Product Review: Bacon Sundae

A lot of fanfare surrounded the release of Burger King's bacon sundae. Someone at work bought about 8 of them for some reason and had an extra one, so I decided to try one.

The bacon is not hot (obviously) and it's a little chewy and a little soggy, so the three big pieces that come on top don't taste all that great. Once you get past that there's smaller pieces of bacon, like bacon bits but real bacon, mixed with the vanilla ice cream which tastes great. It's a unique combination of sweet and salty but it goes together pretty well. Once you eat the bacon, and there isn't that much bacon, you are just enjoying vanilla ice cream mixed with chocolate sauce at the bottom.





It tastes pretty good, and I would recommend trying it once. But after that you will probably never want to eat it again. You can have a better ice cream if you want ice cream, and you can have hot crispy bacon if you want bacon, so I really can't see eating this thing twice.

Product Review: Shutterfly

We just had our annual Poop family holiday card photo shoot. I can't reveal any details about the card other than that all 5 of us were in it and that between Chase, Julian, Diesel and "Blinky" Mrs. Poop, it's very hard to find a shot where all of us are looking at the camera and smiling.

The other thing I can tell you is that the card is coming from Shutterfly.



We have used the site for our holiday card in the past, because it has good prices, good backgrounds and quality printing paper (not some cheap piece of paper, real photo quality prints).

And it doesn't have to be just for Hanukah or Christmas, check out the Valentine's Day Card Mrs. Poop made a couple years ago.



I can reveal that we will be ordering our card from among shutterfly's Hanukah layouts. There are 57 of them, usually us Jews don't get that many to choose from.

Shutterfly will not only help you with your holiday card, it can provide you with a cheap and easy gift idea, especially for grandparents. We really like shutterfly's photo books. We took a trip for my parents 40th anniversary and made them one to commemorate it. This year we made a great book capturing Julian's birth.

Another great gift idea is a calendar. Once again I am targeting my comments to those of you with children because you can take pictures of your kids from each season (Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, etc) and spread them out through the appropriate month. You can also use pictures of people to mark their own birthdays.

So check out shutterfly and you might find something good/easy to buy this holiday season.

Product Review: Bachman's Puzzlers

Bachman’s Pretzel Puzzlers are quite simply the world’s most delicious snack.
Bachman’s has some special formula for making pretzels (baking them in brick ovens) that is like no other pretzel. It has this delicious burned flavoring to it.
And the shape also makes them unique. They are in the shape of puzzle pieces (the logo for Autism Speaks), which makes them great for dipping. Chase likes them with hummus.
But the Autism tie-in also means 5% of the proceeds go towards Autism research.
So at the rate of two bags per week, $3 per bag, I spend $300 a year on them, and $15 goes to Autism Speaks. That makes me feel good.

Product Review: Wendy's Boneless Buffalo Wings

I love to eat wings, but I hate to get messy, which often creates a problem for me.
But that’s why I love boneless wings they serve at Applebee’s, Buffalo Wild Wings and even at CitiField. And that’s why I was very excited when I learned Wendy’s would begin offering boneless wings.
The wings come a la carte for $3.99 and $5.99 with fries and a drink. For that you get 6 or 8 pieces, a pretty decent portion.
You can get one of three sauces, and I of course chose Buffalo. But this is where I was disappointed. The sauce was sufficiently spicy, but it had some kind of sweet aftertaste to it. More like a sweet and sour sauce than a buffalo-style sauce I like.
The chicken itself was fine, about what you would expect from a fast-food restaurant, but due to the weird-tasting sauce I’m not sure I would ever get these wings again.

Upcoming Product Reviews

"Wendy's will start selling boneless wings this month starting at $3.99.

Sweet & Spicy Boneless Wings will be made of chicken breast. They will be tossed with three sauces: Sweet & Spicy Asian, Honey Barbeque and Bold Buffalo.

Orders will contain seven to nine pieces depending on weight and start at the suggested price of $3.99.

An ad campaign supporting the new offering will begin on June 22."

I never eat at Wendy's because I don't like anything on their menu but this is a game-changer.

"Anheuser-Busch is launching a wheat version of Bud Light this fall.

The national roll-out of Bud Light Golden Wheat the week of Oct. 5 is the second extension of Bud Light, after the St. Louis-based brewer launched Bud Light Lime last year. Bud Light Lime has since become one of the company's most successful new products.

It's a way to boost sales since the different versions typically cost more than the original, by about $1 to $1.50 more a six-pack, he said.

Anheuser-Busch came up with an offshoot of Bud Light that uses unfiltered wheat, orange and coriander to give its stalwart brew a new twist. The beer has a cloudier look since the wheat is not filtered and has a sweeter taste.

Levy said the company is working on its advertising for Bud Light Golden Wheat and said it expects to spend about the same as it spent last year on Bud Light Lime's launch — around $30 million — to market it through television, national print, online and other media.

The new beer has a few more calories and carbohydrates than Bud Light: 118 calories compared to 110, and 8.3 grams of carbohydrates, up from 6.6 grams. The new brew has slightly less alcohol at 4.1 percent by volume, compared with Bud Light's 4.2 percent."

I don't really like Bud Light, nor do I care that much for these wheat beers but it should be interesting to try. I have a feeling the Concierge will take one sip and say "too much coriander."

Product Review: DVR Expander

After years of battling DVR-mageddon I invested in a DVR expander. It's basically a hard drive that connects to your cable box and basically doubles the storage space available. Now we record everything we want (and will never have time to watch) and never have to worry about filling up our DVR and running out of space.

The expander gives you 300 extra hours of standard-def or 60 hours of hi-def programming.

This is the one we got compatible with Scientific-Atlanta boxes (most likely what you have if you have a cable DVR).



I strongly recommend this product but urge you to read the instructions before connecting it -- and follow the steps in the correct order to make it work properly.

Why I Recommend the Video Monitor

For those of you about to have children or will have them at some point in the more distant future, I have one product recommendation for you: a video monitor.
Most people get the audio monitor, which is perfectly fine for serving the monitor's intended purpose which is, monitoring your child.
But the unintended benefits make the video monitor worth the extra money.
One of my favorite moments of Chase's first year is the time I heard a strange noise coming from his room, and when I looked at the monitor, I saw him lying in his crib clapping.
And the other night he woke up and started crying, so I grabbed the monitor. I saw him sit up, reach down and grab his pacifier and put it back in his mouth. Then he toppled over and fell asleep with his head on the ground and his ass in the air.

Product Review: Heineken DraughtKeg

I recently purchased a Heineken DraughtKeg (basically a minikeg) to bring to Hershey for Leary's wedding, so I could drink in my room without the obtrusiveness of a bunch of bottles or cans.
The keg holds 5 liters, roughly equal to 10.5 pints or 14 12-ounce beers.
At a cost of $18.99, that's a pretty good value, especially in contrast to the hotel bar.
It wasn't that big, or that heavy, and fit perfectly in the hotel fridge, which was quite convenient.
I asked The Concierge to tap it for me and here's his review of the product with my thoughts mixed in:

"The Heineken Keg is a fun product, easy enough to use but has room for improvement. The two step tapping of the keg is easy enough but tapping results in a premature discharge of beer."

The Conch prematurely discharged beer all over my sandals.

"Perhaps there is a written warning about this...who reads the directions on how to open a beer though. The pouring feature is a bit counterintuitive because you pull up on the lever instead of pressing down - this is actually the simpliest way to design the keg flow but people enjoy pressing down on a tap. Finally, the pours of beer have a lot of bubbles (foam), almost look like it was pressurized with nitrous oxide rather than CO(2)."

There was a tremendous amount of foam, and not just after the initial tap, each subsequent pour, even days later, was about 25% foam.

"Perhaps the pressure loss from seepage over the time the keg is tapped requires extra gas so that you don't run out. However this feature does make it fun pouring beer directly into your mouth. All said, this is a good product but I prefer ice cold bottles because of the lack of excess foam."

I prefer bottles as well but was happy with the keg because it did stay fresh for days afterwards (I still have some left), it promises to stay fresh for up to 30 days.

I also like the fact that this is more eco-friendly because it has much less packaging than bottles or cans. But I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to discard the keg when I'm done. Does it go out with the regular trash?

With the foam being a secondary issue for me, my biggest complaint was that the keg leaks. The small hose through which the beer is dispensed always held a few drops after each pour and despite my best efforts to shake, tap and wipe those drops away I still found a small puddle of beer on my refrigerator shelf.

The biggest thing the keg has going for it is novelty, so I'd recommend buying it once, and deciding for yourself.