Category: Reviews

REVIEW: Monster Energy XXL

Marvo 23 Comments

After I quickly chugged down all 23.5 ounces of Monster Energy XXL shotgun-style, I was afraid with all the caffeine in my body, I was going to do something rash, like wrestle a bear, tackle a homeless person, watch Taradise on the E! Channel, or become a Scientologist.

Fortunately, none of that happened, but I was totally wired. Although not as wired as that time I took two Vivarin to pull an all-nighter to study for my Japanese 202 final, which caused my hands to shake constantly through the entire exam.

And let me tell you, it isn’t easy writing complicated kanji characters when my hands are shaking like I’m trying to disarm a bomb or unhook a woman’s bra for the first time.

With the complex art of kanji writing, one mess up could mean the difference between writing, “I think you have nice eyes,” and “I think your eyebrows look like furry minks ready to mate.”

Anyway, I possibly had unhealthy amounts caffeine, taurine, and guarana flowing through my bloodstream and I felt like a kid with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder who forgot to take his Ritalin.

I wasn’t shaking, but I was restless and needed to find something to do to help burn off that energy at 10 o’clock at night. At that point, I wished I had a Playstation 2, a girlfriend, or a bear to wrestle.

In my ADHD state, I cleaned my bathroom, watched an episode of Robot Chicken, separated my socks by pairs, arranged by boxers by color, ironed my t-shirts, and arranged my Playboy magazine collection by blondes, brunettes, and redhead Playmates.

However, despite doing all of that, I didn’t end up going to sleep until three in the morning.

As for the Monster Energy Drink itself, it’s the Impulsive Buy’s favorite energy drink ever, because is doesn’t have that typical medicine-like taste that other energy drinks have and it’s pretty sweet.

A regular can of Monster Energy is 16 ounces, but the Monster Energy XXL is 23.5 ounces. Of course, this means 7.5 more ounces of caffeine, taurine, guarana, goodness.

Yes, the can is impressive, but I think some of you may be more impressed with the fact that the Monster Energy XXL can would make an excellent bong.

But then again, what wouldn’t make an excellent bong?

(Editor’s Note: For more energy drink reviews go visit Jason and Angie at screamingenergy.com.)

Item: Monster Energy XXL
Purchase Price: $2.79
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Excellent flavor. 23.5 ounces of Monster goodness. Aluminum can might make for a great bong.
Cons: Hard to sleep after drinking entire can after 10 pm. Writing kanji with shaky hands. Wrestling with bears.

The Special K Diet

Marvo 26 Comments

I don’t know how many of you remember the Total Cereal commercial, where the announcer says something like, “It would take 28 bowls of Special K to equal the vitamins and minerals of one bowl of Total.”

Well you know what Mr. Announcer, I don’t need your stinkin’ one bowl of Total Cereal, because I just ate 28 bowls of Special K. How you like me now, beeyatch?

Thanks to those 28 bowls I ate during the Special K Diet, I’m now four pounds lighter, sexier, and I think my man boobs just dropped a cup size. I now can confidently run in “Baywatch slow motion” across a beach and I won’t jiggle…as much.

For those of you who don’t know what the Special K Diet is, it involves eating a bowl of Special K for two meals and a sensible third meal, every day for two weeks. You are allowed to snack on fruit and vegetables in between meals. After those two weeks, you should be about six pounds lighter or drop one pants size.

Although, I really didn’t care about dropping one pants size, since all my pants have either elastic or adjustable waistbands

I think this weight loss will change my life and I’ll be able to do things I could never do when I was four pounds heavier.

I feel like I can jump higher and dunk a basketball…On one of those Nerf basketball rims you stick on top of your door.

I feel like I can talk to any woman…Over instant messaging using the screen name “sxybod” and a fake picture for my icon. (I know. “Sxybod” is probably taken already.)

I feel like I can do a marathon…That involves watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy on my recliner, while eating potato chips and ice cream.

I feel like I can go to every store, purchase every box of Special K on the shelf, put those boxes in a huge pile, douse the pile in cheap alcohol, and light the sucker on fire, like I’m Guy Montag from the book Fahrenheit 451, because I’m frickin’ sick of Special K.

(Holy crap! What’s with the literary reference? I frickin’ feel like Dennis Miller.)

I now hate Special K more than car alarms that go off for more than 30 minutes and grandma underwear.

At first, I thought it wasn’t going to be so bad, because I was going to rotate between regular Special K and Special K Red Berries. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Special K Red Berries really suck because the red berries soak up milk faster than Tara Reid soaks up alcohol.

After the third day, eating the Special K got really old and I decided to enhance the cereal with chocolate and strawberry milk. That helped me get through the two weeks and the two 18-ounce boxes of Special K.

However, the changes in milk couldn’t help with satisfying my hunger in between meals and my addiction to recording Rachael Ray’s cooking show 30 Minutes Meals, burning each episode to DVD, and cataloging them by the color of the shirt she’s wearing on the show.

Now that I accomplished the Special K Diet and lost weight, I think I should celebrate by eating either a Carl’s Jr. One Pound Double Six Dollar Burger or the Burger King Triple Whopper.

Item: The Special K Diet
Purchase Price: FREE (Boxes of Special K not included)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Pros: Lost weight. Adding chocolate or strawberry milk helped me tolerate the bowls of Special K. My rare literary reference.
Cons: I am soooo sick of Special K. Special K Red Berries suck. Was hungry between meals. Grandma underwear.

100% Whole Grain Chips Ahoy!

Marvo 28 Comments

100% Whole Grain Chips Ahoy!

Hey! Whole Grain! Yeah, I’m talking to you!

You don’t think I notice you invading our breakfast cereals with your whole graininess? Turning our sacred sugary cereals into semi-healthy sunrise suppers. And now you’re slowly creeping into our snacks, like with these new 100% Whole Grain Chips Ahoy!

It’s not just me who’s noticing your sneaky acts. Impulsive Buy reader Allison let me know about you putting yourself into WHITE BREAD. WTF!?! You’ve created wheat white bread. It’s like frickin’ Frankenbread.

Is nothing sacred to you?

It’s like you’re the male town slut and you’re just going around town, dropping your seed into as many things as possible, leaving behind a bunch of illegitimate children, who aren’t very bright, attractive, or tasty, and will probably end up in prison.

Sure, you made the Chips Ahoy! slightly healthier, but I don’t eat cookies for dietary fiber, I eat them because I need to indulge or need to forget the new Ashlee Simpson song or need something to throw when the video of the new Ashlee Simpson song is being played on TV.

Because of you, junk food will lose its luster and I will need a new vice for those times when I’m sitting in front of the TV and watching G-String Divas or Taxicab Confessions on HBO. Maybe I’ll resort to drugs or alcohol or licking envelopes.

If there’s nothing wrong with you dropping your seed into Chips Ahoy!, then why does it say on the packaging, “Real Chocolate Chip Cookies”? Why do I need to be convinced that they’re real chocolate chip cookies?

To be honest, the 100% Whole Grain Chips Ahoy! don’t look like chocolate chip cookies, they actually look like oatmeal raisin cookies. As for the taste, it’s okay, but regular Chips Ahoy! taste better. There’s also that whole grain texture. I think I actually felt whole grains in my mouth.

See, like I said, you’re producing children that aren’t attractive or tasty.

At least the cookies came in two individually wrapped packs, or as I like to call them, a double barrel of cookies. This made it easier to take cookies with me, just in case I need to feed a bum or Nicole Richie.

I don’t know what else you plan to put your whole grain member into, but let me tell you, if you drop your seed into an Oreo, I will find you and personally castrate you.

Item: 100% Whole Grain Chips Ahoy!
Purchase Price: $4.00 (slightly on sale)
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Pros: All right tasting. Baked with 100% whole grain. Two grams of dietary fiber. Individually wrapped barrels of cookies.
Cons: Not attractive, looks like oatmeal raisin cookies. Weird whole grain texture. Healthier than regular Chips Ahoy! Not a good snack to indulge with. Nicole Richie’s weight.

REVIEW: Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts

Marvo 24 Comments

Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts

Dear Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts,

Everyone goes through changes, and recently, I’ve gone through a change. During this change, I realized that you aren’t what I’m looking for. You’re not “the one.”

You were delicious and you’ll always have a special place in my heart. I will always remember the great times we had.

When you were hot and toasted, I liked spreading you open and licking your gooey strawberry milkshake-flavored center. When you were frozen, I enjoyed nibbling on your crust. Also, there was that time, in the heat of the moment, I tried to rip off your foil packaging to eat you, but it wouldn’t come off. We laughed as I used the scissors to get it off.

You have to agree that those were some good times we had.

I thought we had a lot in common, but it turned out that the only thing we had in common was both liking Green Day. Although, the only Green Day songs you knew were the ones on the American Idiot album. I couldn’t believe you didn’t know any of the songs from Dookie.

Long View? Basket Case? When I Come Around? Welcome to Paradise?

But I guess I should’ve expected that since you’re much younger than I am.

Also, I didn’t realize the excessive amount of pink stuff you have. When I first met you, I thought you looked really hot in that pink outfit you wore, with pink glitter all over your body. Then the next time, you wore another pink outfit. Then another. Then another.

However, I didn’t realize how much pink stuff you had until we went back to your place. It felt like I was Dumbo seeing pink elephants after drinking some spiked water.

Oh wait. You’re too young to remember the Dumbo reference.

Anyway, your place had so much pink that it made me feel like I was either in the Barbie Dream House, surrounded by cotton candy, or in Hello Kitty’s pants.

Not even Pink has as much pink stuff as you do.

There’s also something else I have to admit that you might not like. I was sort of using you.

You see, I really like Pop-Tarts with chocolate, but I wanted to try something different. I wanted to know if the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, but it wasn’t. I really do prefer Pop-Tarts with chocolate, especially Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts, and I now know that, “Once you go choco-LATE, there’s no debate.”

Look, these things may have bothered me, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever find the right guy. There are many fish in the ocean and I’m sure there’s a guy out there who likes pink as much as you do and will treat you the way you deserve.

Well I hope this letter hasn’t hurt you too much, but I felt that you needed to hear the truth. We may not be together, but I hope that we can continue to be friends.

Love,

Marvo

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy readers, Zanjero, Joseph, and Lane for introducing me to Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts.)

Item: Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tarts
Purchase Price: $1.69 (on sale)
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good and chewy when frozen. Good and gooey when toasted. A change from all the chocolate Pop-Tarts.
Cons: Way too much pink. Not better than chocolate Pop-Tarts. The grass wasn’t greener on the other side of the fence. A broken Pop-Tart heart.

Ito En Sencha Shot

Marvo 30 Comments

Ito En Sencha Shot

Over the years, I have found that many good things come in small packages, like chewing gum, marshmallows, my iPod, eggs, and Danny DeVito.

Unfortunately, I recently came across something that came in a small package, but wasn’t very good.

No, it wasn’t the movie Daddy Day Care for the Playstation Portable. It was the Ito En Sencha Shot.

In Japanese, “cha” means tea. As for “sen,” I don’t know what it means in Japanese off the top of my head, but to my friends with the munchies and glassy eyes, it means they’ll be twenty dollars poorer and maybe a little late to work.

Although, Sencha Shot does sound like something a little less messy than a bukkake. (Yes! Finally! I have used the word “bukkake” in a review!)

(Warning: The link above may contain stuff that is NSFW.)

Anyway, the Sencha Shot is basically Japanese green tea in a can.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with green tea, it’s a wonderful source of antioxidants, which are used to get rid of harmful free radicals in our body.

According to the can, it contains 152 milligrams of catechin tea antioxidants.

That amount may look impressive, but it’s not as impressive as the names of the individual antioxidants — epicatechin, epicatechingallate, epigallocatechin, and epigallocatechingallate — which are not only long, but also words that may make National Spelling Bee Championship competitors either faint, cry, or pee in their pants.

Instead of a lot of long words I can’t spell or pronounce, I wish the Sencha Shot contained a lot of short words that I could pronounce and a decent flavor. It was cold and slightly bitter, just like the Japanese green tea that sat in my cup for hours because my blind date didn’t show up at the Japanese restaurant we were supposed meet at.

Fortunately, there wasn’t much Sencha Shot to drink, because the small can held only 6.4 ounces.

Surprisingly, the hardest thing about the Sencha Shot was not spelling bee championship-type names of the antioxidants, it was the can itself. I found out the hard way that the can was impossible to crush on my forehead, because it’s made out of steel.

Actually, I found out the hard way a few times, because I didn’t realize slamming a steel can on my forehead would mess with my short-term memory. After slamming my forehead with the steel can the first time, I quickly forgot about it and attempted to crush the steel can on my forehead again…and again…and again.

The next day, I woke up with a red ring on my forehead and could no longer recall the lyrics of Gerardo’s “Rico Suave.”

Item: Ito En Sencha Shot
Purchase Price: $1.49 (6.4 ounces)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Pros: High in catechin tea antioxidants. High in Vitamin C. No calories or fat. Finally got to use the word “bukkake” in a review. I no longer know the lyrics to “Rico Suave.”
Cons: Tastes like the cold green tea that I can get from waiting around for a blind date at a Japanese restaurant. Wee little can. Can is impossible to crush on forehead because it is made out of steel. Antioxidant names are hard to spell and pronounce.