10
Footwear
Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars
Yes, an iconic piece of clothing. Weird that someone can consider clothing iconic, but more people recognize these than Napoleon’s hat, so there you go. For this one review I will step aside for a moment, as Father's day is this week and let you hear the rest of the review from my dear old Pap.
“… well, they were made better back then in the '70s, we actually wore them for basketball shoes. They were all that was available back then. And the canvas was tougher and thicker, and the rubber sole didn’t just fall apart. They smelled different then too, one pair would last you for a long time, now they just fall apart … and you know what else, Son? The bands were real back then, none of this studio computer crap! I feel bad for you kids nowadays, got all this stuff to worry about … every day things going to hell … even worse than those morons that had us in ‘Nam …”
Uh, OK … thanks for the info, Dad. I had no idea they were for basketball, I thought they were for being in the Ramones or something. On a serious note, always wear socks with them. I had a "friend" have to turn down an adorable rocker girl's advances one night because "he" realized any romantic involvement later in the evening would mean him taking off his shoes at the end of the evening. www.converse.com
- Update - The tourvan smelled like something had died in it, and after looking for a dead lizard or a 3 month old sandwich that a bandmate had left under a seat, I found a pair of their Chuck Taylors that were so destroyed they were barely recognizable. I then burned the shoes and never told him about it. My bad Chris.
9
FOX News
From time to time I turn to Fox News to see exactly how dumb and naive the mainstream media thinks America really is. Are we really supposed to believe that the biggest news that happened today is a cat stuck up a tree, a school teacher that supposedly had an affair with a student, Britney Spears getting a parking ticket, or a new web page with fashion for dogs? Thank goodness that two channels over you can watch the BBC News straight from the swinging United Kingdom and find out what's really going on in the USA. Hmmm... Does that seem strange to anyone else?
www.news.bbc.co.uk
www.FoxNews.com
Myspace
Property of Rupert Murdoch, a.k.a. Emperor Palpatine a.k.a. FOX
I know it has certain benefits, like finding out about parties and bands' shows, and getting turned on to new music. But the fact that “Tom” of Myspace fame lied about his old age from the start and wanted to be every kid’s friend is just downright creepy. If I get one more friend request from a rap-metal band, a miserable 15-year-old poet in need of a thesaurus or a stripper girl looking to “get to know someone better” I am going to become Amish so I don’t have to deal with social technology anymore … brb....Well, just checked my friend requests, and true to my word I am off to bake cookies and drive a horse and buggy. I’ll tell Brother Malcolm you said hi.
- Update - Fox News just hired former Governor/Quitter/Creative-Child-Namer/Crazy Lady Sarah Palin as a correspondent. I could have bet on that one. Additionally everyone now hates Myspace.com and have switched over to different social media networks... mainly because their Moms now use Myspace.com and won't leave them alone on there.
8
Amazon.com: Kindle
I really wanted to review one of these. Over the last month I could not find a single person who owns one. I can’t get Amazon to send me one for review (they claim to be out of stock). So, I printed out a big glossy photo of it, and glued it on piece of cardboard about the same size and wandered around pretending to use it, and let me tell you, reading a tiny section of the front page of the NY Times gets boring fast. If you have seen the pictures and video, it looks like something that was birthed by an IBM computer from the 80s. It is not sexy, nor sleek, and the display is very simple. Given that I was testing a piece of cardboard with a picture glued to it, and not an actual Kindle, I am not sure if this is a review on which you want to base your final opinions. But for $399 to get a real one, I would prefer to have the cardboard Kindle for about $1 in color printing, use my darn library card, or just buy a real book for a few bucks. Can you imagine a bunch of beautiful mod French poets sitting at a café, smoking and reading Jean Paul Sartre on one of these? Pah!I think not. www.amazon.com
- Update - the new version of the Kindle recently released is a very nice device and great to use, unfortunately it will shortly be made obsolete with the upcoming release of the tablet computer.
7
Sandwich
Bison Burger
Few animals are more majestic and identified with the Wild West than the American buffalo, a.k.a the bison. The bison is also a mighty tasty animal. The Native Americans ate bison all the time and never got chubby until Buffalo Bill killed most of the animals off, and then went on to found McDonald's, setting them all up over the Midwestern United States back in 1885. While this is tragic, Bison have made a great comeback because of Ted Turner and other hippies who keep large herds of them, and are as tasty and non-fattening as ever. Due to the fact that, by an old obscure law, real cowboys and Indians have to be hired to shoot and capture these animals, expect to pay more than twice for a Bison Burger what you would for a Big Mac.
Tested at Square One Burgers www.square1burgers.com
- Update - I got a bunch of mail for this one, from all sources. I got a letter of mail from someone of Native American Heritage that either thought I was really funny or was calling me an asshole, I am still not sure. I got a letter from a vegetarian that was really angry that we decided to eat something that man has been eating for time beyond reckoning, like far enough back when we were still part of the food chain, which made me wonder if they had read their entire letter proving my logic to be sound before they pressed the send button. I had some know-it-all inform me that I .I also had a few emails congratulating me on finally being funny. But, I was not kidding. I love eating these animals. In fact I did the math and if I keep eating one Bison Burger a week, I will have consumed the equivalent of an entire Buffalo within the next 10 years.
6
Beer
Guinness Draught
It’s the 18th century. You are hungry and thirsty at the same time. You decide to drink a porter - stout beer, perhaps brewed by Arthur Guinness. Now. It’s the 21st century and you are on tour with a band. You are hungry, and pissed that food is not included in your tab. You notice Guinness on tap and proceed to have a four-course meal of it. The benefits of this stout brew are many, including nourishment and an apparent antioxidant effect to help your heart stay healthy, but also the fact that at 4.3% alcohol by volume, you can drink a few liters of it and still stay reasonable. Little-known fact: part of the brewing process contains isinglass, which is made from the swim bladders of fish, and every time you see a hardcore vegan drinking this you can buy them another and chuckle at their ignorant bliss as they try to convince you to stop eating things with faces.
Tested at Mr .Dunderbaks German Beirgarten, where we all started singing the famous German drinking song “Denn Sie Ist Mir Zu Fett” as I ate venison sausages (yes that’s deer, like Bambi), which doesn’t make any sense at all because this beer is from Ireland, but I don’t care because deer are not only cute but mighty tasty. www.Dunderbaks.com
- Update - It's still an Irish draught, and Bambi is still mighty tasty.
5
Facial Fashion : Sideburns
After a solid five years of vicious and stovepipe hat-worthy immigrant sideburns bossing the sides of my face around, I had a strange dream about being a hobo and, before I realized I was awake, shaved them clean off. I now feel somehow less mighty, and I got carded for alcohol yesterday. What the hell this has to do with a product review I don't know but, sideburns, I miss you; I am sorry for what I did to you with that cheap Norelco razor. But then again, sideburns are a product of your face growing hair, be you a strapping young dude in a metal band, a poser that wants to look like that guy from the X-Men or someone getting in touch with their gypsy roots. They also prevent your cheeks from getting sunburned, add a little extra padding to your jawline in a brawl and, if you shave your head into a mohawk, it looks like you are wearing a trojan helmet, and that's sort of badass. Basically what I am saying is that sideburns are a good thing. Notice that when the Beatles grew sideburns, they became exponentially more badass. Product thoroughly tested over the course of the last decade. www.perfectsideburns.com
- Update - Realized that, much like the Beatles, I was not as good without them, and I grew them back. Problem solved.
4
IKEA Amusement Park
IKEA
After years of travel and eccentric living, I occasionally am stunned staggered and amazed at "normal" things like a 353,000 square foot colossus of an 3 story amusement park / furniture store / eatery / confusing warehouse / labyrinth that is what people call IKEA. I had no idea what an IKEA was but I ventured into the twilight zone when I had an hour to kill. I now want to buy a sleek and sexy minimalist house made out of aluminum and glass perched on the edge of a cliff so I can fill it up with sleek and sexy shelves, chairs, mirrors, and assorted whatnots from IKEA. If the Swedes have so easily brainwashed me with the yellow and blue building (possibly pumped full of suggestion and oxygen like a casino) then I fear the world is ripe for a takeover by Bauhaus Design School Vikings and we will all be eating Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberry compote before it is all over. Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberry compote tested at IKEA www.IKEA.com
- Update - IKEA has officially taken over the hearts and minds and condos of the American people. Their design superiority makes our knees tremble. All bow down to their mastery of the dining room table and fold-able chair.
3
Guitar
Dean ML
What was once a cutting-edge and shocking design has not aged very well over the last couple decades. Similar to spandex, poodle hair, and pink eyeliner on thirty something dudes (and anything else that Twisted Sister wore); the Dean ML guitars are a statement, and that statement is "I am stuck in the '80s". It is just plain weird to see heavy-metal grandfathers on stage at some Reunion Tour/BBQ wearing Ed Hardy shirts and leather underpants shredding furiously on a neon green one of these guitars, as grandmother groupies smelling of pork ribs and Budweiser, shimmy to the sounds of 1984, exposing their cancerous sunspots, unintelligibly stretched and faded tattoos (that I suspect may have once been Tasmanian devils, or possibly a poorly drawn rose with bleeding thorns) and scream in approval at the geriatric fellows hobbling about on stage.
Tested at the Orlando Guitar show. www.deanguitars.com
- Update - This ran in a Reax Magazine issue about a year ago, and I wrote this just before some of the people at Dean (No longer owned by Dean Zelinsky, but there are more than a few real good people that work there) were kind enough to give our old editor and another member of the staff a tour. Suffice to say, this ran in the next issue by pure chance, making them rather angry, etc. Whatever. If someone has the mind to keep making a guitar that was notoriously ugly, that they didn't even design in the first place, and then paint it some of the most disastrous color schemes imaginable, reminding our older uncles of when they had those flashy weight lifting pants with the white tube socks rolled up over Reeboks, then that is their own risk, and God help the dude who has the balls to play one on stage, unless they are in the band Mastodon or something, and then I guess it would be ok. Additionally the majority of these are no longer made in the USA, and the original Dean was a custom build company. Regardless, aside from this model, Dean does make some pretty decent guitars, or rather, they hire Asian firms to make the guitars and then put the Dean name on them.
2
XTREME SHOCK Energy Drink
Grape Flavor
In 15 minutes, my skin felt like it was humming, I had the urge to join a gym, and I started finding blond girls that drive 1990's Ford Mustangs attractive. I can’t believe this stuff is legal. After the first half-hour I had to drink four vodka Porta-Shots (*Previous Hands-On Review) just to be able to keep my head on straight. I still have this strange suspicion that this stuff may take years off of your life for each one you drink because the company claims that it contains a “patented amino acid” that only they own the rights to. It does have a yummy grape Jolly Rancher flavor, though, so I give it 4 stars anyway. www.xtremeshock.com
- Update - One of our former graphic designers drank an entire one of these that day and almost had us call a doctor. The next day he was angry at me, as if I had forced him to drink it or knew before hand it would make us all feel like a bunch of amphetamine truck stop space jockeys. When all of our hearts started imitating rabbits, we at the Reax office promptly drank a couple of 'porta-shots' (really cheap liquor in a plastic pouch that was reviewed the previous month, it was some of the worst hangover inducing liquor we ever got for free, even though the owner of the company kept telling me in a meeting how he traveled Scotland to find the choice Whiskey to put in a small plastic bag). All kidding aside, this X-TREME stuff may make you feel like you have done something illegal, and wrong, and possibly life threatening. I cannot say for sure if that is true, as I am not a doctor, and I am just writing about the way that I felt. At the time I even toned down the reality of how bent out of shape it made us all feel; but now in retrospect I can honestly say that being on one little sippy-cup bottle of this stuff made 3 members of our staff think that they had something wrong with their central nervous system.
1
Felis silvestris catus: Cat
I have spent a couple months testing this product. I acquired mine barely used only a week or so out of the box. I was impressed with its rather low maintenance, requiring only daily feeding and watering with an occasional change to its accompanying clay-dirt tray for sanitation – all this, and it seems rather cheerful about everything. The one I received is a peach color with strange green lenses. He did not come with the optional laser pointer but I decided to purchase one as an added feature. They do not mix well with water – so don’t take one into the shower. From my personal research, this product can see ghosts, likes cotton balls, is obsessed with beards and – for some reason – is extremely critical of right wing talk radio. I have decided to keep this product. Your particular model may vary, but – due to overwhelming consistency of quality – you will not be disappointed. Pre-owned or donated versions like the product tested are preferred and recommended.
Available at the following locations:
Tampa: www.humanesocietytampa.org
Gainesville: www.alachuahumane.org
Orlando: www.ohs-spca.org
Worldwide: www.hsus.org
- Update - His name is Emerson and he is two years old. He likes long walks in the park, casement windows, and eating wasps.
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