There's a belief that there's two kinds of people in this world -- Pop-Tart people and Toaster Streudel people. It's not as bad as the Coke v Pepsi wars, because there's clear and distinct differences between the two contenders. Pop-Tarts have the obvious advantage of not needing refrigeration and being a more robustly portable option. Not to mention that their current flavor listing is up to approximately 400 and falls just short of Pickles and Jalapeno.

I have an unhealthy obsession with Pop-Tarts. Its not that I hoard them, or even buy them on a remotely regular basis. But, when a new flavor is released I am rendered helpless from placing it in my cart. I turn into a mindless zombie, searching not for brains, but for rectangular pastries in uncharted flavor territory.

Last week I tweeted that over the weekend I was going to allocate some time to alcohol and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Instead I went to a pagan festival and participated in battle Armageddon due to various family drama. But, it all tied up nicely with a Sunday evening visit from the ice cream man before heading back to another uneventful work week.


This weekend I'm not waiting around. The kid's in bed and I've got my cosmo in hand while I'm lounging and waiting for my bed sheets to finish up in the dryer. Somehow I've become and exceptional lightweight, so I'm staring pissed at Large Marge after drinking probably the alcoholic equivalent of a capful of mouthwash. My goal right now is not to pass out before the dryer is done. My blinds are partly open and I don't want the dirty hippie that mows my lawn to stop by tomorrow and see me through the window drooling on an uncovered bed with my ass hanging out of my nightgown.


To distract myself I'm opening up this My Little Pony packet I got several months ago, threw on my dresser and promptly forgot about. There's a lot of these packets for various toy lines floating around these days. I have a preference to toy packets that have dissolving capabilities, but I guess that isn't the trend right now. I guess holographic foil cards and stickers aren't in the mix, either.


The trading card might as well go right in the trash. It doesn't have any shiny or sparkly components and the back just pictures a select few of the available ponies. As you can see, I snagged Rarity. I'm sure there's some level of "commons" versus "rares" on these figures, but I am just too crapped out to bring up Wikipedia and check. What I can tell you is that my figure is painted metallic silver and the package smells like a hardware store on a hot day.

One thing I do find strange is that the UPC bar on the package actually says "KIOSK PONIES" meaning they're specifically for those little displays near registers and at the end of aisles. Is that the official name of these surprise pack toys? Kiosk figures?

Okay, now I wound up checking Wikipedia, anyway. I've been sitting on a rare figure all this time. I bet I could trade it in for enough cash to buy a regular full-size My Little Pony. Maybe I'll hold on to the card after all.

I don't get out a lot. I kinda hate myself for having to type that. But, it's true. I leave the house mainly for 2 reasons. Reason #1 is to go to work and read piles of operative reports on post-masectomy breast reconstruction, skin cancer removals, and drunkards that busted their noses in bar fights or stuck their hands in power equipment. Reason #2 is to go to the grocery store. I find the grocery store to have an almost grounding effect, even though some days I can't seem to take two steps without getting in the way of some asshat obviously in a huge hurry to buy Preparation H and BBQ Pringles.

My weekly grocery store trip has become somewhat cumbersome recently as I've been buying the same shit now over and over. In January I had gastric sleeve surgery, removing most of my stomach, so some days I'm completely disenchanted with food. One can only consume so much greek yogurt and string cheese before going mad.


Enter Breakfast S'mores.

Now there's something to get excited about. My husband is a s'mores enthusiast, as well as a waffle and Toaster Streudel enthusiast, so this was a double whammy. A good double whammy. Like a Nutella and Fluff sandwich.

I still think it's a little early to put out "seasonal" S'mores goodies, though.


Unfortunately I didn't get an overwhelming "s'more" taste from either of these products. The Toaster Strudel was lacking any sort of graham flavor, and the waffle didn't have much flavor of any of the components. It may have just been me, though. I'm told there's a chance my tastebuds have changed. I don't notice any difference, but I won't negate the possibility.


Thankfully a secondary taste-tester appeared, like a Caterpie in a field of endless grass. I'm not sure how much you can trust a review from someone who's never eaten a real s'more before, but she stuck her hand in frosting and then downed half a waffle. Actually, I'm pretty sure I saw her trying to dip waffle pieces in the little globs of frosting that dripped on the paper plate.

The waffles were a bit of a disappointment to me. Maybe it's because there wasn't any "gooey" factor. The Strudels were okay, but what's a s'more with no graham flavor? Honestly, the Pop-Tart S'more is still the big man on breakfast. I'm not sure anything will come along to beat it, unless they come up with some sort of S'mOreo. I should really pitch the S'mOreo to Nabisco. Ugh. Someone is going to make a lot of money off that idea, and I'll be kicking myself from here to Alderaan.

Some months ago when my co-workers threw a baby shower for me, including gifts in many little baskets. One of the baskets got tossed in the corner of my master bathroom so I could throw reading materials in it. We have a few magazine subscriptions, only because we get them for free. My employer pays my membership dues for my professional credentials, so I get a free monthly magazine to keep up to date on changes in Medicare and the never-ending battles of physicians with the handwriting of 3rd graders. We also get Eating Well, which is sent by my mother-in-law because my husband told her some boldface lie about how I never buy fruits and vegetables.

We also get Rachael Ray, which was a free gift subscription off my mother's subscription. I like that it's free, because some months there's 0 things that interest me. Other times there's one good recipe, but I'm missing an ingredient that I would have to pluck from the top of Mount Doom. Now that the cooler months are coming and more Crock Pot meals are coming out, my interest is piquing. I'm ready for candy corn. I'm ready for leaves changing. For long sleeves, apples, hay rides, pumpking spice coffee, and 69¢ Avon chapstick that tastes like chocolate and has little ghosts on it. I'm ready for Fall.


So is Rachael Ray magazine, because they're featuring articles on different ways to decorate pumpkins. I'm all for new ways to use a pumpkin that don't involve getting strands of innards under my fingernails, although the hollowed pumpkin filled with ice is tempting. I'm particularly excited for this year as I've recently discovered you can buy glitter in spray-paint form. If I had more time and didn't give a shit about resale value, I could easily turn my trailer into Paradise Estate.

I don't think I'll be making pumpkin topiaries anytime soon, but I like the bedazzled silver pumpkin. I could potentially do a whole series of shiny pumpkin cutie marks. I think I'm going to need more hot glue.

Speaking of non sequiturs, I'm working out the mechanics of starting a podcast with my bff. So if you want to hear us ranting about Star Wars and sex toys, stay tuned, details will follow.

It's the middle of the afternoon and I'm kicking back with a skinny frappucino with a shot of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough vodka, mesmerized by my own genius. In this slightly inebriated state, I recall that I have a blog.

Hello!!

With a four month old daughter at home, I've found myself watching children's programming even moreso than normal. This morning we turned on the hub, and watched Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, and My Little Pony all in a row. It dawned on me that my daughter is watching the same characters I watched 25 years ago. It's a pretty cool feeling. Especially since I've been saving all my My Little Ponies, though she may be disappointed when there's no Pinkie Pie or Princess Celeste. I've informed my husband he will have to become a Bronie. He denies this vehemently.

(Elizabeth in her Dollar Tree swim suit. It was marked size 12-18 months. Yeah, right.)

Last weekend we went to Ocean City, NJ with the hubby's family. I don't come from a family that vacationed a lot, so it was my first time touching the ocean in approximately 15 years. I didn't go more than waist-deep into the water. The water is where sharks live. Step #1 on how to get eaten by a shark -- go in the water. No thank you, sir.

Vacations with his family are always... interesting. This one was no exception. Our leave time was 9, our actual leave time was 9:45, we dodged a ton of traffic from Philly to Jersey, and got to the beach house over an hour before we were allowed in, anyway. We broke an elevator, got drunk, and got drenched in a downpour at Wonderland. Day two I got up and in my swimsuit at 9 a.m. and until I ate the 11:00 breakfast and waited for everyone to get ready, made the 1 block haul to the beach just in time for thunder to roar and watch everyone get out of the water. When it looked like it was just clearing up, my husband and I made a made dash with the baby and staked our claim of sand. I managed to get about 50lbs of sand in my suit, which wouldn't have been so bad if the outdoor shower hadn't been locked by the cleaning people.

I didn't even get a hermit crab.

I've been absent for a long time. Long enough that I'm sure no one is even checking back any more. No matter. Part of this absence has been due to the fact that I blew out my laptop, and lost all my logins passwords  for my email, site, and blog and didn't hunt them down for months. The other part has been life events. To bring everyone up to speed, I'm now the proud parent of an 11 week old little girl named Elizabeth. As I type this, she's sleeping soundly in an elaborate princess-looking baby swing while Follow That Bird is playing on the TV. I'm not sure if she's sleeping because she's tired, or has her eyes closed because she's scared of Miss Finch. I heard babies see black and white really well, so last night we watched Clerks. Don't judge.

Over the years I've collected many items for blog reviews and neglected to ever write a lick of anything about them. This has gotten worse in the past year with all the house, wedding, and now pregnancy business I've been handling. Instead of letting the plethora of pictures of products go to waste because a review is long overdue, I'm going to give each of them a short spotlight. Here we have the first few representations of months and months of neglected blogs.

We're in a world where society seems like it's on the verge of banning children under 16 from even going down a grocery store aisle the contains candy under fear  promoting childhood obesity. The candy corporations have to fight for our attention now even harder than ever, and there's no better way to do that than to change something on our favorite treats and slap a big shiny "NEW" sticker on it. It certainly worked for me in the case of Hershey's Air Delight. It seems like some sort of scam that Hershey's is running, but I'm trying to think of it more along the lines of a whipped chocolate or even just a more air-centered candy like malt balls. However, trying to gain a different angle on this new candy bar by our beloved Pennsylvania based candy manufacturer doesn't eliminate the factor that's it's really not that great. I predict less than a year manufacturing lifespan for this confection.


Delight? Yes. In the same way that I'm "delighted" when I have a tickle in my throat and find an old, sticky cough drop in the bottom of my purse among the 500 pennies, lost earrings, and crumbs. If you want chocolate, it'll do the job. It's not bad, per se. The added element of air just does nothing to enhance the chocolate-tasting experience and the texture just seems unusual. Nestle has a similar product called Aero, which hasn't been available in the US market -- maybe there isn't much of a taste for bubbles state-side.

A recent sales ad for Boyer's Food Market displays a sale for Keebler Cookies, and in this small section a package of Keebler Magic Middles is visible. I visited my local Boyer's and was unsuccessful in finding Keebler Magic Middles cookies. I searched two other stores and neither had them in stock. I now have an email out to Keebler and to Boyer's to inquire about the product.

I'll keep you posted with the updates.



Coincidentally, Chips Ahoy has recently developed a chocolate filled cookie as well.