A podcast by the name of “Podcast Squared” took the time to go and review the Bumperpodcast. I’m not entirely sure that they were entirely fans of what they heard – but – we are all entirely-moderately pleased for the review – regardless.

Here is a quote from the post:

Dave is bewildered during his review of the Bumper Podcast by Natty Bumpercar (the name should give you some indication as to why).

Here is the embedded player. The Bumperpodcast review is from 4:33-9:51 … Enjoy (and let me know what you think) …

Awwwwww – sugar. My site isn’t letting me embed their player – so – if you want to go and listen – just click on the link below … SHoot – shoot – shoot!

here is a link to their site/the review: www.podcastsquared.com

 

Here is the response that I sent – thanking them for their review … I said that it was “like a marshmallow”:

Thanks a mountain of beans for your review of the Bumperpodcast … it was greatly appreciated and has everyone at Headquarters running around slapping over-emphatic high-fives.

I will say that pointing out Robot’s speech impediment was a bit rough on him and also that Pig totally misheard you when you said “Pick and Choose” – – and – – he now just keeps repeating the phrase “Pig, he chews!” – – which is just a nonsensical thing to hear over and over again.

I also enjoy that I came across as irritating and endearing – it is almost like I’ve invented a bizarro-world version of pathos.

Please do attempt to keep on listening as we all promise to take your words about our words to heart (except for Robot – because – he has no heart – because, again – you broke it into little pieces).

Your review is like a marshmallow!

Too-De-Loo!

– N.Bumpercar

If you ask my inner circle … they would be thrilled to let you know that one of my most noticeable flaws – among the smorgasbord of flaws that I have – would be my love, devotion and addiction to Mountain Dew. I drink it often and I drink it well. Sit with me for awhile – and it is entirely possible that I’ll try to convince you that your heart should be beating for the cool, crisp, refreshingly smooth and delicious neon green delight that has had me in its clutches oh-these-many-years. I’m serious.

So – when we moved Headquarters into the direct fiefdom of a Dunkin’ Donuts – and then the ads and banners and commercials started tooting their own horn about this new concoction that they had concotonated in their labs – labs which are traditionally used for breakfast pastries and an odd assortment of sandwich doo-hickeys – they had me hook, line and sinker.

I need to point out that I am abundantly clear that this drink fabrication isn’t entirely new … there have been Mountain Dew Slushies and Mountain Dew Icees in the land – and that is all well and good. Those drinks are also probably perfectly delicious – but for the sake of a moment of focus (which can be a difficult state to master when under the spell of one of these Coolattas) – let’s just stick to the matter at hand.

The day was warm – but not oppressive. It was the perfect kind of day for an icy treat!

I ordered a medium (24 fl. oz. – 290 calories) and then ran to the end of the counter so that I could watch the magic happen. Basically – the magic consists of filling the clear plastic cup about 1/3 of the way with what seemed to be Mountain Dew syrup (concentrated!), popping a domed top on the cup, going to a machine that dispensed an opaque white slurry and then using a wand mixer to make sure that everything was perfectly blended.

The next step for me was to hold it and count to 1-2-3-4-5 to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming … I would have pinched myself – but didn’t want to drop my treasure. The I grabbed a straw and bingo-blammo-boom! It was every bit as delicious and yummy and wonderful as I could have imagined it would be. It wasn’t overly cold, the taste was spot on and I think that I heard my teeth singing out in unison with my liver that they were both absolutely fine with what I was doing to them by drinking this manufactured green glomp – because in the end – it was all going to be worth it.

My super-favorite thing about the Coolatta was that it never fell into the trap that Slushies and Icees seem to have – where they just turn into lifeless blocks of flavorless ice bits when there is about 18% of the drink to go. This thing was a trooper! I made it 98% of the way through before the ice bits took over.

Hold on a tick … I think that I have to change what my super-favorite thing is … So – now – super-favorite thing is that the Mountain Dew Coolatta actually looks like it is glowing … it is as if Dunkin Donuts has harnessed the power of the stars, nuclear fission and lightning bugs and captured it all in a plastic cup. I can’t say whether if it has the power to glow in the dark – or not … but – I do know that it lit up my life with it’s little light … I definitely do know that.

I’ll even say that I had to leave my drink for about 10 solid minutes – which would have been a death knell for a lot of frozen beverages – but – whatever chemicals were kicking around under the hood of this fantasm kept the consistency as perfect as a marshmallow dream.

So – Dunkin’ Donuts – I would like to aggressively shake your hand and shower you with thanks. Your Mountain Dew Coolatta is an achievement among achievements … a wonder among wonders and I can’t wait to slip into your sweet slurry slumber again and again and again. On one quick side note – I’m none too sure if I am going to be tasting your Blue Raspberry, Tropicana, Coffee, Vanilla Bean or Strawberry Coolatta varieties – mostly because they all look very unnatural to me … and at this point – I consider my body to be a temple – a Mountain Dew Coolatta temple that is …. Whoop-Whoop!

Here is their website – if you feel the need to stare at it – like I do … sometimes.

Dunkin’ Donuts

I heard the stories. I heard the hubbub. I went out and bought a can of Four Loco. Here is my review.

[This is a review of an alcoholic beverage. It is not intended for kiddies. Not even a little bit.]

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I did something that I regret.

I did something that I can’t take back – that I can never take back – that I can never take back.

It is rare that I go into my little eating adventures under such a pall of nervousness – but – the day that I stumbled into the roadside attraction that is my nearest neighborhood McDonald’s with the intention of eating the McMarketing McPhenomenon that I had been hearing about for years and years, I knew that things would never be the same again. I had never had a McRib and I was terrified.

Yeah – no – seriously. I – the person that has made it one of my life’s missions to go out and eat the ridiculous – had never eaten a McRib. It seems McRidiculous.

I’m going to try to drop the “Mc” prefixes for a minute – to try to make this review easier to read than the meal was to eat. Indeed.

I knew very little about the McRib – other than it was oval, it was slathered with bar-b-que sauce and there were “bones” pressed into it. I had never been able to wrap my brain around this “pork” bar-b-que sandwich – and what pressed in “bones” meant. I was afraid of what I didn’t know. I was afraid to go into the night. Into the dark, dark, darkness.

I got my box – yep, it comes in a box . . . so there is some class in that – and I opened it. Absolutely no love went into the mess that I was looking at. There were only two pickles – so a third of the sandwich would be pickle free – much to my chagrin – because pickles have a way of making everything in the world a little bit better – vinegar will do that. There were also only about ten small pieces of onion – which left vast swaths of creepily textured swimming-in-sauce meatstuff bare for my imagination to behold. The “bones” were beyond as odd as I figured that they might be.

After twelve and a half minutes, I realized that I had been quietly sitting – just looking into the abyss that was going to be my lunch. I gulped, my hand went out and I took hold. It was either going to be the best thing that I had ever eaten – in which case I would rue all of the wasted years of my life . . . or – it was going to be the end of me. There was no way that there was going to be any kind of grey area with this thing – – – other than the pearlescent grey area between the bun – where the patty was supposed to be – that I noticed after taking my first bite.

Speaking of the first bite – I made sure to get some pickle and some onion – to make sure that I was getting a best case scenario. The bun was a bun. There was nothing special about it – but – it also didn’t let me down at all. I certainly wouldn’t kick it out of my bread box – if I found out that it had run away from the terrible life of holding a pressed piece of hell for the rest of it’s short time on the Earth. I would sit that bun down – and I would let it know that everything’s going to be okay. Shhhhhhhh, Little Bun, everything is going to be a-okay.

I may have been traumatized by the McRib. It may have been too much for me. It may have been too much.

I hit a wall on the third bite. I didn’t think that I was going to be able to finish it. It was terrible on so many levels that my brain stopped being able to process the errors that were pouring in. Maybe it was a texture thing – because the bread, onions, pickles and sauce were fine. Maybe the pressed “bones” idea was still getting to me. I wasn’t going to be able to finish.

My meal came with a small Coke. I was miserable at myself for not getting a larger Coke . . . I could have taken a bite and then taken a swig and then taken another swig and so on. Instead – I had to take several bites in between getting to take a drink. I wished that I had a pool filled with Coke – that I could have taken a dive into after every bite. I needed the taste distraction. I needed the acid to combat the misery that I was ingesting.

Eventually, I took my last bite. I had eaten the whole thing. I had beaten this particular dragon down. And then it hit me. I didn’t feel so good. My reaction was so quick and so violent that I wasn’t really sure what to do. I was feverishly driving home – like a wild animal running from a forest fire. My stomach was cramping. My mind was sprinting to try to come to terms with what I had just eaten. I was sweating. I feel like I could have stopped on the way to McDonald’s, poured a little bar-b-que sauce onto a pickle – with a bit of onion and licked a skunk and I would have been better off. At least slightly.

I got home and heartily embraced my hero – Extra-Strength Pepto-Bismol – and after a little bit of hang-out time on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor (full disclosure here – I didn’t explode – I was just too queasy to move any further) I was good(ish) to go.

Now – speaking of heros. Let me be your hero here. Let me get up on my pedestal of protection and scream to you to avoid getting – or even walking past – one of these sandwiches. They are some sort of potentially hazardous maybe extraplanetary pressed evil – only put onto this planet to hurt your stomach’s very soul. Stand down, back away and know that you will be a better person for it.

As if to taunt me further – a commercial for the McRib – a regular siren song – just played on my television. I watched the commercial. I looked at the sandwich. My eyes started to water and my stomach turned away like a cowed cur in a cage.

I know that I promised to avoid the use of McDumb McPrefixes – – – but – – – the only way that I can wrap up this review is with one super-appropriate word – and that is to say that eating the McRib made me feel nothing more and nothing less than McNasty.

I ate a corn nut and I loved it.

And . . .

I am absolutely serious.

For my entire life, I could hear someone say the words “corn nuts” and I would feel compelled to leave the room. They sounded like old broken people – who were made up old stale beer- who lived in a beat down dive bar – who I didn’t want to meet – or know – or smell – or anything.

I feel like I need to clarify a couple of small points . . . I am a big fan of corn and I am also a fan of dive bars – so – don’t you jump all over me. Don’t you do it.

I was at a party of some sort and I saw a bowl full of little crunchy golden bits – and – I decided that the moment had finally come. I popped one in my mouth and had the initial feeling of something hard in my mouth and the taste of salt on my tongue. I bit down and was astounded at how it was literally a kernel of corn – but bigger and infinitely crunchier and tastier.

Hopefully I’m not being overly dramatic here – but – seriously – this has been a major change in my life and I’m still a little shaken by the whole thing.

My mind was racing trying to figure out if it was a healthy treat – or – if I would be able to at least pretend that it was healthy . . . but it turns out that is a losing battle – these are not healthy treats. I then decided that I needed to know more about them – like where they came from – how they were invented – and why I had avoided them for so long. I did some research for the first two quandaries and found that they were invented by Albert Holloway in 1936 and were a huge hit for bars because of their cheap salty goodness. They are made by soaking corn kernels for a few days in water – which is where the puffiness comes from – and then dropped into hot oil – which is where the crunchy crispiness and the not so good for you part comes from.

The last part – the “why had I avoided them” part is the real conundrum . . . and it is a mystery that I will only be able to solve after deep personal introspection of staring at myself in mirrors . . . and also after eating several more bags of my favorite new snack . . . the corn nut.

So – everyone – drop whatever inhibition is holding you back from these delightful golden chunks of corny goodness and get to eating them – eating them – eating them. I can almost guarantee that you will be happy that you did.

Quickly – I feel like I should point out that I have only had corn nuts from Fairway Market, Whole Foods and that bowl at the party that I mentioned before – so – I am not sure about the different levels and varieties of corn nuts that are out there in the world – but – I am thrilled that they are out there – because I aim to meet them and great them and eat them as I find them. All I know is that the corn nuts that I have eaten have given me a real twinkle in my eye and a slightly fried corn tinge to my breath.

As for me?! Well, now – I aim to learn how to create them at home.

Yes, I do.

Oh, yes I do.