Review Spew

Evil Dead the Musical review

2013-04-18T07:00:00.000-06:00

There are a few things that should never mix - Peanut butter and mayonnaise, eggs and ketchup, & conversations and public restrooms, to name a few. Well, back in 2003, a Canadian theatre company had the guts to mix what should never be...horror and showtunes.

I have a long history with the Evil Dead series. When I was 11, my brother rented Evil Dead 2 and left it in the VCR one day. So one lazy Saturday I watched it in its entirety. I think I even watched it twice. I have my brother to blame for my love of all things horror. I love the entire series, even the first one, which was designed to be a straight-up scary movie, even though it's low budget and buckets of blood make it unintentionally hilarious. So you can imagine my happiness when I found out there was an entire musical production based on the first movie.

I don't have too much experience with musicals. (i.e. I avoid them) The only musicals, other than terrible grade-school plays, I have seen live are Wicked and Hairspray. Does that mean I have to turn in my Man Card? Or does it mean I get to keep it?

Since becoming a semi-popular off-Broadway musical in 2006, this Evil Dead production has gone on the road to perform for its handful of fans nationwide. More recently they've traveled to Salt Lake City, which is where I got the chance to see it.

You should know what you're getting into when the price of the tickets is broken down into two distinct categories - General Admission and Splatter Section. Yes, this musical has a splatter section! It's like Sea World's splash zone, but with blood. Being true fans, my friend and I paid ten bucks extra to sit in the splatter section.

The theater was the size of a modest high school amphitheater, and every inch of the first 10 rows was covered with thick saran wrap. The opening number was actually pulled from Rocky Horror Picture Show. An obese version of Dr. Frank-N-Furter came out and sang "Sweet Transvestite." This was essentially passing the torch of the cult status of Rocky Horror to the Evil Dead musical. Before Frank-N-Furter finished his/her song, Ash came out and shot him with a shotgun and he exploded a small balloon with dark kool-aid. It was time for the show to begin.

The cast performed their first song in a prop plywood car about how excited they were to have fun in a cabin in the woods. Early on, you could hear issues with the PA system. For each musical number the background music was incredibly loud and their mics were turned down low. I thought it would be a problem they'd fix after the first song, but apparently it wasn't an issue for them because it wasn't fixed. The problem with that is that much of the randomness and humor comes with the song lyrics. But because we couldn't hear them, everyone just had to politely chuckle every time it sounded like there was a funny line.

The songs are very hit and miss. There are a few highlights such as "What the F$%# was that?!", "Join Us" and "Housewares Employee." Most of the songs needed some help (or a melody) like "Look Who's Evil Now", "Bit Part Demon" and "Do the Necronomicon." You can tell from the song titles, that this musical isn't meant to be taken seriously. And I'd be fine with how over the top the songs get, if they were only better quality, even hum-worthy.

The second problem with the show comes down to the blood splattering. The movies spoiled us by shooting fire hoses full of blood at Ash. In the musical, there is a lot of carnage, but it essentially comes down to someone getting shot and the victim breaking small blood balloons into the audience.

I loved the clever nods to the movie series' inconsistencies. The first half of the musical directly followed the plot of the first Evil Dead. When the stage went dark, Ash was surrounded by bodies and was holding a shotgun. After the intermission, the stage lit up and the bodies were gone and Ash had his trusty chainsaw and shotgun. This is a wink to fans who've always wondered about the remake/sequel aspect of Evil Dead 2.

The best part of the musical was, I hate to regret this, the trees. If you're familiar with Evil Dead, you know what the trees do. Without saying too much, there is a dance number that ends with an Eiffel Tower. (I'm hoping Just Jim is the only one who knows about that act.) Oh, and the splatter section is rewarded with silly string. Let your imagination do the work.

As the musical was about to end, I was very disappointed that no "splatter" had reached our seats. Not to worry, during the final musical number, the cast put on blood backpacks connected to super-soakers. One of them walked down my row and sprayed everyone's laps with a steady blood stream. So, I walked out of Evil Dead the Musical hoping to be covered in fake blood, instead it looked like I just had my period.

I was glad that I saw this musical because I have been a fan of the series for most of my life. But will I every see it again? No, probably not. It was fun seeing it with a crowd of true fans. They cheered loudly every time Ash said one of his classic one-liners. Many people will say I'm missing the point, that an Evil Dead is supposed to be low-budget to mirror the movies. But it missed the whole fun aspect the movies deliver. 3 things could have improved this musical - more blood, catchy songs and a better sound system.

This would get 3 stars, but I have to knock it down to 2 because I walked away disappointed and had a red crotch...

Skylanders Giants Review

2013-04-15T05:00:00.000-06:00

Confession time. I'm 37 years old and I love toys. Now when I say I love toys you may be thinking that as I grew, my toys grew. Maybe I'm into motor bikes, boats, or ATV's, you know, big boy toys. Nope, I like action figures and little plastic swords. I like pretend monsters and muscle bound heroes personified in molded plastic that I can play with in the bath tub. Since my introduction to what my brothers affectionately called "dollies" in 1982, I've been hooked.

Strictly speaking, I'm a MOTU guy, through and through. That's Masters of the Universe to those of you that have actually seen a naked woman in person. That's He-Man to those of you that have seen a naked woman other than your mother. Back in the eighties, 7 year olds ran in clusters, and those groups were defined by your toy of choice...which also was often an indicator of your social class. Let me explain. There were the GI Joe guys who continually bragged about their "9 points of articulation". Give me a break. Your two inch Destro is less than impressive even if you can create a convincing "Reverse Cowboy" with him and Snake Eyes. Then there were the Transformer guys. Richie Rich as liked to call them. $20+ dollars for a toy in the early eighties was unheard of in my white trash neighborhood. You may see a Go-Bot or two on my street, but never a full-on Optimus Prime. Finally there were the typical mullet-clad, ninja/medieval/monster lovers like myself whose inevitable choice was He-Man. OK, to be honest, even the $7 He-Man figures were a little above my pay grade so indeed I supplemented with the less well known "Blackstar" figures that ran in the $3 range. My friends would come over and see these straight arm, plastic, knock-offs and I would try to bluff them that they were part of the new series of He-Man that they just haven't seen yet, but they never believed me. Galoob must have had an eighth grade relative sculpting their figures because they were embarrassing even for the early eighties, even to a 7 year old. A 2nd Mattel they were not, but I digress.

The point was, I would pretend to have fantastic battles with these monsters and heroes. I would cut up and decorate cardboard boxes to mimic the costly castles to invent a world for these toys to exist. How great would it have been to have Beast Man fight Fisto in a battle royale and actually watch it if not control the fight. Imagine my delight to see Clawful take on Stratos on the very drawbridge of Greyskull. Imagine controlling He-Man in battle as he faced the horrific Crimson Scourge. It didn't happen for me, but the kids today have exactly that.

Skylanders removed a little articulation from the plastic and replaced it with a live arena for your figures to exist, the video game. For those that don't know, Skylanders is a video game that works on all major platforms. What makes it unique is the fact that it has a portal or round platform where you place your action figures. When the figure is on the portal, the animated version of your toy shows up in the game and you play levels, battle other figures, or complete puzzles with your action figure. It is genius on several levels. First, you still have the collecting aspect where you are always looking for another figure. When I say looking, trust me, I have looked all over town for some of these things. Next, you have the live interaction of the characters with sounds, movement, and a graphical world. Unlike sex with my wife, it doesn't just have to happen in my head anymore. Finally, you have the long term ability to upgrade your strength and weapons and watch your characters grow. In 1983, other than swapping arms, clothes, and armor with the other figures to make a super He-claw-fist-neck-ator, you were pretty limited on upgrades.

As for marketing, these guys are also geniuses. First you drop $60 for the video game and then you spend $10 - $15 per character just to access portions of the video game you already purchased. Skylanders Giants has 48 figures. You do the math. Somebody is getting paid off of this bad boy. My son is a collector at heart like I am, and I still enjoy the hunt for the rare action figures....which may technically mean I'm gay. I'm considering counseling to discuss that, but in the short term, I'll sleep better at night by chocking it up to trying to be a good dad. Every member of our family plays the game and is actively trying to upgrade our individual characters, so at least we are doing something as a family. The game is pretty entertaining for all ages, so although with the 35 or so figures we are invested in this franchise, we are still getting our money's worth. Wow, 35 figures, that is a lot of cash. Yup, I'm out of control, so I guess they did their job. I give Skylanders Giants 5 stars for everything but cost. I have to remove one star due to the 2nd mortgage that is at least partially their fault. That being said, if they could make a He-Man version that works with my vintage figures, I would pay twice as much. I might even take a couple out of their mint packages for that.

Cholula Hot Sauce Review

2013-03-28T05:00:00.000-06:00

I’ve experienced an interesting evolution when it comes to hot sauces (spicy food, salsas, etc.). Up until 8 years ago I wouldn't touch the stuff. I absolutely hated it. Mostly I think that was because I had acid reflux so bad that it just meant days of added misery if I tried it. Now thanks to Nexium I don’t have that problem anymore. I instantly jumped into eating salsa by the gallons, adding Jalapenos to everything, and exploring the delights of various hot sauces. Having said that I was never so damn dumb as to try something called Mad Dog 357 Silver Hot Sauces as one of my colleagues here recently did but I was definitely stepping outside of my comfort zone.

I finally settled on good old fashion Tabasco sauce with the occasional variant of Tabasco Jalapeno Green

Sauce. I had decided that this was the cat’s meow; the be-all and end-all of hot sauces and proceeded to liberally douse everything I consumed in it. There was one problem though. Consuming Tabasco sauce is like being on a boat with Pamela Anderson. Oh it’s spicy and it’s good, I dare say down-right delicious, but your left thinking the whole time (in the back of your head) that this is probably doing some long-term damage to my body.

With this in mind, I was on the market to try different hot sauces. The opportunity came one day at Denny’s when I asked for Tabasco and they informed me they were all out. They gave me Cholula Hot Sauce instead. I was skeptical but I tried some anyway. Honestly I thought it was going to be hotter and way too unpleasant for my liking but I was amazed and pleasantly surprised by it. It was definitely not as spicy as Tabasco (in fact most hot sauce fans might say it’s a woman’s hot sauce or a girly-man hot sauce). But I like it. Nay, I love it.

Cholula Hot Sauce is more like sitting in the back seat of your dad’s ’78 Ford LTD with your high school sweetheart Levi-loving. It’s all good and if you make sure you do your own laundry that weekend (instead of your mom) there are no negative long-term consequences. Cholula is just good old fashion deliciousness.

There are four varieties and I have tried them all. The Original is perfect on any breakfast item. It’s good on about anything but breakfast is where it really shines. Chipotle flavor is the perfect compliment to anything with beef in it. I have a favorite steak and potato burrito from a local place that I can’t get enough of, but I don’t care for the salsa’s they serve at this place. I was about to stop eating there until I tried Chipotle Cholula sauce on it. Absolute bliss. I’ve tried it since on steaks, hamburgers and a variety of beef-based casseroles and it’s fandamntastic!

The other two varieties are Chili Lime and Chili Garlic. Chili Lime is suppose to go well with Mexican food and I’ve tried it several times and just can’t stand it. It’s gross. Chili Garlic is suppose to be good on Italian type foods, pastas and such, and although I’m a huge garlic fan, this stuff is bad. The smell alone is stomach turning. I’m not sure what happened with these two varieties. Perhaps they got greedy and over-reached. Perhaps it’s just me, I don’t know.

I was also pleasantly please to discover that Cholula has joined forces with Jack Link’s Beef Jerky. This stuff is fantastic (and a perfect high protein snack for us diabetics). Only problem with these is I’m yet to get home from the store with any left.

So with the exception of the Garlic and Lime I fully endorse the Cholula brand. They make a quality product that I enjoy immensely. Each bottle comes with a wood, screw-top cap (a different color for each flavor) which in my mind gives it some old-world class, and the 4 bottles lined up on my book shelf looks pretty nice. (I’ve gone through 3 of the Original, on my 2nd Chipotle and will never get finished with the first bottles of the Lime and Garlic varieties). All and all I give them 4 stars. Sorry Pam, I mean Tobasco, you were a nice fantasy, but I can’t risk stuff falling off, I’m going with the Cholula chick from now on!

Comedy Central Roast Review

2013-03-25T05:00:00.000-06:00

Lest you start to read this and immediately jump to the false conclusion that I am writing this from the unqualified perspective of a prudish religious zealot, let me set the stage. In high school my favorite non-rock band was 2 Live Crew. My favorite radio show was Howard Stern, my favorite comedy albums were Dice Rules and Delirious, and let's just say that my favorite actress worked under a pseudonym comprised of her pet's first name and the street upon which she grew up. So yes, I've heard some things..and yes, I've seen some things.

Now, let me speak to the peculiarly popular Comedy Central Roasts. I'm not even going to review a specific one, because if you have seen one, you have seen them all. Let me explain the premise for those of you who haven't seen this. You take a wildly successful multimillionaire, often an actor, and then bring in a group of less successful supporting celebrities or actors to make fun of them. This is supposedly a defining moment in their career. Once you have been roasted, you have truly made it. Sounds promising but this is where the challenge comes in. These roasters are limited to 9th grade locker room humor and the grown-up equivalent of gross out jokes. You remember dirty gross-out jokes from school:

"What's grosser than gross?"
"Two vampires fighting over a bloody tampon."
"What's grosser than that?"
"One of them wins."

Now to make this modern and more edgy, replace vampire with William Shatner, and tampon with anal sex, and you have some A+ quality Comedy Central material for the roast. What? Still not sold? Enter Lisa Lampanelli to drop the "C" word 6 times in a 2 min. segment and Gilbert Gottfied to find 200 ways to say your junk is stank and you are so old that you took Irene Ryan's virginity....which was when she was 13 because Granny was a whore too. Double burn, hilarious.

Since we were on the subject of William Shatner, I must say that listening to George Takei explain how good ol' Billy Shatner is so inconsiderate that he doesn't even Blank his Blank before he Blanks you in the Blank had me rolling on the floor. Oh My! Well said good sir! You are truly a master of your craft. But the fun doesn't stop there, maybe you will have a surprise visit from Bob Sagat. His jokes will definitely include Blanking....and most likely in the Blank. I'm in stitches over here. All joking aside, this guy is a fantastic actor. He masked the foul beast that he really is for many years as America's favorite dad.

To be completely fair, there are some talented comedians as roasters that will have some funny segments, but the majority of the time, it is just too much. More often than not, family members and even older kids of the roastie are present and it is more than uncomfortable. I guess that is their goal. Must be a progressive thing. Getting to the 5% funny part is not worth the bleeding ears for the other 95% of the time...and I sat through 7 seasons of The Sopranos. These Roasts are generally unfunny, unoriginal, and truly filth for the sake of filth, cleverness checked at the door. Having a room full of supposedly intelligent, successful people sit in a room and fake laugh at smelly beaver jokes just isn't my cup of tea and I'm afraid wouldn't have been even to my 16 year old morally-depraved self. I still can't figure out how these roasts are so popular, but somebody is making some money. I think some small tweaks to the format could make these a huge hit though. Comedy Central, try moving a little bit further away from the Blank and a little closer to the big fat Blank and you will have a recipe for success. I rate Comedy Central Roasts 1 Blanking star.

Aside: The one star technically goes to Anthony Jeselnik for this quote during the Roseanne Barr Roast "You had gastric bypass surgery in 1998, and then you beat it." See, I give props where props are due.

Mad Dog 357 Silver hot sauce review

2013-03-21T06:30:00.000-06:00

Before explaining the pain that is the ghost chili pepper, let me tell you about Scoville heat units. It is the scale at which heat is measured. It's based on Capsaicin, which is a chemical compound that stimulates nerve endings and mucous membranes. Essentially, it is a chemical that will make you leak from every pore.

As additional back story, I do a radio segment for movie reviews and was roped into trying 7 of the world's hottest sauces on air. These ranged anywhere from 30,000 to 1 million Scoville units. To give a frame of reference about Scoville units; Tabasco sauce is around 4,000 units. We started small with a sauce called "Pure Death." Yes, that was the most mild of the bowel-melting selection. We dabbed small amounts of death onto some tortilla chips and let the tears and snot flow.

My mouth was numb by sauce #6. I could no longer taste the heat. Then we moved onto Mad Dog 357 Silver Collector's Edition. This sauce even comes with it's own collectors' bullet. When you unscrew the bullet you see a spoon the size of the head of a pin. Apparently, that tiny amount is supposed to be enough to make a 5 gallon vat of chili burning hot. I put a sizable amount onto my chip and was ready to get it over with.

I put the chip in my mouth and couldn't open my eyes. My ears felt like they were leaking. I swear I heard the sound of screaming nails on a chalkboard. I ran to drink some milk and while it was in my mouth, I felt instant relief. But as soon as I swallowed, the pain came back 3 times worse. I've never had asthma, but I experienced it temporarily because I couldn't breathe. I had to drink more milk and kept it in my mouth, refusing to swallow and bring the searing pain back. I was a little delusional, but I was told that I drank half the gallon.

This hot sauce goes anywhere from 750,000 to 1.2 million Scoville heat units. Pepper spray is 2 million. I cannot over exaggerate the heat that a tiny dab of this sauce is able to conjure up. One tiny spot on your tongue and it takes over your entire mouth and throat. Let's just say I was crying profusely from my eyes and nose, like I just found out the truth about my parents taking my dog to a ranch to live.

Ghost Chilis get their name because of how they come back to haunt you afterwards. You can all imagine where I'm going with this.

Two hours after eating the sauces I was feeling good. My endorphins were still high and I felt that I conquered the sauces. Then my company decided to provide a pizza party for everyone. There were 200 people all standing around snacking on cheap pizza. I ate 2 slices myself and told a few people about how awesome I was because of my victory over the sauce. Then it hit me. The slices of pizza hit a point in my stomach and it felt like someone stabbed me in the gut with a samurai sword. I instantly started sweating profusely and was beet red. I knew that if I didn't run away from everyone at that second, I would vomit in front of my entire company. I ran downstairs into a bathroom and locked the door.

I didn't even make it to the toilet. I barfed right in the sink at least 3 times. Everything came up. A donut, 2 slices of pizza and 7 of the world's hottest sauces. The pain was unbearable. It didn't help that the sink clogged and there was quick thinking on my part with a toilet plunger, but that's a story for another day. (Maybe I'll review the plunger).

All in all, the sauce beat me. The instant heat takes hold and does not let go. For sado-masochists, this is a great feat of strength that you can try to beat. For the regular people, stay far away from this sauce. I have to give it a high rating because it did its job. I still get the sweats even thinking about the effect it had on my body. The Mad Dog 357 Silver Collector's Edition hot sauce gets 5 stars for its painful truth in advertising.

Arby's Turkey & Corned Beef Double-Stacked Reuben Review Spew Confessions

2013-03-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Arby's corned beef Reuben and I have had a long lasting relationship. I've long been a fan of the corned beef, sauerkraut, and dressing on rye bread. I always know what I'm getting, and have become very comfortable with the Reuben. This all changed when corned beef suggested bringing in a 3rd party to our relationship. At first, I was taken aback. I mean...I'm a dude so it's not like I had never thought about it, but still...

Corned beef said that we should let turkey join in on our lunch-time trysts. Turkey? Really? Don't get me wrong, I like turkey a lot. In fact, I used to hook up with turkey at lunch in the past. I should have guessed it would be turkey. I've seen turkey with bacon, avocado, and even with ham and roast beef at the same time. Filthy! And what was corned beef thinking? Would corned beef even need me anymore after bringing turkey into the relationship?

Things got a little messy

I agreed to the meetup, and met at our regular nooner spot. At first, it was awkward. I mean it's really intimidating to see corned beef and turkey just sitting there together waiting for you. I first just wanted to watch, but it started getting creepy, and it felt like there were people watching me, so I joined in.

I thought I would be overwhelmed with this much sandwich, but I handled myself pretty well for a 1st-timer. At first I enjoyed both turkey and corned beef together, but then things started going wrong. Turkey just started dominating the sandwich. It was like turkey wanted to be the star of the show, and it was all I could focus on. Corned beef just got lost in the shuffle, and near the end of the sandwich, I didn't even notice the corned beef.

I shamefully crinkled up the sandwich paper and refilled my diet Dr Pepper and left. I've got to be honest here...I haven't been back to see corned beef. Especially since corned beef and turkey are both there. It would be totally awkward. Luckily, this appears to be a one-time thing, as this double-stacker will be going away at the end of March. Maybe then I can try to repair my relationship with corned beef. I want to get back to our regular lunch dates like the good old days. The turkey & corned beef double stacker from Arby's was not my cup of tea. 1 star.

On a side note...I was driving by Arby's the other day and noticed that they have a double stacker where you can get corned beef + corned beef. Hmm......twins......

Jack in the Box Grilled Breakfast Sandwich Review

2013-03-15T05:00:00.000-06:00

Before I dive into my review I want to discuss the service at Jack In The Box. They must be the friendliest people I have ever met at a fast food restaurant and I’m not joking when I tell you that it drives me crazy. This is especially true when ordering breakfast. I’m tired and only half awake and really, truly just want to go back to bed and the last thing I want to hear is the oh-so-happy voice of some chipper fast food worker. Take my money, give me my change, give me my food and shut the hell up. That is what I want at 6AM and I don’t think it’s too much to ask. And don’t even get me started about the incident at Subway I had a couple weeks ago. This guy was so friendly I was seconds away from walking around that counter and punching him in his face. That would have wiped that sincere, genuine smile right off his ugly mug.

But I digress. What I want to review today is the Grilled Breakfast Sandwich from Jack in the Box. This sandwich consists of two fried eggs, two slices of ham, two strips of bacon and two slices of melting American cheese, all on top of grilled artisan bread. So I order this thing just on a whim. It’s not what I normally get but for some reason it just sounded good. I actually ordered two because a breakfast sandwich is just diminutive and I’m a big fat fatty (diabetic or not, me needs my eats – breakfast is the most important meal of the day after all).

So I’m driving away and I reach into my bag to grab the first sandwich and I can’t figure out why it won’t come out of the bag. It’s like stuck or something. Then I start thinking that maybe the sandwiches are stuck together, but that can’t be. Turns out the sandwiches are just huge. I mean they are substantial for a breakfast sandwich. I instantly realize that I might have trouble getting through both of them. Spoiler alert – I managed just fine.

So the sandwich is grilled like a grilled cheese sandwich is grilled which means it’s fried and oh-so-greasy. It’s delicious. I don’t know what Artisan bread is but it’s good. It has a great texture and taste and is heavy duty enough to hold the copious amount of stuff on this bad boy. The fried eggs are tasty and not at all rubbery and not poached like McDonalds eggs. The ham and bacon is what you typically get at a fast food restaurant so just so-so. The cheese is pretty good too, and has the benefit of actually being melted, unlike the little orange rubbers squares from most fast food places that will never melt even when nuked for 2 minutes in a microwave.

I’ve learned I enjoy most breakfast items with Cholula Hot Sauce on them (see my next review). So I have a bottle of it at work and it just makes this sandwich taste even better. When I discover something new like this sandwich I almost always will try it 4 or 5 times within a week or two and eventually will hate it. I had my 8th one this morning and I still love them. But alas, I can’t have anymore.

Jack in the Box just drives me crazy. It’s not just their friendly service but have you ever noticed all the beeping and alarms going off almost non-stop at Jack in the Box? It’s like being stuck in the Wopr computer from War Games. But the straw that broke this tubby camel’s back was when I handed the lady a ten dollar bill, a dime a nickel and 2 pennies to pay for my $3.17 bill and she gave me $6.98 in change. She then proceeded to tell me that I had given her $10.28 so that’s why I’m getting $6.98 in change. What the hell. Then told me, “That’s okay, you must be having one of those days.” I just looked at her gobsmacked. Oh I’m having one of those days alright. You know the kind. The kind of day where the overly chipper fast food worker CAN’T COUNT A SINGLE BILL AND 4 COINS, PUNCH IN THE NUMBERS AND GIVE THE RIGHT CHANGE! THAT’S WHAT KIND OF DAY I’M HAVING!!!!!

So I’m done for now and I will genuinely miss the Grilled Breakfast Sandwich. It’s awesome. It is a Certified ReviewSpew All-Star!

GenTeal Lubricant Gel Eye Drops Review

2013-03-11T05:00:00.000-06:00

I went in for Lasik a few years ago to fix my ridiculously bad eyesight. I will all spare you the gory details but I will say that I was one of the few people out there to experience a "free cap", or corneal circumcision as I like to call it. Mazel Tov! Basically, they used to have a little razor blade that they would use to cut a flap on the front of your eye. (They use lasers to cut it now). Then, they peel back the flap, hit you with some high powered laser beams, and bang zoom, you can see. In my case, the machine didn't suck my eyeball in far enough so it clipped off the front of my eye. I spent 15 min. of "Fire in the Sky" hell watching and feeling him try to put the front of my eye back in the proper orientation. Well, he got it back, and I can see fine, but I now experience occasional dryness. Well, not really occasional, continual is a better word.

I use eye drops all the time, I have no choice. Yes, I even got punctal plugs put in. That is where they shove candle wax into your tear ducts so that the tears won't drain away. I have to admit that they do keep your eyes moist, but they also make you look like you are on the verge of crying all the time. I had one particularly embarrassing moment during a viewing of the remake of The Karate Kid. Though Jackie Chan was amazing, I am a penis-bearing man, and I don't cry at movies, especially ones with Kung Fu. My buddy claims to this day that I was crying like a baby during the car smashing scene. It was the PUNCTAL PLUGS! Sorry, back on point, the thing they don't tell you about the punctal plugs is that they don't do anything for night time dryness. Enter GenTeal drops.

I have tried every brand under the sun and the GenTeal drops are by far the best. Visine will burn your eyeballs like fire if you put them in at night when your eyes are powder-dry. GenTeal drops feel like a cooling oasis in a sandstorm. You can get them in various viscosities so they stay in place and work longer during the night. I use the moderate to severe, which is not as jelly-like as their most severe stuff, so it doesn't make you go blurry. I use it right as I go to bed, once in the middle of the night, and first thing in the morning. These little drops have made my life so much better, like manna from heaven. I am also absolutely dependent on them. I've had to use my wife's contact solution and those cheap water drops a few times when traveling and quite honestly, I thought I was going to go blind. I don't leave home without this stuff and the best part, they just started making some generics so you don't have to incur the high cost. GenTeal drops are pretty expensive, but worth every penny. I keep a minimum of 3 large bottles on hand at all times.

I really have tried every brand under the sun and there isn't even a competitor to GenTeal drops. They have made a bad situation bearable. I hope nothing happens to this company because I need this product for the rest of my life. I should be ok, as long as Obama doesn't threaten to take them away and force a run on the market like .22 ammo. I don't think they have the same shelf life as gun powder so I am kind of at the mercy of the market as I can't really horde these. Maybe I will buy a couple dozen just in case. Without a doubt, these get 5 stars.

Adam Ant is The BlueBlack Hussar in Marrying The Gunner's Daughter Review

2013-03-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

I must admit that I am a huge life-long fan of Adam Ant. And I’m not just talking about getting caught up with the short-lived mania over Strip and Goody-Two Shoes during the early days of MTV either. I was only 9 years old when I listened to Dirk Wears White Socks on Vinyl by the completely unknown group known as Adam and the Ants. I thought my big brother would kill me when I tried placing it next to his LPs and 8-tracks of Led Zeppelin, Kiss and Queen. My big sisters didn’t much care for it being next to their copies of Neil Diamond, Barry Mannilow and Leif Garrett either. But I didn’t care. I was hooked.

I bought every album, LPs at first, Cassettes, then a box set on CD. I have every single Adam Ant song in MP3 format now and from time to time I still enjoy

listening to some of my old favorites. Remember on the Matrix when they looked so cool when entering the Matrix and it’s explained that this is their residual self image. Were I to hack into the Matrix I would look like Adam Ant circa 1984. I mean he was such a stud, all in leather jolly roger pirate gear, war paint, and constantly surrounded by an endless sea of ginormous heaving cleavage normally clad in Victorian era dresses. And the music was so awesome. Heaving drum beats produced by dual drum sets, spaghetti-western guitar riffs, a complete horn section and an ample amount of animalistic screaming. Lyrics mostly about sadomasochistic sex with a spattering of just general goofiness. What wasn’t there to like about Adam Ant.

But then the 80’s ended and I grew up and it looked like Adam Ant did as well. The 1990 release of Manners and Physique showed Adam still in leather but sitting down in a throne-like chair. Gone was the war paint and the attitude, replaced by a simple pleased look on his face that suggested he was looking over all he had done with great satisfaction. The songs still full of energy and pizzazz but not over the top. 1995 brought what everyone assumed was his swan-song album Wonderful where the leather was gone and here was a middle aged man who had been there and done that. Gone from the songs were the jagged edges of youth and replaced with soulful reflection on a long and difficult life, perhaps tinged with some sadness.

For the next 17 years all we heard about Adam Ant is that he apparently was slowly slipping into insanity and not the kind that sells albums. We’re talking about the throwing stray car alternators through Pub windows because he was “told” there were threats against him and his family kind of insanity. And what’s up with London that there’s old alternators just laying around on the sidewalks? Adam was repeatedly institutionalized for his rapidly increasing crazy behavior and again, I figured he’s done, gone, finished. Then to my complete surprise I find out he’s released a new album and has been touring Europe and America.

I immediately bought his new album “Adam Ant Is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter”. And I found myself instantly perplexed. The songs are great and perverse and awesome just like his early days, but now that I’m 42 it just sounds like a bunch of damn noise. I grew up and I thought he had also (he’s 59 after all). Confused, I turned to YouTube to watch the video for “Cool Zombie” and couldn’t stop laughing. He’s back to his Jolly Roger Pirate attire with the addition of Jack Sparrow facial hair, but he comes across more like Captain Crunch than Juanito the randy Bandito. His waistline is bulging, and he can barely move let alone dance. It’s embarrassing. Grow up already. He’s surrounded himself with a couple well-cleavaged hotties in his band but from their facial expressions they appear to be there against their will. The only upshot is the album cover for this album. This chick looks so much like my wife did when I married her that I’m resigned to the fact that Adam Ant didn’t marry the Gunner’s daughter, I apparently did. I’m fine with that by the way.

Everything from the title, to the track titles (“Punkyoungirl”, “Who’s A Goofy Bunny?”, “Bullshit” and “Dirty Beast” to name a few), from the music itself to his new old look screams “I’m still in my 20s and I’m still cool, so love me”. Give it up. Critically the music is scoring very high among far greater minds in the music industry than me and I’m not going to argue with that. I give Adam Ant is The BlueBlack Hussar Marrying The Gunner's Daughter 4 stars. I just worry that he has truly gone completely batsh*t crazy once and for all.

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Review

2013-02-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

My poor wife...wow, the number of conversations I can start with that statement is huge. My poor wife has to sit on the couch next to me while I pick my toenails rather than clip them. My poor wife has to wash my gym clothes and boxing gear, which when I am done, resemble a beach towel thrown in a swimming pool. My poor wife has to watch me shovel doughnut after doughnut into my gaping maw every day and not say a word because she doesn't want to hurt my feelings. My poor wife has to feel my hot stinking breath on the back of her neck when she is trying to sleep because I like to cuddle. My poor wife has to bite back the bile every time I come out of the bathroom shirtless, sporting superman boxers, doing my sexy strut because I want some "quality time". My poor wife has to feel the suffocating pressure of my huge greasy belly against her supple tight abs at least once a month. My poor wife has to cook, clean, and pretty much handle everything related to the home. All that being said, the home is where my review comes in.

Let's face it, I'm not going to stop boxing, double fisting doughnuts, or turn down sex with a hotty like my wife. So, the only place I can really ease her suffering is with cool kitchen gadgets or things that help make the home care portion of her life a little easier. That is where Mr. Clean steps in. These magic erasers are exactly that, magic. I don't know the chemistry involved but they are quite miraculous and have a multitude of uses. Whatever they touch, they clean. They feel like a soft foam sanding block, but when you get them wet, they kind of disintegrate while you use them. I don't know where they go, because they leave no residue, but they kind of just go away. At first I thought they were just sanding away a layer of whatever you are cleaning, but after closer inspection, they don't mark up the table, walls, baseboards, or the appliances whatsoever. Marker, crayons, and grape juice come up with ease; so much so that I've done my own experimentation. For instance, I have old, crappy linoleum counter tops. A red cool aid cup ring would previously have been just one more permanent scar on an already tortured counter. When it happened recently, I tried a scouring pad with Ajax, Soft scrub, and even a one of those orange wiry dish cleaners from the early 70's. Nothing touched that red dye number 5, nothing.... except for the magic eraser that is. It cleaned it up lickity-split, and I don't use the term lickity-split lightly. I literally scrubbed the stain for 10 seconds with the eraser and it was gone. We've used these on everything. My wife even shined up the old chrome wedding toaster with one of these and her friends went on about it for 20 min. Yeah, the toaster was shiny, very shiny.

The Magic Eraser has become our go-to cleaner for everything under the sun. I'm tempted to take it in the shower as see what it can do with my crusty feet and acne covered ass. I wouldn't be surprised one bit if I walked out of the shower as smooth as my 11 year-old former self. Technically, I don't know a surface it won't clean, but I have not yet tried it on any body surfaces. For once, a product that does exactly as advertised. Well done Mr. Clean. If I could give you 6 stars, I would.

Disclaimer: I am not condoning or recommending Mr. Clean Magic Erasers for cleaning eyes, ears, lips, tongue, or teeth. "External use only" definitely applies. Experiment at your own risk.

Diabetes as a Way of Losing Weight Review

2013-02-15T18:14:00.005-07:00

Since the moment I hit puberty I’ve been a big fat fatty. I mean huge. I can’t tell you how many times in my early teen years I was asked what my bra size was. Not sure why my mom was so concerned about that either. Near the end of my sophomore year of high school I decided I really wanted to hold hands and kiss and possibly even more with a girl. So I set out to lose my excess tonnage. That summer I lost 60 pounds and grew 7 inches taller. I went from a size 42 waist to a size 32. Let me tell you, it was awesome.

I managed to keep that weight off all the way up till my honeymoon, and then it all just started packing back on. We had 3 children within the first 3 years of our marriage and I gained the same “baby weight” as my wife but never lost it with each birth, just added to it with each subsequent pregnancy. By the time I was 34 I weighed over 300 and had actually shrunk an inch in height. It was as if my very bones we’re on strike due to the excess load put upon them.

I went on another strict diet and exercise program for 14 months. I ended up losing 75 pounds, down to a mere 265 which was still morbidly obese but was no longer super morbidly obese. More than that though, I felt healthy. I could climb stairs 2 at a time without breaking a sweat, take walks and dance with my wife and had hope of living long enough to see my grandchildren. Then…I just stopped.

Over the next 7 years I packed it all back on again. This leads me to the new and revolutionary new diet program I have recently discovered. Diabetes. Over the last 12 months I have been able to eat anything I wanted in whatever quantities I wanted. I never walked more than 50 steps in one go (and that normally required a 5-10 minute rest period). And I was happy as a clam. There were 2 side effects though. One, I found myself peeing constantly. Every 90 minutes about a gallon of urine was released. This of course made it to where I was drinking gallons of water every day. This was no big deal except on road trips. The other side effect is I lost 52 pounds. That is 100% accurate. I didn’t even realize it until I got sick and went to the doctor and weighed in at 285. I couldn’t believe it, so I had them weigh me a 2nd time. 1 pound a week for an entire year. Wow. Best diet ever.

Then I went to the doctor for my annual physical. She drew blood and took note that my blood sugar count the year before was 124. I guess if you measure above 126 twice in a row, 3 months apart then you are officially diabetic. But hey at 124 I must be perfectly healthy. It was right after this 124 blood draw that I started noticing I was peeing and thirsty all of the time. 1 year later and the 2nd set of blood work came back. My doctor sounded completely panic stricken when she insisted I come back in immediately to go over my blood work. My blood sugar level was 495!

She said this explains the weight loss. See your blood cells need sugar in them in order to give you energy and help your muscles rebuild, etc. So your pancreas releases insulin which helps sugar in your blood go into your blood cells. But when you’re a big fat fatty like me your blood cells get so clogged up with fatty tissues that no matter how much insulin your pancreas releases the sugar won’t go into the cells. So your body thinks (quite stupidly) that you don’t have enough sugar in your system so it attacks your fat build up and puts that into your blood stream also. But that sugar can’t get into your cells either. Now that sugar along with the pound bag of M&Ms you had for breakfast is floating around your blood stream and your body can’t absorb it so it jettison’s it into your kidney and you pee it out. This makes you weak all the time, pee all the time, yes you lose weight but you are destroying your kidneys and your pancreas will soon realize that it no longer serves a purpose and will stop producing insulin. This is the reason diabetics normally have to go on insulin.

So as fantastic as the weight loss has been it just wasn’t worth risking organ failure and death or at least having to stick myself with needles every day and the potential for insulin shock, etc. So for the last 6 weeks I’ve been on 2 different medicines (which will be reviewed at a later date), I monitor my blood sugar twice a day, and I’m on a low-carb diet (as directed by my nutritionist). The side effect of all of this is I’m hungry all the time, can’t eat what I want, feel miserable all the time (the side effects of the meds are horrific) and I’ve actually gained 8 pounds back. If this isn’t irony I do not know what is. But my blood sugar is down around 120 so I've managed to stave off death and dismemberment for a while (this is always a bonus).

For weight loss I have to give diabetes 4 stars, I’m sure the same would apply to cancer, most major organ failures, and ebola virus. Considering that it’s KILLING you though and I have to change that to a Big Fat Zero. And if you're experiencing unexplained weight loss, frequent urination, constant unquenchable thirst then for hell's sake go see your doctor, immediately.

HOMAK High-Security Steel Wall Safe Review

2013-02-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

I live in a tiny house in a shady part of town. It isn't gang-banger shady, but the neighborhood is old and pretty rundown. You don't have to look hard to find old cars on blocks, Christmas lights up in April, or houses with who knows how many families and a minimum of 6 cars living under the same roof. (Side note: What is with all the cars anyhow? None in the garage, 2 in the driveway, and 4 on the street? Every house on my block is this way. I assume this has got to be another Obama handout. Where else would people that can't afford a lawnmower get 2 cars per family member. I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure I am paying "my fair share" of their car payments, at least indirectly. Sorry, I digress.) Undoubtedly, security is high on my list of home priorities. To protect what I have, without resorting to bars on the windows or broken bottles on the fence line, I follow a few important rules.

First, everyone is a crook. Lock your doors and shut the garage the instant you go inside. That old lady next door may be delivering cookies, but she is also casing the joint. Get the cookies and send her on her way.

Second, add chains to the doors. It doesn't offer any real stopping power, but it offers noise, which in the dead of night could give you a 30 sec. head start to the gun safe or baseball bat.

Third, understand the power of disguise. My house looks cheap and rundown. I do this on purpose, it isn't just because I am lazy. Anyone coming inside will expect to find little more than a VCR and a good supply of government cheese. So keep it that way. Hide the BluRay player inside the VCR. They will walk right past it and never know they missed out on $57 worth of technology.

Fourth, put up hunting trophies. I don't care if you are the founding member of PETA and a full-on hemp-wearing vegan. Your neighbors need to think you are a cold blooded killer that would gut Bambi on your front porch. Have a few heads mounted around the place. Where there is a head, there is a gun.

Finally, If they can't find it, they can't steal it. Hide your crap everywhere. My home is basically the equivalent of a filibuster for thieves. By the time they wade through all my junk, they will never get to anything of real value..and this is where my review comes in.

If you compound my sketchy neighborhood with the fact that I outgrew my house over five years ago and it is now literally bursting at the seams, you will see where I am coming from. I routinely search for any tiny corner of my home that is unused to store new stuff and after years of thinking, reorganizing, and assuming I had left no stone unturned, it finally dawned on me. I have now resorted to hiding stuff inside my home's walls. The Homak WallSafe is perfect for guys like me. Need a handgun in the bedroom, but still keep it safe and hidden from the kiddos? Hide it in the wall. Need a place for all those leftover narcotics from your tummy tuck? Hide it in the wall. Need a place to hide that flash drive full of "anniversary" pics? Hide it in the wall. Homak read my mind and just made it a lot easier.

I installed the safe in about 30 min. A drywall knife and 6 screws is really all you need as it fits perfectly in-between 16" spaced studs. The screws install from the inside and it is flush mount, so it could go behind a mirror, picture, or in the closet behind your clothes. It is a lockable safe but please don't think this is even going to slow down someone with a crow-bar and some cruel intentions. If they find it and have 10 min., they are getting in, but the point is, they likely won't find it. That is exactly what I was after, and for $40 on Amazon, it didn't break the bank either.

After installing this one, I am finding myself excited by the prospect of putting these all over the house to use up all that newly found free space between the walls. Keeping the keys straight and not losing them could become an issue, but maybe I'll have a special safe just for safe keys. A kind of safe inception, if you will. They do make a much larger safe for full size guns and have different ones for the floor, but I haven't gone that far yet. First I'll fill up the walls, then the floors. I'm taking baby steps but am well on my way to becoming a true doom's day prepper/clever hoarder. If things go well, I'm hoping for a new TLC reality series "Doomsday Hoarders". I'm a perfect candidate.

Live Holdem Pro by Dragonplay Poker app Review

2013-02-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have never been a very good Texas holdem poker player. In the 10's of friendly games I have entered, I have won roughly 3...only 2 by default from being the only person to show up. It's probably my tendency to be too conservative when betting. In no way do I want to bluff away my hard-earned 5 dollar entry fee.

Unfortunately, my thrifty play has led to the very result that I was intending to stay away from....losing. To combat my poor play, I turned to the source of all knowledge and truth -- my phone.

Everything I do is learned from, accounted for, and tracked by my phone. Address of the nearest Baskin Robbins...check my phone. Check to see if Golden Corral is still open...check my phone. Pretend to lose weight by sporadically tracking my calorie intake...check my phone.

I scanned through a few web-sites describing strategy, rules, and illegality of playing with your buddies from work. Most helpful was this Texas Holdem site which helped me understand that I shouldn't just wait until I have pocket rockets before betting...and that 6-9 off-suit is not a good hand to play...even if you can throw them down and say "69" in all your Bill and Ted glory.

I also realized that only through practice would I get any better, so I downloaded a few poker apps which include Live Holdem Pro by Dragonplay to play against live players (I tested this on my phone...a Samsung Galaxy SIII). Most poker apps were pretty similar...but I think I preferred the Dragonplay app over the others. A short review of some of the pluses and negatives are below.

+ Table availability -- There is always a free table or tournament to join. No need to sift through hordes of servers in order find the perfect spot to lose your money. They've even included a "play now" option where they will place you at a table.

- Play now -- While this is a handy option to use, beware that the app will place you (more often than not) on the most expensive table that your bankroll can afford. As they want to make money, they'll try to go to $0 as fast as you can so that you'll "buy" some more money.

+ Sit and go tourneys -- These are great for a casual 10-15 minute game. You can pick your entry fee level, and drop into a table with 4 other players...winner take all. I play with this mode 90% of the time.

- Douche-bag betters -- As this is a free game...with (pretty much) free money, people don't value their funds. More likely than not, you'll run into 1 person per tourney who will go all-in on every bet, until they are out...or win. I want to digitally kick these people in the nuts. Unfortunately, there is no rating system for peers/players to mark them as "all-in ass-hats."

+ Gameplay -- 99% of the time, the gameplay is smooth and graphics look good. Even when I've been disconnected due to a network loss, I've been able to reconnect and get back into my game.

- Notifications -- This app sends push notifications more than any other I've ever had. "800% bonus bucks!!" "Come join your friends!!" "Chat naked with a granny in your city!!"----wait----that's a different app.

All in all, this is a solid poker app, and I feel that I've increased my level of play. At a minimum, it's helped me learn what are strong vs. weak hands based on the number of players and what cards are showing. From there I can cower like a sissy when my buddy goes all-in...and fold my cards to the middle like I usually do.

4 solid stars for Live Holdem by Dragonplay.

Gun Control Review

2013-01-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going to rewind a little bit, back to a simpler time. I can remember a time when you could go to the store and actually purchase ammunition for a planned weekend at the range. The prices seemed high, but there was inventory on the shelves. I remember going to a local sporting goods store and spending some time at the gun counter checking out my "wish" list, handling the hardware, feeling the cold metal in my hands while chatting with the clerk about specs, range, and ballistics. If the rare occasion happened that I had my wife's permission and the money for a purchase, I would have the store price-match after much bargain shopping for the best deal. Those days are gone. Yup, it was a different time and in my mind it seems like only yesterday. In actuality, it was only 2-3 months ago, but as we all know from Airports and 9-11, things can change in the blink of an eye.

Now the ammo and guns are gone, though I hope temporarily. Backorder lists indicate that if nothing happens legally, the manufacturers could catch up around Oct., but that date is getting extended every day. The guns that remain on the shelf require a 2nd mortgage to purchase, far more inexperienced people have guns in their hands today than 3 months ago, and the hording of ammo and magazines has gone to levels never before seen in history...all out of fear. The geniuses on Capitol Hill think that the run on guns is due to people fearing another school shooting and thinking the only way to protect themselves is to get a gun. What they fail to realize is that the fear has nothing to do with the psychos killing people, but rather the psychos exploiting children's deaths to push their political agendas. The fear has to do with the politician's and media's threats that our very Bill of Rights hangs in the balance. The problem is, these aren't just threats, there is a massive movement to change the fabric of this country, and in general, it is wrapped in an emotional lie. This movement is what people fear.

EVERY thinking person with Google can see that 100X more lives would be saved by banning Alcohol than guns. 450X more lives would be saved by banning Tobacco. 50X as many men, women, and children die from 2nd hand smoke annually (I won't even bring up the billions in medical costs associated with these). Swimming pools kill as many kids. Cars, dogs, hunger, and the sun are equal killers. Please don't insult the millions of people that die every year from the previously mentioned reasons by saying Gun control is about saving lives. They are just as dead and the manner of their death just as tragic. Their families feel no less pain because a drunk driver killed their baby instead of a bullet. This is a political agenda, plain and simple, by people that don't understand the 2nd amendment, have no understanding of history, and most importantly, hold themselves exempt from the very laws they are trying to create. In the last week, I have had 3 separate conversations with well educated, thinking people that flat-out said the Bill of Rights was archaic and no longer applies. That is what scares me. The very people that burn flags, promote late-term abortion without an ultrasound, create images of the Virgin Mary out of Dung, and legalize marijuana by citing notions protected by the Bill of Rights are the same ones that say it is out dated and useless when something they don't value is attacked.

To be frank, I tolerate your "madness" because I recognize that your rights cannot be infringed just because I don't agree with them. For instance, you just legalized marijuana in a couple of states under the pretense that it is no more harmful than alcohol. Under that very line of thinking, by legalizing it nationally, you would kill 100,000 more people from pot related deaths annually. If it ends up being as bad as tobacco, that number could be multiplied by 5! That is orders of magnitude worse than the death toll related to the perceived controllable gun deaths in the U.S. annually. How can you logically agree with killing more people with one law than you are protecting with another, while simultaneously infringing on the explicit constitutional rights of 311 million people? It doesn't add up. Take a math class for Pete's sake....and you say I'm the heartless one by holding on to my guns in the wake of a school shooting?

You guys are playing a dangerous game. I'm a gun guy, so the over-reaching powers-that-be are after me today. You should know that they are also looking at you. Maybe you are a movie guy, game guy, party guy, or business guy. When does it affect and scare you? When they ban Rambo, Freddy, or Call of Duty? Maybe they ban dance clubs and bars for the good of the masses. What about that porn habit that gives millions carpal tunnel every year and exposed you to a "Dirty Sanchez" for the first time. You know that wasn't good for anyone. What if they can't ban it by legislation but rather just tax it out of existence like your small business? When does it affect you? I realize that my words are probably wasted here as I haven't starred in any sitcoms, had a hit record, or made any violent movies, but I'll go ahead and exercise this blogging right while it still exists and isn't yet taxed, which at the rate things are going, might not be very long. I give the current gun control politicians and the people exploiting tragedy for political agendas a big fat Zero Star rating.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." -Ronald Reagan.

Aside: For both of my faithful followers, please note that this rant was an isolated event. I will be back to self deprecation, fat jokes, and small penis references next week.

"The only thing worse than seeing a man with a tiny penis is seeing a fat man with a tiny penis." -Meatwad's Wife 2013.

Top Ten Movies of 2012

2013-01-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

I have finally seen every movie of 2012. Yes, even The Three Stooges. (Note: I lied, I have not seen every movie, but I did actually sit through Stooges). It sounds cliche to say this, but 2012 was a great year in movies. There are so many honorable mentions, that I could easily make this a top 15 movie list. I loved Chronicle, 21 Jump Street, Lincoln and Skyfall. Though they couldn't quite make the top 10.

10 - Zero Dark Thirty

Odd pacing and heavy reliance on one actor don't damage this film. Kathryn Bigelow's most recent wartime film follows Maya (Jessica Chastain) as she is filled with obsessiveness in following a mysterious link to Osama Bin Laden. Chastain is seriously great and deserves the Oscar. This movie had my attention for the entire 157 minutes, even though it didn't give much in terms of action until the final 30 minutes when the Seals arrive for their monumental mission.

9 - Argo
Ben Affleck may not be the greatest actor, but his directing talent cannot be denied. I look forward to any new film he plans to direct. Argo takes him out of his comfort zone, Boston, and into Iran in the late 1970's. Based on a true story, the CIA plans to rescue 6 American refugees from a Canadian consulate by constructing a fictional science fiction film production in Iran. This movie pokes fun at both government bureaucrats and Hollywood producers. Intense, funny, and poignant. Well worth watching.

8 - Life of Pi
The most beautiful movie of the year, but not in a crappy existential Tree of Life way. I loved the book but never believed it could be adapted to film. Director Ang Lee has pulled it off in a big way. Is meant to be seen on a big screen with its outstanding visuals. I even recommend 3D for this one. If a movie can make me say that, it has to be something great. It's a great tale of survival for Pi as he weathers the elements, starvation, and of course the tiger Richard Parker. I'm so glad they stayed true to the challenging end of the book.

7 - Seven Psychopaths
Quite possibly the most unique movie on this list. It's a screenplay within a movie. If you haven't seen this, I would advise that you don't go in expecting a violent psychopath movie...but at the same time, you should expect it. Sam Rockwell is amazing here. He single-handedly gives the best movie monologue of the year. I didn't know what to think at first when the credits rolled, but I keep remembering scenes I loved, which is why I rank it so high.

6 - Django Unchained
Not Quentin Tarantino's best movie, but still a ton of fun. The Western-style pacing may turn many people off, but it has some of QT's funniest work and great characters. Christoph Waltz steals the entire movie from Jamie Foxx. If you ever wanted to see slave masters in the 1850's get their just rewards, this is your movie. Expect a lot of violence and blood in this one. Great soundtrack as well.

5 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This visit back to the shire was well overdue. It had been 9 long years since Return of the King hit theaters. With Peter Jackson behind the camera again everything was right in the world. Sure the 48FPS threw many critics off, but visual flaws don't tarnish the story or characters. I thought it was a perfect balance of whimsy and adventure. Complain all you want about The Hobbit being stretched out into a trilogy. Personally, I can't wait for 2 more movies. Martin Freeman was meant to play Bilbo Baggins. It was refreshing to see he and Gollum play their game of riddles in the best scene of the movie. Richard Armitage as the dramatic leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield, adds weight to a simple dragon-slaying quest.

4 - Silver Linings Playbook

This is the movie that caught me by surprise. I've previously never been sold on the acting talents of Bradley Cooper or Jennifer Lawrence. This unlikely romantic-dramedy changed my perceptions completely. I couldn't help but laugh at how inappropriate and shocking Cooper's bipolar character was. When you put him in the room with Lawrence's insecure sex addict, the dialogue was magic. They both deserve oscar nominations (Though they won't win). I liked this movie so much that I almost forgive Robert De Niro (who plays Cooper's father) for the Focker trilogy. Almost. This is a great date movie that will make you laugh, but also feel for those suffering with daily mental illnesses. This is director David O. Russell's best movie. (Sorry, I heart Huckabees' lovers)

3 - Cabin in the Woods

I'll never be able to watch a crappy/trashy horror movie and not think of Cabin in the Woods. This movie is very meta and that may turn people off. Not only does it show us the acting-challenged slasher flick, but we also see why horror movies are so contrived and predictable. I'm a little twisted, but I laughed more in this movie than most others this year (Excluding 21 Jump Street). I still smile when I think of the doom and gloom gas station attendant on speakerphone, the unicorn, the merman, and "Tequila is my lady!" Yes, you would have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about, but if your guilty pleasure is horror, you owe it to yourself to see this. Don't try and over examine the plot, many people get hung up on what the movie was trying to prove. Just sit back and laugh at bad slasher flicks along with it. I now know I will decide on friends based on their like/dislike of this movie. Thank you Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard.

2 - Looper

Director Rian Johnson must have pulled two random genres out of a hat and ended up with "time travel" and "assassins." But the two ideas clearly worked perfectly together. Bruce Willis hasn't chosen the best roles lately, so his performance in Looper is refreshing and makes me respect him again. Joseph Gordon Levitt (JGL) is my golden boy lately (with the exception of Premium Rush) and I loved seeing him as a young Willis. This movie doesn't have to deliver on giant set pieces or overly-complicated time travel plots. It gives you just enough of both and the experience is immensely satisfying. If you aren't familiar with the plot, it is about Loopers, who are hitmen who assassinate random people sent to them from the future. But when JGL is meant to kill his future self, he hesitates and Willis get away. The mob he works for comes after both of them to wrap up loose ends. I'm a geek for this slow burn science fiction action film.

And the Number One Movie of 2012 is........

The Dark Knight Rises

It's no surprise that I love this series. I basically wrote a love letter to Christopher Nolan in my previous review. The Dark Knight Rises provided a great conclusion to a near-perfect trilogy. So much time has passed since its release and I would say that people are holding onto a bad taste from this movie. For me, it completed what no other comic book movie could dream of. It took a character, which was ruined in its previous series, and made him real. The villains were less bombastic and became a real threat. These movies are so great that many don't even classify them as comic book movies, and instead Batman is the high standard of any superhero movie. (Avengers who?) Most people are worried that even a rebooted Batman wouldn't be able to live up to Nolan's masterpiece. This movie, above any I've seen all year made me the most emotionally attached, whether it was sadness or triumph. This is escapism at its best.

So there you go, bias and all (it's my job right?). It's been a great year and very science fiction/fantasy heavy. 2013 looks to continue on the same trend. I just hope that I can find a dozen great movies as good as the releases this past year.

Doggie Doo Game Review

2013-01-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks have passed since Christmas and now is the real time to see if that hard earned cash bought gifts that hold up. What are the kiddos playing with several weeks later? Well, I have to say that this year, one of the hits of Christmas in our home came from what was actually purchased as a gag gift for my 7 year old son. Yes, we actually laid out hard earned cash for the ridiculous Doggie Doo game from Goliath Games.

The idea was brought to me by my son. He saw the commercial for this game on the internet and then proceeded to show everyone in the family this commercial over and over. He would laugh historically while we all watched in horror and said how gross it was. We probably watched the video 10 times in the months before Christmas and he kept teasing everyone that he was going to buy Doggie Doo for all of us as our presents. So, we thought we would return the favor and actually get it for him. Well the joke was on us, because it is his favorite gift this year.

If you are unfamiliar with this monstrosity, it is basically a plastic dog with a hole bored from mouth to....tail. You take a wad of slimy gunk and shove it in its mouth and then seal it up with a plastic bone. The dog has a collar with a hand pump and you take turns rolling a die and pumping the handle. Each pump moves the mess through the dog. Now, as disgusting as this description is so far, the joy of this game comes less from the mess and more from the anal symphony created by the actual moving of the sludge. You can enjoy the gurgling pops and blarps associated with troubled digestion. You witness gaseous, diarrheic eruptions as you squeeze the handle. Round and round it goes, until finally , you experience the culminating moment when they point the business end of that hound your direction, you pull the trigger.... and it drops a full-on, heaping duce, right there on the kitchen table in front of you. First person to get shat on 3 times, WINS!

Please reserve judgment as I reiterate that this was a gag gift for little man. After playing it 100 times though, it still leaves him in stitches. He tries to double feed the dog for a "double-length log". He falls on the ground laughing when his big sister (good sport that she is) gets plopped-on. Everyone that plays with him is grossed out, but everyone is laughing. Bathroom humor simply isn't lost on a 7 year old, and when he is giggling, everyone is giggling.

If you wanted an education gift to sit on the shelf, this isn't for you. If you are far too proper for fecal fun, then pass. But if you have a little kid in the house, particularly a little boy, this game is a hit. Just remember, if your plastic dog is prone to occasional constipation like ours, just feed him a little more gook and move it on through. Fishing it out the other end, toy or not, is still considered a crime against nature. Sicko.

Taco Bell Loaded Grillers Review (Loaded Potato, Beefy Nacho, and Spicy Buffalo Chicken)

2012-12-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

It's time for Taco Bell's monthly "new" food offering. By new, I mean that the Taco Bell R&D department used their Christmas party to pick new menu items. They used the "food" wheel of existing Taco Bell base food items, and spun it Pat-Sajak-style to generate these "new" offerings.

To be fair, I regularly shovel in these slimy quasi-meat items on a weekly basis. It's comfort food for me (if only they had Diet Mt Dew..mmmm). Thus, on my most recent visit, I picked up all 3 of their new items and a caramel apple empanada for good measure. Please see the summary for each item below. All 3 items were very affordable (99 cents), and the grilled tortilla added to the taste.

Loaded Potato Griller
Crispy potato bites combined with nacho cheese sauce, bacon, and reduced-fat sour cream.
Pros --
Not terrible tasting. I couldn't decide if this was terribly average or deliciously fair.
Very large compared to what I was expecting. At least Dirk Diggler worthy.

Cons --
The "slime quotient" is far too high. The nacho cheese had too many avenues for escape from the flour tortilla prison.
Not enough "meaty" innards. I had a couple bites that were just tortilla and nacho cheese. As any person with 20/20 vision in my presence will attest while viewing my belly, dipping flour tortillas in nacho cheese is completely plausible, but even a portly fellow like me enjoys some diversity with each bite.
3 stars out of 5

Beefy Nacho Griller
Beef coupled with nacho cheese sauce and crispy red strips
I'm sorry, but this is just the Beefy Nacho burrito with red crisps instead of white ones. I suppose you could consider this affirmative action in the burrito world.
2 stars out of 5

Spicy Buffalo Chicken Griller
Chicken with their spicy lava sauce and reduced-fat sour cream
I had high hopes for this one. Chicken + spicy sauce + sour cream = delicious...right? Unfortunately, my math was wrong on this one. Maybe I should have converted to Hex, because this burrito tastes like A55. The sauce is the culprit for failure here. It's not appetizing, and attacked my digestive system and took no prisoners. I like a good internal cleaning as much as the next guy, but on my terms...not in the public work restroom.
1 star out of 5

Will I order these again? Not the spicy buffalo chicken griller, but I'll probably fall back on the other two from time to time. They are cheap, do not taste terrible, and are affordable. On a side-note, my local Taco Bell has a chalupa combo meal for $9.89 plus tax. That is ridiculous. This is the reason I am ending up at many of the other quasi-mexican food fast-service restaurants (Baja Fresh, Chipotle, Bajios) instead of Taco Bell. They are the same price, much better tasting, and just as quick for lunch.

Chick-fil-A Restaurant Review

2012-12-03T08:02:00.000-07:00

Let me first say that this is a review of Chick-fil-A the restaurant, not Chick-fil-A the political company or Chick-fil-A the moral representative of fast food chains everywhere. That being said, I should give you a little of my background, lest you think me biased. Like the vegan that eats fish, or the Hindu that eats chicken, I am a diehard conservative that thinks that the rights of a lovely 105lb, 22 year old, busty, brunette, with chocolate brown eyes, to chose to share her bed with her similarly fit college roommate should be preserved at all costs. Not only should those rights be preserved, but the practice should be encouraged.... and placed in digital format so that others may witness the tenderness of their bond. I'm with you my sisters, I feel as you feel. I often think that I myself am a lesbian trapped in a man's body. As for the hairy man beasts that like to traverse the sweaty thatch that covers their "partners" back, I don't get it. You are offered a plate of lobster and a plate a dung, and you choose dung...scout camp must have been pretty bad. Enough said.

So Chick-fil-A just moved into our town. Two locations simultaneously to be precise, and the town is all abuzz with excitement. It has been a month or so since they opened and the lines to this place are still ridiculous. For incentive, they sent about 5000 coupons for free chicken sandwiches to my company alone. No idea how many they sent out city wide. Needless to say, my coworkers and I, cheap bastards that we are, grabbed our coupons and headed there for lunch. The place was packed and the semicircle configuration of the registers did have people standing around a little confused. Where's the lines? Luckily, I had a protractor in my pocket, so I got in quickly and placed my order while 20 other morons stood there staring at one another trying to decide if they wanted chicken or chicken. Chunks, strips, or fillet, it is all the same stuff. No fancy toppings on the sandwich either, it is just chicken, sauce, and maybe a pickle chip or two. They serve one thing, that's it. Well, I have to say that their modest menu of all white meat chicken is utterly DELICIOUS. It was great stuff. On my three or so visits so far, I have tried most of the options on the menu and they were all juicy, hot, and tender. Sauces were likewise tasty. The KISS philosophy was executed here perfectly. (Keep It Simple Stupid)

I don't care one bit about their political agendas, though I do credit them for having some pretty major balls in a politically correct society where feeling carries far more weight than logic. I love chicken. They make great chicken and unlike KFC the last time I went there, they actually had chicken when I ordered it. Keep up the good work guys, and if you want to bring politics into lunch, try explaining to people that taxing "rich" companies out of business creates fewer jobs, not more. That seems to be another concept your average simpleton (and our current president) just don't seem to get.

Red Dawn Remake Review

2012-11-27T21:45:00.001-07:00

Dictionary.com defines the word DEPTH as: 1) the quality of being deep; deepness. 2) gravity; seriousness. 3) emotional profundity: the depth of someones feelings. Keep this in mind as you read this review.

I like remakes, I really do. Some have been awesome. Friday the 13th and The Karate Kid are two prime examples of remakes done right. Sadly, more than most are pretty pathetic such as Footloose and Planet of the Apes. A remake is a tough gig though. You have to be true to the original in order to keep the original fans happy. At the same time you have to bring something new to it (the remake of Psycho was a frame by frame remake so why watch it? Because it was in color? I think not). So you have to achieve the right balance of old and new.

The original Red Dawn was not an action movie. It really wasn't. It was a drama. Unless you were a sociopath, you left the theater feeling like you had just been gut-punched. The reason so many people of my generation (those who were teenagers in the 80s) loved Red Dawn is because of the profound affect it had on us. At that time in our lives the thought of an invasion (or at the very least a full scale thermonuclear war) was very real fear. This was the biggest and final showdown of the cold war and so yes, those who thought about it at all had at least a noticeable amount of fear about the whole thing. Red Dawn spoke to that fear and brought it to life.

In addition to that, the movie had real depth. There was the back story of how the two young women escaped the Russians and the innuendo of the sexual abuse they suffered. There was the slowly deteriorating mental state of C. Thomas Howell's character as he turns from a scared kid into a remorseless killer. There was the conflict of Patrick Swayze having the mantle of leadership thrust upon him while still trying to come to terms with the whole thing, which included the death of his father. Even the Cuban General in charge of the invasion of this part of America had depth with his letter to his wife explaining his fears that he may never be warm again, that he may never feel her touch again. Good hell. I gotta go watch it again. Just a minute.

Wow, the original Red Dawn really is awesome.

Anyway, I was very excited back at the end of 2009 when I learned they were going to remake Red Dawn and that the Chinese were the new invaders. The time was very similar. World War III wasn't looming over us but The Great Depression II was right in front of us. Now as a father of five children that was even more fearful than the thought of nuclear war was to me when I was 15. And the Chinese were the perfect replacement of the Russians. Even better, some could argue that the Chinese have some legitimate claim to a chunk of country considering how much money we owe them. Of course I would tell the Chinese the same thing I tell my creditors. "You were the ones stupid enough to lend me money, so don't get all shocked and awed when I don't pay it back. That's all on you jackholes". So I was set and ready.

But then the Great Depression II turned into The Great Recession which wasn't as bad but was enough to bankrupt MGM and Red Dawn 2010 was shelved. Finally it was announced it would be released in 2012 but the bad guys were now the North Koreans. "Oh it was easy we just had to change the flags...the people, well they all look alike". Why this didn't piss the Chinese off I'll never know. But Political Correctness, and racism, won out and the N. Koreans invade America. It kind of stretches the realm of possibility in that aren't most of the N. Koreans starving? Aren't they living in the technological dark ages? Then how could they possibly invade us. California? Yes "Oh you're communist and want to come take over? Awesome dudes, come on in". But the rest of America? No way.

Some minor spoilage of the remake now.

The only perfect scene in the movie is the deer hunt scene. It was in one moment an homage to the original while bringing something new to the table. Well done. The addition of the football game at the first (which was only mentioned in the original) was good and introduced what I thought was a good change to Charley Sheen's character. In the original he was a loyal younger brother doing what he was told. In this one he's rebellious and burdened with they typical shackles of youth. Watching him rise to the occasion through the course of the movie and becoming the man his father and older brother needed him to be was very well done. The rest was just like any other action movie you ever saw. Probably just like A Good Day To Die Hard coming out next year "Yippy Kay Ya Mother Russia". Give me a break.

Here they are shooting up N. Koreans (which looked an awful lot like Chinese to me). Here they are blowing up N. Koreans. Here they are rescuing people who had helped them. Here they are accepting a mission from a Special Forces unit that was dropped in to help them. What? Really? What? Stop already. It was done in such a way as to set it up directly into Red Dawn The Sequel. The original ended with the two brothers alone sitting on the swing in the park they grew up in ... dying. And two minor characters getting away but forever scarred by the whole thing. The remake ends up with The Wolverines being the leaders of an entire uprising of Spokanians with promised help from the Special Forces. And where was the rock where they carved the names of their fallen? I guess there will be a Wolverine Facebook pages set up for that. Swayze wept.

My 12 year old son walked out saying "That was so super awesome." My 18 year old son walked out saying "that was pretty good". My 19 year old daughter said "That was good but I really liked the original better." I walked out thinking, "I should have went to see Skyfall."

This remake has failed to capture the essence and depth of the original. It's just "Okay" which I guess translates into 3 stars.

Breaking Dawn Part 2 Review

2012-11-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

I just got home from watching The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2. Give me a sec, I need to catch my breath after saying the title of this movie. Let me start with a parental thingy. The sex scene in this movie was very sensual but if you were stupid enough to let your 13 year old daughter seen Part 1, then this isn’t any worse. The movie is very violent and not just by Twilight Sage standards, but there is no blood, which is really perplexing for a VAMPIRE MOVIE!!! What do vampires do? They suck blood, but only one time in this movie. So there is your parental guide or whatever they call it.

Now to properly review this movie I’m going to have to tell you about it so SPOILER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT. My conscience is clear.

The first two-thirds of this movie is just the same blah, blah, blah romantic crap we’ve seen from the first three movies. With one exception; the totally unintentional comic-relief of introducing two new vampires from “The Amazon”. This is what one of them looked like, and I swear, every time they came on the screen I could not stop laughing and neither could my wife. It was so stupid. But when the vampires from Ireland came in looking like they just got off the boat fleeing the Great Potato Famine it became just sad. I wouldn’t have been surprised if vampires showed up from Harlem sporting ginormous afros and menacingly cleaning their gold capped pointy teeth with switch blades.

But then the battle scene started. Having read every agonizing word of ever book and sitting through every obnoxious second of the first four movies, not to mention the 80 minutes we were into this one, all of it, suddenly became absolutely 100% worth it! This scene was truly epic. It was like the Forks, Washington Walmart was having a sale on decapitations and these vampires bought them all up. There were so many heads rolling, and not just red-shirt vampires, but main characters. Beloved characters quickly and shockingly getting their heads torn off. One got torn off from the upper jaw, leaving the lower jaw and they showed the skin tearing in his cheeks. The producers had finally grown a pair and went all out for this grand finale!!!! The true test of this scene’s total awesomeness was how visibly disturbed my wife was through it. It sickened her. But then …

Did you ever see the movie called Wisdom starring Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore? It was back in the 80s. Unable to get a job due to a childish stunt that landed Emilio with a felony on his record for life, he decided he would, with the help of Demi, start holding up banks to destroy the mortgage papers for farms so that farmers could have some extra time to get their crops in and stuff like that. Kids, you may not know this but Hollywood had a brief and unproductive affair with the plight of the farmers back in the 80s. There’s about 10 movies that touch on this subject. But I digress, back to Wisdom. It was a good movie. They would hold up places and the customers would shake their hands and they became like these folk legends and it was just awesome but it turned to tragedy and they got gunned down in a blaze of glory just like Bonnie and Clyde. What a great movie right up until it turned out to be a day dream by Emilio. He had been soaking in a tub the whole time day-dreaming this. What a crock.

Oh, but back to this epic battle scene in Breaking Dawn. Ya, the whole thing was a damn fake-out, a dream, a vision of what would happen if the bad guys hadn’t backed down, and now that the main bad guy had seen this vision he decided “Well, we shouldn’t start this epic battle, lets go back to Italy and be snooty.” I literally (and I’m not talking when a teenage girl says something like “I literally barfed my brains out all over the whole planet) shouted out at the top of my lungs “OH THIS IS HORSESHIT!!!!” Which got a lot of laughs from the audience but even that could not console me. I have been in full-on rage-mode ever since that moment (which was about an hour ago).

You simply cannot do this. It’s so cheap. It’s so stupid. It’s fundamentally wrong. This sort of thing is fine for a low budget movie from the 80’s but a series that has the unmitigated gall to self-declare itself a “SAGA”, CAN NOT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!! There is no rating for this. It’s less than zero, it’s pure….well lets just say I’ve created and awarded The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 the first ever Equine Manure Award.

Walgreens Cool-Mist Humidifier Review

2012-11-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

I want to start out by mentioning what a weird phenomena Walgreens is. What was once a small chain of run-down buildings here and there has turn into a vast empire of good-looking modern buildings on nearly every street-corner. Walgreens are cropping up like 7-11’s in the 80s. And they’re awesome. Driving home and suddenly realize you need a jug of milk and foot cream. Walgreen’s has it. Have a sudden craving for walnuts and a slinky? Walgreen’s has it. Going on a long trip and want a crossword puzzle book and a neck pillow? Walgreen’s has it. It’s Walmart concentrate and it’s awesome!

Now a word about humidifiers. I’m a cool-mist guy. I get hot enough at night as it is. I typically only have a sheet over me while I sleep and 90% of the time I end up kicking that off and just lay there in my Empire Strikes Back briefs. So the last thing I need is one of those warm / hot mist humidifiers which makes you feel like you’re sleeping in a sauna.

The problem with humidifiers is they’re just small swamp coolers. Which is you get a filter wet and blow water through it up into the

air in the room. Which means you’re stuck with this filter. A filter which is impossible to clean and even though you scrub the tank, and bowl and the filter you just know that there are microbes of fungus and bacteria left behind. And you’re using the humidifier because you’re sick, maybe feverish, a touch delusional so you find yourself imagining all the germs you are willingly inhaling into your already burdened lungs. It’s awful, but your throat hurts so bad and you’re so stuffed up that you dare not fall asleep in all that dry air.

So I started getting sick earlier this week, and my wife dug through our closet for our humidifier only to find that the filter was green and something had made it into a nest, and we couldn’t find the tank for it, so ya, it was time to get a new one. So on my way home I stopped to get one. I was going to go to Walmart but decided my tolerance level for stupid people was far too low to risk going there. And besides, I may pass 1 Walmart on the way home, but I pass 23 Walgreens!!!

I went in, found their humidifier section and started looking. What I found was a great deal. This Walgreen’s brand cool mist humidifier which was regularly $45 was on sale for $35. It also had some claim about “UltraSonic Technology”. But that didn’t concern me too much. I didn’t much care. I was sick, and it was a good price and all that really mattered was it was cool mist instead of warm mist so I bought it.

I got home and read the instructions, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized this humidifier doesn’t use a filter. It uses the wonders of UltraSonic technology to atomize the water. I don’t know if that is actually true or not and it really doesn’t matter. It instantly produces a visible cloud of cool mist. Isn’t that what you want? Actually there are some drawbacks. You have to have this humidifier in an elevated position, on a chair or dresser or something because it doesn’t use a fan and therefore there is no real propulsion system. The mist pumps out the top of the unit and then kind of drifts, and then falls. The net result is the room gets humidified, but the carpet (or anything) directly in front of it gets a little wet. Not “just shampooed the carpets” wet, or "I just peed the floor" wet but just a barely noticeable amount of “hey this isn’t dry right here”.

The other problem, I found, is again the fact it doesn’t use a fan, so it’s “whisper quiet” but not silent. You here this none stop “wet” sound. Similar to if you owned a fish tank. And you also get the occasion bubbling you would get with a water cooler, which can be alarming in the middle of the night. I’ve had dreams every night since I started using this humidifier involving water. Dreams of drowning in my car, white-water rafting and one of peeing my bed which damn near ended up becoming more than just a dream, if you know what I mean.

Clean up of the unit is a snap. All I had to do is tell my wife to clean it before I left to work and when I got home, voila, it was clean. But she said it was easy to clean and much better not having to deal with a moldy filter.

So there are the downsides I explained but all and all, both my wife and I love it. The Walgreens Cool-Mist Humidifier is a ReviewSpew Certified All-Star!!

Yoga Pants Review

2012-11-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not a follower of fashion. Frankly speaking, I am generally the target of insults and mockery when it comes to my attire. I've been known to wear a stark-white shirt with bright, white pants. Until good friends corrected my actions with subtleties like poking my belly and asking me to giggle like the Pillsbury Dough Boy or saying "G'day mate" in reference to my Crocodile Dundee like threads, I had no idea that I had made a fashion faux pas. I have a series of colorful dress shirts that my friends call "The Neal Diamond" collection and I have, on occasion, wore my Ski jacket in the rain. One friend tried to clip an all day lift ticket to the zipper and shook his head while asking if I felt safe from the April showers in my double stuff'd powder jacket. Sorry, I didn't know, call Stacy and Clinton from "What Not to Wear" and let's have an intervention. I thought Dockers and a Polo transcended all fashion trends.

That being said, I do know what I like, on women that is. I couldn't buy clothes for my wife if my life depended on it, but when it is right, it is right, even I can see that. So may I just go public and say thank you to the makers of Yoga pants. Genius. This trend is one of the best things I've seen since those spandex leotards from the 80's with the thong backs and leg warmers. Don't forget to make them neon, just in case I didn't notice the boodylicious body paint on its own. As for the designers though, I'm not sure about the function, though the form was perfect. The problem was, that public wedgie was a hard sell for the masses, hence, that trend didn't make it through the 90's. Another one bites the dust.

Though I miss Olivia Newton John's contribution to the world, don't fret my brothers, for technology has prevailed once again.   I was recently on campus at a major university and realized that the world has moved on, and in a wonderful way. Women no longer wear sweats. Women's "quick comfies" are now yoga pants! Those baggy, androgynous pants are a thing of the past and in their place, a cheek hugging alternative that tantalizes the mind and requires no imagination. I'm telling you that everyone was wearing yoga pants...everyone that should, at least. How do I say this? It seems that not only was there an abundance of women wearing them, but also an awakening to the old adage that "Spandex is a privilege, not a right" (though you can now replace Spandex with Yoga pants), the point is the same. All the right people wearing all the right clothes.   I knew a world like this could exist, but until now, it happened only in my mind.

I couldn't conceive of why all these women would want men staring at their junk even more than normal, so I asked my wife why everyone is wearing these. She quickly said that they are extremely comfortable....and there it is, genius in its simplicity. Form and function, a perfect engineering concoction to ensure longevity of this low-cut, skin-tight manna from heaven. Yoga world, you have done for ass-men what the Wonder-Bra did for breast-men so many years ago. Thank you for thinking of us. Thank you for your research.   Thank you for making women think that you designed these for their comfort. Thank you for the lift. Thank you for the separation. Thank you for creating a soft fabric that still looks like it was sprayed out of a can. Thank you for starting an booty-bearing trend that is sure to last the ages. Thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you. If I could give these pants 6 stars, I would.

Arby's Grand Turkey Club Sandwich Review

2012-10-25T05:00:00.000-06:00

When I was about 10 years old I spent a week at my sister’s house with her husband and 3 children. I remember watching her make a sack lunch for her husband. She made him a sandwich with mayo on one side and mustard on the other. She spread these condiments evenly without any spilling on the side of the crust. She then opened a package of wafer-sliced ham and not only put the entire package on the sandwich, she folded and layered it so that it too was spread evenly across all of the bread with none over-hanging and it wasn’t just chunked on their like a giant meat patty. Two thin slices of cheese were placed on top of the meat. She then sliced a tomato and put the two slices from the center of the tomato that had the widest diameter, onto the sandwich. A few pieces of green lettuce were then carefully placed on top of that. She wrapped the sandwich and placed it gently into the brown paper bag with a baggy of chips, a folded napkin and then a small note she had written. It simply said, “I love you - thanks for being my best friend”.

As sappy as that memory may be this is what every God-fearing American wants for their lunch. Men and women. It isn’t the meat or bread . It isn’t the veggies or condiments. It certainly isn’t the note. It’s the copious amounts of “give a damn” that went into the making of the lunch. It’s the invisible warm-fuzzy that comes over you when you eat a meal that someone prepared because they actually gave a damn about you. You do not get this when you eat out anywhere. We’ve all seen it. How the actual sandwich never looks like the picture. All the ingredients are there (normally), so what’s missing? The care in which the sandwich was prepared is what is missing. How many times has subway put a cup of mayo and/or mustard on one side of your sandwich and none on the other? How many times has Taco Bell / Time rolled your burrito the wrong way so that instead of all the ingredients being in each bite, you get rice in the 1^st two bites, beans in the next two, tomatoes and onions in the next and cheese and salsa on the next? How many Burgers from Wendys, McD’s, BK, Carl’s Jr and Jack in the Box had Ketchup or special sauces smeared all over the bun? It’s because they don’t care about you. They have their money, they’re making minimum wage and you can go suck it for all they care.

Keep this in mind as I review Arby’s new Grand Turkey Club Sandwich. I’ve recently rediscovered Arby’s, as was evident with my review a while back. In that review I had claimed that the only good thing about Arby’s was they sell Pepsi products. Their new sauces can also be added to what is good about Arby’s. Recently I came into possession of a $10 gift card to Arby’s and so I returned. Having previously decided that their beef and chicken selection weren’t as good as they once where I decided to try their new Grand Turkey Club Sandwich.

As I mentioned in my previous Arby’s review, the staff was surprisingly friendly. I placed my order and handed her my gift card. This was the only part of this trip that annoyed me. The worker was competent but I swear to hell we can launch a Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with less effort than it took to run my gift card. There were only maybe 10 numbers on the card but she had to punch 525 numbers on her keypad to get it to process. But that was just a minor annoyance.

My sandwich came, with the potato cakes and large cup for soda I had ordered. I filled the cup with that nectar of the Gods known by us mere mortals as Pepsi, grabbed a few napkins, went to the condiment dispensers and again had to choke back my desire to go on a tri-state killing spree because they still only have a 3-condiment dispenser and not the 5-condiment one with their new sauces, but settled for Horsey Sauce and Arby’s sauce, ketchup for the potato cakes. I sat down and opened up my little box containing the sandwich and took a good hard look at it. To be honest I was extremely impressed with the look of the sandwich. A fair sized Harvest Wheat Bun with no spillage of mayo on the sides of it anywhere is what you first see. Knowing I was going to review it, I lifted the top bun off to examine it closer. Layer upon layer of sliced roast turkey, topped with perfectly melted Swiss cheese, and by perfectly I mean it covered most of the top of the meat and was melted, not still in the original shape of sliced cheese and there was just the right amount of it. A good amount of bacon came next and I took a bite of it and it was very savory and delicious. Two large slices of ripe tomato that had been sliced not too thick but not too thin either and of course fresh green lettuce on top of that.

At this point, I paused and took a gander towards the kitchen to see if my sister or my wife or someone else that loves me was working back there. Nope, just the friendly faces of Arby’s employees could be seen. I typically like to shove my food into my gaping maw as quickly as I can and then spend the rest of my lunch break dabbing out the stains on my shirt. However, in this case, I took my time. I put the bun back on and took my first bite, then a second. I declare before all of you that this is a model of how all sandwiches everywhere should be prepared. Delicious food prepared with the greatest ingredient of all…a dash of “give a damn”.

I tried Arby’s Sauce and Horsey Sauce on different bites of it but none really complimented it. I bet the Honey Mustard sauce they have at limited locations would compliment it perfectly, but you know what? It doesn’t need anything else. It’s delicious with the mayo they carefully and evenly spread on it. OK, it’s not a very filling sandwich, at least for me and most construction workers may want to order two, but with fries and a drink it made a great meal. I returned the next day just to see if it was an anomaly and it was made with the same care as the previous one. I think if Arby’s can successfully continue to put a pinch of extra care into every sandwich they make, they may actually pull themselves out of this funk and make a real name for themselves above the other fast food chains. I’d even suggest they start putting a little business card sized note inside your bag or on your tray saying “We appreciate you – Have a great day”. I’ve upgraded my stars for Arby’s itself from zero to three and the Grand Turkey Club gets 4 stars!!

Nikon COOLPIX AW100 Digital Camera Review

2012-10-22T05:00:00.000-06:00

My wife and I are psychos when it comes to photos. Since going digital many years ago, we now have a database of over 30,000 digital photos that we store via various methods of backup.    That is over 30,000,000 words if you use the picture to word conversion.   (That being said, the unabridged version of "The Stand" by Stephen King still has us beat by a million words or so.)

Seriously, I don't know that we actually enjoy the events we attend now because 90% of what we see is still through a 2" viewfinder whether the stage is 10 feet in front of us or not. Often we have two hands going at once, one armed with a camcorder and the other with a still camera. I'll be damned if I'm just going to sit there and enjoy myself. We can watch the actual event later, on the computer, with desktop speakers, where half the screen was inadvertently blocked by a 400lb mammoth driving a "Rascal" that got preferred seating in front of us even though we were 2 hrs early to the performance and she was 15 min. late. It guess it takes extra time to...never mind. (Bottle it up Meatwad, push it down deep) I guess you could say that this is our form of documenting history. We don't write in journals or diaries, we just film everything possible and figure posterity can figure out the rest.

So we have several cameras. They usually outlast technology so we are accumulating a camera graveyard of sorts. We have at least 5 vintages of digital point-and-shoots, 4 eras represented via camcorder, A few pocket cams, web cams, a nice digital SLR, and our most often used, smart phone cams. Let's just say that if any starlets have a wardrobe malfunction in our presence, we'll be getting a big check from Star magazine.

Believe it or not, even with this cornucopia of cameras at our disposal, we were missing something big when planning our trip to Hawaii. We had absolutely nothing that could go underwater and we had planned on SCUBA and snorkeling a lot. I searched the internet for options and to be honest, if you don't want a cheapo disposable film camera for underwater, or a $250-$400 waterproof case for a camera you already have, there are not a ton of options out there. The point and shoot cameras that are "approved" for underwater use usually have a depth rating of a meager 10 feet. Anyhow, after the Google dust cleared, we settled on the Nikon COOLPIX AW100 16MP camera. There were some sketchy reviews out there, but the vacation date was quickly approaching and I decided to risk it.

To be honest, I assumed this wouldn't work at all. I was just hoping to get a few shots of fish before the water ruined the thing. Then I would just send it back to Amazon.com when we returned from the island. I am happy to say that I couldn't have been more wrong. It worked great for all the shots I took, underwater and otherwise. I also got a ton of HD video footage underwater which was way better than I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have any special flashes and this doesn't compare to a high quality DSLR with studio lighting, but in the conditions in which I placed the camera, if performed like a champ. I used the auto settings most of the time as they were quick and I could get good footage while still enjoying the water. The camera never got moisture inside, but I was diligent with the "soaking in tap water for 10 min after coming out of the ocean and then letting it dry thoroughly before opening" rules that are clearly stated in the instruction manual. It also has a nice tether that goes around your neck instead of just your wrist, which made it perfect for snorkeling and diving where you need your hands free quite often. It is rated to a depth of 40 feet by the way, so it is just fine for novice divers and land lovers like myself, though it may not be the camera of choice for entering the Abyss.

The other functions are very intuitive, like any decent camera in this class, and the results were way better than expected for a camera with a $200 price tag. Because of the quality, this is my new go-to camera when I need something small and handy and I don't want to lug out the SLR. Well done Nikon!   The one problem I do see is the disclaimer that this camera shouldn't go into the hot tub because the temperature could ruin the seals. There are some candid underwater shots I was still hoping to try there. Oh well, my snorkeling gear has no such shortcomings, so when I'm tub diving, I guess I'll just have to throw on my mask and take some mental pictures.

Note: The photos I've added are actual photos from the actual camera, from the actual trip. No stock photos here. Pay no attention to the manatee in the background, it's been a few years since my skin has seen the sun.

Muse - The 2nd Law review

2012-10-18T07:00:00.000-06:00

It's been a while. For all 2 of you who wonder where I ran off to, let's just say that I needed to take a journey, a walkabout if you will, to find myself. Only after losing myself completely did my spirit guide lead me to my all-important destiny, reviewing mediocre consumer goods. So, I'm back, end of story.

It actually took something that I'm incredibly interested in to bring me back to the fold. That thing is the newest album from the British prog-rockers, Muse. You only have to read my concert review to find out how far my fanboy status goes with these guys.

It has been 3 long years since Muse released The Resistance, an album I have enjoyed more every time I hear it. In fact, each of their albums (with exception to Showbiz) are nearly perfect. And that's why it grieves me to say that Muse has hit a stumbling block with The 2nd Law.

I thought Matthew Bellamy could do no wrong. I would let him sing Dora the Explorer songs in falsetto and it would still be classified as art. But something happened in the production of this album. (I blame Kate Hudson) It's almost as if he recorded about 6 songs and took a break, and when he came back, the album was finished somehow. I'm going to break this down track by track.

1 - Supremacy
Great opening track. Starts the epic rocking combined with a string section, because well, it's Muse. Once this song starts I'm immediately excited to listen to the entire album.

2 - Madness
Somehow Muse has made a sexier song than Supermassive Black Hole. This song might get a little dubstep-py for some, but I think it has the perfect mix of electronica and melody. This is a step in the right direction for the band.

3 - Panic Station
The first time I heard this song I was annoyed. The first 20 seconds sound like a bad Prince song, but then the chorus hits and it picks up. The second time I heard it, I somehow loved it. It's one of my favorites on the album, even if it does veer into Prince territory.

4 & 5 - Prelude & Survival
It makes me mad that they wasted an entire track to a 40 second lead-in for Survival. But the 2 tracks combined make for magic. If I hadn't heard this song during the Olympics months ago, it would be on constant repeat. The lyrics are a little shallow, but it's forgiven because the song freakin' rocks!

6 - Follow Me
Almost starts to follow the mediocre ballad, Soldier's Poem, but is saved with (dare I say it) Erasure style theatrics. Not the most memorable song, but I won't skip it when it plays on shuffle.

7 - Animals
This song is great, it almost belongs on Origin of Symmetry or Absolution. Its many layers are helped by the beauty of the lead guitar. Easily one of the best tracks here, but gets lost in the 2nd half of the album.

8 - Explorers
I guess I wanted more rock anthems and am disappointed there aren't more. This ballad purposely tries to sing you to sleep. It's a very pretty song and similar to Invincible from Black Holes & Revelations.

9 - Big Freeze
The beginning of the end. It's not a terrible song, but it does sound like something that Bellamy wrote in the mid 90's. It's easy to listen to, but I'd probably skip this on shuffle.

10 & 11 - Save Me & Liquid State
Here we are. The most questionable decision by the band to date. Why, oh why, did they allow Chris the bassist to write and sing 2 tracks on an already short album? The songs are very personal to him, and about kicking his alcoholism and blah, blah, blah... and I respect that, but 2 whole tracks!? It's sadly a waste, and they sound like mediocre 311 songs to boot. (Every 311 song) Poor choice.

It's like letting The Edge sing...oh wait a minute...

12 & 13 - Unsustainable & Isolated System
I can see why people hate Unsustainable. Beyond the symphonic lead-in, this song is not Muse. Even they said they made this song after seeing Skrillex have sex with a fax machine (possibly true). I wanted more rock anthems, so this one does me nicely. Plus it's a good angry song. Isolated System is very pretty and feels like a continuation of their Exogenesis symphony. It's a beautiful song but feels like a wasted track with Bellamy's vocals.

Do I still love Muse? Absolutely. But this is their second worst album. Their are some standout tracks but a lot of wasted potential. There is a problem when the voice that Muse is known for is only present on 8 out of 13 tracks. I'm sorry to do this to you Muse but you deserve 3 1/2 stars.