Author: Marvo

PRIZE DRAWING: Because I Want You To Get Au Natural

Marvo 192 Comments

I once in awhile dabble in the au naturalness. I believe I do my best thinking when I’m au natural, so whenever I write a review I try to be completely naked. I believe clothes restricts my creativity, although this belief makes it extremely difficult to write in coffee shops.

Are you an au natural person? How about occasionally au natural?

If you like your colas to be as au natural as you, you should try Pepsi Natural. It’s a premium cola made with all-natural ingredients, including natural sugar, natural caramel, kola nut extract, natural apple extract, and lightly sparking water. It also comes in a glass bottle like in the good old days before plastic bottles were just a twinkle in the eye of chemists. We reviewed it a few months ago and enjoyed it. If you want to learn more about Pepsi Natural and read other reviews about it, visit www.pepsinaturalnews.com.

Thanks to the kind folks at Pepsi, we have a Pepsi Natural “Au Natural” prize pack to give away, valued at $50 and featuring the following fun items:

Pepsi Natural “Au Natural” Giveaway
 
·         Pepsi Natural re-usable 100% organic cotton canvas bag
·         Yoga mat
·         Yoga mat tote
·         Pepsi Natural canvas hat made from 100% organic cotton
·         4-pack of Pepsi Natural premium cola drinks

To enter this prize drawing, leave a comment with THIS post. Your comment MUST include something you’ve done that you would consider “natural,” like drinking water from a river, not using deodorant, recycling bottles, or using sheepskin condoms.

Please don’t forget to fill out the email field. The Impulsive Buy will stop accepting entries on Sunday, July 19, 2009 11:59 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time. Only one entry allowed per person and it’s only open to those 18 years old or older in the United States and Canada.

Good luck!

Fine Print: The Impulsive Buy promises your email address will not be used to send you emails about me lovin’ you long time, which even if I would, I can’t. The Impulsive Buy also promises your mailing address will not be used to send you a treasure map that leads to certain doom. Bribes will not be accepted. The Impulsive Buy will not be responsible for lost mail, damaged mail, or charges of indecent exposure.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Want To Write For The Impulsive Buy?

Marvo

Do you like trying new products? Do you voice your opinion about those products to yourself in the mirror or to family members and pets who don’t care what you think? How would you like an audience that cares? If so, you should apply to be a writer for The Impulsive Buy.

We’re looking for a writer (or possibly two) to try the latest goods and review them using entertaining prose. Interested? Read on, my friend.

Here’s what you’ll need to send us:

Writing Samples

1. One sample review in TIB format (price, pros, cons, etc at the bottom). The review can be about whatever product you want. We won’t be using the review on TIB, we just want to see your writing style to determine if you’d be a good fit. To give you an idea of how long a TIB review is, most of them end up being around 300-500 words.

2. A bio about yourself and why you want to write for The Impulsive Buy.

A few notes

1. Due to legal reasons, we can’t hire minors.

2. Please don’t send attachments. Copy and paste your writing samples into your email.

To apply, please send us an email with your writing sample to theimpulsivebuyATgmailDOTcom. Please add the word “Writer” in the subject line. We will stop accepting applicants on Friday, July 17, 2009.

REVIEW: Hot Pockets Supreme Pizza Deep Dish Pizzeria

Marvo 25 Comments

Hot Pockets Supreme Pizza Deep Dish Pizzeria

Have you looked at a Hot Pocket, then looked at the nutritional facts and then thought to yourself, “Hey, there’s not enough calories and saturated fat in it, but I don’t want to eat two of them”?

If so, you’re in luck because the Hot Pockets Supreme Pizza Deep Dish Pizzeria is heavier than a regular Hot Pocket, but lighter than two. In order make this possible, they didn’t just make a regular Hot Pocket bigger, they made it round so it looks like the Hot Pockets version of a pot pie.

However, instead of being filled with turkey, peas, carrots and gravy, it’s filled with all of the goodness you would find on top of a supreme pizza: pepperoni, sausage, green and red peppers, olives, onions, mushrooms and reduced fat cheese. All of that filling makes it a little thicker than a regular Hot Pocket and its weight about one and three-fourths heavier.

On the front of this product’s box, it brags about how it’s a good source of calcium and contains seven essential vitamins and minerals, but as I mentioned at the beginning, it’s also a great source of saturated fat and sodium. So you’ll beat osteoporosis, but lose to hypertension and heart disease.

If you’ve had a pizza Hot Pocket before, and I’m sure almost all of you have whether you want to admit it or not, you’ll have an idea of what the Hot Pockets Supreme Pizza Deep Dish Pizzeria tastes like, because it just basically a Hot Pocket that’s round. The crust tasted the same and the filling had that familiar pizza flavor. I could pick out the flavors of the pepperoni, sausage, peppers and olives, but not so much with the onions and mushrooms.

As for the cheese, there was a lot of it, but it disappointed me because some of it was reduced fat mozzarella and some of it was imitation mozzarella, which means the Hot Pockets Supreme Pizza Deep Dish Pizzeria didn’t reach its potential with saturated fat and sodium.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 piece – 540 calories, 25 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 840 milligrams of sodium, 60 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, 16 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)

Item: Hot Pockets Supreme Pizza Deep Dish Pizzeria
Price: $2.00
Size: 7.5 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: It’s good, if you like Hot Pockets. Heavier than a regular Hot Pocket. Round shape means you can roll it around, if you desire. If you love sodium and saturated fat, you’ll like it. 4 grams of fiber. Vitamins and minerals.
Cons: Nothing special, it’s just a bigger, round Hot Pocket. Uses reduced fat mozzarella and imitation mozzarella. If you hate sodium and saturated fat, you’ll hate it. Using the phrase “Deep Dish” may make Chicagoans upset.

REVIEW: Sara Lee Original Cheesecake Bites

Marvo 26 Comments

Cheesecake is one of those special desserts that one would only buy to celebrate an important occasion or because they’re at a Cheesecake Factory. I don’t know of anyone who eats cheesecake on a regular basis, and why would anyone? Despite how delicious they are, cheesecake is also packed with calories and saturated fat, so much so that it makes ice cream blush. Just one slice can makes someone feel like they’ve eaten an entire meal. But it seems Sara Lee (who I just found out is not Asian) wants people to eat more cheesecake with her Sara Lee Original Cheesecake Bites.

Each container has 40 ready-to-eat pieces, which means after you eat the first one, you have 39 opportunities to stop eating it. Where you stop depends on your body’s will power. Forty pieces may sound like it’s a lot, but when you see those 40 pieces in its container, it doesn’t look like very much and it’s quite easy to eat half of them, which would be bad, because I imagine death by cheesecake is not how anyone would like to go. Each square bite, which measures at three-fourths of an inch wide and a half of an inch tall, has 20 calories. Through the power of addition, you can get an idea of when to stop. If you were to eat only five of them, you would have consumed 100 calories. If you eat ten of them, that’s 200 calories. If you eat 20 of them in one sitting, you do not care about your body.

Unfortunately, the folks at Sara Lee don’t know how to add. According to the nutrition facts on the back of the packaging, a serving size of 24 bites has 440 calories. I don’t know if they forgot to carry over a number, put a decimal point in the wrong place or had a blindfolded monkey poke at a calculator, but according to my calculations, which I double and triple checked without a blindfold, if one bite has 20 calories, then 24 bites should have 480 calories.

The cheesecake itself tastes like 24 bites should have 480 calories because it’s somewhat rich, although not overly rich. It also had a slight tangy flavor like some cheesecakes do, but the crust was hardly noticeable. Besides the nutritional content, another item that bothered me was the formation of ice crystals on the bites after I first opened, which can be a bad thing with frozen foods because it’s a sign of possible freezer burn. Fortunately, it didn’t taste like there was any freezer burn.

Overall, it wasn’t the best cheesecake I’ve had and that’s what I expected. But it’s not bad for something that’s frozen, cut up into pieces and served in a tub container.  If Sara Lee is trying to push for more cheesecake consumption, I think she might be able to do so with the Sara Lee Original Cheesecake Bites, if people don’t mind mediocre cheesecake.

(Nutrition Facts – 24 cheesecake bites – 440 calories, 27 grams of fat, 14 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 340 milligrams of sodium, 43 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 25 grams of sugar and 7 grams of protein.)

Item: Sara Lee Original Cheesecake Bites
Price: $5.99
Size: 40 bites
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Decent tangy flavor. Not bad for something that’s frozen, cut up into pieces and served in a tub container. Bites make it easier to portion control, unless you have no control.
Cons: Mediocre cheesecake. Crust was hardly noticeable. 40 bites doesn’t look like much. Sara Lee doesn’t know how to add. Ice crystals. Nutrition facts appear to be inaccurate. Just as decadent as regular cheesecake. Sara Lee is not Asian.

REVIEW: Pepsi Shiso

Marvo 20 Comments

Pepsi Shiso

When I opened and smelled the Japanese Pepsi Shiso for the first time, I truly wondered whether or not a Japanese game show was going to break out around me called, “Nomimasu Ka?”, which in English means, “Will you drink it?”

(Note: My Japanese is EXTREMELY POOR. I have retained very little from my two years of Japanese language in college. So my Japanese above may not be correct.)

Every summer, Pepsi releases a limited edition flavor in Japan that can be described somewhere along the spectrum of unusual on one end and fucking weird on the other. In previous years, there’s been a Pepsi Blue Hawaii and a Pepsi Ice Cucumber, both of which landed on the unusual side of the spectrum.

The Pepsi Shiso is more on the fucking weird side.

I guess I find this bathroom cleaner-colored beverage very odd because I’m not familiar with shiso. But thanks to the information clusterfuck known as Wikipedia, I now know shiso is perilla in English, it is an herb in the mint family, and in Japan it is used in salads, spaghetti, meat and fish dishes, and occasionally used as a pizza topping.

Much like the other limited edition Pepsi from Japan I’ve tried, its initial flavor was a little off-putting, but the more I drank the better it seemed to taste, albeit still weird. Unfortunately, there isn’t any real shiso in this bottle filled with a liquid that’s colored like the radioactive rod that gets stuck in Homer Simpsons’ shirt during The Simpsons opening. Since I’ve never tasted shiso, I can’t tell you if this soda’s artificial flavor comes close to it, but I can tell you it tastes like sweetened grass. I also thought there was a cinnamon gum flavor as well, but mostly grass.

If I want drink something that makes my mouth feel like there’s a party going on in it, I’ll drink a rum and Coke or a Hawaiian Punch, but if I want to drink a beverage that makes my mouth feel like there’s photosynthesis going on in it, I’ll definitely drink a Pepsi Shiso.

(Note: Orchid64, who purchased the bottles of Pepsi Shiso for me, reviewed them and so did Mike.)

Item: Pepsi Shiso
Price: 147 yen
Size: 490 ml
Purchased at: Received from Orchid64
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: A little cinnamon gum flavor. It taste a little better the more you drink. It feels like photosynthesis is going on in my mouth. Interesting. Wikipedia.
Cons: Unusual taste. Sweet grassy flavor. Available only in Japan (although if you check eBay, you might be able to pick some up). Doesn’t contain actual shiso. Bathroom cleaner colored. Radioactive rod colored. My knowledge of the Japanese language despite two years of it in college.