#190 - overthinking snacks.

i listen to a LOT of podcasts. we're talking at least four-five hours worth of them on an average day. most of that listening's done whilst riding the subway & i haven't read a book in at least a year because the time that i used to spend reading books has been usurped by these podcasts. is not reading books good for my health? hell if i know but if it isn't i have dan savage & ira glass & kurt andersen & the moth to blame...& of course, as i mentioned a while back, the folks at npr.

one of my favorite podcasts is the overthinking it podcast, whose tagline is "subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve." overthinking it has been putting out a weekly, hilariously "intelligent," hour-or-so length podcast hosted by a rotating cast of "overthinkers" every week since february of 2008 & they just put out their 147th episode this past sunday. each episode begins with the panel of overthinkers answering a "question of the week" & from there they tackle a few different pop culture topics & meander into the minutiae of those topics, touching on countless other subjects along the way. sometimes they meander so much that they don't even get to the promised show topic. those shows are the best.

back in mid-november, shortly after i'd gotten laid off, i stopped paying attention to podcasts for a while & my queue got a bit backed up. as a result, overthinking it somehow fell off the radar & i ended up with twenty-or-so back episodes to listen to. a few weeks back, i decided to get caught up & at first, i was going to do a marathon of sorts & do nothing but listen to the podcast for 24 hours straight. EXTREME! i eventually yielded to sanity & chose to spread my listening over a couple of days. this weekend, i finally got caught up.

in those twenty-or-so podcasts, the overthinkers tackled such diverse pop culture topics as spiderman: turn off the dark, tron legacy, the oscars, super bowl ads, summer movies & RPG's (which, to be honest, i could do without...but i digress). my favorite two "questions of the week" from the episodes were "is there a worse superhero than spiderman to base a broadway musical on & if so, what would that superhero turn off?" & "surely you can't be serious?" the former gave the episode its name (episode 140 - hulk: turn off the smash) & the latter was in honor of leslie nielsen, who'd died on the day they taped the episode. so yeah...that's the sort of stuff in store for you if you listen to it.

i've listened to every episode of the podcast & the one topic they haven't discussed much (other than a short segment focused on big night in a recent episode) is the role of food in pop culture. food is EVERYWHERE in the popular culture. there's the food network & countless other food tv shows. there's hot dog: the movie (which actually has little to do with hot dogs) & good burger (which actually is kenan thompson's finest work). there's the amazingly awesome 80's video game burgertime. our streets are littered with fast food joints & you're pretty much guaranteed to see a food ad every time you turn on the tv. for a good percentage of the u.s. population, eating is something they all have in common three times a day & each time people eat, they're making choices & interacting with brands & whatnot. anyway, just a suggestion for a future show, overthinkers...FOOD. keep it in mind & keep up the good work.

snack: pepperidge farm mint milano cookies
drink: sierra mist natural

on the overthinking it podcast, there's a long-running offer to any of the wu-tang clan members. if any wu-tang member comes on the podcast as a guest, they'll get all the pepperidge farm mint milano cookies their lil' wu-heart desires...the offer even stands for inspectah deck. as of this past sunday, none of the wu-tang members have taken them up on the offer which, in my eyes, is utter craziness. pepperidge farm's products have no artificial flavors & preservatives & the mint milano is "a refresher course in the finer points of indulgence," or so says the packaging. did i not just describe a cookie that's right up the wu-tang clan's alley? exactly. personally, i prefer the orange milano to the mint milano, but i'll take either. all milanos are TOTALLY BALLER, just like me.

the packaging promises that by eating mint milanos, you'll experience "cool, minty bliss." i feel more of a frigid, minty, euphoria when i eat them but let's not split hairs here. they're made with a thin layer of chocolate & mint sandwiched between two dry but ultimately tasty shortbread cookies. i've always enjoyed the simplicity of their deliciousness. let's put it this way: in the package, there are three trays of milanos & if i'm left to my own devices, i can polish off a tray before you have time to say "stop bogarting all the milanos, asshole." they're just plain good.

when it comes to sodas, as i've mentioned before, i've tried to remove HFCS from my diet. that essentially rules out 90% of the sodas on the market. sure pepsi occasionally throws me a bone with their "throwback" (non-HFCS formula) sodas, but for the most part i have to look to the smaller brands for non-HFCS sodas. recently, after pepsi saw the overwhelmingly positive response to the throwback versions of their sodas, they decided to replace sierra mist entirely with the new, non-HFCS formula sierra mist natural. it's a lemon-lime soda made with "no artificial ingredients," as it's made with just carbonated water, sugar, citric acid, natural flavor & potassium citrate. BONUS! in addition to being used to regulate acidity & sodium in the soda, that last ingredient there is also used medicinally to prevent kidney stones. there's science in my soda!

it's clear & natural looking, as any good lemon-lime soda should be. the first sip yields a tiny aftertaste, but that goes away quickly. what you're left with is a light, clean-drinking soda that's not too sweet & not too bland. it manages to walk the line quite well between the two qualities, like it's the johnny cash or jaoquin phoenix of sodas or something. as far as sodas go, it's definitely refreshing & as the summer months approach & the temperatures get all HOT HOT HOT, i see myself turning to sierra mist natural when i'm in the mood for a soda, even if it does mean giving my money to pepsi. i'm just that fickle in my anger towards large international corporations.