If you were looking for the most red corn chip available, look no further. Sabritas’ Turbos Flamas are SO red that you’re guaranteed to have one of those really terrifying moments the next morning…in the bathroom. If you know what I mean. You know, because you think there’s blood…in…
…but you then realize that you’re not internally bleeding in your digestive tract. Admittedly, this review isn’t going well. I 100% blame the Turbos Flamas.
Read more…
Doritos Toro Habanero chips are almost good, but between the tongue-destroying citric acid and the tooth-melting heat of the habanero, I never got the big picture. My first clue that these wouldn’t be that great was that even the bull on the packaging is looking away from the chips, as if they’ll just give up and go away. And so the feeling goes. Too much spice, too much acid, not enough balance. Thanks, Mexico.
I’d feel irresponsible if I didn’t immediately give you the disclaimer that I think KFC is for dirtbags and pedophiles. So, whether you think that my opinion colors this review or not is up to you. But, my opinion stands. I mean, look at yourself. Do you like the modern-day KFC? Have you intentionally eaten there in the last month? Twice? Three times?
Look in the mirror. You’re a dirtbag. Or a pedophile. Bet me and lose.
Read more…
If you love feeling awake, fresh, and ready to take on the male-dominated world, then GoGirl Energy drinks are for you. Imbued with healthy shit, and purportedly “good for your skin and bones”, these drinks are more or less the same flavored energy swill everyone else has, but it’s got a ribbon on the can that represents ovarian or breast cancer, depending on which flavor you try. Oh, and they’re expensive as shit. Thanks, lady.
There’s only one thing that can summarize the new Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger from Carl’s Jr., and that’s a question from my wife while she skeptically held it up at eye-level, close enough to see her reflection in the hot oil: “is that cheese or mayonnaise?”
It was at that exact moment that I knew that my anus would be screaming later on that night when my body decided that none of this burger could be converted into usable energy or nutrients.
Read more…
This limited edition 7up has 100% natural flavors – which essentially means that it tastes like items found in nature. It, of course, does not mean that the soda actually contains any pomegranate – which it does not. If I tasted this without seeing the label, I would have guessed it was Cherry Raspberry Pine 7up. It tastes like it should be some form of wild berry. It’s not unpleasant, but I just don’t taste pomegranate.
If your idea of throwing the taco industry a curve ball is putting pepperjack ranch dressing in a taco and dying a taco shell midnight blue, then you should fire your marketing department. Unfortunately, no one will be fired for this atrocity, and no one will be shot in their groin with a taser while biting down on a balloon full of battery acid and broken glass. Which coincidentally, is what this taco is like.
September 17th, 2009
Zach
First of all, “queso” in Spanish translates to “cheese,” so these chips are called Ruffles Cheese Cheese, (the “Cheese” is omitted from the Latin packaging…thanks Mexico). Second, they taste like they’ve been liberally coated with Molly McButter Cheese Flavor Sprinkles (their name, not mine), and spiced up. Lime is also present, of course, but who could taste it through this salty hell of a potato-based mindscrew? Sorry, Mexico, but I’m going to have to pass.
When you’re a big man like I am, sometimes your body and mind get tired of carrying around 3-bills worth of love machine. I also engage in daily physical skirmishes, most ending in long periods of submission holds. Okay, not really…usually they’re knife fights that end in blood and triumph. But true story: I drive 25 miles to work, sit at a desk for 8 hours, then drive 25 miles home to a wife and baby that need my attention. So in a poetic way, any kind of sluggishness or tired feeling really is like a submission hold on my head. Or you know, on my soul.
That’s why 5-Hour Energy Shots have saved me and my love machine. Keep reading and I promise I’ll stop saying “love machine.”
Read more…
In “Review in 75,” there’s no need for a whole chapter; I review something interview question-style, 75 words or less.
Not every Dr. Pepper venture is incredible. The new Dr. Pepper Cherry, however, tastes like the first time you fooled around in high school. With a chick. With half of your clothes off.
The taste is demurely sweet, but also smokey and sexy – all of the things that your high school girlfriend’s dad didn’t want her to be. In bed.
It’s Dr. Pepper, but rich…slutty…three-dimensional. If it was a president, it’d be Baberaham Lincoln.
The only thing filthier than a snack raping my mouth is a snack raping my mouth and my mind. Just like the chick in college that begged you to have sex with her in a public place even though you had social anxiety syndrome, Frito Lay has proven itself so crazy and sinister that I might actually start wearing condoms whenever I buy a bag of chips.
Introducing the scurvy whores that dug their heels into my taste buds and left me for dead: Doritos Late Night Tacos At Midnight and Doritos Late Night Last Call Jalapeño Popper chips.
In a nutshell, Frito Lay wanted to take me back to late nights in college, drinking with friends and talking about boobs. What they gave me was the taste of a hangover.
Read more…
When you look back on your life, I think you’ll find that there was a Philly Cheesesteak somehow related to every happy moment. Just take a moment and look back on your life – the first time you got a hit in little league, the first time you kissed a girl, the day of your big promotion at work, the first time you beat a vagrant to death and buried him in your garden for trying to steal your bike…etc etc. All great times. All times that I’m sure, if you searched your memories hard enough, you’d find a Philly Cheesesteak.
That’s what it’s with great pride and mouth-watering, genital-tingling excitement that I bring you a review of The Burger Express in Newbury Park, CA. Or was that mouth-tingling, genital-watering? Actually, I’m hoping that this review makes your mouth and genitals both tingle and water. And I hope once they do, you remember me fondly. And then I hope you take pictures and e-mail them to me.
I feel like I’m getting off-topic.
Read more…
In “Review in 75,” there’s no need for a whole chapter; I review something interview question-style, 75 words or less.
I honestly don’t know enough about cameras to do a fair review, but I need to say something good about my 10.1-megapixel Canon Rebel XS, the beginner’s dream DSLR – easy shooting, but powerful enough for more advanced composition and technical photography. Retails $600 – see these pics of my son for samples.
In “Review in 75,” there’s no need for a whole chapter; I review something interview question-style, 75 words or less.
1,000 calories deep, the new Double Kentucky Bourbon Burger at Carl’s Jr. not only doesn’t impress me, it repulsed me. Bland fried onion strings and overly sweet sauce make this the opposite of crazy delicious. Save 40 calories and 10g of sugar and have a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger.
If you’re like me, your morning reading consists of a sports score recap, video game news, and of course, the snack and beverage press releases. That’s why a couple of days ago, I was excited to read Pepsi’s official announcement of three beverages – Pepsi Throwback, Mountain Dew Throwback, and Pepsi Natural. What separates these drinks from the rest of the market is that all three beverages are made with – get this – real sugar. None of that high fructose corn syrup stuff that’s been raked over the coals in the media lately (uhhh, it’s made from corn and fine in moderation…duh).
It seems I’m never able to get my hands on limited-release items, despite living in a popular test market – California. That’s why I was pleased to find Pepsi Natural at my local gas station (neither of the Throwback flavors were there, however).
I can’t go any further without being honest with you. This soda is crap.
Read more…
There’s five quick failsafe ways to turn me off to a food joint:
- Use the word “Natural” in the name.
- Serve dishes with words like “karma,” “zen,” and “yogi” in their titles.
- Serve burgers, but not made from anything with four legs.
- Use brown rice in everything.
- Do not offer a fountain drink of any sort.
That is why it pains me to tell you that The Natural Cafe does ALL of these things. As a judgemental jackass…I’m conflicted. See, I kind of liked The Natural Cafe. And although I wasn’t astounded by what I got and tasted, I will soon be returning.
Read more…
Bravo, Jack in the Box. Bravo.
It’s not often that a fast food chain can completely insult its own already-broken-spirited workforce, but somehow Jack in the Box took the idea by the nuts and ran with it. Now, it’s not all bad – as an ex-retail employee (not that I’m comparing retail and food service too heavily), one of the worst parts of the job was the customers (followed closely by the coworkers, the managers, the products, the policies and the pay). I can imagine that the worst part of working at Jack in the Box is the customers. I hear how people speak. I hear how people mumble.
That’s why even though it’s emotionally insulting – the new Jack in the Box “Order & Pay Kiosk” at my local Jack is…well, awesome.
Read more…
To get to know Barcel’s Takis snacks is to get to know bloody warfare, back-alley murders, brothers stealing from brothers, the South American drug trade, a spice war spanning centuries, villages of people put to slaughter by a fully-mechanized army, brainwashing, and starship battles that eradicated whole constellations.
Alright, so it’s not that bad. But don’t put it past Mexican snack king, Barcel. And dont go to their website…it’s completely in Spanish – and Spanish, as Takis has informed me, is the language of the enemy. Trust me, this will all make sense soon.
In short, Takis are the salty, tart language of anger. Don’t blame me when you stop by your local 7-11 and wind up angrier than a drunken Mexican firing squad 10 minutes after diving into these.
Read more…
I’m only really putting this in my Local Food category because we don’t have a Fatburger within 20 miles of our apartment. Turns out there’s a Fatburger near my old apartment and near my office, but not near my home, which I can only regard as an urban planning discrimination tactic against me as an overweight American. We’re an official group now, you know.
Back to Fatburger. At first glance, you’ll notice that this is not a cheap hamburger joint – the standard Fatburger will run you $4.29 USD on its own – cheese extra. And here’s the kicker – it’s a small burger (well, by my measurements at least).
Still, if you’re in the mood for a really clean-tasting hamburger that harkens back to the days of hamburger stands and an era when it was okay to beat a kid with a belt, Fatburger is a winner.
Read more…
The best way to summarize the Creamy Cucumber flavored Potato Chips by Tim’s Cascade Snacks is to say that you cannot find anything on the internet about these chips.
Okay, I didn’t really check – but a couple of secondhand mentions on food sites here and there is not REALLY an internet presence. In fact, if you do a search for “cucumber” on the Tim’s Cascade Snacks website, you won’t find these chips. Unless, of course, I misspelled “cucumber”.
The crowning achievement of these Creamy Cucumber chips is that they taste neither creamy nor cucumbery. Bravo, Tim Kennedy.
I seem to always say that I’m going to make my review brief, and I never do. But I promise to make this brief. Maybe.
Read more…
I’ll make this brief. If you’ve got a hankering for Ex Lax dipped in Nyquil, the new(ish) Wildly Cherry M&Ms are for you.
It’s kind of sad when you look at the words “Limited Edition” and you can’t wait for the limit to pass. But so it is for the Wildly Cherry M&Ms, the bane of chocolate existence. Your first clue that these little treats will be garbage is the M&M character on the front of the bag, trying to hang himself with a cherry stem.
Read more…
When I woke up today, I ran through the list of things I needed to do today:
- Take a shower
- Peel 5 potatoes
- Remove my chest hair
- Strip the old paint off of a coffee table
And surprisingly, my new showerhead, the Waterpik AST 233CC took care of the entire list. All I had to do was shower with a coffee table and some potatoes.
Read more…
If there’s one thing that’s gotten a little tired lately, it’s the institution of the Bejeweled clone. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting multiple Bejeweled clones – which, isn’t always a bad thing, as long as they improve or change the formula (see my review of Puzzle Quest). I was pleasantly surprised by Void Star Creations’ Poker Smash – since I notoriously hate poker.
Read more…
What’s cherry and chocolate and has zero calories and tastes like a pile of the Kool Aid Man’s crap?
I’ll wait while you guess.
Read more…
A more cinemaworthy story couldn’t have written itself; the classic equations of good versus evil, family versus business and…well, blonde versus brunette. I had to wait for this movie to come out on video, as it never saw a full nationwide release. And honestly, I don’t know if my wife would have tolerated driving 50 miles to watch a documentary about two men’s battle for a video game record.
Seth Gordon directs the story of a fair-haired high school teacher, Steve Weibe, as he attempts to break game-and-sauce-king Billy Mitchell’s record Donkey Kong score. I know, I know…you’re thinking snorefest – but stick with me.
Read more…
Let’s get the math out of the way first.
Me + Burger King = BFF
Me + Chips = BFF
Me + Burger King + Oddly-flavored potato-based snacks = not so much
Picture this – I’m in the convenience store attached to my local gas station. I’m buying my normal “if I’m gonna snack I’m gonna do it right” afternoon eats – Mountain Dew and pork rinds. But that’s another story. As I’m rounding the corner toward the register, the corner of my eye catches the Burger King logo. To my surprise, I wasn’t seeing a Whopper wrapper stuffed into a display – the candy endcap proudly displayed Burger King potato chips.
Read more…
Tonight I got a real shot in the ass. Here I am, sick, soar throat, groggy, and I could have been banging out reviews of all of the video games that I have been too lazy to review for the last two months.
Read more…
I’ve been neglecting my reviewerly responsibilities lately, and I do feel bad. For the record, not that bad. Nevertheless, I’ve been playing a lot of web-based flash games at work during my breaks – and one that I’ve been having fun with lately is Boxhead. It’s a simple formula – kill or be killed in a lego-man’s zombie nightmare.
Sean Cooper’s Boxhead frames the one-versus-one-million battle in a white-palletted, semi-open area – levels vary from an open box to a small-corridored maze. Waves of zombies come from different directions and close in on you. As you kill them, you’ll earn 10 weapons and a bunch of upgrades for each, including longer ranges and faster fire rates. Weapons include grenades, an uzi, explosive barrels and the shotgun…each with specific pros and cons.
I don’t want to belabor this review – the game is simple fun, and perfect for a lunchbreak at work. Simple keyboard controls highlight a simple game. And because there are different level layouts, there’s plenty of variety. I haven’t tried the multiplayer, but I can’t imagine hunching over the same keyboard with a coworker.
In any event – kudos, Sean Cooper. Check out his neat little website – www.games.seantcooper.com
…or ‘Scissors’ is the new ‘Blue’
So, the best and worst thing about Brain Age 2 is that the game is in many ways similar to its predecessor. The worst of the worst things about BA2 is that you know it was made as a step up from BA1, as opposed to a “second edition” or addition to the first. Make sense? Okay, let’s put it this way – in Brain Age, you learned because it was exciting, new and…*gasp* fun. In Brain Age 2, you learn because that’s what the game is all about. No accidental prefrontal cortex stimulations here.
Not that any of that is a bad thing. BA2 also takes the winning formula from the first game and (drumroll please) does it again. Read more…
I imagine that the development for Space Giraffe at Llamasoft went something like this -
Ivan Zorzin: “Hey Jeff, I got an idea for a new XBLA game…”
Jeff Minter: “Awesome – what is it?”
Ivan: “Everything.”
Space Giraffe assaults you with a humble enema of media all at once – references to Super Mario Bros. 1, a picture of J. Allard, the best engrish $5 can buy, and a host of sounds that could be easily mistaken as random (but clearly aren’t, once you let SG under your skin).
More on the break-neck shooter at a mouse’s click…
Read more…