Month: July 2005

Donating Blood

Marvo 48 Comments

Heart

(Editor’s Note: Today’s review is sort of like a public service announcement, except with possible sexual references, maybe a couple of stale Ben Affleck or Clay Aiken jokes, use of the words “bodily fluids,” followed by adolescent giggles, and without the words “the more you know” or “knowing is half the battle.”)

Oh how I wish I could share bodily fluids with someone else in a normal way. Instead of sucking faces or doing the horizontal mambo, the only way I get to share my bodily fluids with someone is by donating my blood.

Recently, I donated blood for the fifth time, which is more than the total amount of times I’ve sucked face or did the horizontal mambo. It was a last minute kind of thing because I felt with all the evil I’ve been up to, I needed to do some good in the world and feel warm and fuzzy inside.

So what evil have I done? Let me just say, “Every time you masturbate…God kills a kitten,” and I think I’m going to be the reason why Bob Barker stops telling people to get their pets spayed or neutered.

Anyway, I’ve only been donating for about a year and a half, because for a long time I was scared to donate blood. But I think a lot of people are scared for various reasons, like:

(1) They don’t like a needle being poked into their arm, unless it involves heroin.

(2) The sight of blood makes them faint or turns them into evil, hungry vampires.

(3) They fear a test of their blood sample will show that they’re the long lost Jackson family sibling named, Ragu.

Needles were the reason why I was scared to donate blood. I used to think extracting blood was a painful procedure done with unnecessarily long needles, which I imagined in my mind looked very similar to those used in acupuncture.

It took a coupon for a free pint of Baskin & Robbins ice cream that my local blood bank was offering to convince me to finally donate a pint of my blood. That first donation dispelled any beliefs I had about long needles and being turned into an evil, hungry vampire.

The entire process usually takes less than an hour, but the actual blood donation takes about five to eight minutes. Most of the time is spent filling out a questionnaire, having a short interview to find out if you qualify to donate, and checking out the cute blood donation technicians and wondering if the following pick up line will work, “Hey, baby! Wanna swap bodily fluids with me later?”

When it comes to inserting the needle into your body, it isn’t painful. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s not even close to being as bad as I-Saw-Grandma-Naked uncomfortable. If you want to know what it feels like, just pinch yourself hard somewhere on your inner arm for about two seconds, or let your sadistic lover wearing the leather mask do it for you.

See, it wasn’t bad.

Now I hate needles, so when they’re about to stick the needle into me, I turn my head away, like I do when I pass by panhandlers, homeless people, and women offering a good time for twenty dollars.

After they get the needle into your arm, you are given something to squeeze with your hand, like a stress ball, which helps pump the blood out. Although I really wish I had the option to squeeze the hand of one of the cute blood donation technicians or Lindsay Lohan’s boobs, just to find out if they’re real.

When they’ve tapped you for a pint, they’ll put a gauze bandage on your arm, tell you to rest for about five minutes, and give you something to drink, like water or juice, to help replenish the fluids you’ve lost. If they don’t offer you anything, call them “cheap bastards,” and get yourself something to drink and eat ASAP.

After you donate blood, you might feel a little lightheaded, but that’s just the warm and fuzzy feeling inside you, which is starting from your head and working its way down. It’s just making you feel good about yourself because the blood you just donated will probably help save another human being and not be used to feed vampires.

Item: Donating Blood
Purchase Price: FREE
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Pros: Possible free food and drink after donating. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Cute blood donation technicians.
Cons: Insertion of needle is slightly uncomfortable. My lame blood donation technicians pick up line. Not everyone can donate blood.

REVIEW: Hershey’s Whoppers Twosomes

Marvo 34 Comments

Hershey's Whoppers Twosomes

Oh, if only Dr. Frankenstein used milk chocolate and Whoppers to create his creature instead of cadavers, then maybe everyone would have loved his creature, instead of running away in fear.

Fortunately for us, the Hershey company decided to use milk chocolate and Whoppers to create something that we could all possibly love and not want to burn to death with torches, the Hershey’s Whoppers Twosomes.

If you’re not familiar with Whoppers, they are malted milk balls, that are about half an inch in diameter and come in either a cardboard box or a box that’s similar to a milk carton. You can suck on them or bite them to get to the milky malted goodness.

The good thing about them is that they’re great to eat in movie theaters because of its chocolatey goodness, they’re easy to share, and they’re easy to throw at the screen when they show irritating commercials or a preview of the next Jennifer Lopez movie.

There are also a few bad things about Whoppers, like the malted milk can get stuck on your teeth, I can’t fit more than seven of them in my mouth, and they make horrible replacements for eyeballs and testicles.

The Whoppers in the Hershey’s Whoppers Twosomes were mini ones, which are roughly the size of BB pellets or my balls when I go swimming in really cold water.

The top of the candy bar looks like a typical Hershey’s chocolate bar, but the bottom of it has dozens of bumps from the protruding mini Whoppers, which reminded me of a few things, like a Nestle Crunch bar, my pimple-covered skin when I was fifteen years old, and the most confusing braille sign ever.

When I took a bite into the candy bar, the Whoppers dominated the taste of it, which was good, because I really like the taste of Whoppers. The candy bar had a similar crunch and texture of a Nestle Crunch bar.

The Hershey’s Twosomes not only come in a Whoppers version, there’s also a Reese’s Pieces version and a Heath Bar version.

Unfortunately, all three are limited edition candy bars, so once they’re gone, they’re gone…until Hershey decides to tease us again next year by reintroducing them as limited edition candy bars and then taking them away, making us want more.

I guess Hershey believes if this teasing works well for drug dealers, it should work well for candy bars.

Item: Hershey’s Whoppers Twosomes
Purchase Price: 55 cents
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Really good. Get the Whoppers taste without big chocolate balls in your mouth. Has the crunch and texture of a Nestle Crunch bar.
Cons: Limited edition. Back of candy bar can be used as the worst braille sign ever. My complexion when I was fifteen.

REVIEW: Burger King Chicken Fries

Marvo 60 Comments

BK Chicken Fries

Sometimes there are ideas that when I first hear about them, I say to myself, “That’s a really good idea.”

But then when I’m sober and I actually see the product, I take back what I said and replace it with something like, “Dammit! I can’t believe I’m wearing men’s capri pants! Damn you, vodka! Damn you!”

Well, it happened to me again with these new Burger King Chicken Fries, which are thin strips of all-white meat chicken breast coated with a seasoned batter.

Damn you, vodka! Damn you!

When I read about them a few months ago, I thought that it was a really great idea, because I imagined that Burger King would take the same sleeves they use for their regular french fries and just fill them with chicken fries instead.

Unfortunately, just like all my imaginations that involve me being a ceiling mirror at the Playboy Mansion, what I imagined the chicken fries were, didn’t come out the way I had hoped.

Instead of a heaping of chicken fries, I had the option of having either a six-piece snack pack or a nine-piece “value” meal, which I decided to purchase. Although, after seeing what the chicken fries looked like, I’d suggest you avoid the “value” meal, because it wasn’t much of a value.

Each chicken fry was a little thicker than BK’s regular french fries, roughly three inches long, and depending where your mind is at, they look like either skinny fried mozzarella sticks or fried tampons.

The BK Chicken Fries comes with a buffalo sauce, which I thought wasn’t bad and tasted better than the buffalo sauce I got with the McDonald’s Chicken Selects I reviewed last year. You can also replace the buffalo sauce with either a barbeque, honey mustard, sweet and sour, or ranch sauce.

Probably the most impressive part of the BK Chicken Fries was the container they came in. Just like the Transformers, this container had more than meets the eye. It had a lid that folds back and creates a place to hold the container of buffalo sauce, as you can see in the picture above.

The container was also designed to fit into your car’s cup holder, so that you can eat while driving, talking on the phone, and yelling stuff at your rowdy kids, like “Be quiet!” or “You were all mistakes!”

I would’ve tried eating them in my car, but I was afraid of getting buffalo sauce on my new red and black leopard print car seat covers.

Grrrowl!

Overall, I wasn’t very impressed with the BK Chicken Fries. With them being so skinny, receiving only six or nine pieces made them seem overpriced. Plus, with so little chicken in each fry, it seemed like each fry only contained the seasoned batter.

However, I really did like the ingenuity of the container they came in and I now believe that chickens have another fate to look forward to that isn’t as embarrassing as becoming chicken nuggets.

Item: Burger King Chicken Fries
Purchase Price: $4.59 (9-piece value meal)
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Buffalo sauce was decent. Nifty container made for those who like to eat on the go. Better fate for chickens than becoming chicken nuggets. Vodka.
Cons: Value meal wasn’t much of a value. Only six or nine pieces. Not much chicken in each fry. Looked like a fried tampon. Men wearing capri pants. Vodka.

REVIEW: Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep Sea Water

Marvo 26 Comments

I’ve never been down into the depths of the deep-sea, so I’m not too sure what’s down there.

Although from watching Finding Nemo, watching various Discovery Channel shows, and reading various issues of National Geographic (the boring issues without sagging topless women from African tribes), I think I might have an idea to what’s down there.

Apparently, there are creepy-looking fish with spikes and frickin’ huge teeth, Davey Jones’ Locker, pirate treasure, the Titanic, and lots and lots of whale and fish poop.

But who would’ve known that the deep-sea would also contain vast amounts of healthy, pure, mineral-rich drinking water. Maybe if I visited, I would’ve known, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone since my head would’ve exploded from the pressure of being at that depth.

Recently, I was able to try the Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep-Sea Water, which is pumped from 2,000 feet below the surface of the ocean and then desalinized, filtered, and bottled on the Kona Coast of the Big Island.

As you can see from the bottle, it’s printed in Japanese, because apparently desalinized deep-sea water is REALLY big in Japan.

Although I’m not surprised by this because Japan is a country known for their eccentric products, like the boyfriend arm pillow and the girlfriend knee pillow (NSFW).

According to Koyo, the deep-sea water contains ionized sodium, ionized chlorine, magnesium and calcium, which can help with everything from metabolism to circulation. This means the deep-sea water could help people lose weight and, for us guys, help give us boners.

Now you would think that I would love this deep-sea water because the name Marvo means “sea lover” in some ancient language.

Although, I don’t know whether “sea lover” means that I love the sea platonically, or if I enjoy getting it on with the sea.

I REALLY hope that it doesn’t mean I enjoy getting it on with the sea, because thanks to my near drowning experience while bodyboarding at Hapuna Beach, I now know that the sea likes it rough and kinky, and the sea apparently has some weird sexual asphyxiation fetish.

Sorry, but that’s a little too kinky…even for me.

Anyway, the Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep-Sea Water has a very, very faint salty taste and it seemed more crisp compared with typical bottled water from mountain springs. However, I don’t know if I would be willing to spend four to six dollars for a 1.5 liter bottle of it, and I highly doubt I would be willing to fly to Japan to pick some up, since it’s only available there.

Although, I am in need of a girlfriend knee pillow.

Item: Koyo Ma Ha Lo Deep-Sea Water
Purchase Price: FREE (Retails for $4 – $6 in Japan for a 1.5 liter bottle)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Pros: Crisp and refreshing. Mineral-rich. May help with circulation and metabolism. Girlfriend knee pillow.
Cons: Pricey. Only available in Japan, although it might be available in the United States in the future. The sea likes it rough and kinky. My excessive use of paragraphs that begin with an A-word.

REVIEW: Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky Cookies

Marvo 29 Comments

I remember those days when I was soft and chunky. I would wear husky clothing, be called a geek or dork on a daily basis by girls who could beat me up, and cry when those girls took my lunch money.

Oh, but how I’ve grown.

I’m no longer soft and chunky, instead I’m now sensitive and slightly overweight. I don’t wear husky clothing anymore, it’s now baggy clothing. I’m no longer called a geek or dork on a daily basis by girls who can beat me up, instead I’m called weird or scary on a daily basis by girls who have cans of pepper spray and use them to take my lunch money.

Oh, if only I was a cookie during my soft and chunky days, then I would’ve been just like the Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky cookies, big cookies with big chocolate chunks.

Oh, I wish I were a Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky cookie.
That is what I’d truly like to be.
Cause if I were a Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky cookie,
everyone would be in love with me.

But then again, if I was a Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky cookie, I would be an ordinary prepackaged cookie, placed into plastic packaging with other cookies like me, and we would placed on top of each other, like we were prisoners posing for pictures at Abu Ghraib prison<. I guess being a Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky cookie would suck. Besides, they really weren't that big. They're only about three inches in diameter, which to me was still pretty small. Of course, my way of determining if a cookie is big is by seeing if I can stick the whole thing into my mouth. If the cookie fits into my mouth, it's not a big cookie. However, if I say the line, "If the cookie doesn't fit, you must split," then I consider the cookie to be big. The cookies may not have been big, but they were bigger than regular Chips Ahoy! and they also had lots of chocolate. Along with the usual chocolate chips, these cookies also had chocolate chunks. So dare I say it had an orgy of chocolate? I'm such a perv. Anyway, because of the orgy of chocolate, I liked these better than regular Chips Ahoy!, but despite the the bigger size and the orgy of chocolate, I didn't think there was anything special about the Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky cookies. I just think they're just plain and ordinary Chips Ahoy! cookies on steroids. Item: Chips Ahoy! Soft Baked Chunky Cookies
Purchase Price: $3.00 (on sale)
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Bigger and better than normal Chips Ahoy! cookies. An orgy of chocolate.
Cons: Nothing really special about them. Chocolate chips and chunks looked alike. Is the exclamation point at the end of Chips Ahoy! really necessary?