Author: Marvo

NEWS: Melon Berry Blast Slurpee Helps Keep The Art of Alliteration Alive

Marvo 9 Comments

This month’s limited-edition Slurpee — Melon Berry Blast — has nothing to do with Space Shuttles or money shots, so I’m wondering what’s the purpose of the “blast” in its name. The only reason I could think of was perhaps 7-Eleven is trying to ensure the literary device of alliteration never goes away. If they are, it’s nice that they’re making the effort. But as long as magazine titles need to be written there will be alliteration.

The Melon Berry Blast Slurpee combines the flavor of watermelon with the taste of strawberry to create a sweet and sour Slurpee that will temporarily make your tongue the same color as Rupaul’s lipstick. It contains 60 calories, 0 grams of fat, 14 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbs, and 17 grams of sugar per 8-ounce serving.

REVIEW: Terra Crinkles Yukon Gold Garlic Mashed Potato Chips

Marvo 14 Comments

The Terra Crinkles Yukon Gold Garlic Mashed Potato Chips tasted all right, but they disgusted me. The reason why I found these potato chips to be repulsive was because they committed flavor incest.

And I’m not talking about the good kind of incest.

I find it wrong when one potato product tries to taste like another potato product and because these potato chips have the flavor of garlic mashed potatoes, I believe this product breaks one of the Ten Culinary Commandments — thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s flavor. It’s like if pork chops tasted like bacon, or if wheat bread tasted like white bread, or if all the things people say tastes like chicken tasted like chicken.

The Terra Crinkles Yukon Gold Garlic Mashed Potato Chips seemed like normal potato chips, but by committing flavor incest who knows what might’ve happened with them. There might’ve been defects, like square-shaped chips, excessive crinkles, non-crunchiness, or they might’ve had the level of brain damage only found in those who have the desire to become a D-List celebrity and whore itself to any reality show willing to pay it for its ability to be a total douchebag on television.

Like I wrote earlier, I think these potato chips were all right and they really did taste like garlic mashed potatoes. But it wasn’t good garlic mashed potatoes, like the kind you would find as a side dish for a delicious medium rare filet mignon at a top-notch steakhouse. Instead the potato chips were like the garlic mashed potatoes you would find in its own compartment in a Salisbury steak TV dinner. The garlic flavor tasted a little burnt, it had a strong onion flavor and there was a little tanginess, thanks to the buttermilk powder.

The Terra Crinkles Yukon Gold Garlic Mashed Potato Chips was not a case of something so wrong being so right. The flavor incest it engaged in made something so wrong be so-so.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 ounce – 130 calories, 6 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 1 gram of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and 2% Iron.)

Item: Terra Crinkles Yukon Gold Garlic Mashed Potato Chips
Price: $4.99
Size: 6 ounces
Purchased at: Whole Foods
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Tasted like garlic mashed potatoes, but not good garlic mashed potatoes. Crunchy. No trans fat. No defects. The good kind of incest.
Cons: Garlic flavor tasted a little burnt. Flavor incest. Being a D-List celebrity. Being a douchebag. The bad kind of incest. Breaking one of the Ten Culinary Commandments.

PRIZE DRAWING: Because I Have No Fear When It Come to Giving Away Free Swag

Marvo 118 Comments

No Fear Energy recently launched their first-ever under the tab code promotion — Earn Some Cred. You can earn cred by opening specially marked cans of No Fear Energy, looking for the code under the tab and entering that code at the Earn Some Cred website.

If you earn enough cred, you can get some No Fear gear or, if you’re super lucky, you could instantly win 1 of 8 once-in-a-lifetime experiences, like a trip to a Mixed Martial Arts event, a Hawaiian surf getaway, a Motocross event, or to a stop on the No Fear Energy Music Tour, featuring the metal band Lamb of God.

If you’re too lazy to earn some cred or you have too much cred you can’t redeem from robbing a bunch of liquor stores and banks, The Impulsive Buy is proud to announce a new prize drawing for a No Fear Energy Prize Pack from No Fear Energy, which consists of:

Two (2) No Fear Hoodies
Two (2) No Fear T-shirts (one of each style)
One (1) No Fear Bloodshot Hat
One (1) 12-pack of the new No Fear Bloodshot Energy Drink
One (1) Lamb of God’s latest CD “Wrath”
One (1) Sticky Bumps Surf Wax

The prize pack is valued at $100 and TIB only has one to give away.

To enter this prize drawing, leave a comment for THIS post with whatever you want to say. Please don’t forget to fill out the email field. TIB will stop accepting entries on Saturday, March 7, 2009 11:59 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time. Only one entry allowed per person and it’s only open to those 18 years old or older in the United States, Canada, and at U.S. Military APOs.

Good luck!

Fine Print: The Impulsive Buy promises your email address will not be used to send you emails containing links to LOLcats. The Impulsive Buy also promises your mailing address will not be used to send you Discover Card applications. Bribes will not be accepted. The Impulsive Buy will not be responsible for lost mail, damaged mail, or your lack of cred..

REVIEW: Betty Crocker Asian Hamburger Helper Mongolian-Style Beef

Marvo 31 Comments

I just want to make clear that the Betty Crocker Asian Hamburger Helper Mongolian-Style Beef and its other flavors are not part of some big conspiracy for Asian Domination.

Oh wait.

Why did I capitalize the D in “Domination”? It makes it look like a code name for something, which it is totally not. If I had typed “Operation Asian Domination,” and something cryptic along with it, like “All salamanders in apples need some Rogaine under leggy eyes,” then maybe it might look like all the Asians, except North Korea, are coming together to take over the world. But that IS NOT the case.

The Betty Crocker Asian Hamburger Helper Mongolian-Style Beef is just an easy-to-make dish and the eyebrows on the Hamburger Helper glove are not slanted eyes, his eyes are not nostrils, and his nose is not a gigantic zit. All you need is a pound of ground beef, 2 3/4 cups of hot water, and, of course, the ingredients contained in the box. Within 20 minutes, you’ll have a dish that native Mongolians will not recognize at all, because the Mongolian Beef dish is an American creation.

Betty Crocker is not trying to deceive you, just like Asians aren’t trying to swindle you by infiltrating various aspects of society to bring it crashing down two weeks from today. People love Jackie Chan, the number one golfer in the world is half-Asian, there’s a Korean on Grey’s Anatomy, my doppleganger is on CBS’s The Mentalist, there are Japanese players in Major League Baseball, Olivia Munn is half-Chinese, there are over a thousand Panda Express locations across the United States, Rob Schneider is half-Filipino, sushi and karaoke bars are all over, and many women learned a new Japanese word, Harajuku, but all of that does not equate to Asians wanting to rule the world and force everyone to drive fuel-efficient Toyota, Honda, Kia, or Hyundai cars two weeks from today.

Besides, how can the Betty Crocker Asian Hamburger Helper Mongolian-Style Beef be part of an Asian conspiracy to take over the world when it doesn’t taste Asian. It was all right tasting, but it tasted more like Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganoff than any Asian dish. The pasta noodles were gummy and the addition of freeze-dried peas and carrots seemed unnecessary since they didn’t add anything to the flavor.

So to all the non-Asians out there, you don’t have to worry about an Operation Asian Domination because it’s just silly to think Asians would want to take over the world. To all the Asians out there, All salamanders in apples need some Rogaine under leggy eyes, two weeks from today.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/3 cup prepared – 270 calories, 11 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 700 milligrams of sodium, 330 milligrams of potassium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 3 grams of sugar and 20 grams of protein.)

Item: Betty Crocker Asian Hamburger Helper Mongolian-Style Beef
Price: $3.50
Size: 6 ounces
Purchased at: Don Quijote
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Decent tasting if you like Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganoff. Easy to make. Ready to eat in about 20 minutes. Two weeks from today. Olivia Munn.
Cons: Not Asian tasting. Noodles were gummy. Conspiracies that involve Asians wanting to take over the world. Not Mongolian. Freeze-dried peas and carrots were useless.

REVIEW: Kellogg’s 20% Fiber Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts

Marvo 22 Comments

Remember when low-carb foods were the big food trend?

You couldn’t walk down an aisle in your local supermarket without running into a food that claimed it was LOW-CARB in, ironically, fat letters. But the oddest thing about this craze was finding low-carb versions of items that were nothing but carbs, like low-carb pasta and low-carb bread.

That trend fortunately died, or lost so much weight with its own low-carb diet that it can no longer be seen, but it seems in its dying moments it passed the food trend torch to high-fiber foods, like the Kellogg’s 20% Fiber Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts, which I feel is extremely dangerous because, as we all know, too much fiber can lead to flatulence and too much flatulence near a torch leads to a flamethrower.

Despite the pyromaniacal possibilities with high-fiber foods, I’m excited about the fiber content in these Pop-Tarts. Although it’s sad the fiber it provides excites me more than the fact that it’s a frosted chocolate fudge Pop-Tart. If I were 20 years younger, I’m sure the focus of my delight would be reversed and I would shrug my shoulders to the five grams of fiber in each Pop-Tart while I chomp my way through its toasted, gooey goodness.

With this particular version of Pop-Tarts, Kellogg’s has successfully made them slightly healthier, without making them taste healthier. They attempted the same thing last year with their line of whole grain Pop-Tarts, which were good, but had a slightly off-putting, grainy texture. This Pop-Tarts variation doesn’t have that same texture, despite having the same amount of whole grains, but its crust did seem a little more fragile.

Even with five grams of fiber and 16 grams of whole grains, it tasted exactly like regular Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts. It had a great chocolate flavor and if you were to give one of these to a 13-year-old version of me, I definitely wouldn’t know that it has 20% of my daily recommended intake of fiber. Although if I ate all eight pastries in one sitting, I would definitely know I consumed 160% of my daily recommended intake of fiber. And so would the people around me.

If that does happen, I hope I’m not near a torch.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 pastry – 190 calories, 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 250 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 14 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein, and several vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Kellogg’s 20% Fiber Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts
Price: $3.79
Size: 8 pastries
Purchased at: Star Market
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like regular Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts. Great chocolate taste. Sixteen grams of whole grain in each pastry. Provides 20% of my daily intake of fiber in each pastry. Vitamin and minerals.
Cons: Contains high fructose corn syrup. Crust is slightly more fragile that regular Pop-Tarts. Being excited about fiber. Eating an entire box of these Pop-Tarts. Low-carb pasta and low-carb bread. Flatulence and fire.