I needed to start something on here with a more congruent theme or at least a side project. I know I have “Where Did You Go” but over the years I think just about fifty online news sites have copied and pasted nearly all of it and I get a little tired of doing the work for them. Especially the Huffington Post which is written on a third grade level and use misleading titles to trick people into reading an article about Kanye West in hopes he died by having is wiener caught in a vacuum at the bottom of his pool. So, while I will continue the fun posts about past celebrities, I think I need to develop another page and invite others in the fun.
“For A Limited Time Only” is the page dedicated to shedding light on what’s available for a fleeting moment in our busy bee lives. Maybe it will return next year or maybe it will be a discussion twenty years from now like how Crystal Pepsi tasted like soapy piss but we bought it anyway because Van Halen told us to. Either way, you can find it here.
Alright, one last thing. I want to open this page to awesome readers like you. I am stuck on a pretty strict diet of high protein and low carb in preparation for the 2014 trail race season so I probably won’t try the four patty burger donut with special sauce but if you do, feel free to drop me an email and I’ll post your article right here! I’ll tweet the hell out of it and before you know it, you’ll be on the road to food stardom. You never know.
This idea is something Brian over at Review the World and I have been batting around and I think this is a good time to kick it off. I know if you have been here long enough you have visited his spot and it’s no surprise we collaborate quite often. He’s an awesome guy with a great talent for reviews and videos.
Thanks and tweet me over at Veggiemacabre if you have any suggestions or know of a limited time offer out there that might be fun to write about!
Here I go again, eating snacks made for a five year old and review them for the discerning palate of a thirty-six year old. No matter what I say, this is never meant to be taken seriously and it’s a funny way to spend a Sunday but I am a single weirdo with nothing better to do, so back off! Sorry…I get a little touchy after drinking three cups of coffee and fourteen packs of sugar-logged fruit snacks. Actually, they are “gummy” snacks. What’s the difference, you ask? Read on.
I was running through the grocery store last night trying to get the final ingredients for my top-secret dirty rice concoction and when I passed the candy aisle a giant red box caught my attention. Giant red boxes will always get my attention.
Dum-Dums have finally broke free of the hard candy and can now be celebrated by people with periodontal disease. It’s a fine line when candy tries to redefine itself as a wholesome lunch addition made with real fruit. It’s either a home run or a strikeout. There are no base hits when it comes to this stuff, man.
In a tiny 70 calorie pack, there are a potential for six different flavors which include apple, blue raspberry, grape, strawberry, orange and cherry. That is a lot of flavor variety in such a small package but when you consider Dum-Dum has almost a million different varieties in their suckers, it’s not so impressive.
So, how do these individually taste? Well, not fantastic. I always compare todays fruit snacks with the 1980 Sunkist Fun Fruits and that leads to a life of disappointment. There is no way any variation can be one tenth of what Sunkist and Betty Crocker did back before the fall of the Soviet Union. It was a great time to be a kid.
I know this was a silly review but I really needed to revisit fruit snacks that kids are eating today. When they boast to have “real fruit juice” that means a touch of white grape juice. Other than that, you could find the same ingredients in a candle. The flavors do match their shapes but not anything to stand out and scream, “I’M EATING GRAPE!”. It’s more like, “I am eating grape-nope now it’s wax.”.
In other news, I turned another year older on Friday and as a gift from the universe, I found one of the last remaining video rental stores. Holy shit, it was like jumping back twenty years. From the auto-looped movie previews blaring on four TVs to the disappointing realization that your favorites movie box has no DVD behind it, it was a welcomed sight for these sore eyes.
For only a buck a movie, I came home with Halloween 2&3, Friday the 13t: Part 6, Carrie, The Last Starfighter, Pet Semetery and Pretty Dead. For less than eight bucks and five days to breeze through them, I say that’s a pretty great hull. Of course I have Hulu Plus, Vudu and Netflix, but when it comes to the magic feeling of picking out the titles and getting weird looks from the kid at the checkout counter, I say it is a fun change of pace.
The only draw back is when I got home I found out I rented Friday the 13th: Part 5 and Halloween 2 was actually Rob Zombie’s abomination remake rather than the original. Okay, that sucks. But still, where else can you roam around for an hour looking for an hour and a half of entertainment?
Tune back in later this evening. Brian from Review the World and I have done a joint review with a little twist. It’s about chili from Cincinnati and we compare fresh vs frozen. I love doing these projects with such a cool dude. See you soon!
Here is one of our earlier joint projects. I loved this one.
It’s a slippery slope when you have a blog with no real direction or flow and end up reviewing private label soda. I am not sure where I am sliding to but I’ll let you know when I hit bottom.
The good people at Avery’s Beverage out of New Britain, Connecticut have been pumping soda since 1904. Back then birch beer was what kids craved the most but they also dug baked apples and black licorice so who knows? Lucky for us, tastes have evolved and now Avery Beverages offers over forty five different flavors. That’s swell but I am only reviewing five specialty sodas. The Totally Gross Soda (IT’ SODAsgusting). And why, you may ask? I’m not going to answer that.
Blue Raspberry/Orange Toxic Slime! I am always on the fence about blue soda. Well, blue anything. It never seems to completely translate as an actual fruit but rather a bunch of mixed chemicals and sugar. The color is alluring, I can give it that but when it comes to a flavor I compare it to what I imagine a puree-ed TV remote with sugar. Completely alien and the absolute definition of artificial.
The glimmer of hope I saw in Toxic Slime, besides the amazing beaker with an eyeball and femur bone floating in it, was the fact there is orange flavoring to cut the plastic aftertaste. And it kinda did! But in a way that I was not expecting. Instead of an over-sweetened plastic taste it was an over-sweetend plastic cream. Weird, no?
Strawberry/Blue Raspberry Monster Mucus! Ah shit, the two flavors science can not figure out how to duplicate. Ignore the fact blue raspberry is Rubus Leucodermis and for what ever reason it has become a mainstream flavoring that, as seen as above, has no discernible fruit taste. Strawberry suffers the same fate.
Monster Mucus confuses the palate and sends it into a chicken or egg dilemma because when you take a swig, you are waiting to see what flavor will hit first but neither does. In an unexpected twist, they both cancel each other out and you are left with the sugar water in those wax candy bottles.
Also, you may notice a soda stain on Gary Busey’s face. I had a catastrophic accident and some of this awful juice spilled on him resulting in me making a noise similar to the time I slipped and fell in a grocery store. “NNGGNOOOOO!”
Kiwi/Pineapple Bug Barf! I had high hopes for this one because it had neither blue raspberry or strawberry. I walked into this soda review completely blind because, if memory serves me right, I have never tried kiwi or pineapple soda. Makes you wonder why two delicious fruits aren’t represented more in sodas. For some reason I feel Fanta fans might think I am from the planet Bleeptos. Tomatoes are also a fruit.
My high hopes were dashed onto the rocks of reality. Every time I think, “this has to be amazing” I remind myself not to get too excited and refer to the Pepsi Clear incident of 1988. I was hoping for a tropical tart blend of an exotic island but it was overpowered by all-purpose cleaner.
I’m tired of trying to fight these pictures. Sorry for the weird spacing.
Strawberry/orange Zombie Brain Juice! Here we go again. I already know what the recipe is and brother, I ain’t going to like it. I do, however, dig the brilliant red. Also, the cute zombie strolling around with his cap peeled back waiving hi to us and does not leave anything to be desired. Speaking of which, I haven’t really paid that much homage to the amazing artwork on these bottles. After all, why do you think I spent $16.95 for five of these?
Yeah, I spent damn near $4 a piece on these.
As to be expected, the Zombie Brain Juice is a mix of pixi stix and regret. The wild mix of unlike flavors doesn’t do much justice to the gross themed soda. I have no idea why I thought these would be anything more than over-sweetened artificially colored carbonated beverages but for the price, maybe I held out for something better tasting.
Pineapple/Orange Kitty Piddle! Okay folks, this is the one I have been saving for the last review! And for good reason. First, to name a soda after cat piss is pretty hilarious. Especially for all you cat owners out there who know the best “fuck you” from a cat to its owner is through cat piss. I know this.
Along time ago in what feels like another lifetime, I was in the military. When I wasn’t off in another country or having to sleep in a mud pit for weeks of training, I had a little abode to call my own. And somehow this abode came with a cat named Snooter. As a new resident to his domain, he pissed on all of my uniforms and I went to work not noticing but throughout the day the smell became stronger and stronger. At one point we were all on the floor trying to locate the source of this oder and before lunch, I figured out that it was my pant leg.
I came home immediately to change but soon discovered that furry asshole pissed on all my uniforms in some sort of cat territorial thing. I airborne qualified Snooter.
Kitty Piddle. While it is the best of the five, I will say it is 100% Sweet Tart juice. I don’t mean that in a bad way but I also don’t suggest that anyone should consume it. Maybe if you ran a toddle fight club this would be a good “pre-fight” drink but other than that, I really advise you to just leave cat piss for the little box.
So, in conclusion I must say the concept of “Totally Gross Soda” is just aces. The artwork is cute and original, the colors fantastic and originality of the flavor mixing was great in concept. The only problem I had was the fact I am almost 36 years old and reviewing kids soda in the hope they would some how taste good. What can I expect from nuclear blue drinks now that my taste buds have evolved to not hate sardines? I can be harsh on individual flavors but never forget that deep down, I get it. It’s for an eleven-year old who thinks farts are funny.
I give Avery’s Beverages an A++++ for creativity and beyond that for still having the gusto to put out slim margined target markets for kids. I love that and I love this pure American company.
One last thing, I have finally found the finale to the dreaded champagne review my buddy Ben and I did. For some reason I could not upload this damn part which, in my opinion, is the best of the three. Partly because it was around 3am and all sense and sensibility waved bye-bye about two hours before. Watch and learn about Cupcake Champagne and I swear, I’ll never bring it up again.
I think I have written this three times and each one was longer than the last. I cropped photos, recounted each toy I could remember and gave extensive detail to what they were and where they came from. It was exhausting and ultimately it came out flat. There are probably thirty thousand blogs devoted to archiving toys from the 1980’s and brother, this ain’t one of them. I never had the knack for specifics when it came to cartoons or branded toys. I take my hat off to those who do and heaven knows, I read these blogs which devote that certain energy but this little space of mine in the internet is more personal.
It was a restless night back in ’87. There is so much anticipation a little kid has on the eve of Christmas. I don’t think it’s about gifts either but rather the culmination of months of excitement all coming to ahead. Everything seemed to be so still and peaceful back then. I have a vivid memory looking out my window on to my street, all the houses decorated and lit with not a single soul to be seen. It was so serene.
I drifted off to sleep trying not to think about Christmas morning. The longer I dwelled the later it got. Instead I would pretend I was an Imperial officer having to prepare navigational charts for a Star Destroyer. (I was a weird kid) That was an instant sleep remedy for me. Boring fantasies make me sleepy even today.
Like any kid at the ripe age of ten, once 5am came around, my internal clock kicked in and I was vertical. I moved slow and deliberate, creeping down the stairs, unsure what time it really was. I made my way to the den and flipped on the lights.
That’s the sight every adult has in their heads when thinking of the magic of Christmas to a child. That moment when you wrestle with yourself how Santa came while you slept and left you something. The smell of Scotch tape, wrapping paper and pine so early in the morning as you shiver with excitement and the fact it’s also 34 degrees outside. Then the long wait since getting the parents up probably wouldn’t be the best idea so you sit in the middle of the gifts, taking it all in and hold out until sunrise.
This was Christmas of 1987. The one that stands out above the rest. It isn’t because of a certain toy although it was the year I got Megatron and broke off one of his legs by going against my Dad’s suggestion of “not forcing it”. I think that year stands tall because Christmas seemed to permeate every aspect of my young life. The Christmas TV specials were amazing, the toys of that era were second to none and it felt as everyone was in the spirit. I have not felt that in years. And I am scared I probably never will.
I have memories. That is what Christmas is really all about, anyway. We come together and share merriment in an event that is logged in our hearts for years to come. Kind of magical, if you ask me.
So Merry Christmas to you. Don’t let this time go by without remembering what it is all about. Tell those around you how much they mean to you, keep the loved ones a little closer and hold out your hand to those who might not have someone. Think of the troops far off, kids who aren’t waking up to piles of gifts and the people who do not have a roof on cold nights.
Peace on Earth, good will toward men.
Good night and thank you for sticking with me this season. Hope everything amazing happens for you. Merry Christmas.
Casserole of Disaster 