Am I running out of snacks that I am willing to eat for a review...?

Today we have yet another "chips" review.  I have to put chips in quotation marks because we've moved beyond potatoes and even on to popcorn products.  I figure they all hang together on the shelf in bags, they're all fair game.

TAKIS - Salsa Brava flavor Hot Sauce Corn Snack by Barcel
(a company of Grupo Bimbo <--awesome name)
Net Wt 4oz
4 servings at 160 calories each (640 for the bag)

This bag is weird.  When unopened the air pressure inside made it difficult to determine what was actually in the bag.  Once opened everything settled to the bottom which appears to be some sort of space-time distortion, as it seemed I needed to put my hand all the way in to the elbow to come in contact with the snack.  Furthermore, the net wt of the snack is 4oz on the bag, but it feels deceptively hefty like it weighs a pound.

Once you get by the TARDIS effects of the snack in its bag, you are rewarded with a crunchy rolled corn-chip with a powdering of tomatoey-salsa flavoring... and salt.  I was immediately reminded of the Doritos DINAMITA review I put on Facebook back in August.*  Except this snack appears to have been created by a sane person.  The corn chip base is okay, not quite Frito's standard, but with a good crunch.  The flavor powder is only on the outside of the chip, applied post-roll.  The flavor powder itself is not overpowering, and has much less of the Alum-like pucker of the Doritos snack. I'm not sure of the chronology of these snacks, but since the bag is a TARDIS, I'll just say that I perceive Takis as coming first in the timeline, which makes the Doritos product the insane knockoff.

The rolled up chips are dusted lightly enough in places that the flavor is almost subtle (at least in comparison to the Doritos).  I also noticed that my fingers are not permanently stained, nor have I altered the hue of my pants.  I find that the ability to easily taste anything else after eating several of these make me like them more for what they aren't than what they are.  That being said, they are not spectacular in a way that makes me want to eat more of them, or suggest them to others.  Though, I think paired with a good guacamole or creamy/cheesy sauce these would be fantastic.  I have read elsewhere that I got the wussiest flavor of the grouping and there are more crazy flavors involving not only lime, but also jalapeno or even habanero that are supposed to be rather feisty.  Mayhaps those flavors are the ones that DINAMITA are copying.

Keeping all this in mind and the fact that I already had the Doritos and gave it a 3.14 for being crazy, I must give this a higher rating because it is a better snack.  I would still force the DINAMITA on people before these, but in rank of quality it beats out craziness.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

*BONUS - I have included the original short review I originally posted on facebook, August 28, 2014 about the Doritos DINAMITA Chili Limon flavored rolled corn chip snack:

"Please excuse me, as it would appear that my face has unexpectedly exploded...

These are ridiculously crunchy in a hard way from being tightly rolled tortilla chips. The flavor is, in a word, intense. YOU WILL TAKE A LOAD OF OUR INTENSE FLAVOR RIGHT IN YOUR MOUTH! It is a spicy-hot almost offensively south of the border cliche combo with a slightly chemical-tasting lime flavoring that is more like a powdered vinegar derivative than actual citrus juice. YOU'RE GOING TO CRUNCH AND PUCKER, FUCKER, AND YOU'RE GOING TO COME BACK FOR MORE PUNISHMENT FROM OUR HATE TUBE! Overall I am not repelled by this possible social experiment in food acceptance, but I am glad I have a coke to counter the "rolled to explode with flavor" sensation with every crunch... on a side note, I'm sure my fingertips are now permanently stained a deep red. 3.14/5.0")"

I am Erik's fictional childhood nostalgia. . .

Remember the good old days?  Those days way back when, before the Internet; things were simpler.  A day that will live on in your mind forever.  That day when your father picked you up from school on a late summer day in September at noon with a surprise.
"Hey, Slugger!" He said, "What say you and I take the day to go see a ball game?"
So you went down to the local field and watch your heroes stride across the grass.  Your Dad drank a half dozen beers from frosted plastic cups and he bought you a bag of caramel covered popcorn, but only if you yelled at Tommy Lasorda that he was a "Fat Fuck!  Eat a Dick!"

Yeah, I don't remember that either.  Also, this is Nebraska, WTF is professional baseball?  Is that what they're playing on WGN all the time?  At least my imaginary popcorn snack was great...

It doesn't come in a box anymore, which is too bad.  I seem to remember them making for great foil-lined coffins for a variety of action figures.  Though this classic snack now comes in a bag that hangs with all the dead potatoes at your local quickie-shop, it at least still comes with a prize.  It says so, right on the bag, "FUN PRIZE inside".  In hindsight, perhaps the word fun isn't an adjective which describes what you will have when you get the prize, but that it is "fun" to get a prize regardless of what that may be.

I made quick work of the thermo-sealed top of the bag and was soon rewarded with that sugary crypt smell of industrial caramel product over popcorn. I can also actually smell the salt, but not so much the actual popcorn. Assailed with these olfactory conundrums I decide to dive in, lest I lose my edge and leave this bag by the wayside.  My first bite reminds me instantly why I haven't eaten Cracker Jack in, like, 10 or 15 years.  The popcorn is stale, the "caramel" sticks to your teeth and the overall texture is that of regret.  The combo of the amber sugar coating and the popcorn hulls creates a mouth sensation not unlike epoxy-bonding beetle carapaces to your dentition like a sick facsimile of armor.

Working my way maybe a handful through the bag has taken the nostalgic wind out of my sails.  Each mastication of my overworked jaws rendering these starchy sugar-coated packing peanuts into a swallowable paste...
"But wait!" I say out loud in front of a confused coworker, "There is always a prize!  I bet I'll get a cool metal airplane trinket or an awesome tiger tattoo for my face!"
So I go digging, and digging, and digging.  During my excavations I come across one, single, peanut, which is also coated in the caramel flavored epoxy.  What the hell?  If the package says "Caramel Coated Popcorn & Peanuts", does that not suggest that the quantity and/or volume of the ingredients should be nearly equal?  I need more than one miserable peanut to make this work.  Oh, never mind, now I'm distracted:

YES!  Prize!  It is definitely tattoo shaped!  Time to see the glory of my new face adornment!

A sticker. . . of a shitty, uh. . . sports team?
I suppose it is ironic that I started this post with a fictional visit to a ball game and I am presented with the sticker for a baseball team (seriously, I thought it was hockey or something until I looked it up). I was going to defend my slightly dinged up man-card by saying this must be one of those new bullshit teams they started, but then I saw it was founded the year I was born. . .   But, like I said, Nebraska = WTF professional Baseball?

I am not going to finish this bag.  I just can't.  It doesn't live up to my memory of the product, it isn't good as a snack, it hurts my mouth to eat it, and quite frankly I don't know what I was expecting but this wasn't it.  As I type this fully 2/3rds of it is in the garbage

I give it: 1.0 out of 5

Epilogue:
Other people are also disappointed in Cracker Jack.  People I can relate to.  If you go to the Whole Foods for normal people known as Trader Joe's, you will find a product called Grand Slam.  Whoever invented the Grand Slam for TJ's obviously wanted it to taste like their memory of the Cracker Jack of their youth.

The popcorn is huge, not stale, and covered in a crunchy caramel coating.  It has peanuts!  But it also has almonds and cashews and pecans.  They're rare in the bag, but only rare enough to make their discovery a tasty surprise, not wondering if you've just found the last white rhino. Every time I go to get more sparkling lime water I end up with chocolate and a bag of this, which I immediately open and eat in the car.
(by comparison to CJ, Grand Slam gets 4.0 out of 5 for caramel popcorn snacks)

Down the 700 steps to deeper slumber…

I don’t know what city I was in when the dream started.  It looked like southern Florida, except the weather was drier.  I was being held captive in a medium rise, semi-luxury hotel, with a view of a sea of trees from the 14^th floor. 

The green was a rich deciduousness of a river hollow in mid-July slowly undulating in the wind.  From that height it seemed that broccoli waves slowly crashed into the base of the building as the breeze blew through. Nearly all of the antagonists looked like a cross between Mike from Breaking Bad and Ed Harris.  They had guns, lots of guns, and while cordial they were very clear we were not allowed to leave.

I actually thought to myself in the dream that it was really dumb to let us keep our phones and allow us access to wireless internet as everybody seemed to have a laptop.  In hindsight (as dreams often replay scenes over and over) I believe there was a Stockholm Device activated in the room, as nobody mentioned the hostage situation in all their phone calls to loved ones or updates to social media. "Oh, hi, Mom. . . No, we're just hanging out at this hotel", "Do not order room-service in this hotel. #HelpYelp!".

I never knew why we were being detained, none of us were anything but what we were in the waking world.  Friends, acquaintances, family, and so on were all spread across several rooms in a blocked off floor of the hotel.  The leader of the group was the most embarrassing cliche' of a terrorist with long robes, crazy eyes, unkempt beard and quite literally a lit black spherical bomb under his turban.  This cartoonish madman had somehow obtained a nuclear weapon and was intent on detonating it in downtown Dreamtown, USA.

Now is when things get disjointed and weird.  Crazy McTerropants leaves with his cartoon bomb and we are left to our own devices.  There is a scuffle, a firefight and I'm pretty sure I gunned down actor Burt Young who was a thug but father to one of the other prisoners. . . but I digress

I had a superpower.  Or at least a nearly supernatural talent of transportation.  I could instantly know the best route to get someplace, what plane to catch, what bus to hop and even which taxi to skip to avoid a future collision.  I then spent the rest of the dream logged into Travelocity, arranging flights out of the city for all my friends and relatives before the bomb went off.

You will note that nobody, not even me, ever mentioned to the authorities that there was a terrorist plot (because, dream logic).  After giving specific directions to everybody as to how to most quickly leave the city and reach safe distance from the oncoming fallout the dream came to a close.  The final scene before I awoke was myself and my mate clinking champagne flutes on a comped first class flight to Hawaii while a mushroom cloud rises out the window in the background.

The End

(What the Actual Fuck?)

Actually putting some thought into an internet book meme...

I was threatened with social network failure by a coworker on facebook, so I’m doing this whole 10 books thing.  I actually tried to think back to books I enjoyed and stuck with me when I was younger and more recent reads that have really resonated with me.  So, in no particular order, my “top ten”:

DUNE – Frank Herbert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)
I’ve read the original series at least 7 or 8 times, but I’ve read the first book at least a dozen.  Really hit me in the sweet spot around 9^th grade or so.  The extended library isn’t as bad as it could be, so keep reading the Brian Herbert/Kevin J. Anderson novels if you want more.

The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings
I actually “read” the Hobbit as a comic book and so technically I read LotR first, then found the Silmarillion, etc.  This is the standard by which all other fantasy is measured.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma
This was my first “foodie” book, and has really improved the way that I eat, the way I think about food in general, and I think improved the way that I cook almost as much as Alton Brown.  I think everybody who eats should read this book.

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemmingway http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Sea
I never read any Hemmingway before this, and I only just read it the first time a few years ago.  I was kind of pissed about life at the time and this really struck deep on my view of how I thought my world should work.

House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves
Perhaps the greatest horror-genre book I’ve ever read, and definitely the best “haunted house” story.  Go for the hardback with multiple ink colors if you can.  Difficult to encapsulate in a sentence, it will draw you in.

Wonderful Life – Steven Jay Gould http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderful_Life_(book)
First book I read for class that I just finished the whole damned thing because it was amazingly interesting.  This really kick started my natural history reading trend and was followed shortly by Annals of the Former World by John McPhee.  I now have a crap-ton of books from both authors and Gould also lead me to David Quammen who’s books I have read more lately.  Check out Spillover by Quammen to get the scoop on how Ebola works (among others).

Guinness Book of World Records/World Almanac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Almanac
They came out every year, and I read them every year after I discovered them in elementary school all the way through high school.  These spoke to my inner nerd, also allowed me to destroy at trivial pursuit at the time.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion,_the_Witch_and_the_Wardrobe
I read all 7 of these in elementary school.  They may well have been the only fiction or books with a plot I read between 4^th and 7^th grade, as everything else I consumed came from the reference section.  Before LotR these probably gave me my taste for fantasy fiction.  (also, it made the Christian myth more palatable at the time).

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories – H.P. Lovecraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu_and_Other_Weird_Stories
This was the first, I now have them all.  Of the horror and weird fiction category Lovecraft is my master.  I have every major compilation of stories from Arkham House press as well as many others from Brian Lumley and others.  The modern reader is aware of Cthulhu only recently and the wider world is beginning to understand that after Poe, Lovecraft is perhaps America’s greatest early author of the weird.

Since I technically named more than ten above I’ll put some notable mentions here.  The Black Company (series) – Glen Cook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Company, The Harry Dresden Files – Jim Butcher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Files, A Brief History of Time (and later books) – Stephen Hawking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time, and the art books of Wayne Douglas Barlowe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Barlowe and Dougal Dixon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougal_Dixon.

I would like to challenge my Dad (who isn’t on facebook), my Grandfather Frank (who is dead and so, also not on facebook) and my favorite brother-in-law, Heath William Anthony!

Dakota Style Honey Mustard Kettle Chips

The bag is green. The chips are slightly yellow. . .

I am assured by "Spud" the tractor-driving potato in a straw hat on the top left of the bag that these chips are made of a better potato. (they guarantee it!)  These potatoes go to a veggie day-spa where they are lovingly bathed and scrubbed.  They are then dumped like a truck-load of silently screaming lemmings into a thick-gaged industrial slicer.  To limit the amount of stress on the potatoes, knowing of their impending doom, the whole process of washing to deadly slicing takes less than an hour.  Too much stress before a potato's demise can concentrate negative flavonoids in the flesh of the spud.  This obviously reflects poorly on the finished product, which we want to be clean, fresh, and crisp with no taste of murder most foul.

However, these chips must have been made from potatoes lingered in the hot-tub long after they knew what awaited them after their bath, and so they suffered that mental anguish of one's own imminent severed mortal coil for days.  While the initial aroma from the freshly split bag was at first somewhat vegetal and musky, it soon took on a not unpleasant odor of a mediocre brown mustard. Upon tasting these fine sloughings of potato death I was gently assaulted by the taste of both bland mustard and honey (if that honey were stolen from bee-prison where the inmates were trying to make toilet hooch from their ill-gotten flower nectar).  The honey had a tang to it that may have been part mustard, and may have been part green rot.  And then the texture reared its ugly head, not unlike a horse drowning in thick ropey molasses would breach through the surface to gasp a last breath before sinking to a sucrosian liquid tomb.

The initial crunch that suggested these potatoes were given a clean death was, upon the second or sometimes third mastication, replaced by a gumminess of such viscosity as to be outright chewy. The flavor did not subside, either, instead intensifying upon continued enamel pummeling until, after the mass was finally purged past the epiglottis, a lingering sensation of vague horse radish twang remained. I do not think I shall try this variety of potato chip again, I have seen into its dark malaise and do not wish to subject my soul to that anguish again.

Perhaps some day Spud will realize the horrors he has been akin to, as he leads his own people to a genocide of pseudo-crispiness.  The flavor of that dark extermination breaking through into this bag tuberous corpses...

1.6/5.0

(I have a really boring lunch break...)

The sinking of the USS Constitution

When I was a child a story I heard over and over again involved one of our country's most historical of vessels coming to a horrible end.  Often this story, or reference to the story, would be brought up by my father against my mother during arguments.  I'll back up...

You see, when I was very very young (actually, I may not have even been born yet) my father had at least one manly hobby that he doesn't practice today.  Specifically, he built model ships.  Or, at least I imagine he did.  It is difficult to say as I cannot remember events before my conception.  Then again, considering the number of model ships displayed about the house in my youth (that number being zero), some would conjecture that there was only ever one ship.  To the best of my deductive reasoning I can say with some certainty that there was a model ship, that model was of the USS Constitution, and that model was never finished.  To hear my father tell of it, he worked diligently piecing together that grand vessel.  A labor of love, he devoted hours, days, weeks!  Months!  YEARS of his time to bring that model to a fully assembled glory!  To hear my mother tell of it, there was a box with some plastic parts in the basement that she never saw him do anything with, and after several years of inactivity she cleaned the basement and threw it out. . .

As you can imagine, this was seen as a breach of trust and a violation of personal property.  I literally could not begin to guess how many times the USS Constitution, "My Model Ship!" was brought up as verbal cannon fodder in various arguments.  Eventually, the mention of the model ship became a joke unto itself and was brought up when the argument was as humorous as it was likely to be and still considered an argument.  The ship was lost, never to be recovered, and never again would my father devote time to that grand vessel.

Until I became a man of professional employ.  When I am able, I always like to get my Dad something spiffy for Christmas.  Doesn't have to be spectacular, but I at least try to put thought into it when I can.  You can only give so many Bass Pro-Shops gift cards before the concept is stale. One holiday season was particularly successful.  I had asked my father at Thanksgiving what he wanted for Christmas.  To this he replied with a smile, "A good smoke and a piece of ass!"  I still remember him opening the box on Christmas to find a few nice cigars and a plush Eeyore toy.  The joy that spread across his face as he put two and two together still makes me smile.  Eeyore is still Velcro-taped to the dash of his pick-up truck.

The next year, I recalled the USS Constitution and thought to myself.  "Wouldn't it be grand if I could find another of that model and give it to him for Christmas?"  I thought he would be thrilled at the prospect of tackling that project all over again.  For my part, the search took months.  I did hours upon hours of research online, found old modelling forums, and eventually located one on Ebay.  The model was in perfect condition, from the year before I was born and matching my father's description perfectly.  For a reasonable sum I bid and won that model kit, checked all the parts on arrival for completeness and carefully wrapped the box months before the chosen holiday.

Fast forward to Christmas morning, we were all seated around the living room opening gifts.  I passed my father a rather large, but light, flat box.  He eagerly opened it and for several minutes his face was bound in confusion.  At last he asked me what this was.

"It's your model, the USS Constitution!" I said
"Uh, what model?" he replied
"The one Mom threw away so many years ago!" I exclaimed, "It's a copy of the one you described, I thought you would like to try again."
". . . "

"This isn't my model."
Fuck, at least I also gave him the gift card.

On the Trials and Tribulations of Cologne Selection:

There is something which some men never learn, and that is that your cologne is not being worn for you but for her.  I learned this after a longish bout with singledom.  I have always been one to do the more hedonistic thing, the complete thing, the old school because it works better thing.  Case in point: I use old fashioned double sided razor blades in a Merkur handle based on the Gillette 1912 Safety Razor.  I do all the fancy shit too; puck of soap, shaving brush to work up a lather, buy my blades from some guy in Germany (or is it Japan?).  Anyway, the short story long here is that if I take an extra 10 minutes to give myself a really good shave after a shower I may not have to shave again for 3 days.  It's just that smooth and close to the skin. Now, granted, at the end of that three days I'll look scruffy, but I can at least avoid the 5 o'clock shadow on the day of the shave by using all my gear.

Now, here's the thing about shaving with a real razor or an open blade, all the accoutrements associated with the process make you feel more manly and they make you (think that you) smell good.  The products I use all seem to be some variation on Menthol or Bay Rum.  Bay Rum as an AWESOME smell, to me at least.  It originates in the Caribbean/West Indies and when first invented was literally rum from the island that had been infused with spices, specifically the berries of the West Indian Bay Tree.  It's an old, rugged, spicey, rummy, and all around awesome scent.  Those who knew me 3 to 5 years ago are probably familiar with the scent whether you like it or not.  I was awash with it, many varieties, daily, sometimes even hourly.

Now it may come to no surprise that the scents that you like may not be so hot with someone else, they may be downright repulsive.  Also, your nose should become accustomed to what you're wearing so that you don't ever really smell it after the first couple minutes.  So, if you find yourself in a situation where (for example) you apply a new sample of cologne and you can still smell it strongly and easily on your person 12 hours later, rest assured that the entire room can smell you and has been smelling you since you stepped through the door.  Have you ever crossed paths with that stereotypical gold necklace-wearing track suit-bedecked hirsute gentleman at the bar/gym/gas station.  Did you imagine you could see the looney-tunes animated wafts of aroma trailing behind him like Pepe Le Pew?  All too often, that has been you, and me, and every man who splashed on a little extra whether to hide the need for a shower or just because they thought is smelled extra good.

In short, we all need to cut our dosage.  We also need to throw away anything our fathers or grandfathers would have worn.  My first clue I was going down a dark road should have been years upon years ago at the ripe age of 25, smoking a pipe at the bar.  I would have strange women walk up and sniff me, often remarking how much I reminded them of their Dad, or worse their Grandfather.  Right now, go to your medicine cabinet.  Do you have any Old Spice?  Chuck it.  Tabac? Chuck that, too.  Bay Rum?  Chu- . . Actually, ask your partner if she likes it. (seriously, it hurt to throw those all away)

Now, next time you want to do something for your lady-friend a little unexpected ask her to accompany you to the store to pick out cologne.  She is the one who has to smell you and if she doesn't like how you smell you're just not helping yourself.  Not to say that you can't find something you like, too.  Just try to discover what's available that makes both of your noses smile.  I have found after a while you will be able to somewhat predict what your partner's nose goes for.  Look up her approved scents on fragrantica.com or other fragrance forum (yes, there are surprisingly many).  Find the base-notes, mid-notes, and top-notes of the ones she likes and look for others with similar profiles.  Now, go to Ebay.  Find those colognes, EDTs and so on and buy a sample vial for a couple bucks.  Try it on, let her smell you at the beginning, middle and end of the day.  Once you're sure you have a winner you'll feel okay dropping 60 bucks on a bottle (or more for some of these high end flavors).  And if she doesn't like it (or you hate it) you're only out a couple of bucks.

(damn, this one wasn't funny either.  Maybe I'm only funny in person?)