Week of May 29, 2005

June 1 2005 -- Step One: Tastes Like Good

This week, I'm launching a 12-part maxi-series about the newest variations on
products we know, love and happen to be addicted to. This epic series will be
the Crisis on Infinite Earths of 78west.com. I promise that at least one regular
member of this website will be killed (never to return) and that the whole
system of reviewing and reading reviews will become exponentially easier if only
for a few months. Promises, promises...and I fully understand that the
excitement of the upcoming changes will keep some of you awake at night,
chomping on your pillows, afraid to sleep for fear that you will miss some vital
bit of information and every moment that your body fails to be conscious fills
you with such dread that restful sleep is impossible...because I understand
this, I have picked the first product to help you nervous fellows out.



Proving, once again, that there is a God in heaven (and at the same time
displaying that we don't trust Him to keep us alive without some help) Tylenol
has actually improved a drug that one would have thought perfect. Tylenol PM is
now being offered with vanilla flavoring. Truth be told, vanilla is not a
particularly enticing or tantalizing flavor to offer but when we discuss
flavored pills there are very few alternatives. Usually pills tend to taste like
either super-sweet grapes (and you are certainly too old to be chewing on those
bad boys) or ground up drop-ceiling tiles. So, this new rendition of Tylenol is
particularly exciting. One may think that the combination of Tylenol PM ( PerM
as it is known on the street) is about as useful as a ham strapped to guitar but
I would argue that it is more like adding a group of young, nude, willing co-eds
acting as drink-fillers at a Chinese buffet. It may not have occurred to us to
combine them and, while functionally it lacks zest, there is a certain aesthetic
quality that rings of genius.


There are basically two ingredients. The painkiller and the sleep agent.
Tylenol PM uses a standard non-aspirin formula that is available in many "no
frills" brands. Its just Acetaminophen - the painkiller and Diphenhdyramine HCL
-which is alternately labeled as a "sleep agent," "sleep aid," or
"antihistamine" - all of which are true. In this case the antihistamine has a
such a high rate of sleepiness as a side effect that it is being used for that
purpose. Generally speaking, a normal dose of Diphenhydramine HCL for most
adults is somewhere between 150 to 300 mgs to actually make someone sleepy. Some
of us take slightly more but (and don't use 78west.com as a source for reliable
drug-taking information) I don't believe it hits immediately dangerous levels
until you get into the 800 range and while I don't advocate drug use, it should
be noted that any and all drug use may lead to defenestration. That being said,
there are a few long-term use side effects. Perhaps you've noticed that "Do not
take if you have one or more alcoholic drinks a day" warning. The warning is for
good reason: the pills will destroy your liver. Rather, the painkiller will stay
lodged in your body for half of forever while your liver works over time trying
to clean that garbage out only to fail you and your yellowed skin. Tough luck.
Show some restraint.



So! If you feel like you can handle this amazing OTC drug, I couldn't
recommend it more. While it may not be very high up on the scale of
over-the-counter drugs to abuse, falling somewhere between NyQuil (the alpha
male of drug store fun) and Sudafed (his high-maintenance wife that requires you
to do all the cooking), it actually provides relief for those of us who suffer
from hideous allergies while at the same time providing a gentle pillow on which
to place our quietly buzzing brains. If it wasn't so damaging to the liver, I'd
take up babysitting and constantly slip these to the kids. Especially now that
the pills come in flavors. Babies love vanilla. As do I, so long as it coats
something that will bring me happiness about 45 minutes later.



The only thing wrong with Tylenol PM Vanilla is that it costs the same amount
as normal Tylenol PM, which is expensive (but not as expensive as the less
liver-damaging pure antihistamine.) If only the aforementioned "no frills"
providers produced this new flavor sensation, there would be nothing stopping me
from ending my life in only a few years, bloated and jaundiced...luckily for me,
prices will probably never fall and I was slightly put off by the quickness with
which the flavoring wore off the pill. As much as you will want to suckle the
pills, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that the idea of sucking on a pill is
not only uncomfortably suggestive but pointless. Also try and refrain from
chewing them. Seriously.


Four out of Five drool-stained (one might say "dirty") pillows!

Posted by PatboyX

June 1 2005 -- Southern Belle There we were, Jason and Jim (and Tim) on a Memorial Day Monday trying to figure out how we could go celebrate our military. We thought long and hard on it and decided that Texas Roadhouse would be the way to go. Being that Mr. Bush is from Texas and being that Roadhouse was one of the greatest movies ever made we figured that a place combining both of them would offer up a good time, so we decided to saddle up our horses (or Jason's Jeep, Tim at least had a motorcycle to saddle) and set off on the dusty roads and find us some Steak.



There it was. The Texas Roadhouse. A place that lives in legend around these parts with waits on the weekends of over two hours. It opened up pretty recently and everyone who goes there loves it so being a whore for anything new and exciting I was looking forward to trying it myself.

So everyone hears about the women of Texas and it seems that this is represented here in full. The first thing you will notice are the girls. Well, the first thing you will notice if you are a guy are the girls. They are all young and they are all attractive. Talk about slabs of meat. Ha ha ha. And speaking of slabs of meat they walk you past a large refrigerated display case and if you want you can even pick out your own cut of meat and have them cook it up for you, but being that I know nothing about that sort of thing I just walked ashamed to our table, a meat newbie.

One thing that was nice was you get a bucket of peanuts to snack on while waiting for your meal. Being that Texas is a badass sort of place you don’t need to put the peanuts in a bowl or a trash can, so sir, in Texas you throw them right on the floor. While eating at the Roadhouse can feel like a tough guy, sort of like Dalton himself. The bread was also good coming with a sweet butter spread.

Then came our waitress. Wow. Much better then anyone working for Swazie. I think they use girls like that in order to get people like Jason to order more and more beer and pad the bill. How was he to say no to a pretty 19 year old (we asked) girl asking him if he wanted more beer? Willpower? No sir, not here. Our waitress was enough to make us not care about how much money we were spending and spend we did.

I ordered up a 14oz Prime Rib. So did my boyfriend Jason. Tim decided to stand out in the crowd and get something else. The meal came with two sides. I picked the house salad (need to watch my figure you know) and the baked potato with everything on it. The salad was just as good as everything else up until this point (women, bread, etc). Coming with a mashed up boiled egg this salad was a notch above most other places. 4 cheeses. The baked potato was also great, 4 cheeses. Came with a nice salty crust, bacon bits, cheese, some green stuff. Very good.

But then came the steak. Boy oh boy, what a steak. Unlike Dalton you will not look at this thing and think to yourself "I thought he'd be bigger". Nope, its just the right size and along with the rest of the stuff you get you will end up being quite full. As far as my memory goes this is one of the best tasting steaks I have ever had. No steak sauce needed. Just pour on the juices and eat away. Melts in your mouth and the flavor was as good as it gets. If anything deserves 5 cheeses it was this steak. The waitress might be deserving of 5 cheeses but I at least got to eat the steak.

5 cheese for Texas Roadhouse. Great food and that’s all that matters. Mostly. There weren't any strip teases or bar fights but that might have taken away from the food as I am not one for pain.

Posted by LordJezo

May 30 2005 -- Of Norse gods.. I was recently inspired by the great poet PatBoyX to have some form of chicken to eat. He said to me "I could really use some chicken wings" and from that day forth his words gave me reason to live. I carried those words with me everywhere I went and knew that one day I would indeed have some chicken and ass fate would have it KFC has come out with a new thing for me to try. When I saw the commercial on TV it was almost as if it was a sign from God Himself. KFCs Boneless Blazin’ Buffalo Wings had been put on this Earth for me to try and try them I did.

Calling up everyone’s favorite guest reviewer Jason (he showed up for the Monster Thickburger adventure), a chicken feast was set for 1pm. I would pick up our meal and we would dine together in his backyard. Two chicken lovers (might be more truthful if I take the word chicken out), two flavors of chicken. We were preparing for this meal all day, saving our hunger for what was to come. What could go wrong?



There they were, just waiting for us. Each in their individual boxes, separated by flavor. One spicy, one barbecue. They flavors had been sent by God and we would do his will by eating them. The anticipation was building, we opened them up.



Now while it might have been a sign from God that we eat these things, it was not a kind god who gave us this mission. It was if Loki himself had decided to meddle in my affairs with some sort of elaborate scheme to play a joke on me. Maybe I was not meant to eat chicken. Maybe each of the steps that led us to this path of chicken eating was all a set up by him to let him have the final laugh. These were not the meal sized morsels I had seen on the television, this was chicken slop, and a tiny amount of chicken slop at that. What was supposed to have been a meal was now a tiny snack. But we were not totally disheartened, we were hungry, so we decided to eat anyway.

Splitting them up we each tried some of both. Despite their size they did pack a great deal of flavor. The spicy ones were actually spicy, something that hardly ever happens when it comes to fast food. Being someone who likes hot sauce so hot that you need to sign a waiver in order to buy it I normally find that things labeled as hot or spicy are usually as mild to me as a glass of milk, but in this case the sauce actually had a nice zing to it. But how about those bbq flavored ones? Jason said that they had a nice honey flavor to them but like me he was let down by the size of the food. Maybe if you ordered two for one person you might fill up but one was just not enough. Another thing is that although it’s fast food you really can’t eat this stuff on the go. It’s just way to messy to eat and drive, but I don’t think that was really the design behind these things, much like other KFC products.

I think this stuff deserves about a 3 cheese rating. They tasted pretty good but were really small and I have had the same thing but better at other places, most notably the Cluck-U-Chicken breast bites. For a quick sit down snack they would be good but other then that I’d say stick with other things on the menu, well, other things besides the Snacker because if you remember my review on them they also suffered from the same tiny portion syndrome. Oh well, at least the spicy ones were actually spicy.

Posted by LordJezo