I flew out to LA this morning for work, and in case there was any confusion, let me confirm that I loathe flying.  Really and truly hate it.

It's not that I have any particular fear of flying; I've done enough of it to get over all of the jitters that formerly came with shaky takeoffs and random bouts of turbulence.  I just hate the entire process.  I'm aware that this is far from a rare lament, but I still think I hate the process of flying ten times more than normal people do.  From getting to the airport criminally early, to being asked to take my shoes off to prove that I'm not going to kill anyone with a secret weapon, to being forced to trash any toiletries in my luggage that went beyond security's ridiculous allotment of "3.4 ounces maximum per container," I just hate hate hate it.

The 3.4 ounce limit on shit like hair goo and toothpaste is so absurd.  I can't for the life of me figure out how a 4.2 ounce tube of toothpaste poses more of a ecological threat than a 2.3 ounce tube.  But you kind of lose the will to argue with the security folks when they've got your luggage spread eagle in front of 500 strangers, plowing through your unmentionables with handheld sensors and rubber gloves.  At that point, you just tell yourself that it'll be easier to buy new toothpaste once you land.

I had two hours to kill before my flight, leaving me with ample time to peruse the dozens of newsstands and gift shops peppered throughout the virtual shopping mall that is JFK International Airport.  I actually enjoy that part of the experience: Trying to come up with the perfect mix of magazines and gourmet gummy bears to make a long flight more gummy bearable is an exercise which I feel I've gotten quite good at.

I never read books.  Really, I don't.  Not real books, anyway.  Not novels.  It only ever seems to happen when I've got a flight to get through, for as loaded as my iPod is with all the crappy music and TV shows that I like, flight time just seems to move faster when you read.  On a whim, I picked up Stephen King's The Mist, no doubt because I liked the movie.  I'm proud to say that I read the book from cover to cover over the course of this morning's flight.  Might not seem like much of an accomplishment to you, but I feel award-worthy.  Outside of Star Wars anthologies, I think the last novel I read was fucking Barnaby Rudge back when I was a freshmen in college.

The book was pretty great, actually.  Much better than the so-called Bloody Mary pictured at the top right of that photo, which was flamingo pink in color and watery Tabasco in flavor.  I never turn down a rightful opportunity to drink a Bloody Mary, but all told, I'm glad I had the foresight to order soda at the same time.  Also shown is a random fruit & cheese plate that Delta charged me six bucks for.  I thought it was going to be a losing deal, but I swear to you that there was a hunk of cheddar the size of a football in that plate.  Factor in the dried apricots, and I ate myself a mile high bargain.

I'm staying at the Four Seasons hotel, which is pretty incredibly incredible and stuff.  It's got the kind of mini-bar that I usually only get to dream about, stocked with an assortment of liquors large enough for me to indulge my recent penchant for pretending that I'm Wuher, the gruff-but-passionate cantina bartender who hates droids but loves making mantis blood daiquiris for aliens that look like giant brown feet.

My room is really nice — nice enough for me to avoid going to sleep right now, because I'm checking out in the morning and will in all likelihood never see this place again.  I've got a great balcony that's nearly ground level but not to the point of feeling cheap, overlooking a sea of palm trees, almost-palm trees, and at least one California Republic flag, which has been noisily blowing in the wind for the entire time that I've been writing this.  It's dark outside, but I'm pretty sure that the California Republic flag has a giant bear on it.  I like flags with beasts on them.  They make me happy.

All that's left for this evening is deciding whether I should go to sleep or order a PPV first.  Like newlyweds christening every room of their new house, I feel that I've not done my duty in a rented hotel room until I've ordered a PPV.  A quick glance tells me that I'm going to have to choose between Sweeney Todd and No Country for Old Men.  Maybe I'll just go to bed.

It would've been interesting if I never posted again, thus ending almost a decade of X-Entertainment on a story about how I ate the top off of a cracker.  Then again, it might be even more interesting to never post again after this one: A story about tomato/pineapple juice.

During my thrift store hunting days, I amassed an incredible collection of vintage cookbooks.  They amuse me to no end.  The prevalent "richness" of the recipes, often combining five types of meat with four different cheeses, sometimes in the shape of a clown head or something, are only outclassed by long forgotten fad foods that virtually no one is interested in revisiting.

As a V8 aficionado, I'm particularly interested in the many strange ways that homemakers used to transform tomato juice into awesome mutant cocktails.  I've never actually tried out these recipes for myself, but after spending the last few years reading and rereading the recipe above — a "Two-Tone Cocktail" that dares to combine tomato and pineapple juice — my interest finally piqued.

It took several frustrating attempts to create what you're looking at above, but I was ultimately successful in forging a cocktail that maintained a distinct separation of church and state, or in this case, tomato and pineapple.  Note that there's no "buffer liquid" to help the juices stay on their side of the line; it's literally just pineapple juice with carefully-poured tomato juice on top.

While visually appealing, I was still faced with the conundrum of knowing that my Two-Tone Cocktail was comprised of equal parts pineapple juice and tomato juice.  Hardly a tag team to rival the likes of Demolition or Strike Force.  After some self-assurance that Betty Crocker wouldn't knowingly promote something inherently disgusting, I dived in and…liked it?  Wow, I actually liked it!  Through some minor miracle, the forbidden sector of the glass where the two juices combine into one alien flavor is negligible, and for the most part, it feels like you're drinking half a glass of tomato juice followed by half a glass of pineapple juice.  Magic knows many forms.

I can't in good conscience recommend the Two-Tone Cocktail unless you've already gotten over your fear of tomato juice, but if it makes you feel any better, I used V8 instead, which at least features the psychosomatic advantage of being more than just "smashed tomatoes."

I apologize for my lack of participation on the site as of late, and in particular for limiting that participation to stories about crackers and foreign juice tricks.  Workwise, these last few weeks have been pretty insane.  Sooner or later, I'll be over the hump.

Happy SNT, if you're here.

It's impossible to know for sure, but I have to assume that I've eaten at least fourteen million saltine crackers over the course of my many years spent on your fair planet.

Tastiness and soup condimentiness aside, my voracity for saltine crackers had less to do with palatability and more to do with achieving a goal set long ago, when I was just a wee little boy without a hair on my knuckle.  It's a goal that I've continually striven for and met constant failure with for over two decades, but last night, finally, I fucking did it:

I managed to eat the entire top layer off of a saltine cracker without breaking the bottom layer.

Immediately realizing this as a personal milestone worthy of archiving, I grabbed the camera and had myself a big yo-ho holy Kodak moment.  I've come close to doing this before, but I never actually did it.  There would always be some irremovable portion of the top layer that refused to allow me the gold ribbon, or worse, I'd manage to get the top layer completely off only to watch the remaining bottom layer instantaneously crumble under the pressure of being a solo act.

But not this time.  This time, I did it.

I managed to eat the entire top layer off of a saltine cracker without breaking the bottom layer.

Now, when the Reaper comes, I can take his hand with readiness and ease.  In this world if not the next, my work is done.

With a rare weekend work project taking place early this morning, I stayed at a hotel in the city last night to avoid being late and/or needing to get up three hours earlier just to make it there in time from my humble abode.  A cumbersome opening sentence for sure; I'm not too tired to notice it, but I'm definitely too tired to fix it.

Around 11 PM, I checked into the Millennium Hotel, which was adequate but totally not worth the 400 bucks that I've now gotta weasel my way into T&E'ing.  Though the room featured a mini-bar, I kind of assumed that 400 bucks would merit a mini-bar stuffed with peanut M&M's and those oh-so-glorious hermetically sealed jars of fashionably shaped pretzels.  But there weren't any.  I was sad.

I was also sad because the room lacked Internet access, meaning that all of my last minute work preparations had to transpire over my cell phone's poor excuse for a web browser.  How could a $400 hotel room not come equipped with that stupid Ethernet cable thing?  I started feeling plenty stupid over spending so much money, especially after glancing out the window and spotting the same office I go to multiple times a week not more than two blocks away.  Surely it wouldn't have been that hard to make it in on time on a Sunday morning.

Defeated, I perused the hotel's collection of overpriced pay-per-view movies, and after deducing that I didn't want to watch Cloverfield while sitting inside a building that was probably destroyed during the course of it, I settled on The Mist.

And HOLY FUCK, where the hell have I been?  I absolutely LOVED this movie.  LOVED it!  Still…before I continue gushing, I need to come clean and admit that I always love movies when I watch them on pay-per-view from inside hotel rooms.  It's one the quirks that makes me me.

For whatever reason, I wrote The Mist off as just another in the long, long line of recent horror movies that carefully treaded the fine line between PG-13 and R, putting mood and music before visceral awesomeness in the name of a suspected broader audience.  Or something.  I didn't say that too well, but I think you know what I mean.  Course, had I bothered to spend more than three seconds drawing that conclusion, I would've realized that The Mist was rated R.

I was under the impression that the movie's titular gimmick would've provided the filmmakers an excuse to avoid showing a lot; instead, it was creature after creature after creature, and every single one of 'em was creepy as shit.  I'm tempted to toss in the "literally" descriptor, but then I'd have to justify it with a scary looking photo of a pile of horse mud, and that isn't the kind of Google Image Search that I want to end the weekend with.

The creatures were fashioned without any set pattern or "laws" — some looked like exaggerated critters of our world, while others were so beyond comprehension that I'm still digging up YouTube videos to figure out what the heck I was watching.

While I'll give most films a passing grade just for the inclusion of weird and wacky monsters, I loved the story, the characters, the pacing, the acting….basically, I loved everything that all of the "External Link" reviewers on IMDB complained about.  Maybe that's the aforementioned "pay-per-view in hotel room" nuance acting up, but even as someone who so often utilizes his online voice for nonpartisan opinions that take half-stances at best, I feel perfectly comfortable giving The Mist a solid recommendation.

Oh, and if I was at all on the fence about that, something that happened in the movie's last scene pushed it over the edge.  Spoilers ahead… [more]

It's gorgeous out.  Sitting inside to write about toys I bought a week ago probably isn't the best way to take advantage of this, but the joke's on you: I snapped the pictures for this entry outside.

It's time to recap the best of the rest from my $100 Toys "R" Us shopping spree, but first, some filler thoughts on the TOY INDUSTRY.  It's no secret that all-toy chains like TRU have had trouble staying afloat in recent years, and it's easy to see why.  They have oodles and oodles of floor space, and yet, I can't say with much certainty that they carry more "good" toys than any Wal-Mart or Target does — and those stores barely need the scant few aisles worth of playthings to survive.

We complain that Toys "R" Us isn't the same as it used to be.  Well, that's kind of by necessity.  They sell what sells, and if you've gotta peddle ten thousand baby strollers to keep out of the red, who can blame you?  It's not the store that's changed…it's the industry.  That there are still stores as large as TRU dedicated primarily to toys seems miraculous, and I can't help but feel that it won't be too many years before that particular concept goes the way of the dodo, or if you're looking for a more thematically tied analogy, the way of Tacky Stretchoid Warriors.

By and large, today's kids are far more into video games and electrogizmos than dolls made out of plastic, and they have every right to be.  Today's action figures are pretty much the same action figures that I cried for when I was in the womb, but anything that runs on batteries or plug power has evolved in extreme ways.  It's for this reason that I give five dollar bills to any kid I spot playing with a six-inch superhero: They're doing their part in a world that gives them far cooler options.

Still, traditional dolls and action figures will never die, for what video game or high-tech gadget could afford a person the ability to complete their home decor with a twenty-seven inch, two-headed rubber dragon?

Giant Foam Dragon - $19.99: Twenty bucks for this guy didn't seem like a bad deal, but now that I've done the math, I can confirm that he cost two thousand times more than the dragon seen in Part 2.  Then again, that dragon was only about a third the size of this one, and that dragon most certainly did not have two heads.  Frankly, I don't feel the need to struggle for justification when I've got a dog-sized, two-headed rubber dragon.  I'll just say "you win" and go back to pretending to play cards with him.

I've yet to name my giant foam dragon, but that's less to do with a lack of love and more to do with there not being pronouns currently associated with something as insanely awesome as he is.  He's gigantic, he's really detailed, he's got two heads, and he looks like he's kind of happy about all of that.  Though Casa de X-E is rife with controversy over the giant foam dragon's final placement, I'm probably going to win the argument and make him a permanent couch-side fixture in our living room.  My theory is that the position of his two heads will allow for easy ash tray mounting, and if you can find any legitimate purpose for a 27" two-headed dragon doll, you've done well in the world.

Pokemon Throw Ball - $9.99: I once loved Pokemon enough to warrant a Bulbasaur tattoo above my left ankle, and though time has proven that this tribute wasn't the most well-considered idea, I take solace in knowing that my legs will only ever be seen by the person who drains my blood out after I die.  That said, I still really like Pokemon, and "really liking" Pokemon was good enough for me to spend ten bucks on this crappy Pikachu "Throw Ball."

Well, it's not so much that it's crappy.  It works well enough, with the Pikachu doll popping out of the Pokeball like a true Pokemon warrior just a moment after it hits the floor.  My complaint has more to do with the pricing.  The doll is something I wouldn't have been satisfied with winning out of a twenty-five cent arcade crane machine, and I can't honestly claim that a pop-action Pokeball is worth anywhere near ten bucks.  I still can't figure out how the toymakers came up with the retail price for this.  Perhaps they adopted the theory that people will pay a mint just for firm permission to throw something.

Mostly, I'm just pissed that the Pikachu doll isn't wearing a red hat like the one I beat the fuck out of Samus with does. [more]

I might be too tired to write this tonight, but since tomorrow boasts the only morning that I don't need to be somewhere by 9 AM, let's give it a shot.  Please heed the caveat that my current level of exhaustion may be conveyed in the form of utter gibberish.  I reserve the right to ninja edit when I wake up.

The stuff I covered in Part 1 was purchased more on the merits of whimsy than anything else.  This batch reflects a truer sense of what I'd grab on a Toys "R" Us shopping spree if I was eight-years-old today.  I'm not sure if that makes much sense, but since that will be a running theme in tonight's entry, I might as well establish it early on.

Animal Planet Foam Dragon - $0.01: I'm absolutely serious.  This beautiful, silvery blue beast cost exactly one penny.  I have no way to explain it.  We figured that it was a pricing error, but a TRU employee confirmed that if it rung up for a penny, the store was obligated to sell it to us for that.  Of course, after confirming this, she snatched up the remaining dragons to buy for herself.  No clue what grand intentions this lady had for a series of devil-faced dino-demons; I was just pissed that we didn't have the chance to grab more of them.

Spending a penny on anything is a thrill, but when you spend it on something that you were prepared to pay full retail for, it's cause for the kind of in-store victory dance that only seems embarrassing in retrospect.  It's not that I mind being pegged as the kind of guy who'd twist and shout over a cheap foam dragon; it's just that I dance like an asthmatic folding chair.  You may cry foul over such a poorly conceived analogy, but you'd also have to concede that asthmatic folding chairs really can't dance all that well.

The fact that I swiped this foam dragon for an amount of money that I'd sooner vacuum than lean over to collect was only part of the glory.  In truth, I really wanted this guy.  I had a ton of similarly styled random dragon figures as a kid, and Animal Planet's version really seems like a throwback to those lost beauts.  I tried to give you some sense of scale with the Dasani bottle, but if it isn't helping, Mr. Foam Dragon stands at about a foot tall, and rides a fine line between being soft enough to throw at someone without killing them and hard enough to do exactly that  I know that Animal Planet didn't intend for us to throw dragons at people, but any item prefaced with the word "foam" must be construed that way.

Star Wars "Galactic Heroes" Two-Pack - $5.99: Hasbro really stumbled onto something brilliant with the "Galactic Heroes" collection, along with all of the like-styled lines that they make for Transformers, Marvel Comics and so forth.  I've covered them before, but the figures are essentially super-deformed versions of the classic characters we love and adore, maintaining their typical weaponry and facial scowls, but in an oh-so-cute way.

With the Star Wars collection in particular, it's extra cool.  Since the line was so successful, they've already blasted past the typical characters and moved into way more obscure territory.  One two-pack features Ponda Baba and Snaggletooth, and the fact that only three of you know who I'm talking about just proves my point.  If I had to pick one line to start collecting outright, it'd be this.  The collection is large enough to really get into, but the figures are ironic enough to place around your cubicle without looking like too much of an asshole.

I picked the Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader set, for the very simple reason that Vader came with a removable mask.  Darth Fester!  To stay in tune with Return of the Jedi: The Special Edition Version 8.9, Hasbro portrayed Vader completely and totally without eyebrows.  I can't decide what I miss more: Sebastian Shaw in the Jedi ghost scene, or Sebastian Shaw's fucking eyebrows in the unmasked Vader scene.

And now, SAD NEWS! 

As happy as I was to see Toys "R" Us carrying the resurgent Madballs collection, I was appalled by their in-store placement: Hanging on the bottom rack in a pathetic aisle two hundred feet away from the normal action figure toys.  If I didn't go into this shopping spree thing with the goal of perusing every square inch of the store, there's no way I would've seen them.  I could understand their placement if Toys "R" Us had already given up on Madballs and had 'em on clearance, but this didn't seem to be the case.  The toys are still new enough to be pushed as such, but they don't stand a chance when you can only find them under a pile of imported cowboy dress-up kits in Aisle 236.

Clearly, I had to buy one. [more]

I was originally going to compile all of this into one big article, but then I remembered that I work during the week and tend to dissolve into slush on the weekends.  Rather than fuck myself again, let's split it into parts and strike while I'm still excited.  It's time for PART ONE of my great, big, huge, gigantic, enormous $100 Toys "R" Us shopping spree report!

As you'll recall, Toys "R" Us received the popular vote in this thread, where I challenged you to tell me where to blow my $100 American Express gift card.  Truth be told, I had no doubt that TRU would take the prize, and I probably would've rigged the poll with fake comments from "George223" and "PlanetAwesome" had it been necessary.  I've always wanted to do a Toys "R" Us shopping spree.

In fact, I can't imagine that anyone who grew up when I did would feel any differently.  I can't count the number of sweepstakes I entered and lost for such an opportunity.  It seemed like the chance to win a thousand dollar TRU shopping spree sprung up at least once every six months throughout the '80s, and though I was only afforded one-tenth the budget for this project, the joy was still enough to make good on the trillion childhood dreams I had — dreams of combing the aisles with a shopping cart full of everything, tossing in video game after action figure after candy bar with all the gleeful abandon of a pig in shit.

No two Toys "R" Us stores are exactly alike, even if they seem to be on the surface.  For this expedition, I had to pick my local store, which had stood in the same spot since before I was even born, and was ground zero for virtually every toy-related hunt of my life.  It wouldn't be even a slight exaggeration to say that I could fill a book with memories of this single Toys "R" Us store.  From meeting Darth Vader there in '84 to begging workers to "check the back" for an elusive Mondo Gecko all throughout '89, this has been one of my very few chosen places where all is right with the world.

I can't say for sure if I became a collector in adulthood out of mere appreciation for toys, or simply because I refused to let go of that sense of euphoria during my youth.  Even today, where my toy store runs are limited to finding kids' birthday presents or something new to write about on the site, I still muster the same sense of tranquility that I assume other people feel when they step foot into their local sports team's arena, or, I dunno, Grandma's house.

The $100 shopping spree commenced this past Sunday afternoon, and the photo above does little to convey the absolute pandemonium I endured.  Clumsily navigating a worn-out wagon around aloof parents and at least a dozen kids who had those ridiculous wheels built into their sneakers (I'm just jealous), my mission wasn't easy.  I didn't want to limit myself to the two or three aisles of "major" brands.  My goal was to comb through every last crevice of the store, questing to dig up all of the weird-but-amazing crap that isn't popular enough to be stocked where anyone incapable of crouching can find it.

With bruised knees and calloused fingers, I return to you now, the proud owner of $100.17 worth of brilliant garbage.  It would've been $99.17, but the lady at the register had a really good hook for her "donate a dollar to autistic kids" speech.  As much as I wanted to come in on budget, it's tough to respond indifferently to such phrases as, "hey, since you saved so much money on our clearance sales, would you mind donating a dollar to save an autistic child's life?"  And even if I was considering saying no, she asked it loud enough for five other people to turn our way in wait of my inevitable response: "Sure, you bet!"

I digress.  It's time to talk toys.  Tonight's entry covers 33.3333% of the goods; I'll cover the remaining throughout the week.  Oh, and should anyone doubt the validity of my wild stories about the prices I paid, keep in mind that I will scan and provide the full receipt when we wrap this up in Part 3.

TMNT "Michelangelo" Figure - $7.99: During my journey, I tried to steer clear of the big brands.  But this guy just called to me.  I can't remember if I've ever told this story — probably have — but I fell into the original Ninja Turtles toy collection by pure incidence.  My brother gave me a few of the figures for Christmas in '88, which was technically a misfire for him since I'd only seen the cartoon a few times and hadn't at all been bit by the still-burgeoning wave of Turlemania.

And yet, something about those figures touched me immediately.  They were brightly colored, being turtles and all, but they such an innate simplicity that one could've very well pictured Santa's elves crafting them with bits of plastic and small tubes of paint.  As the toy industry headed into the '90s, most of the action figure lines became detailed to the point of being overdetailed.  You couldn't run your finger down a four-inch dude's leg without trying to figure out if he had grenades sculpted over his calves or was merely happy to see you.

Many of the newer TMNT figures continue on with this intangible charm, but none to the level of the bug-eyed Michelangelo shown above, with skin three shades lighter than his brothers, and an expression shared only by Kevin McCallister when he stumbled upon the in-room mini-bar during Home Alone 2.  Though an eight dollar price tag seemed a bit steep, I take solace in knowing that Michelangelo is exactly the type of turtle who'd get a real kick out of costing more than a dollar per inch.

Edu Science Authentic Fossils Collection - $4.99: Hidden near the back of the store, even beyond the lesser-visited Play-Doh and Crayola aisles, Toys "R" Us has a rather impressive section of "real learning" toys, ranging from virtual frog dissection kits to Sea-Monkeys, with a couple of foam great white shark dolls thrown in for good measure.  I could've easily blown the entire hundred bucks on that stuff, but since I didn't want to bore anyone, I limited myself to this five dollar collection of totally legitimate fossils.

While I'll concede that the glory is lost once you open the package and have nothing but a handful of oddly shaped coral to show for it, the bubbly, term-filled window display makes that an easy folly to avoid.  I mean, why bother opening the package if you're going to lose the ability to tell the difference between your trilobite and ammonite?  The shark's tooth seems like the odd man out of the bunch, but I think we can all agree that no fossil collection is worth buying if it doesn't include at least one shark's tooth.  It's kind of an unspoken law. [more]