The Man Who Invented 800 Toys

 

Adam Ragusea - How I Became the Mariah Carey Christmas Chord Guy

 Or: The Problem with Clickbait and the Tyranny of Twitter...

Strangely, I have a feint recollection that I saw that article and who would've known that years later I would be watching the same guy for cooking videos.

Irish People Try Christmas Cocktails

 

 I'm not big into any particular alcohol but these look great.

Viewing Tape Data

 

Japanese Snack Reviews #1

 Alternating between Korean and Japanese reviews. Let's go...

1.

Translated Name: Unknown

Additional Text: The back says "Kuppy Ramune," does that mean "Cup Ramen?"

Review:

You can probably tell from the "window" in the picture that these are sugar discs very similar to Smarties. They come in orange, strawberry and lemon. They're basically like Smarties, generally, but there is a surprise. They dissolve in your mouth almost instantly, it's very strange. The flavor is like Smarties but they're lighter, more powdery and effervescent. For what they are, they're good.

2.

Translated Name: Cola Gummies

Review:

As the name suggests, it's a classic cola-flavored gummy candy. If you want something available in the west that's similar, get Haribo Gummi Candy Happy-Cola. And I like both a lot, although I kind of overdosed a little on the Haribo Gummis so I don't really eat them anymore. This Japanese version is coated with a thick layer of sugar, as you can see. Good stuff.

3.

Translated Name: Tasty - Cheese

Review:

Here's a unique one. First off, the next 3 are all different variants of the "Tasty" brand. "Tastys" are like giant cheese puffs, the size and shape of a cigar. They look like this:

Doesn't look too appetizing but they are good. It looks like a giant cheese puff and it tastes like a cheese puff (though with slightly less cheesy flavor). There is also a hole through the middle so that it's hollow for some reason. An interesting experience and pretty good.

4.

Translated Name: Tasty - Grilled Chicken Flavor

Review:

I think this is the most interesting one of the group. This is continuing the Tasty series, it's like a long cheese puff, as above, but it's chicken flavor. Except, it isn't chicken as we would guess "chicken flavor" to be. A more helpful name might be "BBQ Chicken" - it's a sweet, barbecue sauce flavor that's really interesting and really does resemble grilled chicken in some way. Pretty weird, quite good, I think, very unusual.

5.

Translated Name: Tasty - Shrimp Flavor

Review:

So, again, same form and general taste as the other "Tastys"... But "shrimp" flavor. Well, this is the Japanese snack I was afraid of - and with good reason. Now, I like shrimp okay. I love shrimp cocktail but I think that's mostly loving the cocktail sauce more that the shrimp. But the weird thing about this is that it doesn't taste anything like shrimp, as far as I can tell. To me, it tastes like a strong mustard taste... and I like mustard too but - maybe I'm overreacting here - but I didn't like it and I felt a little sick after eating it. Not recommended unless for a dare.

So there we are. Ending on a sour note but there were some generally good snacks here. The next review will be back to Korea.

New York 1911 Footage Updated

A while back I found a youtube video/channel where they corrected the framerate of old footage to be correct. I thought I posted it here on this blog but I don't see it now.

Now there's a new version where they also colorize and upscale to 4K using neural networks. Here is New York 1911 but if you like it, there are many more available including Paris 1890 and Japan 1913-1915.

The funny thing about old film, that I only realize now in retrospect, is the speedup and the hinkey-jinkey movement of all the people makes them seem somehow unreal. And this effect subliminally has pervaded all old timey footage of all historical figures I've ever seen.

 Now that the motion is correct, suddenly these are real people doing real things, living real lives. This is the closest thing we have to time travel and it's amazing how close it is. We are seeing the light that bounced off of real objects exactly as it did if we were standing there in 1911. And on top of everything, all the people we're looking at are dead.

O Solo Mio

 

Korean Snack Reviews #1

As promised, this is Part #1 of my reviews of Japanese and Korean snacks. I don't know what to say here, so let's begin...

1.

Translated Name: The Best!

Review:

Given the fact that these are orange on the wrapper and that they're Korean, this one made me a little nervous. I kind of assumed they would be flavored like crab or shrimp or some other seafood. To my surprise and delight, they're actually light brown, not orange and they taste like cinnamon cereal. They're like Cinnamon Toast Crunch if you toned them waaay down and made them slightly bland. If I recall correctly, they taste almost exactly like Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (do they still make those? Yes!). In fact they taste so much like Apple Cinnamon Cheerios that I was going to theorize that they were made of oat. But that's when I realized that the ingredients are actually printed in English and they say Wheat. A lesson in hubris for me.

Still, pretty good, off to a good start. I wouldn't travel thousands of miles to eat them but not bad for sure.

2.

 

 

Translated Name: Nuneddine (nonsense word, or possibly Italian).

Review:

 

The first thing to note is that the wrapper says "Italian Snack". So it's an Italian snack but this review is for Korean snacks so I'm trapped. Checkmate from the Koreans on this one.

 

This is a very light, very airy, crispy croissant-like thing. It's like a Danish without the fruit. On top of the crunchy cookie is a very thin layer of sugary frosting-like material. It tastes like a croissant, but it almost tastes like nothing, it's so airy. Not bad but not good, just neutral.

3.

 

 

Translated Name: Cookie

Additional Text: Biscuit, Peanut Sand

Review:

 

This is two cookies sandwiching a layer of cream - looks like a vanilla Oreo, basically. I was very intrigued by the promise of "peanut sand". Have you ever had peanut sand? I think if you ground up peanuts really, really fine until the grains were like grains of sand, it might be a product people would buy. Americans are obsessed with peanut butter so this is an untapped market.

In this case, "peanut sand" actually means "peanut sandwich". These are pretty great, they taste like Nutter Butters if you took the flavor way down until it was subtle. People in other countries like to complain that American foods are always loaded with sugar. So far, I'm starting to see what they mean. Eating these Korean foods the word "subtle" keeps cropping up over and over. The standards of the countries are definitely different.

Definitely like these but a recommendation is pointless so long as Nutter Butters are available.

4.

Translated Name: Orion

Additional Text: Fresh Berry

Review:

 

It's two light, fluffy cakes sandwiching a layer of cream. As noted on the label, the cream tastes like a mixture of berries but it's very light and subtle (again). I'll tell you what they taste like, they taste like the Mixed Berry Nutri-Grain Breakfast Bars. Pretty good, not bad, nothing special. As always, the flavor that's there is good but it's not much flavor.

5.

 

Translated Name: Something... Choco Chip.

Review:

 

These appear to be soft chocolate cookies with chocolate chips in them. They look like this:

 

We now come to one of the great obstacles in my reviews. For dietary reasons, I am not able to eat chocolate so any snack that contains chocolate can't be reviewed by me. It looks like this is especially a problem for the Japanese snacks as a great percentage of those appear to be chocolate. In the case when obviously chocolate snacks are encountered, I'll put them aside until I can get someone else to try them but in this particular case, I didn't know what it was until after I opened it.

All I can say is they look and smell phenomenal. As someone who hasn't had chocolate in too long, I'm probably biased. But, I am blindly giving them my highest review because I can only assume they're amazing.

... And that's all for Korean Reviews #1. Thanks to my friend Nate for translating.

Zodiac 340 Cipher Broken

 

Article.

Late Night - Chuck Yeager

 

 First man to break the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager, interviewed on Letterman. Chuck recently passed away at the age of 97.

The McRib is Back

Ever since I saw the video "Deconstructing the McRib" on youtube, I've been on a quest to try one. That was 2013 or more probably 2014. I had never had one previously and for years failed to find one afterwards.

Throughout the years, I've at times monitored the McRib map and even found and ordered a McRib on GrubHub once - but they said they were out. I've also tried a few competing knockoff rib sandwiches.

But all that has changed today, there was an ad on DoorDash and the order succeeded. It's like Charlie Bucket finding the Golden Ticket up in here.

So the verdict: it tastes exactly as I expected. Like, I said, I've tried a few knockoffs and it turns out those were very close and so it was pretty much what I expected. It's good and I might get one again but for McDonald's, I prefer the cheeseburger.

Japanese and Korean Snacks: Prologue

 

My family recently gave me two boxes of foreign snacks as a gift. The box on the left is snacks from Japan and the box on the right are Korean. It's going to take a long time to get through it and I can think of nothing better to do than to review them on a blog.

I have someone lined up willing to help me translate and I'm going to try to review the food beyond my usual "it was good". It's probably all going to be too onerous, become a waste of time and ultimately fail so stay tuned!

Eat Prilosec