Schick Quattro Midnight

Schick Quattro

Shaving. I’ve been doing it since I was thirteen years old.

Yes, that’s kind of young to start shaving.

I don’t know if I had more hormones than other boys my age or if I’m older than I believe am, like some professional baseball players from Cuba, but what I do know is when I grow out my facial hair, I look like either the Missing Link or Robin Williams’ chest.

Growing out my facial hair isn’t a time consuming affair. My five o’clock shadow sprouts out at about noon. After one day without shaving, I look Brad Pitt-cool. After two days without shaving, I look mature. After three days without shaving, I look scruffy. After four days without shaving, my face looks like the back of my head.

Ever since college I’ve been using my trusty Gillette Mach3 razor and it has served me well over the years. The Mach3 razor, which was the first triple-blade razor ever, was the first non-disposable razor I ever used.

It was great for the first few months. Shaves were much closer and more comfortable than the crappy disposable razors. Then I ran out of razor cartridges and shortly after that I found out how frickin’ expensive replacement cartridges were. It seemed like Gillette grabbed my Mach3 razor, pointed the handle at me, and then screwed me with it.

However, the shaves were great, so I kept buying the replacement razor cartridges, like a crack addict.

Being the cheap bastard that I am, I try to make each razor cartridge last a month. I do this by shaving my face every other day, not shaving my face on the weekends, shaving my chest once a month, and shaving my…Um…No wait, that would be waaay too much information.

Recently, long-time Impulsive Buy reader Goldberry asked if I’d be interested in a free Schick Quattro Midnight razor sample she received. Again, being the cheap bastard I am and my desire to have something new happen in my lonely life, I told Goldberry I’d review it.

About two weeks later, the razor arrived in my mailbox and I almost instantly put it to the test. I planned for the razor’s arrival by not shaving for three days, and I looked like a bum.

The main feature of the Quattro is its four blades, which gives the Quattro four chances to cut my hair or four chances to make me bleed.

After my face was properly lathered up, I took my first stroke with the Quattro. The first stroke I took surprised me because it didn’t pull on any of the long hairs like my Mach3 razor does. The protective wires that run perpendicular to the blades might have had something to do with that.

When I was done, I felt like it shaved just as well as my Mach3 razor did. Although I will admit, it was a more comfortable shave.

Despite the comfortable shave, I had some problems with the Quattro. It was hard to even out my Elvis sideburns because the head of the Quattro is slightly bigger than the head of my Mach3 and I wasn’t used to its size. Also, the longer hairs would get clogged in between the blades. Dipping it in water, rinsing it under running water, or constant verbal abuse couldn’t get the hairs out.

However, I did eventually get the hair out by running my fingers masochistically down the blades several times.

Mmm…The feel of cold metal on my skin. It’s intoxicating.

Oh…What?

Anyway, a day later I shaved with the Quattro again, except with much easier stubble. It plowed through my sexy Brad Pitt-stubble just as easily as my Mach3 could and this time there wasn’t any clogging.

Overall I was pleased with the Quattro. It gave me a shave just as good as my Mach3, but did it more comfortably.

Will it replace my Mach3?

I’m not sure because the price for the Quattro’s replacement razor cartridges is slightly more expensive than the Mach3’s. Well I guess that makes sense, since the handle of the Quattro is slightly thicker, which means it’s a little more uncomfortable when I’m getting screwed with it.

(Editor’s Note: Our fellow reviewers at The Message Whore also reviewed the Schick Quattro Midnight awhile back. Their review was much less favorable. You can read their review here.)


Item: Schick Quattro Midnight
Purchase Price: FREE (Thanks Goldberry!)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Pros: Four frickin’ blades. More comfortable shave than my Gillette Mach3. The feel of cold metal.
Cons: Longer hairs will become clogged in between blades. With four blades, it shaves just as close as my Gillette Mach3. Being screwed by razor companies.

REVIEW: White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers

White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers

It seems like there’s been a trend to make things bigger. SUVs are getting larger, 15-pound cheeseburgers are being sold, the breasts of 18-year-old girls are artificially increasing, and Joan Rivers’ mouth seems to get louder and wider with every awards show.

But it’s good to know there are items that buck this trend and keep things small, like cell phones, digital cameras, wages at Walmart, the portions at five-star restaurants, and testicles in cold water.

A company that has also kept it small is White Castle, which is famous for their small, squarish hamburgers and their ability to attract people with a case of the munchies.

Unfortunately, being several thousand miles away from the nearest White Castle restaurant, I haven’t experienced the wonder of White Castle hamburgers. However, the national grocery store chain I shop at just so happens to have in stock frozen White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers.

Of course, I’m sure the frozen burgers can’t compare with fresh White Castle burgers, because if I’ve learned anything about freezing environments, it’s that it makes everything in it miserable and it can shrink testicles.

The frozen White Castle cheeseburgers are almost identical to their fresh counterparts, they both have the patented burger patties with five holes, a whole lot of onions, and a small slice of American cheese, in between a small bun. However, the hard frozen White Castle cheeseburger would probably do more harm in a food fight.

One of the problems I had with these frozen burgers was the microwave heating instructions. Despite following them with great accuracy, I ended up with burgers with slightly cold edges. Sticking them in the microwave for a few more seconds resulted in soggy buns.

Fortunately, Impulsive Buy reader Kimdog let me in on her highly scientific heating instructions, which she spent minutes months honing.

Take the two burgers and nuke them on high for about 20 seconds. Open the microwave and take the tops of the buns off and remove them from the cooking interior. At the same time rotate the burgers by 180 degrees.

Restart the microwave and cook until you see the cheese bubble (usually about another 40 or so seconds). Open the microwave and put the tops of the buns back on the burgers and close the door.

Let them sit in the dark lifeless microwave for about another minute. This will warm and moisten the bun tops with out drying them out.

Kimdog’s heating instructions helped a little bit, but the burgers still weren’t completely heated.

As for the taste of the burgers, how can I put it? Um…it’s like I was eating grease. But something in that greasy taste kind of made them addicting. I don’t know if it’s the onions, the burger patty, or the holes in the burger patty, but something about it made it taste pretty good.

However, at $5.49 per six-count box, it made them slightly less tasty. (How much do fresh White Castle burgers cost?)

If you divide the price by six, each burger comes out to be about 91 cents. Personally, I’d rather grab six McDonald’s one dollar Double Cheeseburgers, which are bigger and just as tasty.

If I really wanted to, I could’ve eaten the entire box because the burgers are so small. However, eating just two of them left a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know if this is common with White Castle burgers, but after my recent experiences with Olestra, I didn’t want to take the chance of eating the entire box.

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader Chuck, who let me know about the 15-pound cheeseburger.)

Item: White Castle Microwaveable Cheeseburgers
Purchase Price: $5.49
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tasty. Lots of dietary fiber. Kind of addicting. Makes for a great snack.
Cons: Greasy. Pricey. Soggy buns in the microwave. Inconsistent results with heating instructions on the box.

REVIEW: Extra Cool Green Apple Gum

Extra Cool Green Apple Gum

Chewing gum. For some, it’s a breath freshener. For others, it’s way to tame their oral fixation. For MacGyver, with some duct tape and a Swiss Army knife, chewing gum can be used to save the day.

However, for most it’s a way to freshen their breath, especially during instances when they eat garlic or onions, throw up after an evening of binge drinking, or make out with Courtney Love.

Recently, Impulsive Buy reader Lakitu emailed me to tell me about the new Extra Cool Green Apple chewing gum. I’m not a big fan of actual green apples, but I’m a big fan of artificially flavored green apple products, like candy, jelly beans, and sensual massage lotions, so I knew I’d probably like it.

Laiktu also told me she picked up the Extra Cool Green Apple gum from the community-destroying, traffic-causing superstore behemoth.

“Great,” I thought to myself.

Hoping to come out with only a pack of gum and not fifty dollars worth of goods, I decided to try out my patent pending Walmart Abstinence System for Totally Excessive Spending, or W.A.S.T.E.S. for short.

The concept of W.A.S.T.E.S. is simple. Leave all your credit cards, debit cards, and checkbooks at home, and take only enough money for the product you plan to purchase. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how much the pack of gum was going to cost, so I put two dollars into my wallet.

That was a bad idea, because the gum was only 88 cents, leaving me with over a dollar to spend freely, which ended up being two candy bars.

DAMN YOU WALMART!!! DAMN YOU!!!

As soon as I got into my car, I opened the the pack of gum and pulled out a stick. The Extra Cool Green Apple gum smelled nice and tasted good. When you first chew on it, there’s a quick minty bite, but the rest of it was all green apple, baby!

It was nice to chew on a different flavor of gum than the usually minty and cinnamon gums I chew.

Like all Extra gums, the flavor lasted for a while. However, after spitting the gum out, the taste lingered in my mouth for hours after. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. However, what I’m about to point out next may make it a bad thing.

Besides telling me about the Extra Cool Green Apple gum and letting me know where to find it, Lakitu also mentioned to me that it made her breath smell like pakalolo. For those of you who don’t live on these rocks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, “pakalolo” is the local term for marijuana.

The smell from someone smoking weed is a very distinct smell and once you smell it, you’ll never forget it. People don’t call it “stink weed” for nothing.

While chewing on a piece of Extra Cool Green Apple gum, I tried to smell my breath by cupping my hands over my mouth and nose. Unfortunately, I couldn’t detect the smell of Mary Jane, so I figured Lakitu was just messing with my gullible mind or she’s been smoking a little bit of the endo.

However, a few days later I went to watch the movie Kung Fu Hustle with a couple of friends and I gave a piece of Extra Cool Green Apple gum to them at the beginning of the movie. I swear, at several points throughout the movie it smelled like someone was smoking a fatty.

So maybe Lakitu was right.

Anyway, even if it might make your breath smell like weed, I’d recommend the Extra Cool Green Apple gum. It’s good stuff.

Item: Extra Cool Green Apple Gum
Purchase Price: 88 cents
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Pretty damn good. Different than the usual minty Extra gum. Sugarfree.
Cons: Taste stays in mouth for hours after. May make your breath smell like you smoked weed.

REVIEW: Original Fat Free Pringles

Fat Free Pringles

Growing up my mom gave me the nickname of “The Human Garbage Disposal.”

Oh wait, maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that, because I have a feeling that nickname is going to haunt me in the future.

Anyway, she called me that because during dinner I made sure there weren’t any leftovers, except when dinner was tuna casserole or liver. Of course, this explained the many years of husky clothes, but then again I was a bookworm during those years and my idea of exercise was doing 100 reps of turning the pages of Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Although the nickname didn’t carry on into college, the spirit of The Human Garbage Disposal continued and evolved. In the college cafeteria, where food was served buffet-style, my friends mixed several foods together and dared me to eat it.

Mixed vegetables, marinara sauce, corn chowder, and strawberry ice cream, all mixed into a bowl?

No problem.

Pepsi, mashed potatoes, apple pie, mustard, and croutons, in a cup?

I’ll drink that!

Puking never happened, but gagging always did.

However, after college, The Human Garbage Disposal almost completely disappeared. There were brief moments when it would appear when I was dared to eat a piece of candy accidentally dropped on the floor or scarf down jalapenos with hot sauce at Mexican restaurants.

Recently, Impulsive Buy reader Damon dared me to eat a can of Olestra-laced Fat Free Pringles. After what happened to me with the Olestra-ted Ruffles Light, I knew this might be something only the Human Garbage Disposal could accomplish.

Fat Free Pringles aren’t a new product. I believe they were one of the first products with Olestra. Ever since they were released, I’ve never really had the urge to try them because they were twice the price of regular Pringles. Thanks to you, Damon, I now had the urge to try them.

The problem with Pringles is the fact that once you pop, you can’t stop. There have been several occasions when I have eaten an entire can of Pringles in one sitting. This time didn’t turn out to be one of those occasions, because I’m now older, wiser, and I thought I was running out of toilet paper.

So while watching VH1’s Remaking: Vanilla Ice, I popped open a can of Fat Free Pringles and began chomping it down chip-by-chip.

I also began to recreate those dance moves Vanilla Ice used to do, like that one move where he would just hump the floor and the other one that involved him shaking his head violently like bobblehead doll, while doing the Running Man.

Before I knew it, I had gone through half the can of Fat Free Pringles and solidified my title as, “Worst Dancer Ever.”

I couldn’t believe I ate half the can, because the Fat Free Pringles didn’t taste very good. It didn’t even come close to tasting like regular Pringles. Heck, it didn’t even come close to tasting like Reduced Fat Pringles.

Despite eating half the can in one sitting and finished up the rest of the Fat Free Pringles the next day, I surprisingly didn’t find myself spending a lot of time on the crapper. Actually, all I experienced was some bad gas.

I don’t know if my time spent digesting the Ruffles Light potato chips made my stomach stronger or if I got a dud can of Fat Free Pringles, but either way that can of Fat Free Pringles was definitely my first AND last can.

Item: Original Fat Free Pringles
Purchase Price: $1.99
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: No exploding anus. Zero grams of fat. Zero milligrams of cholesterol.
Cons: Twice the price of regular Pringles. Doesn’t even come close to tasting like regular Original Pringles. Some gas. My title as, “Worst Dancer Ever.”

Clorox Toilet Wand

Clorox Toilet Wand

If there’s one thing that makes me attractive to the ladies, it would be the fact that I’m domesticated. I do every chore around the house, like wash dishes, vacuum, take out the trash, mop floors, recycle plastics and glass, wash clothes, iron clothes, dust, clean bathrooms, and polish the stripper pole.

Sexy, right ladies? Sure I don’t have looks, but I know you like the way my dishpan hands feel. I don’t have emotions, but my Pine-Sol and Pledge scent makes me irresistible. I don’t have class, but I know you like how gentle I am hand-washing delicate clothing.

Trying to be sexy by doing chores is hard work and I’m all for ways to make it easier, so a few weeks ago I picked up a Clorox Toilet Wand. I also decided to pick it up because I REALLY needed to replace my five-year old toilet brush.

I could show you what my old toilet brush looked like, but much like people who have had too many botox injections, a picture of it would make you sick. Let’s just say that the brush was originally the color blue and now it’s bluish-gray with black spots.

What attracted me to the Clorox Toilet Wand was the detachable disposable Clorox-soaked brush heads, which allowed me to clean the toilet and then throw away the brush head, before it turned gray or any other color.

To test the Clorox Toilet Wand, I needed to get my toilet dirty. Fortunately, that only takes about three weeks. As you can see on the left side on the picture below, it gets pretty disgusting. (Click pic to get a larger image.) Also, if you look real closely, I think you can see an image of the Virgin Mary.

Because each brush head is soaked in Clorox, no other cleaning products are needed. However, I found that each brush head has enough Clorox for only one cleaning.

As you can see on the right side of the picture below, the Clorox Toilet Wand did a pretty good job of making my toilet clean enough for dogs to drink out of, even under the rim. It didn’t get rid of the hard stains, but a little work with a scouring stick and my not-so-muscular arms will get those out.

Clorox Toilet Wand

After I was done cleaning, I just squeezed the water out of the brush head on the side of the bowl, held the Toilet Wand over the trash can, and slid the blue button to release the brush head into the trash.

This process sort of reminded me of my days in middle school bathrooms with a couple of bullies…BUT I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT! I GOT MY REVENGE!

I was impressed with the Clorox Toilet Wand, it magically cleaned my toilet.

While looking at my reflection in the toilet’s water and saying my new daily affirmation, “I am a man, not a boy,” I began wondering what else the Clorox Toilet Wand could magically do.

Being the poor bastard that I am, I decided to see if I could have money magically appear. However, at first I didn’t know how to go about doing this. Should I use the Harry Potter technique or the Mickey Mouse Fantasia technique? I eventually decided that I would use Harry Potter technique and began thinking of spells.

I thought about it for a bit, then waved the Clorox Toilet Wand in the air, and recited a spell to have money magically appear, “Oprahus Bankaccountus!”

Nothing happened.

“Hiltona Inheritanso!”

Crap, nothing.

Then I thought about trying a different spell and decided to see if the Clorox Toilet Wand could get a not-so-attractive, slightly overweight guy really beautiful women.

“Keithas Richardis!”

Nada.

“Ronus Jeremiaus!”

No dice.

Damn.

Well I guess I should be happy that cleaning my toilet is now easier and less gross with the Clorox Toilet Wand. Too bad it can’t make polishing the stripper pole any easier, because that’s one daunting task.


Item: Clorox Toilet Wand
Purchase Price: $9.99 (on sale)(Toilet Wand + 6 brush heads)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Detachable disposable Clorox-soaked brush head. Easier to clean under the rim. I am a sexy cleaning machine.
Cons: Brush heads have enough Clorox for only one use. Replacement brush heads are pricey. Doesn’t get rid of hard stains. No magical powers.