Category Archives: Terrible Things People Eat

October 26, 2010

Count Chocula = impossible to buy in South Carolina. HALLOWEEN IS CANCELED.

By Jeff Vrabel

Count Chocula is, needless to say, embroiled in a centuries-old feud with that shirtless werewolf cereal.

GateHouse — I have discovered two equally displeasing things about Halloween this year: 1. The neighbor down the road, the one on the corner at Sundew Court, which is like the least-evil name ever (she might as well live at Dew Drop Hug Soup Emotionally Supportive Boulevard) has produced a front-yard Halloween display of such breadth and creativity that frankly my fake tombstones (“Here Lies Doug M. Upp” — ka POW), cheesy blinking “Great Pumpkin” Linus and assortment of artfully sliced-up pumpkins looks like a cruel failure by comparison. The neighbor’s display occupies probably 2,500 square feet, likely required several meetings with the power company, includes what I’m sure were Army-sized rations of that cobwebby cotton stuff and is making the rest of us aspiring warlocks feel SUPER INADEQUATE. Thanks, Sundew Court. See if I include you in the next block party volleyball game.

The second, and obviously more important problem: I cannot buy Count Chocula anywhere remotely near my house, and/or Sundew Court.

I don’t want to minimize anyone’s problems. I know times are hard for everyone. Your boss is slicing back  your hours and your bank is being a jerk, but frankly my problem is worse than any of yours multiplied by a fafillion, because none of you have, in the past week, driven around for a full afternoon stopping at five grocery stores in the futile hunt for a fictitious cocoa-based vampire who apparently IS NOT FOR SALE IN SOUTH CAROLINA, due to, I am sure, something Rush Limbaugh said once.

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28 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Dad Stories / Parenting, GateHouse, Holidays, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

October 7, 2010

SunChips singlebaggedly ruining the hearing of America

By Jeff Vrabel

OH GOD, THE NOISE, THE UNBEARABLE HIDEOUS NOISE

GateHouse — I think if we can agree on anything in this disenchanted, disgusted, polarized, murderous, Rick Sanchezed, easily agitated world, it’s that nothing that unites the sides — left and right, Democrat and Republican, socialist and un-socialist, people who like “Glee” and me — than the shared hatred for a snack bag that emits an unpleasant amount of sound.

It is fortunate, then, that, we as a society have risen up! Unified! Launched a movement! Moved a launchment! Formed cleverly titled Facebook groups! And put a definitive end to Frito-Lay’s 18-month-old biodegradable SunChips bag, a container which proved itself too deafening and crinkly for the fragile cochlea of the average snacktastic American.

Here was the problem: The bag, if you have never purchased one (and we’d be able to tell because of the geysers of blood spraying out of your ears), was louder than other snack bags.

This bears repeating: This particular snack bag — the bag that contained chips, in a bag — was a little louder than other, normal snack bags. If this is a sentence that sends you into large fits of rage, or even normal-sized fits of rage, or elicits in you any sort of physiological glandular reaction whatsoever, we are probably not going to be doing a lot of hanging out.

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• The Hold Steady – Chips Ahoy!

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1 comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

July 5, 2010

Krispy Kreme + Cheerwine donuts: 85% of your recommended daily allowance of goo

By Jeff Vrabel

I know, it's like you don't even know where to start eating first, right? (Photo: Raleigh News & Observer)

GateHouse — Oh hey, great, I’ll bet you, America’s elitist class of health-obsessed spin-class-overfilling radish-snacking plutocrats and people who purchase “cereal bars” because they might taste a very little like the Pop-Tarts which are sitting on THE ADJACENT SHELF waiting for you to inevitably come crawling back, I suppose now you and your skinny jeans are going to HATE this new idea that just walked into my newsroom, the one where Krispy Kreme donuts are stuffed with Cheerwine-flavored filling. I’ll bet you are going to HATE the idea of glorfing down, Kobayashi-style, liquefied warmed-up donut/goo pluffed to the bursting point with synthetic materials that are designed to taste a little like a cut-rate carbonated beverage. Well SORRY FOR NOT BEING GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU FRESH-MARKET-FREQUENTING SHOE-HATERS, with your homegrown vegetables and biodegradable carts and ability to walk a half-mile without stopping to suffer a few moments of legally defined death. Here’s some frogurt that’ll pair nicely with your contemptuous judging, Horse Spirit.

For the rest of us true-blue, red-blooded and other-color-referencing Real Americans, allow me to celebrate the fact that in this time of great unease, conflict and tension, a fragile peace has been forged between two of the greatest forces in all of North Carolina: Your friends at Krispy Kreme and your enemies at Cheerwine, which is a bargain beverage, though not the kind sprayed indiscriminately at Insane Clown Posse concerts (shout-out to my homes for the Juggalo-fact check, y’all are some straight-up marketing-identification ninjas).

And it has provided, in short, a food in which Cheerwine soda — whose name includes at least two inaccuracies — is injected into a donut and topped with chocolate and sprinkles. USA! USA!

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Download: cC50De

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10 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

May 12, 2010

White Castle candles: Like a delightful bouquet of abandoned onions and my grandparents’ kitchen

By Jeff Vrabel

Do not eat the candle, as much as you're going to want to.

GateHouse — A few years ago, upmarket luxury merchant Burger King launched its very own personal men’s fragrance, one designed to approximate the iconic BK odor, which is to say a char-broiled hork of theoretical meat patty which was flash-frozen in a Beijing agricultural facility in 1997 and brought via oil tanker or donkey or whatever to thousands of Burger Kings all over the South’s interstate highway exits. (Just kidding, Burger King,  you know I heart you and your Croissan’wiches. Let’s never fight again.)

Anyway, the BK cologne thing was called Flame, and we all laughed at it, because it turns out that Americans will put up with a lot of things, including Jay Leno, but attempting to purposefully smell like a restaurant you visit only mostly it’s across from the gas station is not chief among them. This country is being torn to pieces by jeez, I can’t even remember, taxes, President Kenya, immigration and the Planet, which is pretty much emptying its playbook of highly metaphoric natural disasters, but all ages and demographics found BK Flame to be a most displeasing proposition, especially since you could buy a double-cheeseburger for 99 cents and rub it all of your flesh for essentially the same olfactory effect.

But when it came right down to it, Burger King’s pioneering entry into the fragrance market failed for one clear reason: Burger King is no White Castle.

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Download: b4Qo08

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9 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Back Home Again In Indiana, Being Slovak, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

May 6, 2010

Fast Franks: For when you just don’t have time for the full, immersive hot dog experience

By Jeff Vrabel
709438280_d5e08571ef

No longer will you have to suffer through the maddening inconvenience of microwaving your wiener and bun separately.

GateHouse — You know the scene: You wake up early in the morning, the sunrise sneaking in through the plywood you’ve nailed to the inside of your windows (the government — am I right people?). You’re just waking up, rubbing both sleep and clown nightmares out of your eyes, and you’re thinking, “You know what would be great right now? A hot dog — a mouth-watering, damp, pig-rectumalicious hot dog, a treat that’s as American as Mom, baseball and exploiting tragedy for minor political gain.”

But if you’re like me, at this point you grow grumpy and whiny, because the hot dog is all the way over there in the kitchen, which is like two rooms away. And it’s still morning, way too early to think about finding the hot dog, unwrapping the hot dog (which could result in your coming into contact with hot dog juice, which is unacceptable), zapping the hot dog in your microwave, and then — this is an entirely separate requirement, mind you — locating a bun, opening that package and cooking the two objects separately (if you’re one of those hot-bun people; me, I can be pretty easily convinced either way, which makes me feel a whole lot like Mitt Romney).

Of course then there’s condiments: ketchup obtainment, relish selection, mustard application, etc. etc. And only then, like three hours later, can you finally assemble the whole farce into your long-awaited breakfast feast, except by now it’s getting on in the morning and it’s probably more like brunch, but whatever.

Well, friends, your days of hideous terror are over, thanks to a genius product I glimpsed at the grocery store while trying to steal applesauce: Oscar Mayer Fast Franks. A three-pack of fully microwaveable Hot Dogs In A Bun. MICROWAVEABLE HOT DOGS, IN A BUN, THAT COME IN ONE PACKAGE. And they come in your choice of Beef OR Meat varieties.

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Download: cugRGv

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15 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

April 22, 2010

Revolutionizing breakfast, one Cocoa Pebble at a time

By Jeff Vrabel

Whatever, Flintstone, my kid thought of this idea before you did, and he's only 6

Island Packet — Not to be the indigestible kind of overbearing, obnoxious screaming-on-the-soccer-sidelines father dude, but I have to report that my 6-year-old is a genius. But he is not a genius in the traditional sense — he cannot, for instance, perform a full piano concerto (he can only make it like halfway through Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” which is kind of embarrassing), and he can’t complete major surgeries or anything (OK, he did that partial knee replacement one time, but to be fair he was looking at Wikipedia).

What he has done is revolutionize breakfast, via his most recent invention: Cocoa Pebbles And Fruity Pebbles Mixed Up Together In One Bowl And Eaten Without Milk.

I am going to pause so you can drive to the nearest Grocery Mart, screaming and with your arms flailing wildly over your head if you have a large enough car, to purchase or steal (whatever, I’m not your Dad) two boxes of Pebbles and speed maniacally home to hungrily gorge upon what will certainly be the most life-changing breakfast-oriented experience you will have all month. (Having planned for this, I brought a book to pass the time. It is by Nicholas Sparks. I have just begun it, but I am pretty sure it will involve young, star-crossed lovers who hail from two different worlds and whose all-too-brief summertime romance ends abruptly when one of them is eaten by a monster.)

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Download: 9qV4IM

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8 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Dad Stories / Parenting, Humor Columns, McClatchy-Tribune, Terrible Things People Eat

April 15, 2010

KFC Double Down Sandwich: “Suck it, National Obesity Epidemic”

By Jeff Vrabel
kfc-double-down

Focused and broad, with generous cherry, tobacco and peppery toast flavors mingling well on the long, deftly balanced finish

GateHouse — I know what you’re thinking: “Jeff, bread is stupid. It is chewy and grainy and sometimes there is entirely too much crust for my comfort. Moreover, I find myself more displeased each time I am confronted with toast. And do not even GET ME STARTED ON SESAME SEEDS, or I will punch each and every member of this litter of baby chicks in the beak right now.” OK, you probably don’t think things in pointlessly lengthy paragraphs, but I’m the one with the word count.

The point is: bread sucks. I know it, you know it, and most crucially, the Colonel knows it. And it’s a good thing he defected to our country from North Korea, because now the Colonel, though he continues to have to spend his days guarding his Secret Recipe with the jealous, flinty-eyed suspicion of the caged jaguar, has found time to address the issue of bread’s unceasing sucktasticness by coming up with the absolutely ingenious idea of taking the sandwich, disconnecting the bread entirely and replacing it with two seasoned greasy chicken flanks dripping with deliciousness and probably goo.

It is, of course, impossible to believe that I would be clever enough to dream this up on my own, but for non-believers, may I introduce you and your slowly choking arteries to the Double Down Sandwich, although please note that we are expanding the definition of the word “sandwich” into heretofore unimagined physics realms.

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Download: 9xDt1x

 

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19 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Dad Stories / Parenting, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

January 18, 2010

KFC makes Indiana finger-lickin’ good, or, I hate the Colonel with his wee beady eyes, and that smug look on his face. “Oh, you’re gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhh!”

By Jeff Vrabel

Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly, smartass.

GateHouse — I can’t be sure how much time my reader(s) spend in the state of Indiana — except my mom, who I’m pretty positive spends most of her time there, and if not I need to get some birthday cards forwarded immediately — but here’s one thing about Indiana: It is not especially difficult, when in Indiana, to be aware of your nearby fast-food options. (It is also not difficult to locate people who command an astonishing supply of Manning family facts and students currently furious with Lady Gaga, but those are both for other times).

Certainly, Indiana is hardly alone in this regard. We do a good bit of road-tripping in my family, thanks to the deeply rewarding feeling we get by paying for gasoline, and as I’m sure you have noticed, there are vast sweeps of American interstate that branch off into exits of inveterate sameness, exits that exist seemingly to explore the countless land-planning combinations that can be made using only fast-food providers, jerky superstores and Cracker Barrels. I have driven — and I’m sure you have driven — upon thousands and thousands of federal roadway just off of which, using solely the context clues provided by local eateries, you would have hopeless little clue about where you are currently super-sizing something (with the notable exception of a Burger King in Spartanburg, S.C., which has been forever scorched into my brain due to the extraordinary inability of its waitstaff to successfully furnish to me a Regular Coffee With A Couple Of Little Creamer Packets, which is a story I’m saving for an eventual book series, as I could expend probably six chapters discussing how I passed the time waiting in vain for someone to smoke out a stirrer).

That said, today I’m writing about Indiana for two reasons:

  1. I know about 30 people in Indiana who get instantly indignant when I make jokes about my home state, such as gags about the time that the bulk of the capital’s populace rose up in seething, pitchforks-and-slogans revolution when the Colts pulled their starters in the 3rd quarter one time, and how, depending where you are standing, the state smells either like the scorched earth of the steel mills or John Mellencamp’s hair. Sometimes both.
  2. Indiana was paid recently — entirely true, this is — by poultry oligarchy Kentucky Fried Chicken to promote its new quote-fingers “fiery” chicken wings by emblazoning the capital city’s hydrants and fire extinguishers with KFC stickers and stuff.

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Little Feat – Dixie Chicken

Download: 7VEwSc

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Lyle Lovett – Up In Indiana

Download: 5kGpTw

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2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Back Home Again In Indiana, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

January 14, 2010

Warning: Oily discharge ahead, or, Alli, The Greatest Of All Time

By Jeff Vrabel

Use with pants.

GateHouse - You may be seeing ads these days for a delicious-looking diet pill, a nonprescription fat-blocker that’s selling out around the nation despite the following potential side effects: “Gas with oily spotting, loose stools or more frequent stools that may be hard to control.” You know, people say writing is hard, but some nights these things just type themselves. I just sort of sit off to the side, have about six glasses of wine and fall asleep.

Alli is the latest and 12-millionth Magic Dieting Pill to emerge from America’s fledgling over-the-counter drug industry, a silver bullet for the delightfully tenacious chunk of the American electorate that still, bravely and in the face of thousands of years of medical science, believes it’s possible to lose weight without modifying one’s Dorito intake or walking around sometimes.

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11 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat

November 23, 2009

Springsteen goes on hiatus, and there’s a waffle shortage. This week sucks.

By Jeff Vrabel

Get a good look, because this is as close as you're getting to an Eggo until June.

GateHouse — Well, it’s over, there are no more waffles.

I am going to pause for a moment to let that news sink in and give you the time, if you are so moved, to kill yourself, because this waffle fiasco is pretty definitively the worst thing to happen to our collective breakfast-related condition since the lunchtime mauling of Sonny the Cocoa Puffs bird in that panther cage (he was so young, and chocolatey). Sure, the recession has brought all manner of terrible things to America, including rampant unemployment, obscene corporate bonuses and like 35 weekly hours of Jay Leno, but this is the first time in the modern American economic model that a slowdown has proven so protracted and severe that it has wiped out a breakfast food outright. (And I don’t mean to be alarmist, but I’m also hearing pretty stormy things about muffins futures.)

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Download: aO5zgS

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2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Springsteen, Terrible Things People Eat

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