i got the miku ramen. my bf said it is 1) good 2) Nuclear Blue. Like More Blue Than The Color Itself Blue
ill try it later tonight and post a follow-up
ok so. standard rice noodles. unusual for something labeled as ramen, and the powder is just a tinge off-white. i can detect blue.
added boiling water up to the fill line and let it set for 4 minutes.
and
IT IS SO SO FUCKING BLUE . IT IS BLUER THAN THE FUCKING COLOR
THEY NOODLEFIED MIKU’S HAIR. BABYGIRL YOU ARE SOUP NOW
THAT’S SO BLUUUUUUEEEEEEEE
blue glow of cherenkov radiation, from underwater nuclear reactors
they weren’t kidding when they said “nuclear blue”
Those of you saying “I want this” and “I need to eat this” have no instinct of self preservation.
When you raise a generation on Juicy Drop Pops and Fruit by the Foot you classically condition them to salivate at Cherenkov radiation. Reverse aposematism.
Happy Meal Halloween Eve-Eve! After my midnight Mountain Dew and cup of Death Wish coffee, I treated myself to some extra sleep, which is why today’s post is later than normal.
Yesterday, after work, I called 12 different McDonalds locations and completed my trio of 2022’s Boo-Buckets. Before that, I hadn’t eaten anything from McDonalds in years, so it was quite the adventure.
McDonald’s and I have a bit of a history. As a kid, we ate it occasionally. Mainly when we were with my birth father. Hot cakes in styrofoam trays, circular sausage patties, happy meals, and as I got bigger (and hungrier) my go-to was the 2-cheeseburger meal with fries and a coke. With mom, it was more-so the occasional order of nuggets with honey. Then, when I was in high school, Morgan Spurlock’s, “Super Size Me,” was released and I was obsessed. Not so much with the overall experiment of eating junk food every day and it being bad for you (pretty obvious outcome) but more-so probing into the global phenomenon that was McDonalds, and how something familiar and recognizable around the world could be a bad thing. All with quick editing, funny songs, and amazing artwork. I even brought it with me to school when we had the option to watch movies in class, but most people opted for Mean Girls instead.
“Super Size Me,” killed it’s namesake, put a negative spin on the company, and triggered mockumentary style copycats like, “Super High Me.” To this day, out of all the fast food chains, McDonalds is still short-hand for overconsumption and unhealthy eating in America, in spite of it being a global chain.
Spurlock has also fallen from grace. After a sexual harassment allegation, his infidelities, and the successor to the original, “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!,” being poorly received, he stepped away from the limelight. But, I was never into -him-. I was into, “Super Size Me." SUPER into it. I had this small, portable, DVD player in my teen bedroom, and the amount of times I re-watched this DVD is staggering. And, likely as a result, I just, stopped eating at McDonalds.
I went from absolutely no McDonalds for years, to eating 5 Happy meals in the past 7 days. My own, personal, "Super Size Me.” Or, a much less catchy title, “The Pursuit of Happy-Meal-ness.” All for plastic buckets.
Cashing in on Millennial nostalgia, Boo Buckets are back, and everyone 30-and-up lost their minds. Including me. Rumors at first, buzzing through the online foodie and spooky communities, and then it was finally confirmed. We have three buckets, each an amalgamation of buckets past.
I personally don’t have memories of getting my meals in the Halloween Buckets, but we had them at my mom’s house, and used them as Halloween decorations. We had to have gotten them at some point. My excitement didn’t stem from personalized nostalgia of having one and eating it, more so the overarching collective nostalgia of them being a familiar face on the holidays. (My love for pop culture and all things spooky and Halloween-y didn’t hurt either.)
So, I decided to try and get one.
First stop, a local McDonald’s that had them listed for sale on their app. They had them, but didn’t say which bucket. The double-wide drive-thru had lines wrapped around the building, so I went inside to order. It’s so different! Ordering screens to bypass cashiers, fancy soda machines with touch screens, and the poor staff running around like crazy to take care of impatient customers in cars and delivery apps. (Anyone mean to fast food employees is a dick.)
I approached the large 2001: A Space Odyssey-looking monolith-screen, placed my order, and shortly after I was handed two white ghost buckets, one for me, and one for my sister. Ghost is the bottom tier bucket. Too simple. Too blobby. I had been hoping for goblin/witch, or pumpkin. I was like, “this is fine.” And it was, until it wasn’t.
After a rough night the next day, my friend called other locations, found the pumpkin ones, went out and got them for us as a little pick-me-up. (Really appreciated it!) McPumpkin achieved!
But now I had 2/3. Dare I complete the set? I originally didn’t think so. Went to work, everything was fine, then a bunch of stuff went south right before closing Friday night. Tired and stressed (drinking all that caffeine this week didn’t help), I got into my car, and called 12 different locations. I found the last bucket, the McGoblin, which is very obviously a misnamed witch. Drove out, got one for my sister, my friend, and I, and grabbed a McRib for good measure. (Apparently it’s going away forever now? We’ve been down this road before, but I figured, Mcfuck it, why not?)
We each have the full trio! Happy and complete, but my stomach can’t say the same thing.
In my pursuit, I have eaten several cheeseburgers, fries, kids-size sodas, and half a McRib. All within a week’s time. My collectible-monkey-brain is satisfied, but my insides are full of McDisappointment.
The first cheeseburger I ate, made me feel weird childhood things. It tasted familiar, but also, as an adult who loves to cook now, it also didn’t really taste like food? Like, the burger patty has a texture that I have no idea how to achieve in home cooking. It’s difference in quality is like, a boardwalk prize-stuffed animal vs. a stuffed toy you buy in the store. It’s a bit mean, but this is the wet-newspaper of burgers, topped with salt, pepper, a slice of cheese, ketchup, yellow mustard, and the teeny tiniest diced onions. (I always loved their tiny onions, but White Castle does it better.) Eating it left me craving real food, but, seeing that paper yellow wrapper, made me feel like I was a kid again.
Next bucket, pumpkin, I opted for the same cheese burger meal. This one was prepared a bit better and tasted more like I remembered it being in my childhood. More sauce-forward, with lots of ketchup and mustard. Originally I dreaded eating it again so soon, but then I finished my meal no problem. And the nostalgia of seeing the yellow paper wrapper still hadn’t worn off. It tasted kind of sad, but not sad enough to dull my warm fuzzy feelings.
Yesterday, I did it again! I got the green bucket with yet another cheeseburger. This time swapping one of our sodas for the orange Hi-C drink we got as kids, and went full nostalgia. And you know what? I liked the cheeseburger even more this time? Maybe the addictive nature of fast food really is no joke. Am I playing with McFire? It was already getting more familiar, and having it tied to happy Halloween and childhood feelings is probably a dangerous combination.
The McRib thankfully extinguished that flame the moment it started. I was pretty sure I had reviewed one on the blog years ago, but I can’t find a post anywhere, so better scoop it up on it’s farewell tour.
It’s bad. Really bad. Like, near dog-food bad. I hate tearing products apart, because someone out there loves this thing, but…look at it. A pork-based patty, covered in smoky BBQ sauce, topped with chunky onions, two pickles, and a soft bun. The sauce is smoky, and sweet, not great, but not bad. Onions are just onions, and McDonalds pickles are the one product I do find myself pining for after all these years. But that patty…is not food. It’s so soft, texture less, and the flavor is kind of like a hot-dog with liquid smoke? Whatever goodwill the children’s cheeseburgers had built, was immediately dismantled. My sister agreed. McRib was McRough.
The spell was broken. Now that my buckets are collected, and my nostalgia sated, I can part ways with McDonalds again. This time more-so as friends.
Also, I am still salty that these don’t have real lids, but this handle-lid-abomination is McCanon. (Okay, I’ll McStop.) In the 2000’s this was how the buckets were released, with shaped handles. It was past my time, so I was unfamiliar with them. The buckets continued with tie-ins like, Scooby Doo and Monster High. They’re legit, but I still think they’re stupid. There are 3-faces per bucket, and a stationary handle made to look like the previous lids, but there is no perfect way to display them. Choosing a face results in the handle being off-center and destroying the lid-illusion. Facing it in a way that make the lid illusion work, results in being between faces. It’s lose-lose!
Even with it’s faults, I have these buckets in my possession, and I am happier for it.
Today’s post was filled with rambles, so I’ll just remind you that tomorrow I’ll be streaming with Halloween snacks and candy on my friend’s Stream for a local cat charity. Tune in if you happen to be around!
If you had shown me this site in 2005 I would have asked you if had checked your virus software lately, because this looks like a bad one. I would have clicked away so fast it would give you whiplash. Looking at these sites now, I have to convince myself that they aren’t virus laden sites and fight against the pavlovian urge to just navigate away.
I navigate away anyways because fuck them, there’s usually a better site (though they are dwindling quickly). I still can’t get over how the internet “as intended” today looks like a malware ridden fever dream from 20 years ago. This is every story I’ve ever read about an empire that used to be great and has now fallen into turmoil.
Beloveds, there is a wonderful website that gets rid of all that crap<3
love that this caused so much controversy the thread needed to be locked. over chicken sandwich
gang this does not even scratch the surface
Someone posted a picture of a piece of chicken between two hamburger buns titled “Chicken Burger” to /r/food. Another user commented “Chicken Sandwich” on the post, and was slapped with a 30 day ban by the mods. When they responded to ask why, the mod said
“Correcting someone in public is public shaming, on top of being incorrect, it’s a pretty shitty comment to leave.”
So now /r/food is on lockdown after being spammed with posts titled “Chicken Sandwich” and other variations. The mod that handed the ban down pinned a post doubling down, comparing the situation to “Pride posts that always fill up with bigots” and “removing racists from posts featuring POC”, and including a link on “how to correctly, correct someone.”
because someone commented “Chicken Sandwich” on a post titled “Chicken Burger”.
Okay but this also does not scratch the surface either
It all started when the sandwich guy posted about what happened to him on r/TIFU, which led to a lot of outrage including someone in the comments saying they were also banned from r/food just for saying they had diabetes (this was later confirmed by a mod). All this anger turned into a brigade which resulted in the entire sub being flooded with almost nothing but posts about Chicken Sandwiches, now known as burgergate. The mod who initially instituted the ban then went on to compare fending off spammers to defending the capitol building during the January 6 riot.
You can see in the post that this made it into r/subredditdrama, a community which discusses ongoing drama across reddit. This particular thread in the screenshot is locked, an interesting detail for reasons that come into play later.
Someone else then goes and posts about burgergate on another sub, r/iamveryculinary , which is dedicated to making fun of food related snobbery and drama. This does not go over well, as it turns out that one of the mods of r/food is also a mod of r/iamveryculinary. This mod then proceeds to get slapfights in the comments, which notably includes her saying she would “rain fiery hell upon” anyone who posts chicken sandwiches in r/food, and complaining that she’s so focused on moderating burgergate that she has no time to spend with her kids. People then beg her to forget the chicken sandwich drama and take care of her children. I would love to give you some more details about this incident or tell you the other side, but I can’t since she deleted all the comments of the people she was arguing with so most of what we have left is just the things she herself said.
Someone then goes on to post about the r/iamveryculinary drama on r/subredditdrama again. This post immediately gets deleted completely, because it turns out that the r/food mod who also moderates r/iamveryculinary also moderates r/subredditdrama. More people beg the mod to stop caring about the drama and spend time with her kids.
Another post is then made to r/subredditdramadrama, where the sandwich guy who was initially banned posts his conversation with the mod that banned him. Up until this point, the original mod had been arguing that the permanent ban wasn’t because of the chicken sandwich comment (which was only a 30 day ban), but because he had been rude to the mods when asking why. Screenshots show sandwich guy simply asking why he was banned and then apologizing for the chicken sandwich comment, only to be smugly told by the mod that he needs to “educate himself”, who also insinuates that he’s a weirdo and calls his comment shitty. Don’t miss this mod showing up in the comments of these screenshots and arguing with everyone else over them.
So basically the whole thing was one innocuous comment about a chicken sandwich which quickly spiralled into a multi-sub meltdown that has lasted for about two days now. Chicken sandwich guy has not, as far as I know, been unbanned as of yet.
* UPDATES ONCE A DAY *
Full time artist and sometimes foodie, I use this page to share photos of Food Porn and review random foodie finds. Have your forks ready!
