Reviews You Don't Need

Review: self check out. When self checkout stations first started popping up at the grocery store, I was against them. I said things like “are they going to give me a discount for scanning my own groceries?”, or did my best Norma Rae, and complain about how “the man” and machines were taking jobs away from people. Well, as usual, people hurt their cause more than help it. I soon realized that I usually like machines way better than people. I shop for everything I can online, just because I can do it without people gumming up the works. If check out people could do their jobs efficiently and without talking to me, I would still be on their sides. So now, in an effort to avoid any more contact with humanity than is absolutely necessary, I will scan my own groceries in exasperated silence. There are drawbacks. The self check out area is full of the same people that don’t seem to know how to work an ATM or fast food drive through. I used to think that the cashiers at Walmart were the worst...

Product review: Blue Diamond Gourmet Almonds. Nuts are different than when I was a kid. A few decades ago, nuts were things people put out in bowls, and there were accompanying utensils to crack them open and pick the meat out. If you wanted an almond, you had to position it carefully in a hinged nut cracker, hope you didn’t destroy the nut or your fingers in the process, and make a mess. Same with all of them. Pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, and the really annoying and forgotten nut, the brazil nut. Brazil nuts were the worst. Besides the fact that some people had a really racist and derogatory nickname for them, they were hell to crack open, and frankly, not worth the trouble.  Cashews? Forget about it. Cashews used to be in the upper tier of nuts. You mostly got them when it was time for a fancy party to impress your friends. In fact, they were included in Planters Deluxe Mixed nuts, because sophistication in those days meant buying a can of nuts that had already been shelled. Ther...

Product review: Big assortment of fireworks. First off, let me just say, I loves to blow shit up! Nothing better than spending the two weeks before and the two months after the 4th of July making stuff explode at 1am on a work night. Now, thanks to America and FREEDOM, everybody can buy all kinds of stuff that explodes and makes noise. Yeeeehaaawwww, it’s good to be an American! Nothing says “making America great again” like blowing a little bit of it up! Now I know there are people out there that don’t like fireworks. They complain because their pets get upset, or because some veterans have PTSD or whatever, but screw them! The founding fathers didn’t invent fireworks on the 4th of July just so snowflakes could complain about the noise. That noise is the sound of freedom! It is the sound of liberty! You didn’t hear our ancestors complain about the noise when we fought back the Canadians in the war of 1812! Besides, if you’re a veteran, shouldn’t you be used to explosions? I like war h...

Product Review: Christmas. “What could possibly be wrong with Christmas?” you ask, fully expecting a Scroogelike dissertation about commercialism and misappropriated pagan traditions disguised as religion and goodwill. You expect some bitter, depressing missive about the lame and phony attempts at joy and good cheer that circulate this time of year.  Well, you are going to be disappointed. Somewhat, anyway. I like Christmas, and all the traditions and togetherness and other crap that goes along with it. At least I used to. If I have one complaint about Christmas, it’s that the older I get, the less I excited I am about it. If I’m not seeing anyone at the time, it just makes you feel a little bit more lonely. I am old, and I am alone, so that takes some of the luster off of it. That’s natural, though. When I was a kid, I remember my parents doing a lot of stuff to make Christmas fun and memorable for my brother and me. When I think back on it, though, I recall that they weren’t re...

Product review: McDonald’s filet-o-fish meal. I have gone to eat lunch at McDonald’s a few times in the last couple of months, and each time it has been a chore. Not eating the food, although that too felt like a chore at times. Before we begin, though, can we look at the name “filet-o-fish”? What’s with the “o” in the middle? Is it supposed to be quaint, or old timey sounding? Are we supposed to feel like we are magically transported to a James Joyce novel the moment we bite into one? Is it perhaps reminiscent of whalers or pirates, or other seagoing fellows? Regardless, who talks or writes like that in the last century, besides James Joyce? I don’t even know if James Joyce writes like that, being that the only book I ever tried to read by him was Finnegans Wake, and just wait until you read my product review of that mess. I just wanted something that sounded Irish, and the only book I really read by an Irish author was Angela’s Ashes, but I’m trying to keep this thing lighthearted, o...

Product review: sleep. Okay, maybe sleep isn't technically a “product”, but just get off my case, for fuck’s sake! Like I need you coming around and pointing out the obvious. Okay, sorry, sorry, I just didn't get much sleep last night, and I'm a little irritable. There's the biggest problem with sleep, the amount you get. Either you get too little, and you're tired and cranky and miserable the next day, or you get too much, and you're tired and cranky and miserable the next day. There doesn't seem to be the right amount of sleep. They arbitrarily came up with 8 hours being the ideal amount of sleep per day, but seriously, who are “they”, and what right do they have to tell me how much I should be sleeping? This idea of 8 hours is most likely a newer invention that completely ignores the history of human sleeping patterns. We live in a glorious age, where most of the things we think are common knowledge were in fact conceived by crackpots long ago enough to ...

So, here's my quick review of Sabra guacamole. It's prepackaged guacamole, so you pretty much expect it to be some of the worst guacamole you'll ever have, and in that respect, it does not disappoint. It's kind of expensive, especially for the amount you get, but that's kind of the same for all Sabra products. I mean, hummus is basically pureed chickpeas, and they charge 4 bucks for a small container of that. I had a coupon though, so I bought the guacamole, but that's not an excuse, because I already tried it a month ago when I got a free one for buying two containers of hummus, so I knew what I was getting into. The weird thing is, avocados start turning brown from pretty much the moment you cut into them, so I don't even want to think of the amount of chemicals and preservatives that go into giving this stuff a shelf life. The real question I should be asking myself is: why did I buy it again? Do I have that little respect for myself, and for the Mexican ...

Review: BJ’s Wholesale Club. Food prices these days are only getting higher, and shopping is getting to be more of a hassle. Companies are not only giving you less for your money, every other week some part of our food supply is getting recalled for some kind of disease or bacteria, most often because of contact with human feces, caused by immigrants pooping in the fields as they pick our crops, to bring down America so MS-13 can rape and pillage our society. Disclaimer: I don’t know if that is true, I just got it off of the brand new FDA website created by the Trump administration. Did you know that African Americans and ISIS are to blame for rising food prices, and breast milk gives your babies AIDS? Check it out, it’s quite an informative site. But I digress. In these trying financial times, when we are all busy holding down several jobs to pay for our health insurance and mandatory stipends to corporations, don’t we deserve a break? Shouldn’t we take advantage of bargains where we ...

Product review: Bags of lettuce. Okay, calling them “bags of lettuce” is kind of being a dick about it, but most of the “salad mix” you buy is just that. In fact, you can even buy a bag of “iceberg lettuce salad mix”, which is essentially half a head of iceberg lettuce ripped into pieces for you. That’s quite the luxury, paying three times as much simply because you can’t be bothered ripping up your lettuce yourself. I can’t imagine why anyone would need someone to tear their lettuce apart for them. Perhaps there are extremely weak people, with no upper body or hand strength, even to pull apart lettuce. Besides, if you are going to make a salad, you need to put at least a few more things in there besides lettuce. Are you buying everything pre-cut?  I know what you’re thinking, what about paraplegics, or people you have lost their hands, perhaps in an ironic farm related accident? Well, I’m assuming that if they made it as far as the produce aisle in the grocery store, they can hand...

Product review: home fries. “Home fries” is a rustic and quaint sounding name given to leftover potatoes that you fry in a pan and serve with your breakfast. The name was probably coined by the very first hipster in an attempt to convince everyone once again that yet another potato dish was somehow artisan. Potatoes that are cut up and deep fried are somehow “french fries”, and if you know any French people, I am sure they are really happy about that. “Potatoes Au Gratin” which actually is French, and the best they can do to make them classy is to slice them thin and put grated bread and cheese on them. Hmmm, isn’t adding bread and cheese is just another staple of American cuisine? “Scalloped potatoes”, which is a grandiose way of describing how you slice the potatoes before again covering them in cheese and sauce. This might sound the same as au gratin, but the French are quick to point out that they are not the same at all and the French way is superior, as French people are wont to...