Great Geek Gorge #10: Pre-Halloween Haul

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Some people I know are often curious to see how I spend my money. Or should I say blow my money. Some people prefer to hoard their money, but my approach is that you can’t take it with you, so enjoy it while you are here. Many people live by that type of credo, but some indulge in a more extreme fashion than others. A woman can go out and buy a purse for $400 bucks and have no problem justifying that purchase, so I feel that an action figure, a box of cereal, and some snack cakes are more than worth it.

Batros Figure – Masters of the Universe Classics

In the MOTU Classics line, every figure and vehicle is referred to as “museum quality,” which I can’t argue with. The price point is about double or triple the cost of an action figure on a  rack in Toys R Us. That sounds crazy, but believe me, I don’t buy every figure that comes out. The money I have spent on figures from this collection has been well worth every penny.

The time and careful attention to detail put into these figures is incredible. The badass looking Batros, stealer of information and books, looks like he just walked out of a TV showing his ONE episode appearance in “The Great Books of Mystery.” He’s part of Matty Collector’s Filmation line, which is inspired solely by characters from the original cartoon series as opposed to the mini-comics, or 2002 animated series.

Halloween Crunch

So far, the Monster Cereals have been all the rage this season, and rightfully so, but I’m afraid Halloween Crunch is being overshadowed. Since it’s introduction in 2007, I haven’t had the easiest time finding Halloween Crunch locally. The last couple of years I’ve found it at Wal-Mart, but before that I felt like it was some kind of treasure that only appeared at certain stores around the country. Several of the gimmick Cap’n Crunch variations have been very elusive, but Halloween Crunch is easily my favorite. I’d even walk the plank and say that Halloween Crunch is my favorite of all the seasonal gimmick cereals presently offered throughout the year. It turns my f’n milk GREEN, what more is there to say?!!

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Justice League Fruit Snacks

The Justice League fruit snacks box art is incredible and there was no way I could pass these up, especially with that giant notification at the top of the box that these are um…NEW! It’s exciting to see all the DC heroes getting some attention finally. As always, Batman looks like he’s about to kick somebody’s ass for taking a picture of his box.

If only these existed when I was in elementary school! Fruit snacks were as big a part of lunch time in school as the type of chips you brought. There was a certain measure of respect and jealousy if someone brought a type of snack that you hadn’t eaten before or one that was harder to find. I always considered myself lucky if I had PB&J, a Ssips juice box, a bag of Doritos (or Bravos which sound second rate, but are also very good), and a dessert such as anything Little Debbie (which we’ll get to in a minute) or a “pouch” of fruit snacks.

Early on here at The Sexy Armpit I wrote about my affinity for 3 types of fruit snacks in the 80s, there was Sunkist Fruit Wrinkles, Shark Bites, and Thunder Jets. Most of the fruit snacks are similar today, containing one or two offbeat colors like black or pastel blue. Below you can see that Superman is pastel blue which pretty much excludes him from portraying a fruit flavor. Something tells me that touting “real fruit juice,” doesn’t pertain to the pastel blue variety of fruit snacks.

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The fun part about fruit snacks like Shark Bites and Thunder Jets was the chase. The commercial would get you all geared up to rip open your pouch to see if you got one of the specially colored and flavored snacks. The Great White and The Stealth Bomber respectively were the chase variants as it were. I don’t think there’s a mystery fruit snack in these, but you can compare the box colors to the ones I got and easily notice that the black Batman is supposed to be purple. The flavor was grape-like, but I’m not sure if it’s officially grape or blackberry. Either way, these brought me right back to the lunch table in school!

Green Margarita Mix in a Glass Skull, Target Exclusive “Ghoulish Potion”

Target just sucks you in, doesn’t it? Every damn time I’m in Target I wind up spending an exorbitant amount of money. In this case though, I am able to balance out my ridiculous purchases, like this glass skull filled with margarita mix, with other more justifiable purchases such as actual food, albeit occasionally healthy food, as well as necessities such as toilet paper, toothpaste, and laundry detergent. Let’s see how this shit turns out. I’m sure it’s going to taste like every other margarita mix, but one never knows. It may taste like Mountain Dew, we shall see momentarily.

The bottle clearly puts it over the top. I wouldn’t have bought margarita mix if it was in a witch, ghost, or werewolf shaped glass bottle, but skulls always do the trick for me. Since I probably couldn’t drink a whole bottle of vodka in less than a year or two, I’d probably never buy Dan Akroyd’s Crystal Skull vodka. Tequila and margaritas on the other hand will disappear rapidly at my place.

Verdict: not so good. After the mix was mixed it tasted more bitter than sweet and I prefer it to skew a bit on the sweeter side. After having margaritas at Jose Tejas in Woodbridge, most other margaritas don’t taste as good. Fortunately, after the mix is done, we are left with a cool bottle. I’ll probably dump the mix and put some Berry Blue Kool-Aid in it.

Tales From The Crypt Season 2

It’s easy to regret impulse buys, but Tales From The Crypt Season 2 seemed like a great deal. I picked it up for $9.99. Before I committed to it by dropping it in my cart at Wal-Mart, I checked Amazon and a few other sites on my phone to make sure it was a good price. If I could get it on Amazon for $5.99, I would’ve dropped it right back in my cart. At the time, Amazon listed it for well over $20 dollars so I bought it. I wasn’t actively seeking the Tales From The Crypt series, but Halloween is coming up and I figured even if I watch a couple of episodes it was worth the purchase.

Batman Tattoos

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It feels like every time I go to Target or Wal-Mart I wind up buying fake tattoos. Even though I’m an adult and have actual tattoos, for some reason I get sucked in by kids fake tattoos big time. Reason for falling into the fake tattoo trap is probably because I always loved fake tatts as a kid (what kid doesn’t like getting a fake tattoo?), plus they aren’t permanent, so if I want the Riddler AND Batman on my arm right next to each other, I can do that. Better yet, tonight I can finally pretend what it would be like to have a full sleeve of Batman tattoos. I didn’t even realize that some of these were glow in the dark a.k.a phosphorescent! Now I’m excited. I also just remembered that I have 2 packs of Justice League tattoos that I never opened. By the end of the night I may become the Lucky Diamond Rich of comic book circles.

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After opening the package I forgot what a project the fake tattoos are. The ritual that your parents went through to get the tattoo on you and the anticipation that overcame us is a memory a bunch of us have. I don’t really know anyone my age who has never had a fake tattoo applied to them as a kid. You should get some and act like a kid one night. Only thing is, if you’re deciding on getting a real tattoo, this isn’t a good indication of what it would be like to get one because there’s absolutely no pain involved, and these will probably peel off by the end of the night.
Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights

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Even though they are smiling, those are some pretty scary pumpkin faces
for what they consider a “cookie”

If there was a movie about my childhood, Little Debbie Snack Cakes would easily get free product placement. In our house growing up we had a huge, deep drawer that was aptly named “the snack drawer,” because we were so insanely clever. This drawer would always be crammed with all kinds of snacks that my sister and I could eat when we got home from school to hold us over until dinner time.
The snack drawer was a who’s who (or I should say what’s what) of ’80s snacks. The snacks were there as more of a safety precaution really. They prolonged me from literally becoming a raving lunatic who destroys anyone and anything obstructing my mission of maniacally seeking food. In other words, by time I got home from school I was starving. When I was a kid, being hungry was always so much more of a dramatic affair too. Don’t ask me why because looking back, school let out at 3:30 and it was only a couple of hours before that when I ate lunch. Nowadays I usually go 5 or 6 hours from lunch to dinner.

At any given time there would be Peanut Butter Boppers and various trendy snacks of the day, Drakes Funny Bones and Coffee Cakes, some really old Pixy Stix banished to the bottom rear, and then dominating the cavernous drawer were the Little Debbie products such as Swiss Rolls, Nutty Bars, Peanut Butter Bars, Oatmeal Cream Pies, Fudge Brownies, and Strawberry Shortcake Rolls. Reading this laundry list of snacks it sounds like we were the fattest fucks ever to walk the planet in the ’80s, but really my sister and I practiced self control. Most of the time we’d be limited to one of these snacks after school and we adhered to it.

Little Debbie is one of the companies who does an excellent job with “Fall-ifying” their offerings. Around September/October you start seeing these Pumpkin Delights, which actually are pretty delightful. They are considered a soft cookie and inside is pumpkin filling. The Pumpkin Delights have stiff competition though since Little Debbie also offers other gimmick items for the season like Bat Brownies, Brownie Pumpkins, and the ever popular Fall Party Cakes.

I hope you’re enjoying your Fall season so far. October is just a few days away so make sure to keep coming back to The Sexy Armpit for more of the Halloween countdown!

Batman Fruit Snacks and Fruit Roll-Ups

The good ol’ Dark Knight must be tight on cash lately because it seems as if he sold his soul to Betty Crocker. Not only has there recently been Batman fruit snacks but now there are Batman The Dark Knight Fruit Roll-ups on the grocery store shelves. Something about fruit roll ups changed throughout the years. It’s like the Jello-O pudding pops conspiracy where the pops that are available now taste almost exactly the same as the old ones except for a minor detail that I can’t pinpoint. When I was a kid fruit roll-ups seemed like they had more of a real fruit consistency and they were less plasticy and chewy than they are now. It’s like eating a slab of strawberry flavored vinyl. On the fruit roll ups themselves are faces of all the characters from the new Dark Knight movie. The pictures that are stamped on really suck. It’s not as easy as it would seem to figure out what the hell you’re looking at. It’s almost like looking at one of those Rorschach tests. (an ink blot…remember that in Batman Forever?!) The roll-ups come in strawberry and berry cool, both tasted sickeningly sweet to me.

As for the fruit snacks, personally I think you can never go wrong with fruit snacks even though I have my reservations about them also. Out of the fruit snacks and fruit roll-ups, the fruit snacks are the clear winner because of they taste better than the roll up and they are more fun to eat.

Doritos: The Quest for a Better Flavor!

When I’m in the snack aisle, I never pass up a new flavor of Doritos. It’s a wonder how a shiny bag of tortilla chips can give me tunnel vision. I dread making trips to the grocery store so I welcome any glimpse of a product never before seen by my eyes. If it’s a new character that has it’s own fruit snack or a new kids cereal, either way I usually get all wrapped up in the moment.

After stockpiling boxes of Wheatables, my latest obsession, I was stopped in my tracks like I was in quicksand (or quickmud if you’ve seen Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!) I scanned the shelves of chips and came to a mysterious black bag. This was a variety of Doritos that I’ve never seen before. The front of the bag read “The Quest: Guessing the Flavor is just the Beginning.” As soon as I got home I had to rip into the bag. I couldn’t help myself. Every time I buy something new at the store I feel like I wish I could just open up my stomach and put the stuff inside rather than having to go through all the work of chewing and swallowing. Sometimes all those steps waste valuable time.

After the official first sniff, I threw the first chip in my mouth. They had a fairly sweet, but semi-radioactive odor. When the chip first hit my mouth I thought they were trying to replicate the taste I get in my mouth when I drive on the N.J Turnpike, which is pretty much what raw sewage and toxic chemicals would taste like. I’m exaggerating a little bit of course, but they didn’t taste good at all. What did I do? Did I throw the entire bag away? Heck no, I did what we all do…I kept shoveling them down even though they sucked ass. I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be a Spicy Lime chip, which in my mind is completely off the wall. I’m a huge fan of Lime Gatorade Rain but it stops there. Perhaps a lime in my Gin and Tonic but anything further than that is unnecessary. Bud Light Lime? C’mon! Nowadays it seems everything but my toothpaste is lime flavored. I can’t say I enjoy my Dorito chips with a dusting of Lime powder. Not a fan. I blame Corona for putting Limes over big time.

This whole gimmick reminded me of last year when Doritos came out with a mystery flavor that tasted like Cheeseburgers in a similar black bag. What the heck are they thinking? You’re supposed to wager a guess at their site Snack Strong Productions. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if they announced that the last flavor was actually Cheeseburger but it sure as hell tasted like it. (Ok..I just checked Wikipedia, and I WAS F’n RIGHT!) Why should we have to guess the shitty flavor their food flavoring geniuses came up with if they don’t even plan on giving us the answer. I wasted time logging onto their lame site to play the game but I couldn’t figure it out. Then again, contrary to popular belief, I have a life. Rather than sitting there trying to type in random flavor guesses I opted to write an entry about how crappy the mystery flavor was. Now that’s productive! Are they too scared to come up with a definitive flavor and put it out on shelves? Is it just me or were there better Dorito flavors in the ’80s? I’m sure these silly “guess the flavor” limited editions will last as long as the Salsa Rio flavor. RIP Salsa Rio! I Miss you!

Fruit Snacks Freakout: Shark Bites!

Until recently it never occurred to me just how huge of a hit fruit snacks became when I was a kid. There are more varieties and movie tie-ins than ever before but the fruit snack boom seemed to have happened in the ‘80s. There were a few types of fruit snacks that I still yearn for today.

Today the chewy, gummy bear-type fruit snack has flooded the marketplace. It’s rare to find my all time favorite fruit snack that wasn’t gummyish at all. It was the type that you would smoosh down onto the tip of your finger to make it look like you had long nails (don’t ask). They were in the shape of a half circle and I’m pretty sure they were made by Sunkist (Fruit Wrinkles I believe?). Cherry and Grape were the best since they actually tasted like their fruit counterparts. I haven’t found them in stores unless I‘m not looking hard enough.

Following a close second would be the formidable Shark Bites Fruit Snacks. They were in the shape of various sharks. Just a few months ago I performed many strategic Google searches to find as much information as I possibly can about these luscious streamlined snacks. With all the nostalgia sites available to scour, I still had a hard time finding anything on Shark Bites. Surprisingly there wasn’t too much out there but I did find a few blog comments, including one of mine here. It seemed that Shark Bites were discontinued and I didn’t see them making a comeback, especially since there was no petition page in the Google search that said “Bring Shark Bites Back!”

All it took was going to several different stores and I wound up doing the berzerker attack in the aisles of Shop-Rite when I saw them staring at me from the very bottom shelf where all bastard fruit snacks go when they are too badass and anti-social to be with the rest of the faggety fruit snacks. They still exist! I bought 2 boxes, not one. You never know when the government might deem Sharks too scary for kids and too fierce to be a frickin’ fruit snack. I’m serious! You never know when they’ll pull some dumb shit like that. I rationalize having shark bites as getting back at these creatures for all the years of attacks and scaring the crap out of us after Jaws. None of us could go in our own pools! Damn you Great White! Ahh yes, the Great White is in the pouch…in all of his non-artificially colored glory. Just for that it was well worth the hunt. The commercials would make it seem like it was a rare event when you got the Great White. When I ripped into my first bag I was immediately catapulted back to when I was a kid during lunch time.

Finally, the one fruit snack I can’t dig up much of anything on are the ones that were shaped like fighter planes. If you were lucky, instead of getting the Great White Shark, you got the sleek, black Stealth Fighter in the pouch. I can’t remember the name of these, but they kicked a lot of ass too.

*Update – the fighter plane version was called THUNDER JETS FRUIT SNACKS! Hooray!