Pre-Xmas Snackfood Blowout!

Hello darkness my old friend

I've come to eat bags of chips again

Because of flavors softly creeping

Onto my tongue and I am weeping

And a sickness that is lodged into my brain

Still compels

With the burn of Red Nuke Powder....

FUNYUNS!?!  Again?!?

I bet you know where this gets its 'color' from...

Chile Limon Funyuns. . . Let's be honest, these were better than expected.  There were, however, liberally powdered with RNP and that funky chemical acidic twang.  The Chile and the Limon if you will. Overall you end up with a nice zing on top of the rock-solid funyon flavor, and not too much RNP to make them inedible.

Overall, I'll be generous and say 2.75/5.0

Fritos Honey BBQ Flavor Twists

Mmmm, open my bag and dump me into your maw until my spices get lodged in the back
 of your throat and you start hacking like a cat with a hairball....

I for one welcome our old corn chip overlords...  As I ate these I realized that the coating on these fantastically crunchy spirals is in a way the progenitor of the Red Nuke Powder we've all come to love and fear.  Strange then, that I so fondly remember this snack food.  Obviously, the coating on these dense and super crunchy corn chips is not as overwhelming or obnoxious as RNP.  I would also like to add a side-bitch about BBQ chips of any kind never actually tasting like barbecue at all, but like BBQ sauce.  Were I to wrest control of some chip empire from the weak I would immediately make all Barbecue chips under my control taste as much like slow smoked pork-butt as chemically possible.  BBQ sauce is a sickly sweet miasma you spread over either over or under cooked meat in which you want to hide your failure as a pit man. (/rant)

These are still my go to snack food when my brain literally takes a dump on me and I can't pick (and there's nothing new to try).  Solid, crunchy, dense, satisfying and flavorful without being overpowering.

Yee-Haw 4.0/5.0

Munchies

What madness lies within this festive bag?

Okay, this one I actually ate today and I didn't die, ...yet.  These just threw me for a loop from the moment I opened the bag.  The bag suggests these may contain RNP, but I was relieved to see that the color on the front was mostly from the Cheetos and their orange pseudo-cheese dusting.  There is a very faint bite from the "jalapeno" part of the cheddar, and the cheddar part comes mostly from the Cheetos and whatever scant flavor silt has fallen off them and the Doritos.  Speaking of Doritos:

These are the the most adorable chips ever seen by human eyes...

This is intended to look like a snack mix your friend's mom would make in a big popcorn bowl so you boys can chew on something while you play SNES and grabass.  Obviously you're not going to get much variety if you used full sized chips, so they've been miniaturized to give the illusion of either freakishly giant hands, or an overflowing cornucopia of snack food variety.  The result is that every grab in the bag is going to yield at least a piece of every type of chip in the bag.  I know there were tiny pretzels in here but they seemed to slide off my mind whenever I tried to think about how they tasted.  As a result, I'm sure there were little pretzels in there, but I don't remember eating any and they seemed to vaguely flavor the whole bag with a foundation of pretzelness.  This is not a bad thing, but an interesting choice on the part of Frito-Lay.

Very satisfying if benign:  3.25/5.00

Huzzah!  I got through a whole review without fucking swearing!

Merry Christmas!

In which I throw social media under the bus and make you sad...

We're dealing with a lot of shit lately.  Not just me, or my loved ones, but everybody everywhere; 2014 has been a hard year. This post is not intended to make anybody on any of my social media outlets feel guilty, and it is not a plea for help.  This is just me making an observation about how many of our lives work in the age of modern technology.  It is also, unfortunately, a post in which I will also reveal myself to be a hypocrite about the thing I'm going to bitch about.

Modern day social media, especially Facebook, is a prophylaxis for genuine social interaction and rendering aid to others in their time of need.

In days of yore, you'd hear news of a friend or family member who had become ill, or whose house had burned down, or some member of their family had passed away and you would feel sad or an urge to help.  To show this person that you cared for them you would put pen to real paper and write a letter of condolence, or bake up a box of cookies to send, or if you lived close enough you would just call upon their house and spend real physical time with that person.  We as a society don't really do this anymore, myself included.  We see the tragedy that has befallen our fellows and we experience it through the lens of status updates and twitter feeds.  Sick parent?  "thinking of you".  Survived car accident?  "Like".  Lost limb in farming accident?  "High five dude, I'll buy you a beer next time I'm in town."

We say we care, we even write reassuring thoughts as comments, but few do anything to actually help.  This is not to say that there is anything that can be done in many situations.  Obviously, if someone loses a family member you cannot run to their house and magically will them back to life; nor can you undo the trauma of accident or disease.  But just being there for someone is helpful in its own way.  Being available for a person can make all the difference in the world.  Is your friend sick?  Maybe instead of well wishes you could send a card in the mail, or try hand writing a letter to them?  If you're close by, offer to bring them some soup.  More importantly, if you go on someone's status update or in chat or whatnot and you offer them help, you had better be able willing to actually help.  Nothing will break a friendship or damage a family dynamic like offering help and then when asked for it saying that you're too busy right now.  This goes the other way as well.  For those who are honestly offering their assistance to you in your time of need, if you think you might at all need the help you should take them up on the offer.  Letting someone help you not only lessens your burden, but can make them feel like they were able to actually do something in an otherwise unfixable situation.

As some of you know, we have been going through a rough patch this year.  Someone close to us has been fighting for their life all year and it has been very taxing for all of us in all aspects of our lives.  Our time, finances, health and emotions have all been strained or are already in tatters.  We have been making a lot of posts online, not just to inform, but also in a way to lean on our groups and friends lists for support as we navigate these bitter waters.  But no matter how much we post online, and no matter how much response we get to those posts, sometimes we still feel alone.  There have been many lonely dark times in the small hours of the morning.  Don't get me wrong, I am just as culpable for my own loneliness precisely because I haven't reached out to friends and family as much as I should be.  Having an unexpected lunch with my mother and sister this week I could see the worry in their eyes.  I could also see the relief that came from seeing that things, while bad, were not so dire as had been imagined.

So, reach out to your friends and family!  A direct text is so much better than a status update, an actual phone call is so much more real than a text.  In the last 10 or so months that this has been going on we have had almost no help.  Yes, there was a fund-raiser which was very successful, but I'm talking about one-to-one interaction.  Aside from close family and some few exceptions, nobody has just "dropped by" to check on us.  No care packages, no cards, no letters, and no time given.  Nobody has just shown up to be with us, even for an hour.  Nobody not already intimately involved with this scenario has just offered time, even if we sat in silence, to show that we are not alone.

All we get is "Thinking of you", "Hang in there!"

*Like*

Do I really have nothing else to write about?

Doritos "Jacked" Spicy Street Taco. . .

Jacked. . .

Taco. . .

meh

Doesn't this bag just say, "Eat Me!"?

What can I say that hasn't been said?  There is a lot of Red Nuke Powder on these.  Way more than necessary.  They are also so predictable yet forgettable that I had to buy and eat two bags to remember what the hell I was going to write.  Even now, I'm only putting fingers to keyboard out of insane boredom during my afternoon break.  I had the first bag over 2 weeks ago, took these photos and then didn't write a review.  Last week I remembered not writing a review but couldn't think of anything to say.  Then today I realized I hadn't posted anything lately; no chips reviews or weird dreams or depressing stories of my youth for 3 weeks.  So I said to myself, "what the hell can I say about Doritos JACKED Spicy Street Taco flavored corn tortilla chips?" (I actually did not say this outloud, but bear with me.)

So, as I was rushing back to the office at the end of my lunch and stopping by a stuffer-shack on the way to get some savory roller-dog action, I saw once again on the shelf a bag of DORITOS JACKED SPICY STREET TACO....  mocking me in its immemorable assault on my senses.  I realized then that this bag of Red Nuke Powder-covered monstrosities was not going to do me over again.  So I bought something else entirely.

Perhaps this is the best way to review a chip/snack/thingy.  What are the impressions of this oppressive equilateral triangle of corn meal weeks after our initial run-in?  First, these things are huge.  I don't know what Doritos is compensating for, but these are big and thick and good fucking luck getting a whole one in your mouth.

Ridiculous man-hand for scale...

Secondly, as I stated above, they are absolutely doused in Red Nuke Powder (RNP™).  Who invented this stuff?  It's on everything and it is not welcome.  From now on I am instituting an automatic rating reduction for the addition of RNP™ to the product.  The flavor on first bite is very vaguely taco-ish, but the goddamned RNP™ soon turns this bag of snack food into a gauntlet of mock-pain.  It doesn't really hurt and doesn't really get "hot", but the combo of whateverthefuck chemicals in the RNP™ makes your mouth think it is on fire for a least 5 minutes after you stop chewing.  I'm sure I'm now in the early stages of throat cancer or something.  

And yet, I ate the whole bag.  Twice.  What does that say for my personality?  Why can't I just throw away a bag of bad chips?  And why the hell would I buy two bags?

I couldn't give this any better than 2.5/5 but then I looked at the low bar set by previous posts and these were not better than Funyuns, no matter how much RNP™ was involved, so we'll adjust it down to 1.99/whatever.

But Wait!  There's More!

I could see how, perhaps, my cathartic word vomit here is helping me to be a better person, so I will regale you with another tale of bag-fail.  Instead of buying the dorootoos jooked spoocy stroot toocoo again I went for some lighter fair today:

New product, different brand, lighter bag...

Yes, some Lay's Potato Chips!  Pico de Gallo "Flavored" chips!  We're not talking GRRRRR-ARGH IN YO FACE ADVERBS IN PRODUCT NAME snacks, just some nice. . .simple. . . chips. . . 

WTF MOAR RED NUKE POWDER?!?!

GOD DAMMIT!!!  Why am I being Punished!?!

So, now we've got a competitor brand of a different "flavor" that actually tastes very similar to the DJ-SST, it has less RNP™ (but still way too much), and all of this on a flimsy chip that is less satisfying that biting through an unflavored rice-cake.  Seriously, these have no substance to them at all.  It's like you sprinkled really really shitty instant tomato soup powder over a bowl of old communion wafers. (if you've never "gone catholic", just imagine crunching into a millimeter thick disk of quick dissolving starch packing-peanut material)

And the flavor just gets muddied and undifferentiated and soggy and insubstantial and everything just tastes worse and worse until you just wish Flanders was dead. . . 

Seriously, fuckit.  In the trash.  I will no longer subject myself to other people's mistakes.  You may have tricked me out of money, but you won't get my anguish to sweeten the deal.

Rating: FU!/5.0

Finally, a practical review

So, here we are.

It's Friday.

It is Halloween.

Here, at last, is a truly useful review for all of us:

Equate Antacid Tablets

You can pick one of these bad boys up for less that 4 bucks at your local Wally World

As you can see, they fill the hand nicely.  The package feels heavy for its size.  This is not surprising since the contents are more or less powdered rocks, but still reassuring.

The texture is, in a word, chalky.  They chew rather easily and it is very easy to imagine yourself as the rock-eater from Neverending Story.  The flavor is strong without being overpowering.  It definitely leaves a fresh minty feeling in the mouth.  I quick inhale over teeth and tongue after swallowing will give you a great freeze-rush in the mouth.

These are not the full size tablets you may be accustomed to in a TUMS 1000 or similar.  But I find that this smaller and thinner tablet makes it easier to dose when you don't need 2 or 3 of the big guys.  They're also much larger than the pocket rolls of Rolaids.  These are the nickels to those quarters and dimes.

But do they work?  Absolutely!  I find I am getting almost instantaneous relief as soon as I swallow.  I will say that there is some chemical reactions at work here once it reaches your stomach.  Gas is the first thing I usually notice (have you ever put baking soda and vinegar together?).  Furthermore, don't chase these with a slurp of Coke.  You may find that you lose esophageal integrity and get some backflow into your head.

Rating: 500mg out of 5.00

I Hate Myself and Want to Die. . .

Today I will be reviewing the Doritos brand DINAMITA Fiery Habanero because I am an idiot.

I find the purple accents quite appealing. 

As some of you who have read previous posts will know, for some reason I am a sucker for the tightly rolled corn-chip snack phenomena.  I think this stems from my noticing them everywhere.  It is now far easier to find one of these spice rolled chip snacks than traditional corn-chips.  Even Frito's are hard to find in their pure form, being composed now mostly of twists and scoops.  A quick mental count of the corn-chips available at this stuffer shack today showed 7 varieties of DINAMITA and TAKIS and only 3 Frito's.  Since the last two reviews were less than spectacular I felt compelled to continue sampling until I figured out why this style of snack was growing in popularity.

So, let's open a bag.  The aroma is subtle at first, I have to put my nose right up to the bag before I can smell the corn-chippy smell and a twang of spice before, I. . . *ACHOO!!!*  Okay, that was unexpected.

Like a orange-tinted log-jam spilling out of the mouth of hell.

The bag is 4oz, which seems pretty standard for a corn-chip snack (notably more than most potato chips at 2.25oz). The bag is also slightly smaller than some others, making it seem fuller.  The very first thing that I notice is that these are not completely caked in Red Nuke-Powder as the last two varieties were (and the FunYuns).  They're still pretty bright orange from that red dust over yellow corn-chip, but not the deep red that leads to permanent lip and finger staining.

It is by the Red Nuke Powder
that lips acquire stains
the stains become a warning
it is by will alone I set my mind in motion...

Okay, let's actually eat one.

The flavor is the standard corn-chip meal.  Very crunchy, mostly dry, really sets the saliva rolling.  The spice is nice, very hot sauce + Dorito.  There is actually some heat here!  It creeps up on you at first, and you can feel it working down the back of your throat.  Very nice, these are actually the best rolled corn-chip snack I've had yet.  They're ver- AHHHhhh!!! WTF?!?  Wooooooo!!!!  *COUGH*  What The HELL, Give Me Something to Drink!!!

*Ahem* as I said, it creeps up on you.  This is especially the case if you start munching through the bag.  (Also, don't inhale while chewing...)  When you eat a single *ACHOO* chili you only get the capsaicin in that chili and then the effect wears off.  However when you eat a product like this which is dusted *slurps soda* with Habanero Red Nuke Powder, the effect is cumulatory.  At some point you'll get 1/2 way through the bag and the mouth heat reaches a crescendo of pain, and you- GRAAAANNGGGHHHH!

AT LAST I AM FREE!!!

I͜͞ ̀҉C͏̷̧O͢Ḿ̸E ̷̡̕F̕ROM͢ A̶̵͞N͢ ̸͢A̶̵͘N̡̢͝C̸Ì̴E̷̸͟N̵T̀ ̵̢͜Ļ̸A̷̧N̢̛͘D̛͠͝ ̵̧T̵̵O҉ Ẁ̨͜R͡E͟͜C̀͢Ķ ̶HÁV̶̢̛ǪC̢͢ ́͞U҉P̷̡͠O͢N ͢͞T̢͘H̢E͟͡ ̧W͏O̷̧͘R͠L̵̕D̶͏.̡̛
̡́
̛͟͟SÈ͘E̸̵̡K ̴SH͝E̛͘͏L̸T́E͏͢͞R̴̵̡ M̢̀O͡R͝T̀A̡̡̨L̸̛ ̸͞FOR̀ ҉̸͜I̕ ̢̕A҉̸͟M̵̷͠ ҉H̵E̸ W͞H͏̨̡O͡ RĘ̵̀Ń̶DS͘ ̴̸̧S̷͝Ǫ̀UL̵S̵͜͡ ̢Į̕Ǹ̴̸T̷͞O̧ A͘͟͞ ̴̧N̢̕I҉͢C͞E̵̕͢ ̧̡̧C̷Á͏K̀E ̵̛͡B҉̧Ą҉͟T̸͜ŢE҉̴R ̛̛̕F̢̢́O̷̢R̴ ͟D҉̸ES̕S̶͝E̸̵͘R̸͡T̷
̀
͡T̷̡HE ͠F̸̴͢I̡͜RE̡S̷͞ ҉̛O̵̕͞F̴̀ ̵̛H͏̶E̷L͜L̶̨ ͜͢S̵H̡A̕LL̕͜ ̛́B̡͝A͠K͏̧E ̸҉T̛H̴̨̛E̴E ̸͞A͘T̷͞ ̕͜3͝͏50 ̨̛͝F̧̛ÓR͞ ́A͘҉B̵̀OUT̴̡͟ A̶͡Ņ ̨͟͜H̴O̵̢̨Ù̡͢R̴͜
̴͘
̴͟L̕͟É͘T҉̛ ̷COO̶͢͞L̶̢̛ AND͏̨̢ ͘F̧̛R͏̡OS҉̵͠T̛ ̀͟Ẁ̵I̢T͜͝H͘͞͝ ̶͟͢TH̕E͞ T͟E̶͡A̸Ŗ̵̛S͞ ̶̀O͡͡F͝ T͘H͜͢E͡ ́͢͢Í͢͢ŅN̶̷̨O̧C̴̢EN͡T͘
̀
̵͠S̸͠E̴R̶͡VE͝R̴ ͏́͏C̡̀Ơ͢L̢D̀,̶͞ ̷͘W̢̕Į̵T̕Ḩ ̡͢R͏͠E̛̛̕V̧E͞ŃG̛̕É̢͡!҉̷!̢͜!̡͏͜

RATING: Fahrenheit 4.51/5.00

Fun + Onions = Funyuns?

Before we even start here, why the hell does every "hot" chip/snack now have to be completely covered in hyper-red finger and pants-staining flavor nuke powder?  It's like all chips/cheesepuffs/snacks need to come with a pair of disposable chopsticks for me to maintain my not red-handed dignity.  But I digress...

Flamin' Hot Funyuns!  

Hank Green is not impressed...

I honestly can't remember the last time I had regular Funyuns, so when I saw these I immediately thought, "New Blog Post!"  Actually, I think that a lot lately.  I hope this doesn't degenerate into LA Beast territory...

So, when I saw these sitting on the rack at the stuffer shack I knew I wasn't getting out of buying some.  As with many non-chip-shaped snacks lately, they are in an air-filled bag and tend to settle to the bottom.  The over-inflated bag is actually a safety feature which keeps the individual rings/sticks/orbs from being crushed to a powder from rough handling by being its own airbag.  That being said, there was a disappointingly meager volume of actual snack laying at the bottom of the bag.

Forced perspective makes my hand look even bigger than it normally is.

The whole bag weighed out at 2 3/8th oz or, at $1.49 a bag, just over $10 per pound.  I think to put snacks in perspective we should all think price per pound; I bet we would buy less or at the very least pay less than we do.  The snack itself tasted okay I guess.  They really phoned this one in.  It was literally just regular Funyuns coated with that slightly sour, ever so slightly bitter, but chemically hot, red spice-powder.  I think it's supposed to imitated a halfway point between buffalo sauce and Frank's Red Hot, maybe.

Please enjoy our hard-fried spicy prolapse rings...

One could say that they phoned it in so hard, that I am phoning in this review just for eating it.  I am torn between putting in a moratorium on reviewing any snack with the red spice powder of death on it, and not having anything new to review.  Since it seems that every new and "extreme" chip is absolutely covered with the stuff.

Maybe I'll just switch to doing reviews on yogurt or salad....

Rating: Meh, out of Ehh  (2.25/5)

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")"