nosh nook #141 - monday, september 28, 2009

can't knock the fruit snack hustle (link)
09.27.09 - detroit free press - by oneita jackson

when you're a kid growing up on the mean streets of detroit, you've got to do what you can to get by. whether it's honing your rap battle skillz or lifting a bunch of copper piping from abandoned homes, you do what you can to bring a little money in. sure you could join up with a gang & peddle crack, but whereas you get to make friends & meet interesting people, that route tends to be a tad bit dangerous & illegal. if you want to avoid going the gang route, but don't have lyrical skillz or agile, copper-thieving hands, there is another option for you: walk around with a box of snacks, offering them to the hungry residents of detroit.

the detroit free press' oneita jackson recently ran into a group of snack-hocking kids on the neighborhood streets & decided to give them a piece of her mind. when a group of kids approached her with a box of welch's fruit snacks & a six-year old asked her," would you like to buy some candy for my football team?" she responded with "no, i don't want any of your high-fructose corn syrup snacks." after questioning them a bit, she determined that they didn't even play football. lying, sniveling kids! i bet they don't even know what an end run is.

eventually, they decided to be honest with her & told her that they were "out here trying to make money so we can buy some clothes and stuff...so we don't have to do other stuff." with "head cocked, eyebrows arched & nostrils flared," she responded with "other stuff like what? you mean like hustle?" um, yes oneita. what did you think they were talking about? starting a hedge fund? once they were being honest with each other, they "had a good conversation about education, life, money and personal responsibility." i'm sure the kids loved that, especially since they clear about $50 apiece from selling the fruit snacks & when they were sitting there getting lessons on life from a detroit free press columnist, it cut into their money making time. i would've been all "time is money, lady. smell you later. we've got to get our fruit snack hustle on."

nosh nook #140 - friday, september 25, 2009

police: vandal goes on snack attack at UC (link)
09.24.09 - wlwt.com

i'm pretty sure i've seen the movie p.c.u. over a hundred times since it came out during my sophomore year of college. that movie rules. everyone had a cause to trumpet, from the animal rights protesters who got a tub of meat dumped on them to the penis-hating womynists. after an entire film where the members of the pit had mocked & harassed all the politically correct groups on campus, they're all brought together to party as one when p-funk shows up on campus & plays the pit's rager. coeds love partying just as much as they love causes. college campuses have always been a place for flourishing activism, as plucky young boys & girls blossom into adulthood & decide they should at least stand for something, not knowing how beaten out of them that something will be by their mid-thirties. when your cause is still meaningful to you, it's a lot of fun. sometimes you protest peacefully, sometimes not. sometimes you get shot or tear gassed by cops, sometimes not.

it looks like there's was a bit of activism on the university of cincinnati campus just the other day. as wlwt reports, u.c. police arrested matthew peterson, a twenty-something dude with a "dude" sort of look when he "cut the electrical cords and data phone lines off of multiple vending machines, rendering them inoperable." vandalism! three counts! one! two! three! vandalism goes on all the time on college campuses, but when you make it so that wasted, hungry college students can't get their late-night cheetos fix, you cross a line & that just can't be tolerated.

where's the activism come in? campus police said that "peterson vandalized the machines because he didn't want people to eat the unhealthy food." dude cut the cords because he wanted to make a statement about unhealthy snacks. really dude? that's how you decided to make a difference? by cutting the cords of three vending machines & doing it in such a lame fashion that you got caught? i seriously hope you were all hopped up on goof balls at the time & hadn't thought it through properly. it's great & all to take action & get college students to eat healthy, but to be in your twenties & do so in such a ridiculously ineffective manner is some serious high-school shit. better luck next time, matthew.

nosh nook #139 - thursday, september 24, 2009

green is new face of butterfinger candy (link)
09.23.09 - sf chronicle

oh seth green. ever since you first graced us with your sarcastic wit over twenty years ago in the film can't buy my love, playing the part of ronald miller's younger brother chuckie, you've graced us with a plethora of wacky roles & projects. you've played a lovable werewolf boy on buffy the vampire slayer, dr evil's son in the austin powers movies & a (hopefully) asshat version of yourself on entourage. you've provided the voice of chris griffin on family guy & created the animation awesomeness that is robot chicken. now, twenty-five years after yor first film role, you finally get to live out your lifelong dream--being the spokesman for butterfinger. congrats.

as the sf chronicle reports, nestle "approached him over the summer to front their new promotional campaign, making him the brand's first celebrity spokesperson" & first famous face since back in the 90s, when bart simpson urged us to bite his butterfinger & warned us that nobody better lay a finger on his butterfinger. since the simpsons are no longer culturally relevant & haven't been for some time, they had to move on from the bartman. that's where green comes in.

so yeah, it's a dream come true for green, but it's one that's been a long time coming. since 60% of the sentences in this article basically say the exact same thing, i'll defer to the sentence with green's actual words: "i've been into candy all my life and butterfinger is my favorite candy bar. i even auditioned for butterfinger commercials when I was doing commercials, and never got one. and then they approached me to do something." i believe that's the wu wei at work right there, folks. best reader comment on the article: "seth neglected to mention that his contract is for 'butterfinger miniatures.'" get it? cause he's wicked short? clever, leilah. clever.

nosh nook #138 - wednesday, september 23, 2009

do mini-bar snack sales reflect economic times? (link)
09.22.09 - usa today - by barbara de lollis

attention world traveler! you need to stop being a friggin frugal fanny! when you're in your hotel room alone at one in the morning, you should be going to town on that mini-bar, busting open that tiny thing of $5 cocktail peanuts & washing it down with a $7 nip of captain morgans. you shouldn't be tentative. it's ok to eat from the mini-bar. you're either on vacation or on the company dime, so take the plunge. indulge yourself for once. if you have more than a one night stay, there'll be more waiting for you the next evening. live a little.

you should probably also take advantage of your complimentary copy of usa today sitting outside your door in the morn. there's some crack journalism in there & it's totally geared toward you, the hotel goer. if you choose not to read your usa today, you'll miss out on great articles like this one about the effect the recession is having on hotel mini-bar sales. it's an article made JUST FOR YOU, world traveler. apparently you world travelers have "changed your late-night mini-bar habits" as of late. since the economy tanked, you've been going for the "not-so-healthy comfort food snacks." you're choosing comfort over health. i'd say "screw it" to my health too, since when you're not there, the maid's using your toothbrush to clean between her toes anyhow.

barbara de lollis sat down with gerard widder, the GM of the westin ny to get the scoop on this mini-bar mini-drama & widder spoke of the irony in what you, the dear hotel guest, are taking out of the mini-bar. he noted that "the westin chain's main marketing message...focuses around helping guests maintain their healthy lifestyle...even the westin mini-bar reflects the healthy theme, with jet-lag herbal tea bags, trail mix and special herbal sleep sprays." since you people have decided to opt for the less healthy fare, the westin is adding more of them to the mini-bar. way to go, hotel dweller. you've managed to make the westin's healthy marketing mission less healthy. talk about power to the people!

nosh nook #137 - tuesday, september 22, 2009

stadium food? not so bad; in fact, many relish it (link)
09.21.09 - dallas morning news - by laurel laurentz

down in texas, if you're talking pro football, you're talking the dallas cowboys. sorry, houston, but you have a problem. your former team made it to a few conference championships, but your current team has yet to put together a winning season. the cowboys have been average at best recently, but they've won five super bowls & are "america's team." you're just the "texans." it's no contest, really. it'd tell you to put your hometown love behind the astros, but they've lost eight in a row & just fired manager cecil cooper yesterday. two weeks til the rockets preseason begins! oh wait. yao ming's out for the season. man. you houstonians can't catch a break, huh?

on sunday in dallas, the cowboys played their first game at their new stadium, an architectural behemoth that's the largest domed stadium in the world, capable of seating up to 111,000 people. since a live football game is even stupider without burgers & nachos & beers, the team has to be able to feed a ridiculous amount of cowboys fans for hours on end. according to the dallas morning news' laurel laurentz, a crowd of that size drinks/eats "about 7,000 gallons of soda; a ton (yup, 2,000 pounds) of nacho cheese; 40 tons of ice; and 7,500 pounds of beef for cowboys cheesesteak." there's even "the biggest beer cooler in texas," which holds "about a quarter-million bottles." i swear to god, they'd better have a legit recycling program at the stadium or i'll totally bust one of those stupid plastic bud light bottles over owner jerry jones' head.

laurel did the rounds at the stadium to find out "what's really good?" let me sum it up for you. ultimate nachos = great. bbq chicken sandwich = pretty decent, pretty good. truffled mac & cheese dishes = relished. angus burger = uncomplimentary reaction. chili cheese fries = really good. black angus burger = good. chili cheese fries #2 = really good. kobe burger = very good. philly sandwich = nothing but praise. green chili kobe burger = pretty good. pizza = good. bbq chicken sandwich #2 = good. seriously, cowboys fans. it's time to learn some adjectives. two-thirds of you described your football fare as "good." didn't you at least pick up one food adjective from one time texan melissa d’arabian on this past season of the next food network star? it only makes the fact that the cowboys blew the game on a last-second field goal that much worse.