#18 - satisfied?

what do you need in life?

is it a deeper spirituality? is it a soulmate? is it financial security? is it another drink? is it adventure? is it a winning team? is it relief from back pain? is it tropical climates? is it to be thanked? is it another kid? is it another cheeseburger? is it a daily jog? is it an alibi? is it peace & quiet? is it another scratch ticket? is it a hand to hold? is it companionship? is it taller shoes? is it to get a man? is it to get away from your man? is it a ride to the mall? is it hot sauce? is it deodorant? is it a digital converter for your tv?

have you already found what you need?

i know i have.

#18 - satisfied?

snack: snickers rockin' nut road bar
drink: coffee

dude, all i need in life is a snickers...& a coffee, i guess, but mainly a snickers. they are so satisfying, especially when i'm not going anywhere for a while. i don't retain that much advertising, but i can't recall coming across an ad for the snickers rockin' nut road bar, so i've come up with one for them, based on their past ads, which i've slightly retained/looked up on the internet. mars corp...if you'd like to use my idea, please leave me a blog comment & i will get in touch with you with my price.

ext - iraqi desert - night.

the night sky is pitch black & in the distance, there are sounds of bombs falling. suddenly, the blackness is broken by a flame from a large lighter, positioned underneath a smore on a stick.

off screen, a voice shouts "put out that light right now!" the fire goes away. we see a dejected soldier giving his commanding officer the finger in the darkness.

title card: NOT GOING ANYWHERE FOR A WHILE?

the soldier breaks into a box of mres, pulls out a snickers rockin' nut road bar, tears it open & bites into it. he is clearly satisfied. he passes out snickers bars to the other soldiers & they are all satisfied. everyone in iraq gets snickers rockin' nut road bars & the satisfaction is contagious.

title card: GRAB A SNICKERS.

#14 - get wild!

for those of us who are lovers of scrabble & its various derivatives, these last few days have seen the game really grab a hold of the headlines, pretty much entirely because of the hasbro/electronic arts/scrabble vs scrabulous copyright lawsuit that has resulted in the removal of the scrabulous application from facebook...& the big deal is what now?

the scrabulous application is still available on their website. in fact, i'm on my fifth game of the night right now. sure, you may have lost the results of games you were playing on facebook, but last time i checked, those results aren't redeemable like ski-ball tickets or anything. it just means that you lose some computer memories & that there is one less reason to go onto facebook, people. in fact, by playing scrabulous, i've avoided facebook for the last two hours or so.

as for scrabble protecting their copyright, that makes sense & it's great that cnn & msnbc will discuss copyright law for a few days, but after listening to a story on npr earlier, there's some eyebrow-raising precise timing behind hasbro's recent actions towards scrabulous.

#1 - tuesday was the final day of the 2008 national scrabble championship down in orlando, a tournament, which according to npr, featured players such as 11-year old bradley robbins, from WINDHAM, NH BIZZNITCHES!!!...he won 24 out of 28 games against adults.

#2 - scrabble/electronic arts launched their beta application on facebook...& it is currently unavailable due to maintenance.

#3 - electronic arts announced that it had missed analyst estimates.

it's probably just pure coincidence that scrabble ordered scrabulous to shut down their facebook app at the same time ea missed estimates & launched their beta app & at the same time as the national scrabble championships. clearly, the real loser in all of this is hasbro, whose game has been negatively impacted by the publicity as a result of the existence of scrabulous & the fact that 13-year old girls across the country now know the rules of scrabble & enjoy words more.

#14 - get wild!

snack: limited edition wildly cherry m&ms
drink: coca-cola classic

...so & i'm on my sixth game of scrabulous now & while i've been playing, i've cracked open a bag of limited edition wildly cherry m&ms to snack on. as a rule, whenever i see the words "limited edition" on a candy item, said candy eventually ends up in my mouth. i tried these cherry m&ms for the first time a few days ago & went in with no great expectations. over the years, m&m has done a lot of good beyond the early peanut or plain-only days of the m&m. from the reincarnation of the red m&m to the inventions of the mint and mega m&ms, mars has done a lot to keep me interested over the years, but i've still remained skeptical of new types of m&ms. i don't know why i just don't give them the benefit of the doubt & let it be done with. these cherry ones are friggin' amazing. they're the same size as the peanut butter m&ms & each one is like eating a chocolate covered cherry sans gooey stickiness.

the front of the package urges me to "get wild!" & believe me, i am. it is 1am & i'm sitting in my boxers blogging, covering my teeth with coca-cola classic and watching an eight-year old japanese prodigy play "crossroads" on conan. believe me, i don't dare get any wilder than this. i'd hate to wake the neighborhood & attract the wrath of the nypd. they do not tolerate wildness.

#5 - hot chocolate.

oh to the days of summer, oh so fun. jacques heim & louis reard, i salute you wholeheartedly. today, i traveled to atlantic beach, out on long island, with a few folks, two of whom were basically from the area we were in, although it appears as if they were those working as cabana boys at the beaches & not those owning the houses on the beaches. since they were from the area, we went to a local deli-type place where all the sandwiches were named after the various beach clubs. i got the ocean club, with its chicken & craisins & feta & felt like quite the vip. i also picked up a snickers charged bar for later, not even considering that after three-and-a-half hours in the sun & a day that later led to a tube of aloe, said snickers bar would be a melted mess. i tried putting it in the fridge to turn it back into some sort of solid, but i just couldn't bring myself to eat it.

#5 - hot chocolate.
snack: snickers charged bar
drink: maxwell house french roast iced coffee

...so when i was later at the rite aid counter purchasing aforementioned aloe, i chose to give snickers charged a second life. later in the evening, at the stroke of midnight, i "settled down" for a tina fey/carrie underwood snl rerun (featuring mike huckabee) & what i like to call my "midnight special"--a candy bar infused with caffeine, taurine (not to be confused with chlorine), and b vitamins...paired with a cool, summer glass of iced coffee.

first off, this candy bar features a rhino on the packaging. right off the bat, that gets me pretty amped. rhinos mean two things--DANGEROUS & HUGE. i am expecting that upon consuming this candy bar, i will fly into a dangerously huge rhino-like rage, a rage not unlike one expected from the incredible hulk, who, btw, does not have an endorsement deal with snickers as of yet...snickers does, however, have an adventure bar!...& who likes the adventure bar? who? harrison ford, or possibly a character played by harrison ford, that's who. arti-FACTS! exotic spice! hint of coconut! with all its mars-based tie ins, you'd think i'd feel compelled to go see this movie about crystal skulls, but i haven't, because crystal skulls are totally fake & i apparently now hate anything that isn't steeped in realism. thanks a lot, survivor.

the best part about iced coffee is that it is coffee, but with ice in it.

seriously, check out the maxwell house website if you are so inclined. among its many features are a "smile report," a "which brew are you" function & a "good news" section. the current good news articles are "fourteen tips to avoid nagging," "red panda twins born at zoo" and "dog rescues drowning boy." can you guess the target market? i'll give you a hint...it's not me. i guess i should toss my remaining grounds & go to the starbucks across the street from my d.u.m.b.o. office & get me a bag of $11 sumatra/peru blend for what is probably a pretty good cause and/or tied to paul simon. target markets are funny.

#3 - XTREME PROMOTION!!!

back in nh for the evening, i went for a quick drive with my mother down the street to the windham shaw's supermarket. growing up & until less than ten years ago, the area where the shaw's is was forest next to the commuter parking lot. now it is another version of the most well known new england grocery store with its organic/health food section & great deals & fresh produce tips & whatnot.

after perusing a number of aisles for snacks, we eventually ended up at the organic food section, where i picked up a bag of eden organic spicy pumpkin dry roasted seeds. each serving of these organic bad boys contains 16g of fat, but amongst that fat, there are oodles of omegas & poly & mono fats & junk of that nature..."good fats."

on top of this most spicy & healthy purchase, an end cap display caught my attention near the back of the store, a display that featured a snack that paired a certain swashbuckling doctor with a certain candy mainstay...

#3 - EXTREME PROMOTION!!!
snack: adventures of indiana jones mint crisp m&ms
drink: mountain dew voltage

over the years, i've really become more of a nuts man when it comes to m&ms, with almond emerging as my clear favorite amongst the flavors. even in the basic setup, where the candy display features only plain & peanut, peanut wins 99 out of 100 times.

there have been a number of m&m incarnations through the years & there have been a number of mint editions amongst these. these indiana jones mint ones bring a little crunch bar action into the mix & some of them are branded with cute little indiana jones symbols, like ones where the "m's" printed on the candy shell are wearing an indy hat or the evil ones, where the "m" is inside of a CRYSTAL SKULL! these ones are slightly spooky & probably haunted. as told by the legend on their website (which i highly recommend going to so that m&m/mars can claim higher click-thru rates & charge more $ for their online promotions)...

many centuries ago, mayan rulers discovered a minty snack so deliciously crispy that it was hidden in a secret room deep in an underground maze, never to be tasted again...until now.

SPOO. KEY. anyhow, i was always more of a star wars man, so i'm not going to see the movie anyhow...but i will listen to the theme song on constant loop as i type this post.

to wash down my m&ms, i went to the fridge, which my mother had stocked with two twelve packs of mountain dew for my soon-to-be-driving younger brother. the two flavors--voltage & revolution--are part of a promotion that plays off of the current presidential campaign by creating what is cleverly known as a DEWmocracy. get it? i went with voltage, since it seemed more amp'd & i like that in a soft drink.

the story behind the DEWmocracy is that fans of this pepsi beverage get to vote on their favorite of three brand new flavors (all of which contain ginseng, absolutely beloved by the kids these days). at the completion of the campaign (which comes in only 46 days as of today), the most voted-on flavor joins the mountain dew canon. this is all explained quite clearly on the website, which you should go to so that pepsi co can claim higher click-thru rates & charge more $ for their online promotions, etc...

another fun fact...more people will likely vote in this campaign than in the general election. right now, voltage is the clear front-runner in the race. it makes me feel good to have picked a beverage that, if this trend continues, will stand tall as the clear winner on august 1st...voting is totally EXTREME TO THE MAX!!!