Kirkland Macadamia Clusters Review

I've made it through the holidays and am just now coming down from the ridiculous sugar high a month later. Even the thought of anything sugary, sweet, and/or gooey makes my teeth hurt. That being said, there is one holiday gem that continues to enrapture the mind and tantalize the pallet. Kirkland’s Macadamia clusters with salted caramel from Costco have entangled my soul, and at this point, I'm not sure if there is any way out. These precious clusters come in 2lb bucket and don't seem to be just a holiday item at Costco anymore. What that means to a junkie like me is that there is a legal crack house one mile down the road. Let me repeat, an inexhaustible, dirt cheap, river of Crack within 5 min. My Crack just happens to come in the form of lumped caramel and nuts. Good luck getting through the tremors with that ease of access.

Every night, after gorging myself on dinner, I eat 2 and precisely 2 of these clusters. Yes, I said every night. Two is exactly the correct volume to satiate without overdoing but I’m worried about the collective; long-term effects of pounding clusters day after day. This could prove deadly. Further, my wife and daughter have braces which don’t go well with caramel, leaving the entire bucket to me and my son of 5… who obviously can't reach the top shelf where I hide these in the pantry. This burden is mine and mine alone. A week ago I finished off one bucket, and just happened to be in Costco for a replacement within a day. I didn’t make it a day! I have a problem, I know.

Now let me give you the breakdown of this naughty little minx.

Crunchy, nutty bite, silky chocolaty outside, and a gooey, caramel cement holding it all together. As Robin Williams once said,” we didn’t just read poetry, we let it drip off of our tongues like honey”. Just replace” read” with “eat and “poetry” with “cluster” and…ok that was a long way to go for a Dead Poet Society reference, and didn’t really make sense anyhow. How’s this? It is like a little piece of happiness bundled in cocoa.

I spend a lot of time thinking about food , and if you have read my other reviews, I think that fact has been well established. But, in trying to ascertain why I am drawn to these like a Priest to little league baseball game, I've decided that the magic comes from the least likely of ingredients. It’s the salt. The simple fact that the macadamia nuts are salted before being smothered in caramel makes these things unique and exquisite. The salt cuts the sweet and balances the caramel perfectly. In my mind, the marriage of salt and caramel now rivals that of peanut butter and chocolate, coconut and cream, yea even pork and beans.

This is a nearly perfect creation losing only one star because of my expanding waist and sludge filled arteries. At this point, at least I have completed step one in my recovery process. I’ve admitted I have a problem. From here, it is one day at a time. I may ultimately lose the war, but many a tasty battle there will be.

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Abreva Review

I woke up Monday morning with a little tingle on the edge of my mouth. I was hoping like crazy it was just a zit but deep in my heart I knew it wasn’t. I’ve only had a cold sore one other time in my entire 40 years of life and that was about 5 years ago. At that time I bought Abreva because I liked the sound of their advertising where they claimed it would just make it go away. When it comes to cold sores that is the #1 desire. There aren’t many going around saying “Man, I love this thing. I wish it would hurt more. I wish I had more. I wish it were bigger. I wish it would never go away.” OK maybe there are some freaks out there that would say that but I am certainly not one of them.

Anyway I bought it, brought it home, opened the box and was instantly ticked off. See this stuff is expensive. I’m not sure how much it was 5 years ago but it was a lot and then the world’s tiniest little tube came out of this box that was 5 times too big for it. As it turned out, the stuff went a long way so it wasn’t really an issue.

The stuff works too. It works like crazy. It didn’t do it in the manner which I had hoped it would though. The cold sore didn’t get smaller. What happened is it went through its full course at an accelerated rate. It got bigger and grosser, but within 2 days it was all but gone. I have family members who suffer with cold sores and that is the fastest I’ve ever seen one go away. Our family has used it ever since and it works, every single time.

But let me get back to this most recent sore. I woke up with it Monday, but it wasn’t until Wednesday that I gave up on the whole “it’s just a zit” routine. I spent an hour Wednesday night searching through drawer after drawer of ointments and creams in our bathroom and finally found the itty-bitty tube of Abreva. A quick search of the crimp revealed that it had expired in June of 2006. Yes. This was our original tube of the stuff. It was only half empty so that is a testament to how far it goes and you really shouldn’t be turned off by the small size of the package (yes, I’ve tried that last line on women before and it never works).

Of course I threw it away without using it. I spent Thursday fruitlessly applying Carmex to my lips. That did make the pain temporarily go away but it did nothing for the size, which had now reached epic proportions. As I gazed upon my visage in the mirror this morning, feeling a little like Joseph Merrick, I decided I would have to cave and go buy another supply of Abreva.

The first thing I noticed when I got to the pharmacy today was they have changed their packaging and you can see just how small the tube is before buying. The next things I noticed was just how expensive this stuff is. $17.99!!!! Always there for convenience was the price per oz. $17.99 for a .07 oz tube comes to $257.00 per oz. I don’t know where Abreva-futures will go but looking at the chart below, right now it’s somewhere between Ruthenium and Osmium on the precious metals commodities chart. Silver is cheaper, but none of these will cure a cold sore.

Not being able to get passed my sticker-shock I left the store empty handed (OK I bought a pound bag of M&Ms for breakfast, but I didn’t buy the Abreva). The good people over there at GlaxoSmithKline know they have the only real game in town and they’re going to make us all pay. Abreva works, plain and simple and for that they should get 5 stars, but since more than half of the American public cannot afford to buy it they only get 3 stars. And for those of you that have the misfortune of having to look at me for the next week just remember “I am not an animal, I am a human being.”

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Smashburger Beehive Burger review

In the beginning there was Mcdonalds. And Mcdonalds was never good. Then came the two descendants, Burger King and Wendys. Though they tried, they still were not good. The world was then exposed to Carl's Jr, who stated that "if it didn't get all over the place, it didn't belong in your face." They then tried to convince us that their burgers were delicious when Paris Hilton starting rubbing a 6 dollar mushroom chili burger on her heroin-riddled arms. Are chili burgers supposed to be sexy? Is Paris Hilton supposed to be sexy? Is Paris Hilton still alive?

In recent years there has been an influx of overexpensive-oversized classy fast food restaurants. You can't go anywhere (unless you live in Pocatello) without seeing a Cafe Rio, Chipotle, or Pei Wei. In the past year, Five Guys Burgers and Fries have opened up several locations locally. All of these places are great choices if you're feeling that you need to gain 3 pounds and lose 10 dollars a pop. The most recent addition to this smorgasborg (not sure that's how you spell it. I learned that word from Charlotte's Web) is Smashburger. (Yes, one word. Smashburger.)

My friend suggested we try it out but I was trepid because I had recently grown attached to Five Guys cajun fries. But who am I to say no to a burger? Unlike Meatwad, I don't like to veer off of my taste palate path. I always order the same kind of burger. Like 97% of the free world's population I am a big fan of bacon. (The other 3% are vegetarians and are unhappy) Add some cheese, BBQ sauce, and Onion Straws and I was sold on the "Beehive Burger." For those of you who don't live in Utah (be thankful) It is really the "bbq, bacon, cheese" burger. But because I live in the Beehive State they personalized a burger just for me. I feel special.

The "beehive" smashburger is a more exotic name than the literal bbq, bacon, and cheese burger. Let's break down what makes this burger great.

First off you have the egg buns. No longer will I be satisfied with buns that come in 8 packs from the store. The egg buns have a very satisfying taste and does not feel like you're eating a foam mattress that everyone else forms their buns from. I like BBQ sauce on everything I eat (even salad? Yes, even salad) and it gives the burger a nice little kick but I would be happy if the burger were bathing in it and not just a dab on the bun. Onion straws and bacon make everything better. Jim Gaffigan once said that bacon makes a mediocre appetizer into an entree. He is half right, add some onion straws and you have a gourmet feast. Cheese is cheese and is necessary as another layer of a possible future heart attack. The 1/3 pound patty is smashed pretty thin (i.e. Smashburger) but is really no thinner than any franchise burger joint I've been. Also, if you're feeling crazy, you can go for the 1/2 pound burger where the meat is the size of a small plate and hangs over the sides of the bun.

Don't forget the Smash fries. The burger would not be complete without these delicious morsels. They are thin fries cooked with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic. I think I just drooled on my keyboard. If you are adventurous you can get the sweet potato smashfries. Yep, drooled again.

The 1/3 lb burger alone is going to run you 5.99. (1/2 lb is 6.99) Add some smashfries onto that for 1.99 and a drink for an additional 1.79 and you're paying a cool 10 bucks (don't add a tip. never add a tip on a receipt for fast food) to be a glutton but give your taste buds a party that they'll want to revisit again and again.

I give the Smashburger Beehive Burger 4 stars. It is one of the juiciest, most delicious burgers I've ever had but it will put you in the poorhouse.

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Amateur Meat Processing Review

I spent most of Saturday playing with my meat. OK, I don’t know what you perverts are thinking right now, but if you can think of a better way to describe the act of dividing and packaging 100 pounds of ground beef, please let me know. I’m getting ahead of myself anyway so let me backtrack.

My wife is a member of one of these frugal moms or thrifty shoppers websites that emails you an alert every time there’s a sale on lima beans in 50-gallon drums at your local FoodMart or when Kellogg’s is having a buy 3 get 17 free promotion at Rite Aid. About six months ago she got a notice that an outfit called Zaycon Foods was having a Chicken Breast Event. What they were doing is selling 40 pound boxes of Boneless, skinless Chicken Breast for $1.49 a pound. I immediately went online to find out all I could about Zaycon foods and other than they are based out of Washington State I could find nothing. The BBB had not heard of them, there were no reviews, nothing.

Being kind of rash I went ahead and pre-ordered 2 cases anyway. The drop-off date was at a local church on a Saturday about 3 weeks later. Halfway expecting to find a parking lot full of pissed off people hungry for chicken but no refrigerated truck, I headed down to the church. I was greatly relieved to find not only the refrigerated truck but some of the most helpful and friendly people I’ve ever worked with.

The Zaycon people were awesome. I showed them my receipt, they loaded our trunk up with the boxes and off we went. I spent a few hours splitting the breasts and freezing them in Ziplock freezer bags and then putting them in our freezer. The chicken breast are fantastic. I’ve never seen such ginormous chicken breasts. These are the Pamela Anderson variety of chicken for sure. And they cook up so nice and delicious. Juicy, fresh, just plain fantastic.

A few months down the road we get another alert from Zaycon Foods saying they are now having a ground beef event. 93.7% lean ground beef sold in 20 pound cases for only $2.49 per pound. So impressed with the chicken we went ahead and preordered 100 pounds of the beef. We had the same A+ service at pickup, and brought the beef home. We browned up 2 pounds of it for tacos. There was hardly any grease at all in the pan when we were done. It also tasted really good. The best ground beef I’ve ever had.

The only thing I don’t like about shopping with Zaycon Foods is they seem to only have these events, and there is no forewarning of what they are going to sell when.
Their website says they sale Chicken, Turkey, Beef, Fish and Pork, but there is no indication of what might come next. There is definitely a mystery about the whole place that is a little concerning. So far though we have been 100% satisfied with what we have gotten. Sorry that this is a review for a regional product. Zaycon seems to only operate in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma, but if you’re in one of those states and are in the market for fresh meat, go to their website and register. http://www.zayconfoods.com/

I give Zaycon Foods 4 stars (would have been 5 but they’re just a little too secretive for that).

In preparation for the beef showing up on I knew I wanted to freeze a portion of it in pre-pressed hamburger patties. I searched high and low on the internet for a good but inexpensive meat patty press. I finally ended up buying the Weston Single Patty Press from Amazon. It retailed for $24.99 but was on sale for $20.27. This extremely clever thing has a screw on top that allows you to adjust your patty size to whatever weight of patty you want from ¼ lb to 1lb. It looked good enough to me and you couldn’t beat the price. I was shocked to see there were some selling for $60 to $100.

Once we got to pressing I found out why. This has this little teeny handle on it which provided no leverage. Yes, it’s a press that doesn’t allow you to exert pressure. Knowing I was going to press 80 patties I knew I had to do something to remedy this.
I ended up using a 1 ¼” wrench as a lever for it, which lead to the other problem. Using the lever I came up with made the whole thing tip over. It did have two screw holes that would allow you to mount it to your work table and I’m sure that would fix it, but my wife would not let me mount it to our kitchen table. Can you believe that noise? It’s not like the table is new. It isn’t even mahogany or anything like that. It’s some 50 year old number we got from her deceased grandpa and I’m thinking something that is made out of solid oak can stand up to 2 little holes drilled into the top of it, but nooooooo, I had to make do without that little benefit.

The other problem is the clamshell design. It made the meat push forward and formed unevenly. Sometimes squishing out the front but not fully formed in the back of the patty. I made adjustments to my technique to accommodate for this but it was by no means a simple operation.

The adjustment thing on top didn’t work either. I set it for ¼ lb patty but by the time I had made 80 patties I was through about 26 pounds of my meat. That’s .325 pounds per patty which is really annoying to me because I can’t say they’re third pounders or quarter pounders. Whatever. It’s cheap, and I was able to make it work but if you’ve got money to fork over for the more expensive ones, it might be worth it. If not, buy this one. I would. I give it 3 stars.

Oh that reminds me. It was suppose to be non-stick but wasn’t. Good thing I’m an Eagle Scout and always prepared.
I had already bought Weston Hamburger Patty Paper. 1000-sheet box cost $14.99 at Amazon which seemed like a lot but it ended up being worth it. They were kind of thin and if you messed up pressing a patty, you had to replace the paper because it couldn’t really stand up to the pressure of a 2nd press, but 1000 sheets is almost an unlimited supply unless you own a restaurant. They did the job, were easy to extract from their box, even with chubby, blood-soaked digits like mine, but as I already said they kind of self destructed a little faster than I would have wanted. I give them 4 stars.

Which leaves us with the Ziploc Freezer Bags. These come with Ziploc’s patented “Smart Zip” technology. Not sure what’s so special about that. There is a double row of zipper to close it with which made it easier to close.
These bags are durable and have kept our chicken extremely fresh. We used Quart sized ones for the Chicken Breast (held 2 of those jumbo-sized ta-tas just fine) and we used Gallon sized ones for the beef (held 8 .325 pound patties stacked 2 high perfectly). These puppies work. Ziploc is the first and still the best at what it does. When you’ve laid down cash for quality meat don’t screw around. Ziploc Freezer Bags are a certified ReviewSpew All-Star!

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Bucky Balls Review

I am always amazed at what ends up being the hit toy for the year in the Meatwad household. We are big spenders for Christmas and always buy way too much. In addition to the normal “requested” haul, we also try to find unique things for the kiddos that they may have never seen before and certainly weren‘t on any list. Now, if you asked the kids, they will always say the big item they asked for was their favorite but I tend to watch what gets played with the most to see what was the real hit and what holds their interest the longest time.

This year a family favorite came in the form of a tiny little stocking stuffer called Bucky Balls. These are just tiny magnetic balls that you form together to make shapes, but they are very strong rare earth magnets so the shapes hold together really well. Santa brought a set of 216 balls to me and a set for my 10 year old daughter this year. 216 balls makes a cube about 2 inches by 2 inches so the individual balls are really more like BB’s than balls. (If I had a nickel for every time..)

Now there is a big warning on the side of the package that says “Keep away from all Children! Do not put in nose or mouth. Swallowed magnets can stick to intestines causing serious injury or death!” Hence, Santa didn’t bring them to my 5 year old. That being said, all of us, my five year old included, have been playing with these things non-stop since Christmas. Every time we are sitting on the couch, or are in the car, one of us is fiddling with these things.

I am a little bit of a fancy lad, so of course I made the standard necklaces, bracelets, and rings with these, varying the designs from simple to intricate. I even put on ball on either side of my earlobe to pull off an 80’s throwback BB earring without the actual piercing. Yeah, it didn‘t say anything about keeping away from the ears in the warning. The most difficult geometry to pull off is actually the cube that the set comes in. I distinctly remember from physics a right hand rule for the direction of current in a magnetic field…..or was that centrifugal force?….I swear there was something with a thumb and the curling of fingers. Either way, it won’t help you when trying to align 216 BB’s in a cube. That requires mad patience and a “feel” for the placement. I’m a bit of a prodigy, I’ll admit, so I got it after only a few days. Oh yeah, the kids have fun with them too.

These things are a little expensive, but I hear Santa found some pretty good 2 for 1 deals on Woot just prior to Christmas. Also, there are tons of knock-off brands, but according to the reviews, they are not very powerful and will fall apart if trying to go with the oh so popular single ball chain. Bucky Balls have no such problems and “Oooh, ooh, oooooooh, stick like glue”. If it wasn’t for the fact that I am pretty sure the magnets are strong enough to destroy my cell phone and laptop if accidentally converged, I would give these geometric gems 5 stars. But, since they will likely erase my hard drive and can potentially cause death, I am “sticking” with 4.

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Warmingsystems.com Electric In-floor Heating System Review

As the years go by, it appears that my prostate has enlarged to the size of a small poodle.  This is evidenced by the fact that I cannot make it through a single night without getting up to pee at least once.  Unfortunately, this is the not the most annoying thing associated with my "night pees."
My master bathroom is in the corner of the house with 2 large windows and one small vent for heat.  In the dead of winter the temperature drops to a seemingly single digits in this room.  In addition, the floor was covered with large ugly marble tile which had the unique ability to collect any cold in the room and magnify it.  Walking on these tile is akin to walking on ice.  If you stuck your tongue to the tiles, it would stick. (I triple-dog-dare you)  We owned the "FroZone" of floor tile.

This led to a very uncomfortable 60 seconds as I relieved myself around 3 AM each night.  I would head back to bed wide awake with frozen feet.  I tried rubbing them together, but not much heat is generated by rubbing 2 ice blocks together. (There actually is probably some...but I got a D in Thermodynamics in college, so I'll swear ignorance)

I have been able to rectify this situation by using 2 methods.  First, I either set a pair of slippers next to the bathroom door.  This helps considerably.  Unfortunately, I sometimes forget to set them there, or just walk half-asleep into the bathroom without putting them on.  I do a sort of "hot coals walk" over to the toilet, and immediately sit down with my feet resting up on the tub edge rather than the floor.  Yes...my cold floors have forced me to sit down to pee. (I swear my wife has nothing to do with it)

On a wild hair, we decided to completely renovate our master bathroom over the holiday break.  It was then I started looking into floor heating systems.

First thing--they can be expensive.  It is surprising since it is basically wire, but if you want a "kit" that is ready to install, be prepared to fork out some bucks.
Second--The thermostats you want can be expensive.  I wanted a kit with a programmable thermostat in order to have the floor warm at opportune times. (dropping a deuce while playing angry birds, dancing naked in the bathroom, etc)  I didn't want to manually turn the heat on/off with a cheaper thermostat.
Third--You must have some DIY skills. (or pay for someone to install it)

After looking in local stores and on the internet, I found warmingsystems.com.  They are by far one of the cheapest (reputable) company on the web.  I purchased an entire kit for my bathroom for under 180 bucks shipped.

Despite a shipping error with my order (they "swear" this never happens), my kit came as advertised.

I ordered a cable kit, which means that I used aluminum tape to place the wire down wherever I desired.  They also sell a "mat" kit which has the wiring on a pre-made mat for easy roll-out.  This would work best in a square area.  The kit also came with the wiring to connect your home power supply, and also a programmable thermostat.

You must put this on a GFCI circuit, but the wiring is straight-forward with a little bit of electrical skill.  The wiring on the floor just goes directly on your backer/concrete board, and the thin-set mortar is spread directly over the wiring.  The tile is placed on the thin-set, and the whole process is pretty easy.  Be careful not to cut the wire with your trowel. (slows down tile installation a bit)

I hooked up the thermostat, and waited a couple hours for the floors to warm up.  This thing is HEAVENLY!!!  It is the single greatest renovation project I have ever completed.  WELL worth the 180 bucks.

I now look forward to an ever-growing prostate in order to walk on my hot floors at night to pee.  In fact, it's so warm that on a cold wintry day I've considered just "laying out" on my floors.  Be warned that I "lay out" in the nude.

I give warmingsystems.com floor warming kit 4 smoking stars.  It would easily be a 5 star rating, but the late delivery was enough to disrupt our bathroom project by a week.
Warmingsystems.com did not pay for nor ask for this review, although we would be happy to accept a gratuitous donation from them to pay for our outlandish writers salaries.

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Frito Lay Munchies Cheese Fix Snack Mix Review

I’ve been traveling again lately. Road-trip’n and such. I have found a new best friend for road trips in the form of Frito Lay’s Munchies. Essentially its 4 delicious snacks crammed into one bag. They have a few different blends. The Cheese Fix Snack Mix includes Doritos brand Nacho Cheesier brand tortilla chips, Cheetos brand crunchy cheese flavored snacks, Sunchips brand Harvest Cheddar brand Flavor Multigrain Snacks, and Rold Gold brand Classic Tiny Twists Pretzels. For a full list of other varieties, please click here.

Now, I’m not a huge fan of Chex Mix, or Pub Mix type snacks but I must admit I like these. A lot. And not only that, but a recent Department of Transportation report actually revealed that consuming them while driving reduces traffic accidents because a different snack variety in each handful keeps you alert at the wheel. OK, I made that last part up, but it’s true that they each handful is unique.

It’s like the God of Frito Lay looked over his largesse and greatest and saw the width and depth of his Empire and decided to throw a party and invited all of his best conquests to the party and then invited you to join in. How awesome is that.

Those of you who have a little sister or a little brother know full well the agony you felt when you wanted to go hang out with your friends, but your mom would only let you go if you took the aforementioned younger sibling. I never had that problem. Instead I was the younger sibling but I’m smart enough to understand what a pain in the arse it must have been. The interesting thing is that it was my older brother and his friends who introduced me to girlie magazines, beer and weed so the jokes on my parents I guess.

What does this have to do with my review of Frito Lay’s Munchies? Well it outlines the only real problem I have with them. I like pretzels. I really do, but they are definitely a snack that is meant to party alone.
You know the type. He’s kind of a freak but if you can hang out in his basement playing ColecoVision for an afternoon, he’s really not all that bad, but when you get him in a crowd of people he puts a lampshade on his head and starts acting like the Fonz, and you find yourself telling people “No, I don’t know who that weirdo is” and “No, he didn’t come here with me, I don’t even like ColecoVision”. That’s pretzels and they do NOT work well in this snack mix.

Normally I would only remove 1 star for this but it really is a downer. I actually feel better when my handful of snacks comes out of the bag without a pretzel in it, and conversely find myself getting angry when it does have a pretzel. What’s the deal. Frito Lay owns like 30 different snack companies. I wasn’t hyperbolizing when speaking of it’s largesse and greatness and it’s width and depth. I find it hard to believe there isn’t a more suitable substitute for pretzels in their Munchies Brand snack mixes. Chili Cheese Fritos would work as would Cheddar and Sour Cream Ruffles. Why not Funyuns? I mean if you’re going to put Rold Gold Pretzels, why not Spitz Sunflower seeds for hell’s sake? And the different varieties I mentioned earlier….they have one constant and that is the Rold Gold Pretzels.

Obviously they are not selling very well or else Rold Gold Pretzels has some incriminating photos of somebody high up in the decision-making chain at Frito Lay. Whatever the reason my conclusion is if you’re going to eat these out of a bowl I could give Frito Lay Munchies Snack Mix 5 stars (because you can pick out the pretzels and enjoy them later), but since my primary use for them is on road trips I can only score them with 3 stars.

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Clif Crunch Honey Oat Granola Bar Review

As I require every precious minute of beauty sleep possible, I wake up each morning with just enough time to brush, shower, dress, and head out to work.  Eating breakfast at home would require losing at least 7 good minutes of sleep.
For years I never ate anything for breakfast, usually ingesting 2000 calories at lunch to compensate for my dizzying hunger spells.


Due to my egregious ingestion habits, I seem to be developing large mound across my mid-section.  I spent a little time on the interwebs, and received an honorary web degree in nutrition when I spent 13 minutes reading about dieting on Wikipedia.  Armed with this wealth of knowledge, I now know that by eating breakfast, I will be less hungry at lunch, and potentially lose weight. (hahahaaa)

Desperate to keep my 7 minutes of sleep, I started bringing food to work to eat for breakfast.  I started by bringing instant oatmeal.  This mushy romance lasted all of 2 weeks before I started despising the very sight of apples and cinnamon.  I then moved to cereal bars.  My fickle palette quickly grew tired of these as well.
I've continued to seek new foods to eat for breakfast, with the nourishment relationships lasting barely longer than a Lindsay Lohan rehab stint before I grow tired of the taste, and turn my longing eyes elsewhere.

I recently stumbled across a new type of granola bar that I hadn't tried.  The Clif Crunch granola bar.  I have long been a fan of Clif bars, but didn't know they made a granola bar.  I picked the Honey Oat variety, but there is also peanut butter, chocolate chip, and other flavors. 
They are fairly spendy, as a box of 10 bars will run you about 4 dollars.  But my curiosity got the best of me, and I picked them up.

The back of this package talks about adventures and journies and other crap I glossed over.  The only adventure I have in the morning is looking for an open bathroom to make dooky-time.
It was surprising to see that this is mostly made of organic ingredients, has 20g of whole grains, and naturally sweet honey. (Is there such a thing as bitter honey?)

These are a "crispy" type of granola bar, but not so much that you'll be replacing a cracked tooth later in the day.  They crumble quite nicely with each bite, but herein lies their only flaw.  By the end of your 2 bars, you'll be elbow-deep in granola crumbs.  Be wary, lest a co-worker comes in and wonders if you've been on an all-night granola bender.
I've found that by eating them over my garbage can, I avoid these crumb-causing moments.

The flavor is very good.  I was pleased with the quality of the ingredients, and two bars was the perfect amount for a quick breakfast.

While good for breakfast, these would also be a good snack on the go. (Or perhaps on a lonely rock climb in the desert as the product image suggests)  I think this may be my new breakfast for the future. (or for 3 weeks until I move onto something else)

I give the Clif Crunch Granola Bars 4 experimental blue stars. (do the new stars look OK?)

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Durian Fruit Review

I have an acquaintance at work that doesn’t eat veggies, ever. My wife doesn’t eat bananas or tomatoes. My kids now also don’t eat tomatoes. I have tons of friends that don’t eat fish of any kind. Another friend goes nuts if they put green peppers on his hot Italian sandwich. This entire attitude of “ I don’t eat this” or “I never touch” that is something I just can’t comprehend and quite frankly, makes me want to stab people in the eye. Going out to eat and listening to people go on and on for an hour with special orders trying to make a lasagna taste like mashed potatoes and gravy is insanity. I guess, in their narrow view, mashed potatoes and gravy are the only tasty treats on the planet. Sure, they are absolutely delicious and go with almost any meal, but open your mind people. I can’t imagine that I will ever change your habits, because that is ALL they are, but if nothing else, at least recognize that the pickier you are, the more certain you will be to never actually enjoy a meal. You are also ten times more likely to be labeled a whiney be-otch by friends and acquaintances.

I imagine that most people’s food proclivities are spurred from them tasting a bad peanut when they were 8 years old and their lives being forever changed. Never again will a peanut cross their plate without a 10 min. tirade about how awful peanuts are and how they can’t believe anyone would consume such a vile thing. If I based the rest of my life on every bad experience I had at the age of 8, never again would I shower at my grandmas house (long story) nor would I ever again break into an abandon house with a cousin….and that just isn’t living.

In an effort to keep and open mind and actually experience things in this life, stretch out from my white trash roots, and expand my horizon…I eat everything. I will pretty much down anything you put on my plate. This takes a little mental fortitude when traveling overseas, but it has allowed me try some really interesting foods, most of which were fantastic. Singapore has a diverse mix of cuisine and has introduced me to the likes of frog porridge, fish head curry (special attention to the monster eyeball), chicken feet, raw baby octopus, and Rojak which is basically brown gravy on pineapple, bananas, and croutons. We didn’t find a place that served scorpion last time I was there, but I plan to find one next time I visit. Delicious. Trust me, if you can flip that switch in your brain to try things you normally consider disgusting, you will enjoy your sex life…I mean, your dining experience, way more. Your idea of gross is just based on conditioning. The idea of eating pork to a Muslim is just as offensive as your thoughts on eating maggots. Recognize your mental weakness and overcome my brothers.

I mention all of this to lead into my review of Durian fruit. One of my dining adventures in Singapore led to a fruit stand where a couple of friends took me to try an Asian delicacy. If you are unfamiliar with this delight, it looks like a spiny melon that is super dense and could likely be used as a medieval weapon of destruction. You have to score the thick skin of the fruit with a knife and then crack open this beast to find delectable pods inside. Each seed is approximately 1 to 2 inches in diameter and is surrounded by a meaty flesh. This flesh is the part that you eat. These seeds are encapsulated in a fibrous material that is inedible but offers a hearty aroma to enhance your dining experience. Determined to try anything, I scooped up one of these meaty pods and took a bite. Wow, how to describe what I experienced? Let me break it down.

Smell: Durian is by far the stinkiest fruit on the planet. It is literally banned in every mass transit system in Singapore and is not allowed in malls, hotels, stores, and most public places. Yeah, the ban of this fruit is actually posted on signs throughout the city. You can smell the fruit stands that sale it from about half a mile away. If you didn’t know what you were smelling, you would think it was the dead meat wagon from the 1800s. It smells like death.

Texture: The pods have the texture of raw liver with a slimy scum coating the outside. Apparently this can vary as my friends said that sometimes it can be way slimier with substantially more smoosh.

Taste: Never in my life have I put something so foul in my gullet. My body instantly tried to reject this as I did everything I could to man through this pod and hold back the gag reflex. It tasted like rotten flesh and gasoline. Yes, gasoline…but a kind of creamy gasoline. This is not food. After I finished my first seed, my friends said I did better than most but I looked very green. They gave me a pass to stop at this point.

Sound: If you have seen any of the Dawn of the Dead type movies, you know the sound. It is the squishy, slurpy sound zombies make when burying their face deep in to the midsection of a bloated victim.

Feel: Felt like I was holding the still beating heart of a Pigmy. I swear the thing actually twitched in my hand.

I will try anything, and did my best to experience this with an open mind. I got down almost one entire seed pod before conceding. I repeat, this is not food. This is not something that may not be your favorite item but you can still politely finish to appease your host. This is not something that is really just a product of mental weakness or conditioning. Durian is an abomination before God and man and should be extinguished from this earth with great prejudice. Your body rejects poison instinctively to preserve life, Durian is one of those poisons and shouldn’t be ignored. As someone that despises whiners and the mentally weak, I can honestly say that if you can eat this filth, you are a better man than I.

If I could give less than zero stars, I would.

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