INKSTAND

I can’t believe it took me so long to do this one. Bacon Salt is great, I love it! I’ve been puting it in my scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, on steak, popcorn, and vegetables. It’s the best, it really is. When trying to imagine what it tastes like, one should think “Bacos-salt” because, well, it tastes a lot like bacon-substitute topping, Bacos, mixed with salt. It doesn’t taste exactly like bacon but enough to make you get your bacon fix. That does not deter this delightful condiment from taking it’s place among the awesome things of this world. You shouldn’t have trouble finding Bacon Salt, because it’s been popping up everywhere. If you can’t find it, their website lists retailers who carry it. I have only tried the original flavor as of yet, but I will soon sample the other two flavors, hickory and peppered. They make a natural kind, who’s list of ingredients is dramaticaly shorter, but I won’t try that because I don’t really care what I’m puting into my body.
A special thanks to Mike and Janice for turning me on to this life-affirming product.

I don’t know what happened, I must have just slept wrong, but this morning my neck and shoulders were fucking killing me. I was able to get through my day as long as I kept moving. If I stayed in one spot too long I would have time to think about the pain and that was no good. At about 7 o’clock at work I decided I had to try something other than Excedrine and ibuprofen, neither of which were working. I went to the shelf and picked up the Bengay patch. After buying it I noticed that it had expired a year ago. I got my money back, opened the box and put it on. Yeah, like this stuff expires. The only good that does is get me my shit for free.
Bengay is the same principal as Icy Hot. First it’s cold, then it’s hot, at least that’s what the package of this product claimed. It even says right on the front “deep, penetrating heat.” Before I get to how inaccurate that claim is, let me tell you how difficult it was to put on. The thing is slinky and slimy like a…a…I don’t know, but it ain’t natural. It sticks just fine, but if you move it bunches and creeps and crawls around, making the already difficult chore of reaching my own back even more difficult. I had to bare my back to the lovely Julia, a 16-year-old bagger and one of my angels, so that she could assist me.
Oh, I felt the cold part. That was fine. I thought, “oh, good, it’s working.” Sadly, it never got past the cold part. I didn’t get the “deep, penetrating heat” I desperately needed. Now I’m at home, shirtless, having rubbed myself down with Tiger Balm which seems to be doing the same “cold but not hot” thing. I’m having a beer, but I seriously doubt that will help at all. I would give my left nut for a joint right now.
If you can help it, skip the patch and go straight for the smelly balm stuff. Preferably Icy Hot.

Every once in a while when I’m looking for a refreshing beverage I see root beer and think “That would be great, if only it had caffeine.” I know Barqs has caffeine, but I haven’t had it in years. I know Jeremy and Matthew have recently tried it for it’s caffeine content but were unimpressed with it’s flavor. I was looking for a boost today at work and remembered that we had just gotten this drink in and it was the natural choice to go with. Bawls energy drink is pretty good by me so I thought a highly caffinated root beer would be a winner. My attention was also drawn to the gimick of not only using the word “geek” in their name, but using the “33″ to replace the “ee”, a nod to leet speak, or 1337 speak, or whatever the hell. It is also nice to see a decline in the usage of limit-pushing, poorly-spelled adjectives like “xtreme” or “maxxed”.

It tasted all right. It was crisp and sweet, but as far as root beers go it was a little lack luster. While it had a tiny bit of that energy-drink flavor to it, it wasn’t strong enough to make you think you were drinking yet another flavor of Monster. As for it’s energy-boosting abilities, the web site says it’s about as strong as a cup of coffee, and I will agree. I drank it at about 8 pm to push through the last couple hours of work and I made it, although I felt fatigued after 10. It’s about 11:20 right now and off of work so, as usual, I’m not alert but not ready ofr bed either. I’ll probably play Warcraft, which is the kind of thing this drink was designed for.

I’ll probably buy it again at some point. Put it into my stable of energy drinks. But at over $2 per 10 oz bottle, I sure won’t be drinking it all the time.

NOS, Fruit Punch flavor
This drink isn’t any better than any other energy drink. In fact I found that the flavor had a dusty quality to it. I think I was taken in by the bright colors, which reminded me of Iron Man. I should go see that.

Amp, “Revive” Orange flavor by Mountain Dew
The first time I had this it really kicked me in the butt. I was all jittery and unfocused at work. I’m easily distracted as it is and this made it worse, plus I was hyper. It tasted ok, though. The orange Mountin Dew flavor seems to be being pushed by the company. It’s gone in Code Orange, Game Fuel, Livewire, and this. It’s ok but I liked Code Red better. A better orange flavor would be…

Rumba
I really love this one. It’s not carbonated and tastes a lot more like what one would think of when they think “energy juice” than anything that Rockstar or Monster have put out. And by that I mean it tastes like there’s juice in it. There’s a blurb on the can that says something like “It’s about how it makes you feel!” Any buzz I’ve gotten from Rumba has been a rather pleasant, upbeat one. I don’t think it’s too hard to get, but I usually can’t find it when I’m in the market for an afternoon boost. When I’m away from Ken’s, that is. I sample other energy drinks a lot, but this one is my favorite.

I recently got a new Mastercard with Paypass, but never really considered it. Just a while ago, however, I went to 7-11 (no eggs this time) an noticed that they had PayPass on their EFT thingie. So instead of swiping my card I just touched it to the pad. It was sweet! It beeped and seconds later my reciept printed out. I don’t consider entering my PIN to be a big time-consuming event, but I do like the speediness of PayPass. Although, it brings up a slew of security issues that I don’t even need to mention.

I work full time and go to school, but that’s not why I haven’t posted reviews for a while.

Look, my Undead Rogue is Level 39. At 40 I can get my mount, but first I need to earn like 90 more gold. So until my herbalism and alchemy yield some better results at the auction house and I get some good stuff from instances, y’all are just gonna have to sit tight.

I’m gonna look so badass on that thing.

This new design automaticaly gets a thumbs down from me due to it’s inclusion of one of my largest pet peves. I’ve been in the retail biz long enough to have gotten sick of seeing new packaging with the blurb “Great New Look! Same Great Taste!” It’s even worse when they spin it somehow, like Mountain Dew’s recent “New View, Same Dew.” The most I can say for Sun Chip’s new packaging expletive is that it sticks to the basics.
Old:

New:

Maybe the blurb is necessary, because I feel that the new bag makes the chips look “low fat” or something along those lines. At any rate, I don’t understand the need for a new package design when the old one did a fine job of identifying the brand.

Don’t get excited, it’s not nearly as hot as it sounds. It’s a lip balm made out of Oskar Blues’ Old Chub beer. The lip balm doesn’t taste like beer, unfortunately. Beer, hops and barley are in the list of ingredients, but before that comes cocoa oil and shea butter and stuff. It actually kind of tastes like coffee. I think maybe Tully’s could buy it from them and they wouldn’t even have to change the color of their packaging.
Oh, how well does it protect my lips from the elements? I dont know, pretty well I guess. I’m gonna keep using it. I think it’s the novelty, but I’m starting to like the flavor and hey, maybe it is preventing the chapping of my lips.

Someone left this bag at our store. It’s from a company in Portland, OR, Patty Reed Designs. It’s one of their line of bags called an “insta-tote” because it is collapsable, yet durable. As far as the design on it goes, well, the new girl and I were talking to two different people at the same time about this bag someone left and we each ended our sentence, almost in unison, “It’s hideous.”

I like the combination of black white and red, but it can’t save this design. I’ve never been a fan of the tiny polka dots and they really strain the image here, making my eyes hurt and my brain work too hard. Also, the type says “…girlfriends…” The women pictured hardly seem like friends and I would expect one to tear the other’s eyes out if she wore the same dress as her.

While this is as deep as my critique went, Rachel, the girl at work, developed a great hatred for the bag. She dearly wanted to rip it apart and destroy it. I prevented this, not wanting to have to explain it to a customer who might come to claim the bag. “Sorry, miss, our checker went ferral on it.”

There are so many things wrong with this advertisement. I first saw it a while ago in the trade magazine at work about private label products. I saw it again and had to say something about it. The best thing it has going for it is that it is symmetrical. It’s the only element of the ad that suggests they planned anything. The concept of the ad seems to be a mish-mash of at least three very weak concepts.

First we have the question: “What are these people smiling about?” When you see this in an ad, you should expect the makers of the ad to reveal the answer to this question while trying to sell you something. This ad never actually tells you why the people in the photos are smiling. Apparently the “paper people” did something for them, but we remain in the dark as to what this great favor was. Could it be that they helped all these ladies establish their store brand with quality private label products? Possibly, but I doubt it.

Then we have the photos. The only theme in this lot of photos is they are women of different ages and complexions. The clash of different photography styles and time periods is difficult to look at. Even though I feel the smiles give the same effect in all the photos, the styles are not uniform enough to cram together on a page in this manner. It is also simultaneously difficult and uncomfortable to think of these women not only using paper products, but smiling so widely after doing so.


Lastly we have the smiley face made from computer-generated tissue rolls in the middle of the page. What the hell is that? Why is the tissue paper smiling? I think the designer felt that the circle of photos of women was so weak he had to try to salvage something by sticking something cute in the middle. The smiling tissue is there to distract from the discomfort of the photos and the aimlessness of the question at the top of the page.


This ad is terrible. Whoever designed it must have either been on a hell of a deadline or not been getting paid very much. Or both.