The Daily Blabber Blog
RSS feeds
- Blog RSS feed
- Comments RSS feed
-
Search the blog
Search by Author
- -RoG-
- Dr. Boogie
- mburbank
- Protoclown
Archives
- September 2019
- February 2019
- June 2018
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- Powered by WordPress
The Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree!
I was watching Conan O'Brien recently when one of his guests (Charles Phoenix) came on to have him help recreate a retro relic from the holiday seasons of yesteryear. This wasn't just any old find... it was something I had never seen before, yet I instantly fell in love with it. I am speaking of the Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree! According to Charles, he spotted it while looking through some of his vintage Christmas slides. Upon seeing this glorious shiny silver space age centerpiece covered in a variety of edible delights, I simply knew I had to try making one of my own. Today, I share with you the steps to making one so you too can create this fantastically festive fandangle.
First thing you need is a styrofoam cone. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal, but it turns out styrofoam cones don't run cheap. It cost $15 for the large styrofoam cone at our local Michaels craft store. Sure, we could've gone with a smaller one... but when it comes to building an Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree, you can't skimp on any of the supplies, nor can you let the absurdity of spending $15 on a piece of styrofoam dissuade you. The holidays are all about giving, so just think of your Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree as your gift to the world, rather than a futuristic snack holder hell-bent on draining your holiday funds.
Once you have your cone, you need to wrap it in tin foil and then slather the bottom with peanut butter. I know that sounds weird, but the peanut butter serves as a glue to hold the cone to the plate, and it's the difference between your tree being a huge success or toppling over and ruining Christmas forever. Now there are different schools of thought on whether you should spread peanut butter on the bottom of the cone itself, or to cover the bottom with tinfoil and then put peanut butter on it. While sticking it to the cone will definitely make it hold even stronger, I prefer to put peanut butter on the tinfoil, because then you can reuse the cone in the future. Hey, if you're gonna spend $15 on a piece of styrofoam, you might as well make it last long as possible. One thing I won't argue with is that you should use creamy peanut butter to affix the cone to the plate instead of chunky style. So, with your tree sealed to the plate with peanut butter, it is now ready to be transformed from tinfoil-wrapped styrofoam cone to the greatest hors d'oeuvres display in the world.
Decorating the tree isn't hard at all; you simply need to pick out a variety of snacks you like and stick them to the styrofoam cone with toothpicks. While you can choose whatever snacks you want, there is clearly one vital treat that must appear somewhere on an Astro-Weenie tree: cocktail wieners. While I'm not a fan of cocktail wieners, I must respect the historical importance of adding them to the tree. That said, nobody wants "weenie juice" dripping all over the other snacks pinned to the tree, so the strategy is to keep the weenies low on the proverbial totem pole. By doing this, the weenies can still be enjoyed by anybody who wants 'em while not tainting the other snacks.
As for the other treats, we chose a good mix of snacks for the Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree: Hostess powdered and crunchy mini donuts, Sour Patch Kids, Reese's mini peanut butter cups, Starburst fruit chews, mini cheddar rice cakes, sliced pieces from a Slim Jim and a few marshmallow snowman Peeps. In other words: a lot of sugar. It takes a while to decorate the tree completely as there's a lot of surface area to cover, and the last thing you want is an Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree with a lot of blank patches. Just like a real Christmas tree, you want it to look full and healthy, so you really gotta pack your tree with more food than you and your holiday guests should ever eat. But hey... it's the holidays, so indulge yourself.
I'm proud to say that our first Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree was a huge success. BEHOLD!
I think it's safe to say we have a new holiday tradition on our hands here folks. Well, it's apparently an old tradition, but it's time to bring it back and make it part of Christmas every year. Sure, decorating a regular tree is nice 'n all, but wrapping a styrofoam cone in tinfoil, slathering the bottom with peanut butter and then jabbing a variety of treats into it with toothpicks to create the ultimate holiday centerpiece? My friends... it just might be better than getting a boatload o' presents from jolly ol' St. Nick himself. Don't believe me? Look how much it inspired us:
Whatever you happen to be doing over the holidays this year, I hope you all have a great time. And if you don't... add an Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree into the mix and I guarantee it will change your holiday experience in an instant. Aliens invented this weenie tree technology and they definitely know how to party.
‘Tis The Season To Be Snacking.
With Christmas quickly approaching, I thought now would be a good time to take a look at some of my favorite holiday treats that are currently available in stores. So what say we take a look and see what Santa Claus has left under the tree to fatten us up with this year, shall we?
Pepperidge Farm Ginger Man Cookies: Granted, these are around all year long, but when you add snowflakes to the package design along with some red holiday sugar crystals to the cookies, they are immediately classified as Christmas treats. I've been eating these thing for as long as I can recall and my only complaint about them is there are never enough cookies in the bag. Seriously... for the price of a single bag of these that will last 2-3 days at best, you can get a full package of Vienna Fingers that will easily last a week or longer.
And yet here I am once again, buying these damned Ginger Man cookies and loving every single bite. The cookies are pretty much perfect as far as gingerbread goes; the ginger isn't too overpowering and the sugar crystal coating adds just the right amount of sweetness to 'em. Of course, there's no denying that we've all enjoyed eating gingerbread man cookies in the most torturous ways our minds could invent - starting with the legs, then the arms, then the body and finally devouring the head to put the ginger man out of his misery. Ah... the little pleasures the holiday season brings us.
Little Debbie Christmas Marshmallow Treats: I had seen these on the Little Debbie web site in the past, but this is the first time I've had a chance to try them. Let me first say that I'm a huge fan of Rice Krispies Treats... whether they're homemade or the store-bought Kellogg's variety, it's really hard to go wrong with these things. But what about Little Debbie's marshmallow treats? How do they stack up?
At first glance, these things look glorious, what with the Rice Krispies dyed red and green... you'd be hard-pressed to find a more festive mass-marketed holiday treat in any grocery store snack isle. Plus, these are probably the only Christmas snacks which depict Santa Claus sewing a teddy bear on the box. I'm guessing he had to lay off some of his elf workers due to the poor economy, so now old St. Nick is pitching in and helping make some of the toys this year.
The marshmallow treats themselves are as fresh and gooey as you could possibly hope for and they taste pretty good too. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're as good as the Kellogg's brand, but still better than average. And really, how often do you get to eat red and green Christmas themed ones? It's worth sacrificing a little flavor for that alone.
Little Debbie Holiday Snack Cakes: I'm not sure why these ones don't qualify as "Christmas" cakes like the aforementioned marshmallow treats do, but this is the name that Little Debbie has decided to give them, and we cannot argue with her. Oh sure, she looks happy and innocent in that profile photo on the boxes, but there's a darkness behind those eyes like none of us have ever encountered... and god help us all should Little Debbie ever decide to unleash her bottled fury upon this helpless world.
What I love here is that Santa has given up sewing and decided to bestow the children of the world with more Little Debbie snacks. His big Christmas sack is filled to the brim with Nutty Bars, Swiss Cake Rolls, Oatmeal Creme Pies and more. Oddly enough, the sack contains none of the treats from the new Little Debbie holiday product line. Guess he decided to save those for himself.
Packaging quirks aside, the Holiday Snack Cakes are a time-honored treat - delicious hexagons covered in vanilla icing and festive sprinkles with a vanilla creme center. I should also mention they have a Christmas tree shaped variety of these same cakes along with many others which I've written about during past holiday seasons. The Christmas tree cakes have always been my personal favorite, but the store didn't have any in stock this year. Maybe Santa really did save 'em all for himself... that bastard.
Junior Mints Peppermint Crunch: I know I've talked about these in the past, but I cannot emphasize enough just how insanely delicious they are. Junior Mints are already a nearly perfect treat, but when you add in little bits of peppermint candy, it seriously puts them over the top. Sometimes you'll even get an abnormally large one with even more crunchy peppermint bits in it, and I can't even describe how good they truly are. I just bought twelve boxes of these Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints, yes twelve, because it pains me that they only come out during the holiday season each year. Gotta stock up while I can, and honestly... I'll probably go back to the store for more before the month is over.
You really can't go wrong with any of the treats listed above, so do yourself a favor and seek them out fast before Santa gets to 'em.
Survey: What are some of your favorite Christmas holiday treats currently on the market?
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town 8-Bit MP3! Download And Be Jolly!
A lot of people seemed to enjoy my 8-bit chiptunes version of the "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" song that we used for the main theme in our Santa Fu game last year. I've also received emails from people asking for a copy of the song, so I figured I'd make it freely available to the general public to download. No pay to buy it on iTunes crap or anything like that... I'm just happy that people enjoyed my version of the song. Click below to download your free mp3 copy of the tune for your Christmas jukeboxes and may it make your holiday season jolly as Mr. Narwhal.
[Download Santa Claus is Coming to Town]
By the way, we are working on yet another Christmas game and hope to have it released soon, so keep an eye out for it! And yes, I am working on another 8-bit version of a classic holiday tune for it, so get ready to rock.
Hallmark’s Galaga Christmas Ornament!
So Hallmark made the incredibly poor decision of not releasing a new arcade cabinet keepsake ornament for the 2010 Christmas season. As a result, they received a lot of complaints from ornament and arcade enthusiasts alike, and will hopefully release a new one for the holidays in 2011. But what about this year?
Well, back in 2008, I reviewed Hallmark's Pac-Man Christmas tree ornament and showed you all the classic bleeps 'n bloops it made. In 2009, however, I somehow completely forgot to feature their Galaga arcade ornament. So let's take a look at it now, shall we?
Unlike with Pac-Man, they reproduced the original Galaga arcade cabinet artwork perfectly this time, right down to the bezel and the control panel layouts. The joystick still doesn't move, so I can't help but wonder how many kids have tried to play the game and snap it off. Of course, the real beauty of this ornament is when you press the fire button and it lights up the entire cabinet while playing a variety of sound effects from Galaga. I gotta say, as good as the Pac-Man one was, this Galaga one makes noise for even longer and it's LOUD, so that's a big thumbs up right there. Here's a look at the Galaga keepsake ornament in action:
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, this is simply one ornament that everybody should own. Hallmark, we'll give you a pass just this one year in the spirit of Christmas, but you had better not let us down in 2011. I have plans to have a full arcade on my Christmas tree by the year 2020, so if you want my quarters, you've got some work to do.
Survey: What classic arcade cabinets would you like to see made into a Christmas tree ornament?
This Thanksgiving, I Feast On Gumballs!
Thanksgiving dinner is served... and it's chewy! Remember in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when Violet Beauregarde takes the three-course dinner chewing gum and describes all the flavors it changes to? It was hard to imagine gum tasting like roast beef, but thanks to Accoutrements (Archie McPhee), it actually exists now, along with turkey, pumpkin pie and cranberry flavors. And it's a good thing too, because Jones Soda appears to have given up on making their annual holiday soda packs which we dared to review, so somebody else needed to step up to the plate to deliver us our Thanksgiving meals in unconventional forms.
The Thanksgiving Gumballs are obviously more colorful since it comes with turkey, cranberry and pumpkin pie flavors. They even embossed their names on the tin container to remind you that YOU ARE ABOUT TO EAT THANKSGIVING GUMBALLS. Not ready to dive right into the poultry, I started off with the cranberry flavored gumballs - they were sweet with just a faint hint of cranberry flavoring... quite tasty. Next up was the pumpkin pie, and the flavor was definitely stronger with this one, instantly reminding me of pumpkins, but still surprisingly good. Then it was time for the turkey. Oh my god, these were absolutely DISGUSTING. If a computer decided to interpret what it thought a turkey might taste like and produce it in pellet form, then you'd have these gumballs. They actually have a smokey flavor to them. I had to spit the turkey gumball out, because if I kept it in my mouth any longer, I think I would've puked. Horrible.
Saving what I assumed would be the worst for last, I popped open the Roast Beef Gumballs and I could already smell the artificial roast beef flavoring with a hint of salt & pepper. Never thought I'd be saying that about gumballs. EUGH. I immediately regretted biting into the roast beef gumballs; it's scary how they actually taste like roast beef in a weird way, unlike the turkey ones. Look, I enjoy roast beef, but it just doesn't work as bubble gum... and while it's not as bad as those bastard turkey balls, that doesn't mean I'm going to chow down on these ever again.
So just to recap:
Cranberry gum = Tasty
Pumpkin Pie gum = Good
Roast Beef gum = Pretty bad
Turkey gum = Tastebud Poison
So there you have it. These Thanksgiving Gumballs are by no means a substitute for a meal... not even if you're an astronaut, but I applaud Archie McPhee for daring to turn those festive dinner items into gumballs. I wonder if they'll make stuffing & gravy, brussels sprouts or green bean casserole flavors in the future. For the sake of my taste buds, I hope not, because if they do, I'll have no choice but to do another one of these taste tests.
Anyway, I hope all of you have a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday whether you're eating gumballs, turkey dinners, turkey pot pies, tacos or nothing at all. And even if you don't live in the States, you can still make an excuse to celebrate by watching the Doc Mock's Movie Mausoleum Thanksgiving Special or a great flick like Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Be sure to share in the comments section what you ended up eating and what you ended up doing for Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble.
Our New Winter Holiday Pixel Poster! Now Available To Order!
[click here to see the full-sized photo!]
It's finally ready! Pox and I spent a long time planning out our latest pixel poster and I'm really glad we finished it up in time for the holidays this year. The new poster has a winter holiday theme, so it's perfect for any of you looking to buy some gifts for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus or whatever the hell you feel like celebrating when the weather turns painfully cold. The winter wonderland pixel poster is the exact same size as our original retro beach party pixel poster (34" x 13.5") and we managed to squeeze even MORE colorful characters into this one than last time. Just click on the image above to enlarge it and see what I'm talking about.
For the first time ever, we're taking pre-orders here on I-Mockery because we know these are gonna sell just as well as the original posters did, so we wanna make sure we have more than enough in stock to guarantee that you'll receive them before the holidays come around. And just like last time, anybody who purchases our new winter pixel poster will be given a secret link to a page containing the complete legend for the poster to help you identify all the characters.
So please help show your support and pre-order a poster (or two... or fifty) whether it's a gift for yourself or for somebody else. I guarantee you'll end up staring at it for a loooooong time to come and it makes for a hell of a conversation piece for whenever you have friends over. If you're a fan of isometric pixel art along with basically anything we've ever written about on this site, then you're going to LOVE this poster. You'll love it so much, you should consider buying more than one, so you can sleep with one of them and not worry about how it's getting all crinkled up.
Ultimate Retro Winter Wonderland Pixel Poster:
United States Orders
Ultimate Retro Winter Wonderland Pixel Poster:
International Orders
Also, for those of you who've still put off buying the original pixel poster, it's time to stop procrastinating, because we're doing a 2-Pack (not to be confused with Tupac) where you get both of our pixel posters for cheaper than they would cost to buy separately. Plus, we're only charging you the cost of shipping one of them, so you'll save on shipping as well. And just look how nice they look when hung closely:
[click here to see the full-sized photo!]
Don't they look happy together? Wouldn't they make you happier having them hanging on your wall? Don't you want to be happy? The answer to all of these questions is obviously YES, so pre-order them both before your brain explodes into chunks of 8-bit goo!
Pixel Poster 2-Pack:
United States Orders
Pixel Poster 2-Pack:
International Orders
As long as you order by December 15th, they're guaranteed to be in your hands in time for Christmas... after that, I can't make any promises. Thanks in advance to all of you who pre-order these posters and may all of your stockings be stuffed with pixelated goodness come December!
Survey: We'd love to hear what you all think of the new winter wonderland pixel poster, so please drop a comment below!
« Older Entries Newer Entries »
|
[Features] [Shorts] [Games] [Comics] [Weeklies] [Blog] [Info] [Store] [Advertise] [Home]
Copyright © 1997-2025 I-Mockery Productions : All Rights Reserved : (E-mail)
No portion of I-Mockery may be reprinted in any form without prior consent.
We reserve the right to swallow your soul... and spit out the chewy parts.