CRUNK!!!

Sorry, but this is another post about some stuff I bought at Giant Tiger. GT is the go to place when I need something to write about. The fun thing about cheap department stores like Giant Tiger is that they carry the weird brands you've never heard of and the real department stores wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Last time I was back in Cranbrook I was in at GT buying some actual brand name orange juice in the form of Minute Maid. Behind the cashiers they had some drink coolers and one cooler was stocked with energy drinks. As I was leaving I walked by and saw a drink that had a name so cool that jumped right out a me and I knew I had to have it. Energy drinks are full of sugar, so there is no way I'd be able to drink it, but as I walked past the cooler I saw that they did indeed carry sugar free CRUNK!!! When I met up with Willie the next day I dragged his ass over to GT so I could buy this.

I bought it totally for the name alone because is sounds so damn cool. Then again you know it is "fo' reals" because it has not one, not two, but three exclamation points on the can. Three exclamation points = street cred yo! Mad props to the marketing department because it totally worked. Don't let the hip name fool you because it also has mad science y'all! CRUNK!!! contains ashwaganda, ginseng, guarana, skull cap, white willow and epimedium* that all work to invigorate, energize, replenish, stimulate, refresh and arouse.

I bought a can for myself of the sugar free stuff(with pomegranate juice) and a can of citrus for Cody. Yeah, it sounded cool, but I was a bit hesitant to actually drink it. Cody drank his and suffered no ill effects, he said his tasted fine, but mine still sat in the fridge for weeks. I had to work at 5am one day and when I got home from work at 2pm I was tired, but had to go back out to run some errands. I figured it was finally time to crack this baby open and give it a try. It was actually not too bad, it tasted better than Red Bull which is what I drank for breakfast at 8am.


That is me gettin' my CRUNK!!! on. With a cool name like CRUNK!!! you can play it with lots of ways like, "That stuff will CRUNK!!! you up!" and "Hey, baby let's CRUNK!!!", the possibilities are endless. If you see this give it a try just for the novelty of it. I would drink it again, in fact I'll make sure to grab another can next time I'm back in Cranbrook. I'm CRUNK!!!ing!




*Epimedium aka horny goat weed aka rowdy lamb herb aka fairy wings, or as you and I know Ying Yang Huo, is a herb that can act as an aphrodisiac.

New Sloan is go!

A while back I posted a link to get a free song from the upcoming Sloan EP which is now officially out. It's a digital EP called Hit & Run, so you'll have to head over the Sloan site to download it if you want it. You can preview the entire EP before you buy it, it's five tracks and comes with artwork and lyrics for all songs and priced at $3.99. That is $3.99 US!! The title, Hit & Run, must come from the fact that someone ran over Chris Murphy while he was riding his bike back in the beginning of August. Everyone's a critic.

The artwork from the "booklet" are pictures taken of t-shirts that were hand silk screened by the band. During the first week of sales a person will be chosen from everyone who bought a copy of the EP that day and they'll win one of the shirts. If you want in on this contest make sure you buy it this week or it's too late for you.

I downloaded my copy just now and it's pretty easy to do as long as you have Visa, Mastercard or PayPal to pay for it. I did via Paypal and then downloaded it which didn't take very long, the zip file is 31MB is size. You can chose from three different audio formats, mp3(320mbs), Apple lossless, or FLAC files. I'm not sure what a FLAC file is so I just went with the old trusty mp3s. I can play mp3s on my tape deck right?

Zapped!

Today Cody and I went over to the brand new Best Buy they opened by our place over in West Hills. Before if we wanted to go to Future Shop or BB we had to drive to Northland mall in the NW. Now we don't have to drive as far to spend our money which is nice. We didn't find anything, but I did see the huge boxsets for both Transformers and G.I. Joe cartoons. I think the Joe set was $110 which isn't bad considering it is 18 discs. I'll put it on my list to Santa.

After that Cody wanted to go Winners to buy a sweater and I had to go because he drove. I went to check out the toy section to look for stuff for Logan and Avery but ended up getting stuff for myself!

A Futurama Zapp Brannigan space gun with faux destructive sparkling action! The best part is that it was only $9.99. Stupid Winners had price stickers on the front, but luckily they peeled off pretty easy. It was like NM in box, but then I opened it and started using because I wanted to check out the faux destructive sparking action.

I did manage to get something for Avery, so it wasn't all about me. With the exception of two small things I've gotten for Avery I've barely even started my Christmas shopping. I have no clue what to get anybody, but I want to get it done and out of the way ASAP. Giant Tiger gift cards all around? FYI, you know that Zapped! is a movie starring Scott Baio, Willie Aames and Heather Thomas right?

Burned

Last year my parents went to Disneyland and brought me back a Star Wars shirt. They have Star Tours there, so of course there is Star Wars merch. Anyway, it shrunk a bit and ended up a bit on the small side, but I still wear it as an undershirt or I just sleep in it. I took it off it the other day and noticed that it had a burn hole in it and I was like, "What the hell?! How did that get on there?" Looking at the front of the shirt you can't really it which is probably why I didn't notice it. Once it's inside out you can totally see it with the black charred edges.

That's hole on the inside and I guessing it's from the dryer as the burn mark is right on the print. I thought you are supposed to wash printed shirts inside out to prevent that and that's what I do. Either it doesn't work, the shirt sucks, or my dryer is way too hot. But this it the first time this has ever happened to me, so I blame the t-shirt and the people of Bangladesh for making it. I think they made my underwear too, so I hope they hold up better.

I guess I probably shouldn't even wash it anymore because that hole will probably just get bigger. I suppose I could air dry it instead of putting it in the dryer, but that is such a hassle. It would just be easier to back to Disneyland and get a brand new one. Why can't I have nice things!!

Chocolate Mork

Na-nu Na-nu

chop chop bang bang

If it's November 17, 2009 then that means Left 4 Dead 2 is officially out! I worked 8-12 today and was going to pick my copy up after work, but they got a single copy in so I bought it on my break. Apparently, they also got something like two copies of Assassin's Creed in AND it's in this week's flier. Cody wanted to buy it, so if they sold out he was just going to go across the street to Best Buy. He is still working of Modern Warfare 2!

I've already played the first two campaigns and it's better and harder than the original L4D. There are tons of weapons and items and the new special infected are jerks. I think they also made the Boomer a chick? Weird. When I played I was Ellis, the hillbilly, and now he is my staple character. He gets all the funny dialogue like when he picks up the katana he says "Picking up this cool ass ninja sword.", but says it with a twangy accent.

And speaking of ninja swords, the new melee weapons are sweet. I've already got the achievements for decaptitating 200 infected and killing 100 infected with the chainsaw. On the second campaign there is a part where you slide down this hill and once at the bottom a horde moment triggered where the zombies all run at you. They were sliding down the hill and I was at the bottom of the hill with the chainsaw slicin' and dicin' as they as the came down. Awesome!

Microsoft has started this thing where you can earn awards for you XBox avatars which is just basically crap your avatar can wear. Believe it or not you can actually BUY clothes and items for your avatars, but only some kind of unbelievable moron would do that. Not that many games have avatar awards yet, but L4D2 does. A couple can be unlocked from playing the campaign and a couple are done online. I just want to kill 10,000 infected and get my L4D avatar t-shirt, but it will have to wait because my hand is cramping up.

Finally!!

I got my cupcakes! I was in Kensington today and walked down to check out The Rocket because they were having a sale. I was going to get a Cookie Monster shirt made that had Cookie Monster on it and said "Me want cookies", but of course they didn't have it. I ended up going with a Super Grover shirt instead. I headed over to the toy store where Mike got Cam's Bender figure, but didn't find anything cool. Across the street from that place is Crave the cupcake place Cam tipped me off about via Cara.

Crave has a couple locations in Calgary and I've been by the Kensington location before I just never bothered to go inside. Today I thought I'd better check it out because tomorrow I could get run over by a dump truck and be killed, then I'd be like "I wish I had tried a Crave cupcake."


I went all out and forked out my $17 for a half dozen cupcakes. Yep, $17 for six cupcakes! Some bored looked hipster chick in a toque took my order. Why was she wearing a toque inside, it's not even cold. Anyway, the first couple I ordered by name, then I started ordering by colour. "I'll take a blue one." I can't even remember which flavors I got but I think I got the following; Va Va Vanilla, Crave-O-Licous, Peppy Pattie, Lemon Lime Twist, and two Princess cupcakes(one vanilla and one chocolate). They all looked pretty good, but I wished I had got a Dirty Blonde and/or Velvet Elvis. The package came tied up with a shiny brown ribbon. I actually untied it from the package instead on cutting it off. Maybe I can reuse it for something, though I have no idea what for.


The first one I tried (for my lunch) was the green one, Lemon Lime Twist. I liked the actual "cake" part, the icing wasn't all that hot. I picked it for the colour not the flavor which was a mistake. Later on after dinner I ate a chocolate Princess which was way better. Cody had the Va Va Vanilla and it received a thumbs up from him too.


Crave cupcakes are hand made from scratch with no preservatives and taste way better than anything you'd get at an actual grocery store. The price of $17 for 1/2 dz might seem high, but it is really isn't. Still it is something I won't be running out to get all the time, but next time I do I'll be getting the Velvet Elvis.

Having it my way.

A few years ago Burger Team teamed up with Microsoft and came up with three Burger King themed games for the XBox 360. At BK you could get a combo and for an addition $5 you could one of these games. Two trips ago in Cranbrook I picked up Big Bumpin', the bumper car game, from Giant Tiger and ended up ordering Sneak King, the ultimate stealth game, from Giant Tiger online. Since I'm part OCD I had to get the third game to complete my collection, that and the final game PocketBike Racer was supposed to be the best one.

The first BK game I got was Big Bumpin' and I hate it! I totally sucked at this game and played it for 15 minutes max. I bought it for $5 and thought I'd give it a try for the achievements, but after my 15 mins with it I gave up without unlocking a single achievement. A lot of the achievements are online and nobody plays it online...at all! I also had major problems with the controls and my bumper car not going where I wanted it to go. I won maybe one race and that's only because I got lucky. The rest of the time I just lost very badly. Onto the shelf!

My second BK game which is like Metal Gear Solid where instead of Solid Snake you are the King and instead of killing people you sneak around surprising hungry people with delicious Burger King meals. People have a blue cone of vision in front of them which you have to stay out of it. You can simply sneak up on people and hide in barrels, piles of leaves, or the back of trucks and jump out to surprise hungry people for more points. Once you present a meal you can present with a flourish meter and the high the flourish the more points you score. I played Sneak King for probably 20 minutes and actually managed to unlock a couple achievements. Still it requires a lot time to complete all the missions and achievements. Hiding and waiting for hungry people to walk by and sneaking around requires too much patience and that is something I don't have.

Finally, there is PocketBike Racer and this one I actually played and put a few hours on time into. I ended up getting this on eBay and about week after I ordered it I saw it a HMV. Damn! Anyway, what's not to like about a game that involves racing pocket bikes with The King and Whopper Jr? You also get to race as BK mascots Subservient Chicken and Brooke Burke. Brooke Burke is a BK mascot? Who is Brooke Burke? You can pick from 50 cc, 100 cc and 150 cc bikes and race them through four different game modes on five different tracks. It is similar to Mario Kart as you can fill up a weapon gauge/boost bar to use weapons on other racers. Of course it's nowhere as good as Mario Kart, but for what it is (cheap!), it's fun. Although it can be frustrating to get hung up on things like traffic cones. Since when are traffic cones immovable objects? I hung in with the game long enough to unlock all offline achievements. You can play online, but NOBODY is on there, so it's pretty useless.

I just picked up these games just for the cheese factor and the hopes of boosting my gamer score a little bit. I wouldn't recommend Big Bumpin' or Sneak King, but I found PocketBike Racer fun enough. Although, Cody laughs at these games and wouldn't even think about tarnishing his gamer score with any of them. Now that these are out of the way, it's on to another advergame, Doritos Dash of Destruction. It's got dinosaurs and monster trucks, so I'm loving it already. Plus it's free! Cam I know you love Burger King and Doritos, so you need to XBox 360. Also, I need someone to play PocketBike Racer online with, I'll even give you Cody's old one. Thanks buddy!

Maxin' and relaxin'

I haven't worn a pair of sweat pants in like ten or eleven years, yet when I was leaving work on Wednesday I was like "I need a pair of sweatpants." I went next door to Zellers to get pair of those Roots Canadian Olympic sweats, but they didn't have my size. They had zippered pockets on them and everything, that's like the Mercedes-Benz of sweatpants. I settled for a pair of cheaper Wilson sweats and I gotta say they are soft and warm. They're black with sporty white piping down the legs. Sporty!

Sexy!

Love that elastic waistband, it grows with me. After coming home from work it's nice to put these on because I'm tired and can't be bothered with bothersome buttons and zippers. I wear them around house, but would never actually wear them outside. Maybe to throw out the garbage, but that's it! And what's a new pair of sweatpants without a new pair of matching slippers!

I say they are matching slippers because they are also black. My old slippers were falling apart and I finally decided to get some new ones. These guys are black suede with fuzzy black stuff inside. They also had these corduroy ones with a skull and cross bones on them which looked cool except for the corduroy part.

I know you probably came here expecting to read something interested, but if you did then you should know better than that.

New release Tuesday

If it's Tuesday that means it's time for new movies and CDs! For music November 3rd is the release date for Nirvana's remastered Bleach and Live at Reading. I went to HMV and got Bleach for $12.99. It comes in a digipack that folds opens up with the 56 page book in a slip cover in the middle and the CD slipped in on the right hand side. The book is pretty much all pictures, some I've seen and some I haven't. The book does throw in some cool stuff like a copy of Nirvana's Sub Pop contract. Getting the book in and out of the sleeve takes some finesse which I lack as the corner of my book already has crinkle in it. As for the music I haven't really listened my old copy of Bleach in a long time, so I'm not sure if the remastering makes it sound any better or not. The live stuff does sound pretty good, but biggest complaint is that the put the album and the live recording on the same disc. That sucks because they should've been on separate discs.

Also, today Live at Reading came out on CD, DVD, and a CD/DVD combo pack. HMV had the CD for $14.99 and a slot for the CD/DVD($24.99 I think) pack, but it was empty. I was planning on getting it anyway, but All Music gave it a 5 out of 5 which means I'll probably get it sooner than later.

After the horrible Red Album, Weezer is back with their new album and even though I hated the Red Album they've got me interested because the new one has cool name, Raditude. Again All Music rated it favorably saying it is more like old Blue Album Weezer. I haven't gotten this yet, but I probably will. I like Weezer and will give Rivers another chance, so he better not let me know. There is also a regular edition and a special edition with bonus disc and tracks.

Today G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is out on home video as well as the animated G.I. Resolute. Resolute originally aired online in short 5 minute segments and then later aired on TV as single program. Luckily, it has nothing to do with the live action movie and is sorta based on the original cartoon. It was done more for the fans and by fans I mean old guys who used to play with the toys and watch the cartoons. In Resolute people die, good and bad. It's a pretty good story with lots of action and the Snake Eyes vs Stormshadow fight is way better than what passed for a fight in Rise of Cobra. It's animated in an anime style and looks pretty good, but why wasn't it released in HD?? Anyway, try and see this or rent it or steal it (okay no stealing) because if you're a Joe fan then you'll love this.