Yuck.
Sometimes, although extremely rarely, good things actually happen in life. I had read on The Beverage Network that Coca Cola was releasing new flavors of the best beverage that is possible for mankind to make, Fresca. I was overwhelmed with emotion. Mixed emotions. Would the new flavors be an improvement on the original, or would they just be bastardized versions of it? And, worst of all, were they changing the original recipe?
After I had steadied myself, I read on. No, the original recipe would not be changed. The two new flavors were a black cherry and a peach. Black cherry, I really don’t care about. It doesn’t even sound like something that would go well; black cherry with grapefruit? No.
Peach, on the other hand, now we’re talking. I am of the opinion that peach is almost always one of the best flavors of anything, and is also highly underappreciated. I am also of the opinion that if you don’t think so, you are wrong. Peach Fresca is not only something that sounded like it could work, it sounded like it would be really good.
All of this, I thought, was meaningless, since for some reason none of the good new sodas can be found around me. Mountain Dew Pitch Black II? It’s everywhere. New Frescas? Nowhere to be found.
Then one day while shopping in Waldbaum’s, there it was. I was, again, overwhelmed with emotions. But no mixed emotions were to be had here. Only good ones. The Peach Fresca was within my grasp. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the black cherry variety (that’s not unfortunate, really, it just seemed like an appropriate way to start that sentence.) They also had normal Fresca, but that was no surprise. Coke finally got its act together and put both bottled and canned Fresca into widespread circulation. They didn’t have cans of the peach flavor, which I prefer, but I eagerly bought the bottled version anyway.
As for the actual taste? It’s really good. It doesn’t taste like Fresca with a peach flavoring, it tastes like the peach is actually a part of the Fresca recipe itself. Considering this is a zero calorie drink, the flavor integration is done especially well. Fresca has always been one of the best tasting zero calorie drinks, mainly because it doesn’t taste diet.
I don’t know how well this will fair, if only for the fact that I don’t know how well Fresca sells in general. While I won’t drink this as much as I drink regular Fresca, I will definitely add this into the rotation.
This article is conspicuously lacking many pictures, so here:
I do my best to remain blissfully unaware of R. Kelly’s day to day business. If it doesn’t involve him urinating on someone under the watchful eye of the camcorder, I really don’t want to hear about it. So, the idea of him recording a multi part dramatic opus and then proceeding to act it out came as a very out of the blue revelation to me.
I was introduced to Trapped in the Closet by my friend Jeff. He is a fellow Neil Hamburger aficionado, and despite the fact that our musical tastes differ on a regular basis, we share an appreciation for entertainment that comes from accidentally or not-so-accidentally awful things.
He described Trapped in the Closet as “having no reason to exist,” or something like that. Granted, many things don’t actually need to exist. However, it was implicit that not only does it not need to exist, it also shouldn’t. I take that back; that’s too harsh. It needs to exist. Because it is amazing.
From the rough description, I knew that R. Kelly was acting out some songs from his latest album. What I didn’t realize was that every single lyric was going to be acted out, as literally as could be. If this weren’t in the R&B genre, it could almost be taken as campy, or purposely awful. But since R&B as a whole displays less humor than copies of math textbooks or Maus, this can not be so.
And without further ado, let us all get trapped… in the closet!
After this pulp intro, we enter the bedroom, where R. Kelly (or R, as he is referred to from now on,) is just waking up. According to R, the bed doesn’t belong to him, so it seems he just had a sleepover with a friend of his. However, in comes a woman in some revealing undergarments. A women who is not R’s girlfriend, which becomes dramatic plot point number one. When he tries to leave, we learn that she also has a significant other, and he is coming up the stairs to the apartment. That is dramatic plot point number two, but I’ve decided that I won’t be able to keep up with the tally; there’s just too much drama.
Since this is apparently one of those rare apartments without a fire escape, she tells him to get in the closet. Didn’t he see the giant words outside the apartment window? I don’t know how it could be any more obvious he would be trapped in there. R needs to hire Admiral Ackbar to run around screaming every time he was headed into a trap.
Ignoring the size 1,700 font words that were outside his window just moments ago, R gets in the closet. When the husband gets home, she informs him that she “cooked and ran his bath water.” What the hell is the point of that? Is he going to eat in the bath? By the time he finishes his food, the bath will be cold, and vice versa. A cheating woman who doesn’t understand simple domestic things, this guy sure picked a winner.
He carries her into bed (you fool! Now your food and your bath will be cold!) and they commence with the normal R&B in-bed activities. That is, until R’s cell phone rings. What a dickhead. R rushes to try to turn the ringer on “VIIIIIIIIIBRAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!” but it is too late. Besides, why vibrate, why not silent? You’d still hear the bzzz bzzzz of the phone on vibrate, so that wouldn’t help much either.
Instead of asking whose phone is ringing, or something similar, the boyfriend decides to say “There’s a mystery going on, and I’m going to solve it.” Which, really, is the most appropriate and realistic thing to write for that particular scenario.
What occurs next is most likely my favorite line in the whole song. After describing all the places the boyfriend is looking, R sings: “Checks under the bed, then under the dresser / He looks at the closet, I pull out my Beretta.” Brilliant! What makes this verse even better is the fact that he says “closet” five times in eleven seconds.
This ends Part One of the saga.
We will pause for intermission.
So the boyfriend’s day is going about as poorly as any day can go. Not only does a strange man show up, in his house, he’s pointing a gun at him. R claims that he is trying to get the boyfriend to calm down, meanwhile the boyfriend is probably demonstrating the most calm that any person could in any situation, let alone one like this. The wildest he is getting is through his enthusiastic hand gestures; although I suspect he is only doing them to fit in with the other two.
After lots of talking and gun pointing, the boyfriend says he’s a pastor, and R is relieved. Now they can handle things “Christian like,” and talk about all of the gun carrying, premarital sex, and infidelity that needs to be discussed. The pastor then makes a cell phone call, and informs everyone that they are in store for a big surprise.
He likens himself to R, saying that they are both coming out of the closet. This is known as foreshadowing.
And, not too shockingly, the pastor’s “girlfriend” turns out to be… a man.
Second Intermission.
The next few minutes are taken up by R and the pastor arguing back and forth about the pastor being gay. R is acting like he has known this guy for years, and can’t believe the shocking truth. If I just met some guy and found out he was gay, beard girlfriend or not, I’d be like “alright.” No gun waving, no talking in awkward rhyme, no inappropriately singing sentences with uncalled for amounts of emotion. Just, “Alright. Later.”
Then the pastor and the wife (apparently they’re married) argue back and forth which is worse, having a straight cheating relationship or a gay cheating relationship. R gets annoyed, and shoots his gun in the air. In the middle of an apartment complex. With the door open.
Tired of the gay vs. straight argument, he calls his house, and he gets a surprise… a man answered the phone!
The third act sucked.
R then races home, sitting in a car against a backdrop that looks like it came from a Saturday Night Live set. He gets pulled over, and “can’t believe it.” Hm, you’re a young black male, in a Cadillac, doing 85. Surprising.
He then rhymes “cigarette” with “ticket,” by pronouncing it “cigaritte.”
After scaring the crap out his wife by throwing the shower open, he starts hollering at her. She explains that her brother came home, and R feels like an ass. Like all couples in this movie, they immediately move to the bed. The mood is set; that is, until he sees a condom in the bed.
Fourth Intermission.
Going back into his previous argument tactics of waving a gun, R threatens to murder his wife. He then rhymes “bed” with “cigarette” but again mispronounces cigarette, which makes me wonder if maybe he just doesn’t know how to spell the word.
After a lot of emotional back and forth (by emotional, I mean holding out notes when not really needed), the wife reveals that the man she was sleeping with was the policeman that pulled R over. Whoa.
That is all for the filmed part of Trapped in the Closet. He also performed act six at the most recent VMAs and it made for a MUCH more awkward performance. This is because he was alone on stage, and taking it very, very seriously.
I don’t know who the guy introducing him is, but he is both weird looking and too excited about seeing the “newest chapter of the saga.” No one seems to care about the fact that R isn’t even trying to make it look like he’s actually singing; but it is MTV after all. What this reminds me of is a thirteen year old boy lip synching to a CD in his room. Hand and body gestures all over the place, exaggerated facial expressions, and not a full grasp of what the actual lyrics are. Very long story short: Rufus (the husband) chooses Cathy over Chuck (the husband’s boyfriend.) Personally, I would have gone with Chuck. Knowing my wife had slept with R. Kelly would be too nauseating of a fact to live with.
And there you have it: a twenty plus minute song with no chorus, melody, or sense. A story that dares you to give a damn about any of the characters, which of course you don’t, won’t, and couldn’t fathom doing. It’s hard to give this a rating of 1-10. But I will voice my opinion on it by saying that his video with all of the underage peeing seemed like a better artistic decision.
I always try to keep a wide variety of cereal on hand. I need a good bowl right before sleep, or the sleep just won’t work. I wake up angry and depressed. If I do have a bowl of cereal before sleep, I only wake up depressed.
You can’t just have one type of cereal on hand, either; especially if you keep your cereal in the kitchen (I keep mine in my room, to avoid thievery). There is no excuse for having just a couple kinds; it’s a sign of being either a boring person or psychotic. Who can eat just one kind all week? You? Fine. Screw you, go away.
You also need a variety of bowl sizes. If you have a normal size bowl, you can fill that up with some Frosted Flakes or Basic 4 or something, and you’re good to go. But what the hell are you going to do when you want some Crunch Berries or Kix? Those things are going to fly out of the bowl as soon as you add some milk. And God help you if you try to get some Honeycombs in there. Would a professional chef use one kind of knife to cook a whole meal? Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t think so, though.
I keep some normal bowls for the small cereals, some Cool Whip containers or quart size wonton soup containers for the big ones, and a shot glass for some Grape Nuts.
So I like to think I’m pretty prepared for any cereal emergency that may occur. This was, until the other night when I had no cereal. That’s right. How this happened, I don’t know. I checked the downstairs supply, and it was a sad, sad sight. The Reese’s Puffs bag had not been properly scrunched down into the box, leaving the helpless puffs exposed to the harsh air of the cabinet. There was also Berry Berry Kix, but I wasn’t that desperate. I suppose I could have picked the vile berry puffs out and eaten the Kix plain, but they would have been tainted.
I had to resort to a supply of cereal I never thought I would actually eat: souvenir cereal from Germany. I ate a bowl of Zauberfleks, the “Schoko” flavor. I thought I would have a lot of things to say about the wacky German packaging, but I got tired of looking everything up on Babelfish.
I could figure out that “Schoko” was chocolate, even though the site found no direct translation for it. The character on the box is crazy, it’s some marsupial thing. The peculiar thing about it is its tail, which seems to be sprouting flowers and Venus Fly Traps.
The cereal itself was mediocre, I certainly wouldn’t buy it again. You can see from the pictures that it looks like something even Malt-O-Meal would be ashamed to release.
I rather preferred the packaging of the “honey” flavor. It looks like they just stole some pictures from a sticker packet or a Sunday school felt board. The almost disturbingly generic design is somehow enjoyable. Babelfish also had trouble with whatever the bubble on the box cover says, something about “Cruselkarten Mouse”.
The cereal itself was, like the “Schoko” flavor, very blah. It tasted like the generic C-3POs, Mr. T sweetened corn puffs.
The cool thing about the Honey flavor was that it came with a postcard. Not one you had to cut off the box either, so that’s a plus. When you want to send a friend the message “Kölln: Best From Oats,” this postcard will do the trick.
So for your sake, and for the sake of our nation’s economy: when making important cereal purchasing decisions, always buy American.
Public Service Announcements (which, from here on in, will be referred to as PSAs) are, for the most part, always entertaining. PSAs from decades into the past are even more entertaining. Finally, PSAs from decades into the past dealing with “controversial” issues with dated information are the most entertaining of all.
Most people have seen “Reefer Madness,” the hilariously awful film warning the public of the dangers of marijuana. The script is terrible, the acting is terrible, and the research into what the drug actually does seems to have been made up on the spot. The drug’s effect on the people in Reefer Madness is comparable to some sort of speedball cocktail of methamphetamines, LSD, and Dexatrim.
The film editing is another wonderful aspect; people jump across the room in what could best be looked at as giving the viewer an idea of what it’s like to be hopped up on goofballs. Although it is more likely due to frames going missing and the budget was too low to re-shoot the scenes.
I don’t do drugs (marijuana seems too lowbrow and cocaine is too expensive,) but seeing this PSA didn’t really do much to reaffirm my decision to not do them. The film made doing “reefer” seem like an intense experience; some sort of Yellow Submarine / Grand Theft Auto amalgamation. Which begs the question, do PSAs actually work?
I’m not actually answering that question. It was just some drawn out, fairly irrelevant introduction which I will try to segue into the actual subject at hand.
Boys Beware is a PSA from the 1950’s. I don’t even know if that’s true, there’s no date on it. But it’s too old fashioned for the 60’s, and I don’t even know if they had TV in the 40’s. I’ll be damned if I’m going to look that up. It comes courtesy of the Inglewood Police Department and the Inglewood Unified School District. That, I did look up; Inglewood is in California.
It appears that Inglewood has been having some problems. With homosexuality. So much so that they created this PSA to warn the little Toms and Dicks (ha ha) of southern California of this epidemic. I don’t know where this PSA was shown; I guess in schools, but if it was on TV, I would have watched it.. Although it’s only ten minutes long, so it wouldn’t fill up a full thirty minute time slot, even if it did have commercials. And who would advertise during this? I guess they could just loop the PSA a few times, like they do with Ronco or Appliance Direct commercials.
It starts off with a narration by a police officer, who is on his way to a school to talk to some kids. On the way, he sees a group of teenage boys hitchhiking. He focuses on one boy in particular, Jimmy Barnes. Since Jimmy had been playing baseball all day, he didn’t feel like walking home. He “thumbs a ride” (detective lingo) home with “A Stranger.” They don’t actually give him a name.
After dropping Jimmy off, The Stranger tells him that he will see him soon, since The Stranger likes to drive by the park often. Gross. And the next day, there he is, waiting for Jimmy, to give him a ride home. On the way home, The Stranger buys Jimmy a Coke, and tells several “off color” jokes.
That weekend they go fishing, and The Stranger is given a name: Clint Howard. I mean “Ralph.”
They say that Ralph is sick, with a sickness that “isn’t visible like smallpox.” I guess that comment puts a slight dent in the modern relevancy of this film. You see, the sickness that Ralph has is that he has a mustache.
Oh wait, the narrator said “isn’t visible.” In that case, he is referring to Ralph being a homosexual. This announcement segues into the two of them going into what looks like a motel, although nothing is actually mentioned about it. However, in the next scene, it is revealed that Jimmy is now on probation and Ralph is in jail. At least now Ralph can get help for his sickness. 50’s help. So it’s safe to assume that Ralph got lots of shock therapy and the occasional lobotomy in order to help treat his infectious, invisible disease.
According to the detective, little Jimmy got off easy. No pun intended. Jimmy was lucky because not all homosexuals are passive, some resort to violence. We are then introduced to Mike, who is playing basketball with his friends in the park. Watching them from a nearby bench is a man dressed in a suit. If there is one common theme among homosexuals from the 50’s to the 00’s (is that what we’re calling this decade?) it is their keen fashion sense.
Oh wait; he’s wearing a bow tie. That should have tipped Mike off to the fact that treachery was afoot. Ignoring that telltale sign, Mike shoots some hoops with the stranger after his friends leave. One interesting thing is that the stranger kicks Mike’s ass at basketball. Mike is absolutely terrible; meanwhile the stranger is heating up. Wait, now he’s on fire.
Look at this kid shoot a basketball. Whether or not a stranger tried to seduce him, this kid was definitely predestined for limp wrested territory. Nice necklace.
Since their basketball game ran late, the stranger offered to give Mike a ride home. Mike accepts and is promptly murdered.
“He traded his life for a newspaper headline.” How poetic. And what a great transition into the next scene where we see two boys… folding newspapers. Brilliant!
Denny and Jerry are setting up newspapers for Jerry’s paper route, when two bicycles race by them. There were people on the bicycles though; the bikes didn’t actually race by the kids on their own. Right after the bikes, a car pulls up and the driver asks the boys if they could recognize the bikes if they saw them again. The driver tells Denny to get in, because the bikes were stolen.
Wait a minute! That guy is wearing a suit with a bow tie! But it’s a different car. So the homosexuals tend to follow the same uniform guidelines, but don’t have to drive in the same type of car. Although both cars did have fins. Hmmm…
Apparently, Jerry had been told many times that if a friend gets in a car, to write down the car’s license plate number. Seems like a good idea, although I prefer the method of saying the number repeatedly, then eventually feeling unsure as to whether or not the number I’m repeating is correct, getting frustrated, and giving up.
When Jerry delivers the paper to Denny’s house, he discusses the bicycle story with Denny’s hideous mother. She knows nothing of this story, but seems concerned when the topic of bow ties comes up. Jerry gives her the paper with the license number on it, in a sleazy attempt to cockblock Denny.
Policemen pull the car over, and the driver gets out and puts his hands on the hood. However, no one gets out of the passenger side. Which means Denny is either in a shallow grave with Mike, or wearing a loincloth and using a skimmer to remove leaves from the stranger’s pool.
Finally, we discuss one of the more exciting areas of everyday life: public restrooms. Bobby doesn’t want to take the long way home with his friends, so he leaves the group to take the shortcut under the pier. “Under the pier” sounds like it could be used as some sort of slang term for a gay person.
“Bobby is so dreamy, how come I never see him about town with any gal pals?”
“Oh, that’s because he’s, you know, under the pier.”
Anyway, when Bobby is about to go under the pier (wink) he notices a man following him, a man he had seen in the bathroom earlier. He then wimps out on taking the cool kid shortcut, and goes to meet up with his loser friends taking the long way home. The music that plays when the man is following him is great, it sounds like The Imperial March.
The detective concludes that you should beware of anyone that acts overly friendly, or tries to win your confidence too soon. This will result in filtering out a wide variety of groups including the homosexuals, door to door salesmen, Jehovah’s Witnesses, telemarketers, Girl Scouts, and other undesirables.
Now if you will excuse me, I need to stop by the dry cleaners to pick up my bow tie.
Before going on my recent Orlando trip, I debated whether or not I would document it. The decision to not write about it won out, on some sound reasoning. I’ve already done it three times, with varying degrees of lengthiness and entertaining…uh, ness. That was my official reasoning, although I never got around to releasing the formal statement regarding it. Secretly (well, not any more) I just didn’t want to carry my camera with me.
I do, however, feel the need to mention something I haven’t really seen discussed in depth, much to my surprise. This would be the unspecified changes to “it’s a small world.” When I was last at Disney World, the ride was closed. I wept in privacy. I recovered fairly quickly, since the ride’s closing had been announced long before the trip, and wasn’t a last minute closure.
The refurbishment period was a rather lengthy one, and I wasn’t sure what was happening with it. All I knew was that the characters and sets were getting some new coats of paint, and other similar tweaks.
So, when the time came to finally go on the ride, the anticipation had reached a boiling point. And I obviously wasn’t the only one who felt this way, since the sign read “20 Minute Wait.” HUH? Twenty Minutes? On a ride that I can’t remember seeing anything but a zero minute wait, this was quite a shock. And from what I have heard, this wasn’t even terribly long for Small World 2K5. When it reopened, the ride had lines reaching the sixty minute mark. And to that I say: it’s about damn time.
It’s been around since 1964. It has arguably the most memorable song of any ride, ever; even Disney World’s official site dares you to try to shake it out of your head. And finally, the most important trait for rides of a non-thrill variety: it has the greatest polarity of any attraction’s love / hate reaction from its riders.
Disney has quite a few attractions like this, where they are clearly classics and deserve their place in amusement park history, but in modern times, they seem somewhat out of place. The reactions to these types of attractions such as it’s a small world, Carousel of Progress, or Hall of Presidents tend to provoke reactions at each end of the spectrum of love it or hate it. I like all of these attractions, occasionally for some of the attractions’ good qualities, but mostly because their bad qualities are so ironically entertaining. Carousel of Progress’s antiquated animatronics and old sitcom dialogue are what makes it so amazing. The Hall of Presidents’ over the top dramatics and tongue out of cheek narrative is perversely interesting. And, of course, it’s a small world’s annoyingly catchy music, outdated everything, and mildly racist themes make it one of the true classic rides in any amusement park. It doesn’t have to change anything for you; it will remain as stupid and ignorant as ever, and you will still love it. Well, you may not love it, but you will still ride it.
During the wait in line (officially the first time I have ever said that in regard to this ride,) I noticed some of the additions to the ride. They added a big clock, where the face tilts left and right incessantly. The face of the clock is similar to the one on the outside of it’s a small world in Disneyland. I don’t know how often it does it, but the clock opened triumphantly, revealing the current time.
One ride change is that it now loads two boats, where it used to only load one at a time. However, that’s pretty uninteresting.
During the ride, there didn’t seem to be any character changes, but the repainting of the characters and re-lighting of the ride definitely looked better. The characters look much more colorful, and the new lighting makes the scenery look better and more dynamic, rather than the uniform, drab lighting that used to make up the ride. That is way more in depth than I ever planned on describing it’s a small world.
The repaint and lighting work seemed to be the only changes to the ride scenery, until I got to the part near the end, with the dead children. I’m not sure if this is actually supposed to be a room filled with dead children or their ghosts or whatever, but it definitely isn’t any one country. It might be supposed to represent a world where all races and sexes live together in peace and harmony. But, since that is a ridiculous concept, I’ll assume it’s the world of dead children.
In this room came the only other change that I noticed, but it was a big one. Gone was one of the most interesting characters on the ride, one of the only characters that I actually remembered out of the hundreds of children with identical faces of various shades. I am referring, of course, to the “Help” clown.
This was the clown that I discussed in the first Orlando article. There was this inexplicable clown sitting in a hot air balloon with a sad expression, holding a sign that simply said HELP. Now, it is gone. I do not know why. It is possible that I missed it, but I was keeping an eye out for it the entire time, and knew it was in the dead children part, but no luck. Bah.
Finally, they removed the pictures that were next to the ride’s exit. These pictures were terribly faded and looked quite dated, but that was part of the it’s a small world charm. Dated and faded. Now the ride is just dated, with bright colors.
Other than that, there seemed to be no significant changes to the ride. If any Disney World employees still read this site, feel free to IM / e-mail me to let me know other changes that were made. Although I wouldn’t recommend doing that, because I will probably bother you with lots of questions about stupid park minutia, so think carefully before contacting me.
The Longest Yard
a preview by robb.
This sure doesn’t look very good.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am not consciously striving to turn this site into some bastard spawn of bevnet.com. It should be understandable that when you spend most of your time sitting down and doing next to nothing, or even during the extremely rare times when you’re actually doing something productive (and by “you” I mean “me”) a beverage is never far from hand.
At the same time, jeez, I really need some new topics.
My latest discovery came as a result of a recent wild house party my friends and I are notorious for. And by wild, I mean we watch TV and play team Scattergories. Not that I’m knocking it; board games are bad ass, except when people roll the worst possible letters when it’s your turn to go.
We had gone to Waldbaum’s to get something to drink, but because of Passover and the craziness that goes along with it, the beer selection was sub par. And by sub par, I mean they didn’t have Tequiza.
Due to this (what I originally thought was an) unfortunate event, we left the store and went to the local beverage distributor. We would later realize that “distributor” is an industry term for “grossly overpriced.” They had what we were looking for, but we looked around for a bit. My goth friend Dersh had picked out a beer called Hobgoblin, because he is into spooky things and creatures of the night and all that. While that was going on, I had spotted a mildly dusty pack of Chili Beer hiding in the back of one of the refrigerators.
The strangest part about that was that the first few spots in the front of the cooler were empty, as if someone had recently purchased some Chili Beer. However, the pack I picked up was noticeably dusty (as was much of the selection, come to think of it,) which would indicate that there wasn’t much interest in this variety. The logical answer is that the employees just couldn’t be bothered to move the old selection forward, since the flavor was not popular. Although it seems that given the pricing and peculiar selection, logic was something you check at the door when shopping at this distributor.
Amy was still deciding which Starburst flavored drink she wanted, so Dersh and I examined the Chili Beer even further. The package was eye catching; it had the southwestern color motif, and abstract, square-ish shapes all over the packaging. Abstract art is big in the southwest, judging by the beer packaging and the old Phoenix Coyotes logo. And since I gave two examples, that means it’s true.
Stretching almost the entire handle area is the beer’s motto: “Lime is for Wimps.” Alright. I don’t really understand why they are so adamant about this; it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you would construct a manifesto around. Regardless, it was an issue that they felt strongly about, and weren’t afraid to make their opinion known.
Under their slogan was a picture of a crossed out lime, with NFL written inside it. We figured out that the N stood for “No” and the L stood for “Lime,” but we couldn’t quite understand what the F stood for. Oh well.
The beer looked like beer. Nothing special.
What was inside the beer is what made it interesting. Floating inside the bottle was a rather grotesque looking chili pepper. Although when you think of all the similarly shaped items that could be floating inside your drink, a chili pepper is definitely one of the best options.
That sealed the deal; we had to buy it. And by “we” I mean “Dersh.” I had troubles of my own; my six pack of Tequiza cost like $9.
The first thing that hits you about the chili beer (I’m no longer capitalizing the term) is the smell. Before you can get it to your lips to take a sip, a strong salsa aroma hits you. Smelling this, I discovered what I assumed was the inspiration behind chili beer. What goes together better than beer, tortilla chips and salsa, right? The beer already has yeast in it (I learned that at Beer School) so we can eliminate the chips, and just combine it with the salsa for the ultimate party drink.
Taking a sip, the thing that shocks you is that your initial reaction is: it’s actually pretty good. Then that reaction is immediately replaced by a combination of horror, confusion, and revulsion. The actual taste of the beer is very strong and fairly spicy. I can handle spicy food very well; I love it. The level of spice in the beer was just awkward; it was too strong to be a mild aftertaste, and not strong enough to be a decent novelty spicy beer.
And, last but not least, is the absolute worst part of drinking it: the chili pepper. Every sip you take, the chili lunges at your lips, sending shivers down your spine every time it touches you. You could have your eyes focused on the chili, bracing for impact; but it would do no good. It will still creep you out. It feels like reenacting an urban legend or some similar Snopes-debunked story where there is a human finger packaged in a bottle, and it is poking you in the mouth with every sip you take. Horrifying.
I was ready to stop drinking it about three sips in, but I decided to finish it for God knows why. After this, I realized that Tequiza is actually really gross and I have no idea why I thought I liked it.
Some things, people take much more personally than they have any need or right to. This irrational behavior is often more prevalent in males than females, although I’m basically making that up and it’s very possible that it isn’t true.
This happens in all aspects of society; be it a favorite sports team, restaurant, shoe… whatever. There will always be one idiot defending something to the death, despite the fact that it doesn’t affect their lives in any way.
I can’t lie; I am that way with certain things. I have a few favorite sports teams, but if you don’t like them, or even make fun of them, I won’t particularly care. With music, I’m basically the same way. You can dislike or make fun of almost anything I listen to, but there are a few certain bands or artists that if you make fun of, I will stab you with a pen.
Today’s subject doesn’t fit this mold exactly, but is something I hold very dear to me, like an old stuffed animal or a clump of a friend’s skin. It has been a very important part of my life for a long time now. I am, of course, referring to Pepsi One.
Having a favorite soda is one thing, but taking a soda and its changes personally is stupid, right? Wrong, dickhead. This isn’t in the same classification as regular or diet Pepsis or Cokes or Rites or RCs or whatever. Pepsi One is special.
Pepsi One belongs essentially to me, and I give permission for certain appreciative parties, such as Adam and my brother, to drink it. Other than that, no. Leave it alone. You don’t appreciate it; you are the reason Waldbaum’s barely stocks it, because it isn’t properly loved.
Given my long standing love affair with Pepsi One, you can understand my shock when I opened a magazine last month, and discovered their new ad campaign. The ad was almost entirely white. White? Pepsi One is silver; that isn’t open to debate. It’s the Coors Light of soda, except for the fact that it isn’t completely disgusting. So judging by the ad, I figured the new can would be white, which would just be awkward.
Also, the biggest change was in the soda’s recipe itself. It would no longer be sweetened with aspartame; it now had Splenda as the sweetener. Uh oh. I actually like Splenda, and products with it, but I feared for the recipe change. Would it be good, or disastrous? I didn’t see how it could be much better, so I assumed that the only thing that could happen would be for the taste to go downhill.
I then began seeing ads for the new release everywhere. Bus stops, more magazines, TV, web ads… everywhere. It made me sad. It’s like if one of your favorite bands signs with a major label, and suddenly everyone likes them and they’re being played in TGI Friday’s.
And the worst part about this was that I couldn’t even find the new Pepsi One. I had nothing to do one night (surprising, I know) so I went around town looking for it. No luck. I had heard from people online that they had bought it in surrounding states, even the city, but no luck on the Island.
I tried looking online, but the Pepsi One site was useless. Useless and annoying. I went to the site, and it was taking a while to load, so I tabbed over to another window I was using. The Pepsi One site loaded, and started making loud bleeping noises accompanied by music. I had my volume really loud because I was watching an episode of Beavis and Butthead, and the file’s volume was set really low. Needless to say, the site’s noises scared the crap at out me. Then the site’s lack of useful content angered me. There was trouble in paradise brewing between Pepsi One and myself.
Tonight, I was finally able to try the new product, since my brother brought a bottle home from the supermarket. The bottle part made me somewhat unhappy, since the canned version of One is way better; the bottled version is too foamy, especially the 20 oz. version. I immediately opened the soda, poured a glass, and waited for the head to die down. Or does head only apply to beer? In either case, I waited for the foam to die down, and drank it.
And didn’t taste anything. Hm.
This was strange, I drank the whole cup, even had my brother try it, and nothing. No taste. On the second cup, I began to taste something, but was still confused as to why there was so little taste. After the third cup, it was fine; I could taste it. And what I tasted wasn’t a good sign. It’s still good, but the original recipe is MUCH better. The black tastes like the diet version of silver.
This means I will have to embark on the inevitable quest to stock up on as much of the original silver version that I can. I’m hoping that the canned version of black is better, but I don’t know.
I still give Pepsi One credit; it is the caffeine dark horse of colas. It has more caffeine than any Coke, Pepsi, or diet version thereof. At 55 mg a can, it is no joke. And now with its thug bottle design, it will be more likely to be taken seriously. I can’t give the new recipe a thumbs down or up, more like a sideways thumb.
Oh well.
I, like most people, love bad movies. Love them. Actually, I guess I can’t say that “most people” like them, as I recently witnessed first hand. A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I held our annual Bad Movie Night (annual meaning that we did it once, and decided to do it again.)
We had a few movies lined up, but the piece of resistance was a movie I had been looking forward to seeing since about 1994. Growing up reading Wizard, a magazine about comics (my current life isn’t much better,) I was well informed about a movie that was in production. When it was finally finished, the public was shocked to discover that the movie was not going to be released. This was due to the fact that the movie had a smaller budget than the average infomercial.
This may sound somewhat surprising, since comic movies have been largely successful in recent years. The 90’s were a completely different story when it came to comic book related movies… at least as far as I remember. Successful movies like The Crow were the exception to the rule. Instead, we got movies like Captain America. All that needs to be said about this movie was that the ears on his mask were rubber, and that they took the evil Nazi villain Red Skull and made him Italian.
On our Bad Movie Night, we have survived some true atrocities: Gigli, Glitter, You Got Served, and Speedway Junky. We thought we could handle bad movies. However nothing, I repeat nothing, could have prepared us for the Fantastic Four. This movie goes down in Bad Movie Night history as the first movie that was ever turned off midway through. It was that bad.
I must state in my defense that the turning off of the movie wasn’t my idea at all. The majority of the people I was with seemed to miss the boat on why the night was called Bad Movie Night. However, I was outnumbered in the vote, and it wasn’t even my TV, so I had to concede defeat.
I refused to let that be the end of that. I was going to watch the rest. Since we hadn’t paid much attention to the beginning, I started it over. And, having watched it in its entirety, I can say this with confidence:
This movie is terrible.
I debated whether or not I should do a review of this, for a couple of reasons. First, I just gave an incredibly accurate one sentence review. Second, I tend to blather on endlessly when reviewing a movie, boring both myself and the reader. So I decided that when reviewing this movie, I would try to be much more concise than usual. Although that never really seems to work out, so we’ll see what happens.
It starts off with a less than promising introduction and credits, somewhere between the level of PBS cartoon and high school film class project.
We begin in what appears to be a college classroom, filled with students in their mid thirties. Or maybe they just look that way. We learn the main character, Reed Richards, is a nerd, his friend Ben is an oaf, and his lab partner Victor is an overacting nutcase. Although I don’t want to classify Victor as overacting, because then that word might get overused when I apply it to nearly every single character in the movie.
Much of the beginning of the movie is made up of the professor talking about some star event, called Colossus, and Reed and Victor arguing over something that involves phrases like “calculations,” “velocity vectors,” and “quadrant.”
We then meet out other soon to be main characters, Susan and Johnny Storm. Despite the fact that Susan Storm appears to be about eleven years old, and Reed appears to be almost forty, they eventually get married in the movie.
That night, during Colossus, whatever that actually is, Reed and Victor are furiously typing away on their lab computers, in front of a very scientific looking device. Despite the fact that the device starts shooting out lightning and exploding, neither of them stop typing. Reed keeps yelling for Victor to leave, while Victor attempts to become the movie’s tragic hero by repeatedly shouting, “I WILL NOT FAIL!”
But he does. The experiment blows up, he is electrocuted in a manner usually reserved for Wile E. Coyote, where it goes body / skeleton / body / skeleton, and he dies. Reed cries.
Don’t worry, he’s not actually dead. Some European guy steals his body and “saves him before it is too late.” Whatever that means.
It is now ten years later, which you can tell because Reed looks exactly the same, except now has baby powder rubbed into the hair next to his ears. Apparently Reed finally finished the experiment he was working on (ten years later? some genius…) so he convinces his friend Ben Grimm (the dumb guy from the opening scene) to be his pilot to outer space.
I never actually caught what the experiment was actually about, but now they’re flying into space, so I assume it has to do with that.
Then, one of the best scenes in motion picture history happens. Ben and Reed go to the house where little Susan and Johnny live. Ben asks their mom, “Hi Mrs. Storm, can Johnny and Susan go to outer space with us?” in a voice that I would never have expected from a man of his dimensions, while he and Mrs. Storm share 7th Heaven expressions while laughing like utter buffoons. Even Reed is uncomfortable by their level of Americana, judging by his expression.
We then learn that Johnny has grown up into a cackling twit, and Susan has grown into an attractive thirty year old. Somehow, she managed to age about twenty years in the ten years that has passed, but I assume that is just to catch up with Reed’s appearance, which hasn’t changed a bit in the last decade.
Their mom tells Reed, “Don’t let anything happen to my babies.” Well, maybe if you don’t want anything to happen to your babies, you shouldn’t let them go on an experimental rocket ship ride into space. But that’s just me. She then exclaims, “Look at you, the Fantastic Four!” Remember? That’s the name of the movie! Oh, it’s all falling into place perfectly.
In the next two scenes, two new characters are introduced. The first is a brief scene that introduces Dr. Doom, which is Victor in a suit of armor and a green cloak. I assume they’re going to turn that into a dramatic scene later in the movie, but I didn’t feel like having to dance around that fact.
The other character introduced is The Jeweler, a rodent looking man who crawls through tunnels stealing jewels. Yup, this is the level of villainy that the Fantastic Four face. Since they obviously didn’t have the budget for Galactus, once Dr. Doom is used, the caliber of evil drops off rather sharply.
I actually thought the Jeweler was a different Fantastic Four villain, The Moleman, who is another villain who runs around underground. Fantastic.
I’m probably going to do that a lot, ending paragraphs with just that word. It serves two purposes: adding a proper amount of sarcasm, and keeping the movie theme going. Which is, as you probably already guessed, “Fantastic”.
Next, comes a scene that is impossible to not laugh at, but after laughing, it is impossible to ignore the fact that you are going directly to hell for laughing. Ben is walking upstairs, and manages to lay a full on hip check into a blind woman, who drops a statue she made, smashing it into pieces. He then picks her up over his head while apologizing, then they share a look straight from the covers of Genovese romantic novels. Well, I guess they don’t share a look, but you get the point.
Reed then starts talking about scientific stuff, while whining about Victor’s death, and explaining why they’re using a diamond the size of a human head to power the experiment. Meanwhile, the Jeweler watches the blind woman sculpting a bust, which is presumably of Ben, since she felt up his face. After this, he goes and steals the giant diamond, and replaces it with a replica. Dr. Doom is watching all of this for some reason, and is incredibly pleased.
The next day, the four launch into space, discover the diamond is fake, and freak out. Bright lights flash, and they all make pained faces while Gregorian chant music plays.
Somehow, they have landed on Earth (what the hell?) through what I guess were escape pods, although it just showed the ship exploding, with nothing coming out. Reed discovers that something is amiss when the ship has exploded, yet all of them are unharmed. Johnny sneezes and lights a bush on fire, Susan starts speaking while invisible, then fades in with some of the best blue screen effects I have ever seen. It looks like the set from Teletubbies.
This is the start of the amazing special effects budget kicking in. Reed stretches to catch a falling Susan, while his outstretching arm looks like one of those boxing glove on a stick things that would shoot out and hit people.
We also now see that Dr. Doom lives in a giant castle, and has people working for him. How this came about, I have no idea. Also, the Jeweler kidnaps the blind woman.
The army finally locates the four, and comes to rescue them. We then learn that, shockingly, Ben Grimm has transformed into Ron Perlman. His voice has changed completely, which seemed stupid at first, but I guess it sort of makes sense. Maybe his vocal chords and such turned to stone as well. The greatest part about him turning into the Thing is that every time he talks, it looks exactly like the Ninja Turtles in the first movie crossed with Terrence and Philip.
The four are then interviewed by this creepy looking doctor. You can tell he’s a doctor because he’s wearing one of those things on his head. This scene is the birth of the Human Torch’s incredibly stupid tagline, “Flame on.” It turns out that it makes sense that the doctor was so creepy, since he is working for Dr. Doom.
I must admit, for how bad everything in this movie looks, Doom’s costume is quite good. The one awkward thing is that his mouth parts don’t move, but I don’t know why they would. In the comic, the mouth moved once in a while, to convey some sort of emotion (98% of the time being anger,) but that was always one of those “suspensions of belief” things, like when Spider Man would squint.
The group dresses up like a pack of condoms and escapes from the hospital room (oh yeah, they weren’t allowed to leave the hospital,) and finally meet up with Dr. Doom. Nothing interesting happens, except another catchphrase is introduced, the Thing’s “It’s clobbering time.” There is a big fight scene, but like I said, nothing interesting happens. With the Human Torch’s power, it seems they have moved from using terrible CG to outright cartoon animation.
Next, we learn why each member got their specific powers, when the Invisible Woman makes an off the cuff remark about her always being shy. Reed then jumps into monologue mode, saying that she turns invisible because she is shy, the Human Torch is a hot head, Reed stretches himself too thin, and that Ben is the Thing because he has always had a habit of being ugly.
Susan designs costumes for the group, and I don’t know if they look so terrible because they are home made, or because the costume budget was so small. She claims Johnny’s suit is flame retardant, although flame retardant and flame proof are two very different things. She also doesn’t explain how Reed’s costume is able to stretch along with him. Also, I have been calling him Reed instead of Mr. Fantastic, because Reed has a lot less letters.
Ben runs away, hangs out with the Jeweler, and Reed realizes that Victor is alive. Meanwhile, Dr. Doom breaks into the Jeweler’s place to steal the diamond. During this scene, a genuinely funny dialogue takes place:
Jeweler (gesturing with gun to the blind woman): “Touch me and she dies.”
Dr. Doom: “So?”
The Thing tries to save the blind woman, who tells him that she loves him, despite the fact that besides that time when they met, they have never spoken. Hearing this, the Thing reverts into plain old Ben Grimm, so he has to run away, but then turns right back into the Thing. Although later in the movie, when he and the blind woman are together again, this never happens again. So I don’t know what Ben’s reverting to human form was supposed to show.
Dr. Doom tells the group that he has built the laser from the Death Star, although not in so many words. On the topic of Doom, he has this really annoying habit of talking with his hands; every single sentence involves dramatic gesture after gesture.
The group then gets into their flying car (huh?) and goes to Doom’s castle. He captures them, then attempts to steal their powers. Reed uses his magic foot stretching to kick Doom’s laser away and escape, and another fight scene begins. This time, both the Human Torch and the Thing use their catch phrases, so it is doubly annoying.
Reed fights Doom, punches him repeatedly, which hurts Doom, despite the fact that Reed is punching a suit of armor. Reed also does that stupid movie hero thing where he is punching someone and saying, “This is for (insert person’s name here), this is for (insert other name), and this is for (etc.)” Like Sgt. Slaughter in the GI Joe Movie.
Reed then punches Doom over the side of his castle, Doom clings to a brick, makes fun of Reed, and then jumps to his death. Johnny, who somehow has learned to fly, defeats Doom’s Death Star laser (this scene includes some amazing special effects, as you can see from the screen cap, which surprisingly wasn’t taken from a “Super Friends” episode.) So everything is good, it seems. Then Reed and Susan get married. In their Fantastic Four costumes.
And that’s it.
Fantastic!
Diet Coke-Babies 