Our house has one of those old built-in natural gas grills. I think they were fairly popular 30 years ago. Well, the other day I came home from work and discovered the grill lying on its side. Apparently decades of corrosion had gotten the best of the thing and the stand had rusted away from the foundation. it was a real bummer because we really like grilling and I really didn’t like the prospect of installing a new one. For some reason, those built in grills are a bit pricey.
Anyway, we decided to go to a grill store and brought home a new built in grill which, I am proud to say, I installed myself. It was actually pretty easy once I figured out how to disconnect the gas line.
Another drink I happened to pick up at the international grocery store was this strange aloe vera juice drink in a can. I didn’t actually think people drank aloe vera juice so I decided to buy a can. I have a odd desire to try strange and things that might turn out to be disgusting and this was too good to pass up.
Anyway, after about two weeks of sitting in the fridge, I decide to drink it. Now not only is this aloe vera juice. It’s blueberry flavored aloe vera juice with aloe vera chunks floating around inside. I found the aloe chunks to be a little interesting. Remember those capsules that you could put in water and they would turn into some sort of sponge animal? Well the chunks look like a cat got a hold of that sponge and then chewed it up and spit it into my glass.
The drink had this sort of smell that reminded me of a lollipop. As for the taste, it was good for about two or three sips and then it was just too sweet. I’m not sure how to describe the flavor but it barely passed for blueberry. Maybe it would have helped a little if the drink was blue. Instead it was this unappetizing orangish yellow color. Since I’ve never eaten/drank aloe before, I have nothing to compare this too. If you like aloe I’d give it a try. I’m sure not going to buy it again.
I love iced coffee. Especially Starbucks Frappuccinos. If it weren’t for the prohibitive price I’d buy them all the time. For an individual 9.5 ounce bottle I’ve seen the price range from $1.50 to $2.99. That’s a bit much to pay for coffee, even if it happens to be delicious. Sorry, Starbucks, but your coffee is way overpriced.
The other day I happened to be browsing through the Japanese section of a local international grocery store. While looking at the various oddities, I noticed some cans of chilled coffee. This struck me as odd, since I usually don’t associate Japan with coffee. I was admittedly intrigued, but what really drew me in was the oddly shaped can and the amusing name of the coffee. “Hello Boss” isn’t exactly a phrase that makes me think “coffee,” but it was exactly the sort of goofy name one would expect to adorn a Japanese product (although I believe the coffee actually comes from Taiwan). I was curious so I decided to buy a can. Each can was only around 70 cents so if I totally hated it I wouldn’t be out too much money.
After letting it sit in the fridge for a day, I decided to have a drink. The can was surprisingly hard to open. I had to get out a knife and wedge it under the tab. I think the can may be made out of steel instead of aluminum since I couldn’t crush it like I could a soda can ( or maybe I’m just pathetically weak). As for the drink itself, it was quite good. I’d say it was as good as anything Starbucks sells in a bottle or can.
I only regret that I didn’t buy more of this stuff. There were several other flavors of Hello Boss coffee that I’ll have to try next time I stop by the store. I’m not sure if Hello Boss comes in six packs or twelve packs or whatever, but for 70 cents does it really matter? Not only is Hello Boss cheaper than Starbucks Frappuccino, the cans are 11.5 ounces compared to the 9.5 ounce bottles Starbucks sells.
Just FYI, Hello Boss happens to have a competitor called Mr. Brown. Both brands have almost identical pictures of cartoon bearded men on their cans, and from what I’ve read from people who have tried both, they taste virtually the same. I think that Hello Boss may actually be the ripoff brand, but Hello Boss’s cans are bigger and cost the same as Mr. Brown.
Continue reading ‘Hello Boss, Goodbye Starbucks’
The purpose of commercials is to get us to buy the product advertised, or at the very least get us interesting in it. I’ve seen thousands of commercials in my lifetime and most of the time my eyes glaze over when they come on. Now I have a DVR so I hardly ever see commercials anymore. But sometimes I’ll see a commercial that causes me to hate the very characters I’m supposed to like, makes me not want to buy the product, or sends the opposite message intended. There are quite a few that fall into those categories, but here are a few of my favorites. Continue reading ‘Commercials that didn’t quite get the message across’
I’m a Pepsi fan. I like Coke too but I’ll always take Pepsi over Coke if I have a choice. A year ago, one would be hard pressed to convince me that there was no real difference between the two drinks. To me the drinks were very distinct; so much so that I preferred one over the other. But in a college marketing class I took last spring, my beliefs surrounding brand name soda were shattered.
During class one day my professor asked for a show of hands of those who thought they could tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. I raised my hand along with most of the other people in the class. The professor picked me along with three others and she told us to leave the room. She filled up three cups for each of us. One was filled with Pepsi, one with Coke, and one with a generic cola. We then came in one at a time, took a drink from each cup, and guessed what we thought each one was.
After all of us had finished, the professor revealed the answers. All of us had gotten at least two wrong. I remember that I had gotten the last one right, and I probably only got it right because it was the only choice left. The whole experiment changed my soda buying habits. I switched from buying Pepsi to buying generic cola at the grocery store. Not only did I care much less about the label on the can, I was also paying half of what I was paying when I bought Pepsi.
My Taste Test Experiment
I told my friend Jimmy about the experiment. Sure enough, he was very confident that he could taste the difference, so I challenged him to a test. The test would include him and four other people. The test would consist of two rounds. During each round I would pass around three cups and everybody would take a drink and write down what he or she thought was in each glass. The choices were Pepsi, Coke, and generic cola. Between each drink the participants ate a cracker to clear their palates. After each drink and before the next drink, the participants were to write down what they thought they had just drank. Answers were not shared until the test was over.
Continue reading ‘Pepsi vs Coke: Difference in taste is mostly in your head’
I’m sure that most of us have had the pleasure of munching on a few of those candy conversation hearts around Valentine’s Day. Back when I was in elementary school, candy hearts were my absolute favorite candy to get on Valentine’s Day. I’m not even sure why kids even bother handing out cards when they know the true spirit of Valentine’s Day is getting as much candy as possible.
Even to this day I can’t resist chomping down candy hearts whenever I get them. This is why I was shocked to discover the uncanny resemblance of the candy hearts to, of all things, ecstacy tablets. While the shape is different, ecstasy still has that tasty look that drives me to devour as many candy hearts as possible.
The resemblance is uncanny isn’t it? Two of the ecstasy tablets on the bottom row even have special Valentine’s Day messages. Almost makes you wonder if NECCO is really just a front for a much larger ecstasy producing operation, and the candy hearts are really an ingenious way to get kids to take ecstasy. I mean who wouldn’t want to chow down on a something that looked like candy and had endearing little messages and pictures on it?
In the meantime let’s just hope that I don’t happen upon any ecstasy tablets. I might just have to snack on a few to see if they taste like one of my favorite candies.
Ah, the MRE. That portable, “tasty” meal eaten by US troops in the field, or when one’s unit doesn’t have anything else with which to feed people. As someone who has been in the military, I’ve eaten my share of them. They seem really cool at first, but that coolness factor wears off after about your second or third MRE. That’s when they start tasting the same.
A few years ago, my Air National Guard unit went to South Dakota for a two-week training exercise with the Army. During that time we had three meals a day: one hot meal and two MREs. Because we were in the Air Force and not the Army, we weren’t too keen on playing Army games and pretending we were at war. So we would leave our compound and go to McDonald’s or something similar for one of those meals. This resulted in a large collection of MREs for myself. After sitting in my basement at room temperature for the last three years, a good friend of mine really wanted to try one. So, I decided to document his experience for you all to see.
Continue reading ‘A guide to eating a “delicious” MRE’
