REVIEW: Rumba Energy Juice

If there is one thing you should know about me it’s that I’m all about obsessive-compulsive cleanliness, so I was totally stoked about finally getting a Rumba vacuuming robot.

It’s been the number one thing on my wishlist for the past couple of years, ahead of my desire for a new Steven Seagal movie that doesn’t go straight to DVD and more episodes of the supersonic helicopter television series Airwolf.

There were many things that surprised me about the Rumba. The first was its cost. I thought these household wonders were about $199 and not the $1.99 I paid at the convenience store down the street. Another surprise was that it didn’t need to be plugged into an outlet for power. It apparently was solar powered, which I figured out thanks to the picture of the sun on its body.

If you don’t own a Rumba, the best part about having one is the fact that they’re semi-autonomous. Just like the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie and placing children in front of a television, you can “set it and forget it.” I didn’t know how to program mine, since it didn’t come with a manual, so I just touched it and hoped for the best, but unfortunately it didn’t do anything.

I didn’t think it was broken, I thought it was just shy, so I decided to leave it alone and set up a camera to take time-lapse pictures of it in action. Here’s what the camera took and as you will see, it definitely took some hot action:

As you saw in the video, the Rumba gave my iPod some sweet, sweet — possibly a little rough — electronic lovin’. But it wasn’t just my iPod that I caught it with. The Rumba “plugged itself into” any device that had a port/hole in it, like my laptop, the subwoofer that came with my computer speakers, a USB hub, my wireless router, the cable modem, my cell phone, and I don’t know how it did it, but it also got it on with the camera that was taking the time-lapse photos of it.

I guess robots need love too.

I knew I had to stop the Rumba from humping my gadgets to prevent it from breaking them, so I decided to open up the Rumba to see what was wrong with it, despite the fact that it might void my warranty. In doing so, I discovered something surprising.

It turns out that the Rumba I got was not a gadget-humping vacuuming robot, instead it was a gadget-humping can of energy juice.

On the outside, the Rumba Energy Juice looks like any other energy drink out there, but inside the can is one of the best energy drinks I’ve ever had — and also probably the horniest energy drink ever.

It’s non-carbonated which means it’s REALLY easy to drink, like malt liquor is for a homeless alcoholic. What also makes it easy to drink is the fact that it tastes and looks just like orange juice, but not only does it contain orange juice, it’s also got apple, pear, peach, tangerine, pineapple, and white grape juice concentrates.

Despite the fact that it tastes like OJ, drinking it after brushing my teeth didn’t cause it to taste funky like regular OJ does.

If you look closely as the picture above, you’ll see a bunch of tiny white particles floating around in it, which I’m going to assume is some of the energy goodness found in the Rumba Energy Juice. It contains all the usual energy ingredients, like B vitamins, taurine, ginseng, caffeine, guarana, L-carnitine, and inositol, all of which did a good job of giving me a boost of energy.

No wonder the Rumba Energy Juice had a lot of energy to pound every electronic device I own.

Item: Rumba Energy Juice
Price: $1.99 (15.5-ounces)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 5 out of 5
Pros: One of the best energy drinks I’ve had. Looks and tastes like orange juice. 100% juice. Easy to drink. Non-carbonated. Gave me a good energy pick up. Lots of vitamins and minerals. Airwolf.
Cons: Not a Roomba Vacuuming Robot. White particles floating around in it. Likes to hump gadgets.

Online Dating Product Review Poll!!! Yes, You Read Right!!!

My mom always tells me that I should hang out at bookstores to meet a nice, smart girl, but I haven’t had any luck, probably because I hang out in the Sex & Relationships section a little too long.

Now some of you are probably saying, “Why not meet someone at a bar or club?”

I’m a busy person and I don’t have time to hang out at the bar until three in the morning waiting for a woman drunk enough to say yes to a date.

So I am pretty much left with the internet. Fortunately, there are many people out there using the internet as a way to get a date. It’s as common as YouTube videos of dudes being hit in the cojones with a wide variety of items. There are many dating websites out there, so I thought I would narrow the choices down to three and let you guys determine which one I’ll sign up for in a new product review poll.

Here are the three dating websites you will be able to vote for:

1. eHarmony.com ($30.00 per month)

2. Match.com ($20 per month)

3. Yahoo Personals ($25 per month)

As you can see, they all cost a bit of money to join, so I thought about adding the free Honolulu Craigslist personals with the choices, but I’m afraid that because it’s free, I will end up with someone who either has a penis or wants to steal a kidney from me and trade it on the black market for a Nintendo Wii.

The dating website with the most votes will be declared the winner. The winner will be reviewed and the other dating websites will not be getting my money and the women who are on those other dating websites will not be getting my heart. To vote, just leave a comment for this post with your choice. Only one choice and vote per person — especially you Calvin.

Current results (as of 10:00 pm 2/11):

eHarmony.com: 32
Match.com: 43
Yahoo Personals: 2

Thanks to everyone who has participated so far!

I’ll be accepting votes until Valentine’s Day, Wednesday, February 14th (11:59 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time). Since the product is something that takes awhile to test, don’t expect a review here on TIB for several months, but take consolation in the fact that you might be responsible for possibly helping me either find true love or a crazy psycho bitch who will make me play with her fifteen cats with names like Socks, Mr. Twinkle Toes, Buttons, Fluffy, Meow Meow, Twitchy, Stimpy, Gingersnap, Kitty Poo, Tootles, Hairball, Mandrake, Fantasia, Patchy, and Fuzzbutt.

Now go vote like your friend is running for student body president, because you don’t want either the head cheerleader or the captain of the football team to win, since they’re both self-centered snobs.

McDonald’s Honey Mustard Snack Wrap

I wonder what’s a worse fate for a chicken: To be a grilled or crispy piece of chicken in the new McDonald’s Honey Mustard Snack Wrap.

Sure, there are even worse fates for chickens, like bird flu, being used in some screwed up way in a Jackass stunt, Chicken McNuggets, dancing naked in the Peter Gabriel “Sledgehammer” music video, or being eaten by Nicole Richie, then being regurgitated by Nicole Richie.

Unlike the original Ranch Snack Wrap, which only comes with crispy chicken, the honey mustard one come with either crispy chicken or grilled chicken, which is probably healthier than the crispy version, unless McDonald’s has found a way to grill things by sticking them in hot oil.

Along with your choice of chicken, the Honey Mustard Snack Wrap also comes with shredded cheddar jack cheese, lettuce, a sweet and tangy honey mustard sauce wrapped in a flour tortilla, and for some, it also comes with the guilt of knowing that you’re eating another McDonald’s product despite your promise to swear off of it after watching the documentary Super Size Me.

After trying both the crispy and grilled Honey Mustard Snack Wrap, it’s hard to determine which one I like better. It’s like trying to choose which Olsen twin I like best, because just like Mary-Kate and Ashley, both versions of the Honey Mustard Snack Wrap look alike, are kinda pale on the outside, and don’t have much meat in them.

The crispy version has 320 calories, 15 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 750 milligrams of sodium, 34 grams of carbs, 1 gram of dietary fiber, and 14 grams of protein.

The grilled version has 260 calories, 9 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 800 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbs, 1 gram of dietary fiber, and 18 grams of protein.

Both versions are about six or seven inches long, which is either small, big, or just right, depending on how big your hands or cock is. For me, the size of the Honey Mustard Snack Wrap was wayyyyyyyy too small and I wished that it was a more reasonable nine to ten inches. But then again what do you expect for some thing that costs just $1.29?

So in the end, which Honey Mustard Snack Wrap do I prefer and which is the worst fate for a piece of chicken, crispy or grilled?

Well, the crispy version tastes better, but the grilled one is healthier. However, the honey mustard sauce had kind of a weird sweet deli mustard spicy taste to it, so it turns out that the worst fate for a piece of chicken would be to end up in a Honey Mustard Snack Wrap and I prefer neither the crispy nor grilled versions of it and I’d rather go buy the much better original Ranch Snack Wrap instead.

I’ll leave the Honey Mustard Snack Wraps for Nicole Richie to regurgitate.

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader Danton for letting me know about the McDonald’s Honey Mustard Snack Wrap.)

Item: McDonald’s Honey Mustard Snack Wrap
Price: $1.29
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: Now able to choose between grilled and crispy chicken. Decent price. Grilled is healthier. Crispy is better tasting.
Cons: Honey mustard sauce is kind of weird tasting. Kind small for my big…um, hands. Breaking your promise to not eat fast food. Being in a Jackass stunt. Being regurgitated by Nicole Richie.

REVIEW: Limited Edition Snickers Xtreme

If peanuts were the measurement of being xtreme, elephants would be doing Mountain Dew commercials and Mr. Peanut wouldn’t be wearing a top hat and holding a cane, instead he would be wearing a helmet, riding a skateboard, and constantly cracking his nuts (or himself) while trying to do railslides down a set of stairs.

The Limited Edition Snickers Xtreme has an xtreme amount of peanuts. As you can see in the picture below, it’s frickin’ full of peanuts. It’s perfect for someone who loves peanuts so much that if it were legal, they would marry them, despite the fact it would be REALLY difficult to consummate the marriage.

To figure out how much more xtreme Snickers Xtreme was than regular Snickers, I decided to dissect each candy bar like it was a frog in a biology class, a cadaver in an anatomy class, or a female contestant on The Bachelor.

However, before I started cutting open each candy bar, I thought just dissecting them wouldn’t be xtreme enough. After all, I was dealing with a Snickers Xtreme. So I decided to try and do an xtreme dissection that involved me blindfolded. underwater without oxygen, surrounded by sharks, and using a live swordfish as my cutting instrument. Unfortunately, the bill of a swordfish doesn’t cut very well, but does stab very well, and I can only hold my breath underwater for ten seconds, so I had to settle for a regular dissection.

As you can see in the picture above the inside of a Snickers Xtreme is nothing but an xtreme amount of peanuts and caramel. In order to make room for the xtreme amount of peanuts, the Snickers Xtreme no get nougat, which a regular Snickers has.

Get it? Nougat! No get! Hahahaha! Oh, I think I just caused each my former creative writing professors to die a little inside.

Despite the xtreme amount of peanuts, I thought the Snickers Xtreme didn’t have a strong peanut taste due to it being kind of drowned out by the xtreme amount caramel. Regular Snickers has peanut butter nougat, which probably would’ve helped with the peanut flavor, but it would probably be hard to try and stuff some in the Snickers Xtreme, since doing that is much like trying to put a hat on Donald Trump’s head, because his head is the size of a blimp and his toupee uses its strand to keep hats away.

There really isn’t anything else xtreme about the Snickers Xtreme itself. Its nutritional value is almost the same as a regular Snickers. A regular Snickers has 280 calories, 14 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 5 mg of cholesterol, 140 mg of sodium, 35 grams of carbs, 1 grams of fiber, 30 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein. A Snickers Xtreme has 290 calories, 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 10 mg of cholesterol, 110 mg of sodium, 33 grams of carbs, 2 grams of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.

However, after eating a Snickers Xtreme my life became a little more xtreme. You would think the probability of my life getting more xtreme because of the Snickers Xtreme is about the same probability of having a good time with someone whose number you found in a public restroom, but for a short time the most mundane parts of my life became xtreme.

For example, eating ice cream. After eating the Snickers Xtreme, I wasn’t chowing down on my favorite dairy product with a spoon, instead I took it to the xtreme by eating it with a ladle. My ironing was even taken to the xtreme. I didn’t just iron on my ironing board, I ironed on top of my ironing board, riding it like a surfboard with me ironing my clothes while wearing them.

Now that’s xtreme!

Item: Limited Edition Snickers Xtreme
Price: 59 cents
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good. More peanuts, if you LOVE peanuts and want to be together through sickness and in health.. Kinda crunchy. Temporarily made mundane parts of my life xtreme. Eating ice cream with a ladle. Xtreme ironing.
Cons: More peanuts, if you’re allergic to peanuts. Despite an xtreme amount of peanuts, it didn’t have a strong peanut taste. No get nougat. Not really more xtreme than regular Snickers. Not being able to do an xtreme dissection. Xcessive use of the word “xtreme” in this review. Donald Trump’s toupee.

REVIEW: Gatorade A.M. Tropical Mango

I think I’ve long passed the stage when I would lose fluids during sleep, because I don’t use disposable plastic sheets or diapers anymore and I no longer sweat from the nightmares I used to have that consisted of me auditioning for American Idol by singing the Boyz II Men song “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday,” but I’m auditioning as that guy who was the least attractive member of the 1990s R&B group Color Me Badd.

Yes, the long haired dude that kind of looked like Kenny G.

However, according to the bottle of Gatorade A.M. Tropical Mango I’ve been chugging from for the past two mornings, I apparently lose fluids and energy while I sleep. Here’s what it said:

Gatorade A.M. helps put back the fluids and energy you lose during a full night’s sleep. It’s the same scientifically proven formula in flavors designed for the morning.

I don’t know if I truly lose fluids while I’m asleep, but I do know that when I sleep, I’m losing five to eight hours of my life that I’ll never get back and that upsets me. I think this feeling is much like what most people go through after watching an episode of the ABC “sitcom” According to Jim.

That’s five to eight hours I could be using to do things I enjoy, like cooking a fine Italian meal with a bottle of Ragu sauce, sucking the helium from balloons and reciting lines from Star Wars, making meth in my shower, constructing paper clip chains, organizing my vast boxer collection by color, seeing how many bowls of different cereals it takes to equal the nutritional value in one bowl of Total cereal, having blind taste tests between all the variations of Coke and Pepsi, perfecting the “richness” of my “custard” in my “Creme brulee,” and organizing my vast boxer brief collection by testicle snugness.

I wish the scientists at Gatorade would create a version of Gatorade which helps me put back the hours I lose during a full night’s sleep. Perhaps they could call it Gatorade T.M., which would stand for “time machine.” That would be more impressive than Gatorade A.M.

I may not believe I lose fluids when I’m asleep, but usually right after I wake up I definitely lose a lot of fluids when I unbutton my pajama pants, unleash my “Mothra,” and “shoot my silk spray into Tokyo.”

After I’m done, I think then I could use some Gatorade A.M. to help replace the fluids I just lost “shooting Tokyo with my silk spray.” But if you think about it, if I drank half a bottle of Gatorade A.M. to put back the fluids I lost during sleep or “spraying Tokyo,” I’m pretty sure 30-60 minutes later I’m going to have the urge to lose the fluids I just consumed.

Drinking Gatorade A.M. every morning for the past few days didn’t seem to improve my mornings better than my usual morning beverages, either water, milk, orange juice, apple juice, or whatever energy drink is sitting in my fridge mixed with vodka. The tropical mango flavor was good, but didn’t really taste like mango and it was also surprisingly sweet for a Gatorade.

Adding caffeine to the Gatorade A.M. would’ve probably made it better and help it become a true morning beverage that could get me through my repetitive morning rituals, but drinking it every morning to replace the fluids I lost during sleep would probably get expensive, like excessive magazine subscriptions, shopping at Neiman Marcus, or disposable plastic sheets.

Item: Gatorade A.M. Tropical Mango
Price: $1.79 (32-ounces)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good tropical mango flavor. Helps replace the fluids lost during sleep and after peeing. Helium. Organized underwear.
Cons: Kinda too sweet for a sports drink. Didn’t really taste like mango, so I guess I cannot have The Mango. Losing valuable hours while I sleep. According to Jim. My nightmares of me auditioning for American Idol as the homely guy from Color Me Badd.