we can’t afford a house on TRU salaries!), but they day that they are… that will be magical.

Two lovers in love, we was lovin’ a lot

Not as though I’d be doing too much blogging anyhow, but for the next couple days we’re heading down to Fargo to celebrate… well, not working for like four days? I dunno. Going down to the States to celebrate Canada Day seems a little dumb, but there really isn’t any other occasion. I suppose it’s just for the sake of shopping and getting away. Yeah.

So how about that Mega Man 9 news? Pretty damn awesome, I’d say. This is exactly what digital distribution is all about. I suppose that means that Capcom will finally be putting all the old Mega Man games on the Virtual Console then? I have the Anniversary Collection, so I wouldn’t be buying them, but it would be nice to know that they’re there.

Prepare your reading hats

I was going to go on about how much longer this has taken than it should have, but I noticed that previous years’ entires have been posted even later, so I suppose that my rambling would have been for naught. Anyhow, I decided to revive the reviled Christmas Gift article. You know the one. Fortunately, this one’s only one page, and far more concise than any before it. You can find it right here or at the top of the list on the aticles page. Good luck.

As a side-effect, some older articles have been moved over from Angelfire to this webspace. Notably, a couple under the “related” section you’ll find on the Navi in the new article.