Tales of the Salty Bag

I was very late to the Pusha T game. When Pusha T put out King Push at the end of 2015 it came highly recommended through the Get Up On This podcast, so I checked it out and from that day on have fully been on board..which inevitably sent me back to the Clipse's classic Hell Hath No Fury and debut Lord Willin'. It's sort of odd it took me that long to get aboard, back in the early 2000's I was aware of the Clipse's radio hits (specifically Grindin' because of the Kardinal Offishall colab on it) but I just never took the time. Well, 2018 brought us King Push's newest offering Daytona. Is it fully of clever wordplay, hard rhymes, vivid pictures and top notch production? Yes. Does it feature a verse by Kanye that starts with "Poop. Scoop! Whoop. Whoopty-whoop!"? Yep (and the delivery of those few words is so infectious). Do I have any complaints about the album? Na, it's a little short I guess at 7 songs and just under 22 minutes (I consider it to...

When I opened up my bag of Flamin' Hot Limon Crunchy Cheetos and took a whiff, well there wasn't much there..fragrance wise they smell like a bag of corn snacks. I find it amusing that the same bag that boasts "Made with Real Cheese!" also has the description of "Cheese flavored snacks" (yes, these are an American bag. Now, I'm not trying to be a dick here and I understand that the bags have a typical layout and standard statements that all bags of Cheetos have of them, irregardless of the flavo(u)r, but these "cheese flavored snacks" taste like chili pepper (slightly hotter than standard jalapeno) with a hint of lime flavo(u)red snacks. The seasoning is present with, at least to me, no room left for cheese flavour and just a hint of corn flavour (most of the corn flavour is wiped out in the manufacturing process) lingering in the background. They have a good crunch followed by melt in your mouth cornmeal softness as Cheetos, or whatever your r...

Dear Diary, I was in Dollarama last week picking up some last minute..well it doesn't really matter why I was there. Anyway, as I was in the line for the checkout and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a blue bag that I'd seen a million times before. For some reason this time, it's unassuming blue on blue top with stock photo potato chip bottom intrigued me (that in addition to it being 280g for $2). I thought, to myself, 'hey, they carry Covered Bridge..maybe these Made in Canada "D Gourmet" potato chips are some other high end chip that just happens to be carried in dollar stores.'. I proceeded to take the $2 leap and threw them in my basket. Within an hour of getting home I had cracked the bag and was happily consuming. These D Gourmet Salt & Vinegar potato chips were for lack of better term, pretty run-of-the-mill. The chips are somewhat sterile, no well done chips and no skins, and fairly lightweight. The seasoning is faint but fairly well di...

Sometimes it's nice to just take comfort in the familiar. Based on my October 2015 blog post Dammit , and my regular postings related to the many side of pop punk, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Blink 182 is one of my comfort (ear) foods. There are long stretches where Dude Ranch,  Cheshire Cat and the rest of the pre-2005 catalogue reside in the shadows, but I always come back to them. Sometimes it takes hearing a song on the radio, seeing a picture of a bulls testicles, or listening to the Blink 155 podcast. The first two reasons don't really exist however the third I just got into a couple week ago. Blink 155, which started in the summer of 2017, is a podcast in which Canadians Josiah (Exclaim) and Sam (Perfect Youth [fantastic book about the first wave of punk across Canada]) are digging wayyyy deep into all 155 songs that Blink 182 has released. Each episode is centered (more or less [sometimes they get pretty far off topic {they ride the fine line of being a...

I was in behemoth chain store recently and I came across a "NEW!" bag of Ruffles, Sweet & Spicy (I swear I had them a while ago and was confused by the "NEW!" branding but I can't find any notes in my phone and don't appear to have blogged about them in the past, so yeah. I grabbed a bag (and after consuming, the next time I was at the same store I grabbed 3 more bags). The cover shows a bunch of wings with a red honey glazed looking sauce, which is usually a pretty good sign. Do they taste like wings? Well, they taste like wing sauce, a mix of honey garlic and 2nd degree (or something like that). The bite is pretty mild but it's still present and complements the sweet very well. They're standard ruffles; mini ridged and light-mid weight crunch (I believe Ruffles are formed chips however they avoid the taste of eating a bag of instant mashed potatoes that comes with most formed chips, specifically of the Pringles variety [maybe because they'r...

This entry's coming a little late, kind of snuck up on me so I'm going to go back to notes from this past January for the chip portion: President's Choice Loads of Creamy Dill Pickle. They're a standard ridged chip, dippable but not overly aggressive crunch. Ridges are wavy as opposed to ruffle style mini ridges. "Not sure about 'loads of', more like generous flavour (with a good even distribution throughout the bag)" (I guess when I consumed them I was expecting a slap in the face level of seasoning). There's dill pickle tartness present but it's not aggressive..and not overly powdery like some brand's "creamy dill" tend to be. I'd put the emphasis on the Dill Pickle side of the name as opposed to Creamy. I'm not a super fan of creamy dill chips in general, these ones are okay (I need to try them again, I could see a future assessment being slightly more positive). Luke McNeill is a major contributor to some fantastic...

A month or two ago I was on the Wasted Wax Records store/distro picking up some LP's cause I've dug everything that they've put out as a label, had a few holes to fill in my collection and figured that anything they put out as distro would be up to the same sonic standard as their own releases. One of the LP's that I picked up was Mandible Klaw's S/T from 2016 (YYC band, Handsome Dan Records). By the looks of it I had assumed that it'd be somewhere in the hardcore/metal spectrum..Deranged Records..ish. Was I right? Yep, MK play 80's style hardcore punk in the vein of whatever you think is good with a hint of thrash thrown in (there's the slightest hint of rock in there too). They rarely take their foot of the gas, the guitar's are intricate without being wankey (some solos, there's leads, there's fantastic music) and the odd breakdown(ish) part I'm willing to bet won't initiate a spin kicking, arm flailing douchepit. The vocals are ...