Crown Combo Blog

State of the Mystie Address

Mystie — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:10:00 GMT

Miss me? I've missed you guys, too.

Let's go back to the last blog post... right before the Thanksgiving Day Parade I wound up with vertigo and spent the majority of the time getting up to New York hopped up on motion sickness pills and unable to turn quickly or sleep on my left side. But I battled through it and lived out a big dream of screaming my undying love to Kermit the Frog. I also had Thanksgiving dinner at Rockafeller Center, which was cool, and we got to watch the ice skaters.

Christmas time was pretty busy. I was thrust head-first into a big project at work involving planning to switch systems etc etc etc. I spent the week before Christmas out at an office backloading appointments for Lap-Band refills and came back to my desk to find piles of OB/GYN surgical cards and Neurosurgery consults. Then I had 10,000 meetings. It was kind of like living in some weird The Office/Scrubs hybrid.

Things are calmed down for now aside from my becoming President-Elect of the local chapter of the American Academy of Professional Coders. Wedding plans have been tossed in lieu of wanting to run off and elope in The Keys. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I've got something fun for review tomorrow (or maybe Wednesday?) so stay tuned.

Gobble gobble ribbit ribbit

Mystie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

As turkey day draws near, I would like to say a big "THANKS" to those of you that have supported me throughout the years. So this Thursday as you're sitting in the living room scarfing down Chex Mix, surrounded by obnoxious relatives and trying to drown them out by focusing on watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, make sure you look real hard at the audience BECAUSE I WILL FUCKING BE THERE IN PERSON!

Not only will I be there, but one of my biggest celebrity favorites will be there as well.

There is a God. Thank you and good night.

Magic Middles Breakthrough!

Mystie — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:43:00 GMT

I can't believe the Halloween season came and went without a blog! Strike that. I can't believe it came and went without my finishing up and actually posting the 5 blogs I wrote. I've had this nasty habit lately of running around in business suits carrying disorganized stacks of paper. Sadly this habit of keeping busy has kept you from hearing of my great discovery. It happened a few weeks ago as I was at my mother's doing my laundry like a cheapfuck and clipping Sunday coupons. Between coupons saving $1 on 15 cans of cat food and an ad for ceramic plates, I found this gem.

Yes my friends, I have finally found a replacement for Magic Middles. These Nestle premade cookies have you just minutes away from fresh chocolate chip cookies filled with creamy chocolate filling. I've purchased and made them myself and while they're not the same as my favorite Keebler snack of yesteryear, they're a fantastic replacement.

Halloween Yogurt

Mystie — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:35:00 GMT

I almost spent the remainder of my evening quietly painting my nails and then heading to bed. Almost. I realized that it takes 12 hours for nails to really dry in any sort of non-smudging fashion and as I don't care to have to wash my bedsheets with acetone tomorrow, I decided to blog instead. If you're confused about the lack of blogs lately, don't be. No one can possibly be more confused than my fiance, who actually watches me taking the photos for blogs I never write. If I had a kid on top of work, school, and various grocery shopping/laundry/cleaning type chores I'd of probably died of a stroke by now. I'll never understand how single moms do it.

Which brings me to yogurt.

Breyer's YoCrunch has gotten all spook-ified for Halloween, donning Ghost, Witch, and Frankenstein labels in the classic orange and black fashion. They come in Butterfinger, M&Ms, and the more festively colored Reese's Pieces. The candy is a nice, touch, but the plain vanilla lowfat yogurt is still on the tart side even with the chunks of candy mixed in. I'd recommend eating the candy and using the yogurt portion for smoothies, but that's just because I've gotten quite the craving for smoothies lately. Although I'm sure any onlooker might believe my urges lie less with drinking frozen fruit and more with the glorious scent of an overexerted blender motor.

Now if I could just get Lean Cuisine to slap some vampires on the boxes, my bagged lunches would be in perfect step for All Hallow's.

Coconut M&Ms

Mystie — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:24:00 GMT

Another summer season has passed which means it's now officially time to switch air fresheners from Ocean Breeze to Apple Spice. I'm eagerly awaiting the cooler weather not only because it means relief on my electric bill, but because it means Fall is coming. I spent my Labor Day picking apples at the orchard, which I think is a warm welcoming to the season. Summer has been killing me. Ever since moving out in July I've gotten vertigo, nausea, several weeks of allergy medicine induced fatigue, an ear infection, sinusitis, tonsillitis, a random blood pressure spike, and taken a trip to the ER for chest pain which was confirmed not to be my heart and probably had more to do with stress or maybe dragging an 80lb exercise bike into my apartment.

I have 100 photos of things for blogs, and yet no updates. Despite the busy times I'm trying to get back in the swing of things. I'm going to start slow with this.

Coconut M&Ms have me completely under their spell. The chocolate and coconut taste has me dreaming of laying out on the beach in Hawaii watching chicks in hula skirts and sipping fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them. They beat the hell out of coconut Easter eggs.

The stamps have an island flair, making the trademark "m" into beach umbrellas, flowers, and palm trees. I was even lucky enough to get a Siamese twin in my bag. The colors of green, brown, and white lend themselves well to the theme, but they could have made them baby puke green and diarrhea brown and I'd still toss them down with admirable enthusiasm.

Busy Doin' Adult Stuff

Mystie — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:39:00 GMT

It's been a few weeks but I'm settled into my new apartment complete with 16 spatulas and 200 utensils I can't even imagine the use for. Thankfully nothing was broken on lost in the process, but as much as I tried to find proper places for all my crap, I still have a few "random junk" boxes in my garage. It took me nearly three days to lure my scared-shitless cat out from under my bed but now she's back to her normal antics of crying for food every 2 hours and laying in the most inconvenient spots possible.

My apartment looks pretty much like you'd expect it to look. It's loaded with movies, games, toys, and there's this guy that sits on the couch playing video games, screaming at his opponents and occasionally chucks the PS3 controller across the living room. We've got all the major most recent gaming systems covered along with satellite tv and the joy of DVR. Friday night is officially Ghost Adventures night at my place, which is way better when you can rewind all the creepy EVPs as many times as desired. There's even a VCR under Cthulhu's butt for good show.

Behind that sits the magical new station for Crown Combo.

There's a few key points to the desk such as the VCR, record player, corporate zombies, corkboard of anime pins, and such.

I'm learning all kinds of important life lessons about how much the laundrymat sucks and how if you leave potatoes sitting for too long they take huge smelly potato-pisses all over your pantry. Also, just because you take 5 blogs worth of photos doesn't mean that they're ever going to get written. Although I'm loving being able to make chocolate chip pancakes in the morning without hearing a barrage of family members inquiring into what I'm doing and telling me to not make a mess. I could easily become a hermit.

Golden Graham Treats RETURN

Mystie — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:32:00 GMT

Oh lords of cereal and junk food, thank you for bestowing this most blessed feast upon me.

Within my top 10 favorite discontinued food products rests Golden Graham Treats. They came out, I believe, in the early 90s and I ate an estimated 2,500 of them in my bagged school lunches. The commercials used to run constantly during the 2 shows I taped incessantly in high school -- Darkwing Duck and Samurai Pizza Cats. I'm a big fan of Golden Grahams cereal, and when they tossed in marshmallow and chocolate I was rendered helpless to its powers.

These new treats have gone the way of the new pudding pops and taken a change in shape. Instead of being roughly the size of your average prewrapped Rice Krispies Treat, they're the size of a granola bar. Not only that, but the sweet graham flavor is almost drowned out by the intense chocolate that's coating the bottom of the bar. It's more candy bar than anything now. Still, I have my Golden Grahams Treats back and that's all that matters.

I'd post the old commercial for Golden Graham treats, as I have it 16x over on VHS, but my VCR is actually boxed up right now as I'm moving in to my first apartment on July 1. I'm moving to another tiny town in Berks County, PA. It's a huge ass 100+ year old house that's split into 4 apartments, and I get the one in front with the awesome basement bedroom. I've also been informed my neighbor is a homosexual Christian psychic, so mass hilarity is sure to ensue.

Dunkaroos, Dunkaroos

Mystie — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:04:00 GMT

If you're one of the many that believe Dunkaroos are no longer produced, you're wrong -- I'm just hoarding all of them. As you can see, I have obtained a massive variety pack of Dunkaroos that's really 4 boxes in one. Not only that, but I only paid $4 for it, and that's less than 17¢ a pack.

These snacks first made the scene in the late 80's but they're only available now via black market vendors and speakeasies. The cookies are lackluster shapes like balloons and planes, but no one really cares when there's frosting involved. They could be shaped like cockroaches and goat asses as long as there's a tiny tub of frosting for them to swim it. Dunkaroos are the tastiest Aussie product since Nad's hair removal cream.

I can't believe I've been at this for so many years and this is my first blog about Dunkaroos. I know I ate at least 15 boxes of Shrek Dunkaroos a few years back, but there's no sign of green slime frosting on the blog anywhere.

Lots-A-Leggs Rehashed

Mystie — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:47:00 GMT

Some time ago I saw this guy hanging at a stand at Zern's. His name is Caterspeller, the 6 foot long alphabet caterpillar. It's a cheap edu-tainment toy designed to teach children letters by showing them lined up on in order on a ridiculously long insect. This guy is over twice the size of our old buddy Lots-A-Leggs.

(Click image for full page)

Here we have Lots-A-Leggs as he appears in the 1985 Montgomery Ward catalog. He's got 10 solid pairs of feet, each adorable outfitted with sweat bands and high-top sneakers. Lots-A-Leggs was a fine buddy on his own and the Caterspeller is a shameful knock-off. Even the color of the original is better, the joyful purple is a comforting blanket among the floppy legs and decorative bowtie. Much like Strawberry Shortcake, the classic is much better than the remake. Viva la Lots-A-Leggs!

Chocolate in Disguise

Mystie — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:36:00 GMT

June 24 marks opening day for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Mars is once again tugging at my heartstrings with limited edition movie tie-in M&Ms. There's the traditional chocolate (Chocl-o-bots) and peanut (Delect-o-cons) flavors, bearing wrapper images of Bumblebee and Starscream kickin' it with the dopey yellow M&M. While plain and peanut are nothing to have to change your undergarments over, you might want to do so for the new flavor, Strawberry Peanut Butter.

I don't know if the rest of you belt out the Hallelujah Chorus when M&M comes out with crazy schemes like this, but it's become the norm for me. Even odder considering my "norm" is usually to drink heavily and sing to the moon. I'm a little saddened that the candies aren't stamped with Autobot and Decepticon logos because speckling a couple of candies doesn't even come close. Even the Pirates candies had specialized stamps.

For the lord God omnipotent reigneth......

The flavor, however, tastes like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made into a candy. The chocolate has a hint of strawberry flavor to it with the traditional peanut butter center and candy shell. They're also fun to pinch until they explode. Somehow peanut butter M&Ms are exceptionally enticing to pop, like Capri Sun pouches.

There's 5 limited edition wrappers in all and I've only accounted for 3. There's also a yellow-dyed Transformer's Snicker's available, so I'm thinking maybe the 5th wrapper is a M&M minis tube. The hunt will continue.

Mystie's Big Move

Mystie — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:51:54 GMT

(Notice the foot on the track is my lovely swelled "Frankenfoot")

Summer is in the air, and change is all around. I recently made it through a company wide layoff, which is great, because my fiance got a job in my area and it's finally time to move out of my parents' house and find an apartment. I haven't moved since first grade so I'm praying that I can figure out how to pack action figures without having them lose limbs in the process. I'm also going to have to figure out how many Hello Kitty appliances I can buy before it threatens the hubby's sense of masculinity. My "to do" list right now looks something like this:

Find an Apartment
Plan a wedding
Finish college
Wine
Lots of wine

My mom's offering up half the shit in the house to help see me out the door, so I'm pretty stoked that I'm getting all kinds of free furniture and not just the the McDonald's Camp Snoopy glasses we've had since the 80's. I'll save raiding the Christmas decorations until November.

I saw this when I looked out my window a few days ago. It's now official -- if you don't have a cell phone, you're more out of touch than the Mennonites.

TMG8

Mystie — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:31:00 GMT

When I wasn't spending my time this weekend dancing and singing around the Maypole, I was finding other ways to hammer a few extra nails into my seat in hell.

I think I've mentioned a good 5,000 times or so that my older brother runs semi-annual video game shows in the area. Sunday was lucky #8 and TooManyGames tried out a new location at the Leesport Market. Now, the Leesport Market was also open that day for the flea market across the way. While I was running the door several people, mainly elderly, saw fit to stroll through the doors paying no mind to me sitting there collecting entrance fees, and started wondering into the show. Several times throughout the day I was forced to yell at people to pay the $5 fee or get the hell out. At one point I'm fairly sure I was cursed out in Spanish.

Regardless, a good time was had by all. Lots of rare goods were sold, games played, prizes won, and networking made. I had the genius idea of buying a few dozen boxes of Pocky at Wal-Mart and selling them for nearly twice the price. Sold out in about an hour. Made a few bucks, had a few laughs....

Oh, and I met the Angry Video Game Nerd.

Scamrock Shake

Mystie — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:11:00 GMT

McDonald's needs to take a page from the Backstreet Boys and quit playin' games with my heart. Now we all know that the infamous Shamrock Shake is a seasonal treat sold by McDonald's around St. Patrick's Day. Typically, a week after the event we know they're gone for good and stop looking for them. Now two weeks ago I was coming home from Easter dinner and spotted a foreign McDonald's with a sign in the grass stating they still had Shamrock Shakes. Since it was Easter, they were obviously closed and I couldn't inquire about any stray shakes. I put it to the back of my mind, thinking it must be a fluke. But in recent days I've passed McDonald's and sworn I still saw the minty green desserts sashaying on the board and began to wonder if the Shamrock Shake had jumped into the terroritory of being a Spring season treat.

I went to my local McDonald's today and what do I see, but the board still claiming they have Shamrocks Shakes, damn near a month after the fact! I timestamped the above picture so you can clearly see that I'm not making this shit up. I stick my head out the window and say to the intercom, "I'd like two medium Shamrock Shakes, please!" Only the bastards are OUT of Shamrock Shakes! OUT! They taunt me with promises of green shakes in 82º weather only to smash all my dreams to pieces. McDonald's #25261, you can officially eat a dick.

How does one recover from such a downer?

You go home and make blue raspberry Snoopy Sno-Cones. The trick is to use crushed ice from the freezer as it will drastically cut your work time and increase the Sno-Cone consuming time.

Chester Cheetah Ate My Balls

Mystie — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:46:00 GMT

Further accelerating his status as a blazing orange bad-boy, Chester Cheetah has now resorted to hyping the size of his balls. Not only that, but Chester’s ball sack contains not 2, but a full 4 balls which makes Chester second only to Chuck Norris in the ball department.

If you’ve been paying a lick of attention lately to any of the Cheetos commercials, you’ll have seen the CG kitty in various real life escapades egging on Cheetos consumers to get down with their bad selves. In this latest development, he’s forcing specimens to open their mouths as he determines just how large he can expand his balls while still fitting them into the average size mouth. Chester wants you to open wide for his balls.

While you’re busy licking Chester’s salty ball residue off your finger, remember that we’re still deprived of the greatest Cheetos shape ever made -- the paw. Paws were designed for cheese powder coating perfection with the grooves in the toes and the perfect hole in the middle. Swollen balls could never lend themselves to the extreme cheesiness needed by this jaded generation. Unless there’s a reserve of extra flavoring in the middle, the engorged ball shape is superbly faulty. I, for one, will take my ball cheese sucking elsewhere.

It's Nestle Magic!

Mystie — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:36:00 GMT

The laptop is paying off already. I just finished a Nestle Magic article that I started over a year ago and never finished. 2009 will be the year of finishing articles that are already part way done. Maybe I'll finally get that Are You Afraid of the Dark article finished after 19 months of lies about it "coming soon." Hell, maybe I'll even find a use for that USB record player I had to have and used all of 2 times. When all that's done, I'll review some crazy stuff I snagged via torrent. Stick Stickly anyone? Maybe some fun with the live-action Bill and Ted TV series? Surprises await.

Mystie and the Lappy together at last

Mystie — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:55:00 GMT

I just finished the first article I've written with my new mini laptop. I finally was able to validate the need for a laptop owing to going back to school and well, shit, I can get financial aid to pay for it! Honestly, I think I'll be able to write better from my bed. I'm looking into finding a cute pink laptop case now so I can also be one of those bastards that sit at Barnes and Noble all day drinking $6 coffee and pretending like I'm writing anything that amounts to jack shit. Maybe I'll write poems about the other people I see shopping at Barnes and Noble. Genius.

P.B. Crisp, P.B. Crisp, P.B. Crisp!

Mystie — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:08:00 GMT

The golden nugget of snacking in the early 90's was Planter's P.B. Crisps. There are those that might argue they're just a peanut shaped Nutter Butter, but those are the same assholes that go to crowded stores in the middle of the day wearing pajama bottoms and flip flops. Those bastards couldn't tell the Hope diamond from a glass doorknob. P.B. Crisps were the messiah of junk food, preaching the good word of peanut butter creme wrapped gently into a crisp wafer shell. No other snack could compare.

http://blog.crowncombo.com/2009/03/16/pb-crisp-pb-crisp-pb-crisp.aspx

I was addicted to P.B. Crisps. I knew they were a pricier snack, but I was willing to kick a ferret for a bag. One bag was never enough, they were so sweet and easy to pop down that each bag barely made it through a night of TGIF on ABC. When it came to the chocolate and peanut butter variety there was no greater sin. Chocolate P.B. Crisps ranked higher than even the most fried, batter-dipped, sugar-powdered carnival treat imaginable.

Whatever force at Planters decided to discontinue this snack food of the Gods needs to be hunted and stricken. Any excuse short of the recipe containing cancer causing ingredients won't hold water to the throngs of deprived and endlessly longing snackers.

Incisions, advents, etc.

Mystie — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:26:00 GMT

Friday's surgery went fairly well. It was my first time having any sort of stay at the hospital and it went about as well as could be expected. It took three tries to get my IV in, though because apparently I have nonexistent veins. It also took three times for me to complain of nausea before they hooked up some anti-nausea meds to my IV. It all ran quite smoothly and I went into the operating room at 9:30am and left the hospital at 3:30pm. The first day I was mainly exhausted and very sore around my incisions, particularly the one at my bellybutton.

Other than that, I'm having a great recovery. My pain is mostly gone, my appetite is coming back, and I'm able to get up and move around just fine. Also, I finished the MLP advent calendar. Hopefully more to come.

Oh, any I'm going back to school next month.... again.

Friday the 13th

Mystie — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:35:00 GMT

I'm getting slashed open this Friday the 13th but it won't be by a questionably retarded guy in a hockey mask. It slipped my mind not to announce it on the blog, but Friday I'm going into the hospital to have my gallbladder removed. I'll only be in for a couple hours then I'm going to be drugged up and sent home to lounge around for a week. Surprisingly, I'm looking forward to it because I've been pretty sick the past few weeks. I've been having a lot of horrific pain, nausea, and vomiting. As of this weekend, my body decided it doesn't want to digest too much of anything without making me cry so I've been living off saltines and soup. It'll be quite a while before I can eat pizzas shaped like Mickey Mouse's head again.

The plan for recovery? Sleep, read, sleep, and maybe write some articles for the internets. Any requests?

V-Day MLPs

Mystie — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:11:00 GMT

While some girls opted for the traditional chocolate and flowers for Valentine's, I chose my presents in the form of My Little Ponies. Hasbro released two MLP's for Valentine's in plastic heart-shaped boxes. The ever popular Pinkie Pie and Sweetie Belle headed off the Valentine's set. To the non-collector, these might just look like any other standard My Little Pony. However, there's an addition of heart prints on one side of each pony's body. It's a subtle thing, but that combined with the box shape denotes that these indeed just make the cut for being considered a Valentine's item.

But while on the topic of hearts...

I finally got my CPR certification!