X-Entertainment's Christmas Season & Advent Calendar, 2008.

05/09/2006: Cereal prizes, and ow, my neck.

I threw Group 017 up on the Cereal Prize Project, and I mean that more figuratively than I’d prefer, but it’s been a dizzy week and I know you’ll forgive me. I’ve got a special blog entry coming tomorrow, but calling it “special” will only overstate its innate specialness, so let’s just say I’ll be back with more tomorrow (or, as they case may be, later today) and leave it at that.

In other news, over the last week and a half or so, I’ve had the most annoyingly consistent neck/back cramp/thing ever. Like clockwork, around the time I’m supposed to go to bed (now-ish), my neck and back start feeling as if I’ve ever done anything in my entire life physically exerting enough to cause neck and back pain. I worked hard at atrophy; this really sucks. What’s worse is that it always strikes at bedtime, like there’s some demon controlling the happy balance of my body who waits until it’s finally time for me to relax and be comfortable to lash out with a HOLY FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY NECK, I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW BAD MY NECK HURTS, every single night. I’d visit the doctor, but that would go against my family’s longstanding theory that things like this “just go away on their own eventually,” and who am I to rebel against generations of Opiophobia? Besides, I’ve always been into those old Doan’s commercials and I’ve finally found justification to down half a bottle of their pills. When I do, my back better start pulse-glowing red and orange to illustrate what the pills are doing, or I’m getting my money back.

RANDOM: Heartbeeps Movie Review - Pac-Man Magnetic Maze Game - Johnson Smith Tribute - Amazin’ Fruit - Monopoly Playmaster

I was going to say that I was going to say that heat helps neck pains, but Welsh Rabbit beat already said it.

I’m sorry for wasting everyone’s time. But I’m already wasting my own, so I might as well waste yours too.

Besides believing things go away on their own, my family’s longstanding theory is that going to the doctor will a.) reveal a medical issue you’d be happier not knowing about, regardless of the possibility of a cure or b.) actually create a new medical issue which will more than likely result in death. We swear by it.

Maybe it’s your posture throughout the day that causes it? Whatever the cause, Icy Hot works well for when my muscles go nuts. The company makes little patches, too, so you dont have to deal w/ the messy tube form. Or you could just drink until the pain goes away. P.S. My favorite part of Group 17 was how telling the elephant joke would be the first time you’ve said anything at a staff meeting. I can relate, so your stories about agoraphobia and stuff like that always kill me. The best was the time you were trying to make copies of the Crystal Pepsi article, and you were covered in cat hair and super nervous, and then the woman screamed out and everyone looked at you, and to top it all off you left your bulbasaur keychain on the counter. That story is probably my favorite thing that’s ever been posted on XE, and I’ve been coming here for like 5 years.

matt, my suggestion, if you can get past the horrid taste, down a full jar(small) of nutmeg, it does taste incredibly terrible, but has alot of theraputic qualities,(I suggest you mix it up with some jam/pudding/icing whatever you have to kill the strong taste) but you will get a bit messed up, but in all honesty, it relaxes your muscles better than prescription muscle relaxants, or as we have here in canada, dont know if you guys get them there in the states, Robaxisal or robaxicett platinum.
i really find it works well, but make sure you get some sleep if you do intend to try it, you dont wanna be messed up at work

MATT, I Need to stress the fact that it should be a SMALL jar, if you have some kind of price club jar of nutmeg, staaaaaaayy aaaawwwaaaayeeeee!!!

At one point my childhood diet consisted of Crispy Critters entirely. My mom had to finally intervene and expand my taste for food via force of punishment.

Great minds, guys!

For real though, it seems like heat and painkillers might be the ticket to doctor avoidance.
Sugar Bear is kind of…well…a bit of a stereotype, right? Just me? I had no idea about the Crunch elephant.

yeah Squee, I too have never heard of the crunch elephant, or the crispy critters, but it could be the fact that im a canadian and we rarely got the rad cereals and snacks you guys got, damn you all!!

Sorry to hear about your neck, man- I’d probably go with heat, as everyone before me has already mentioned.

I loved Golden Crisp when I was a kid. It was definitely my favorite at one time. I wish I could remember how Crispy Critters tasted. I forgot about that cereal until I found my Crispy Critters book in the garage a few years ago. I also wish that all cereals had prizes today. They just aren’t present often enough.

Also, thanks for the link to the Monopoly Playmaster article. I was here back then, but I don’t remember ever reading it. Hilarious. It helps me to remember why I hate playing low-tech Monopoly. I can’t imagine trying to use that thing.

ahhh rainbowfeet, glad to see its not just myself awake at this ungodly hour(its 4:34 where i am)
ugh today is gonna be a rough one…WHERES MY COFFEEEE?!?!?!

Josh- sounds like you’re waking up. Ugh. That’s definitely not fun. Me? I’m staying up. I’ve got about an hour, hour and a half of stuff I’d like to do yet before I make it to bed. Good luck staying awake.

Well not to be a ass but I’m glad you hurt so that you come on here and post. Sorry but its true, new content is great. I got the most plush job guarding candy bars at the Nestle plant here, I have more time to read X-e then I did when I was in Kuwait in the army and nothing to do their either. After the school work is done of course. BTW acropuncture or however you spell it isn’t bullshit, had a girlfriend that hounded me about it for a year and when I finally did try it out I was blown away, worth a try if it continues.

And on yet another note please tell me the Garfield padalock is in the upcoming cereal prize project. It was a plastic padalock with Garfield on it. And you turned his face or whatever to unlock it. One of my fondest memories was walking down the lockers in high school, every since locker having a big mean padalock that can take a bullet to come accross the genius of one kid that went as far as to put that on to guard his belongings. Sad to say latter that day he was distressed because someone figured out how to bypass his security system and stole the treasure of a locking device.

hahaYeah Rainbowfeet, dont think im gonna be sleepin tonight, actually today, its almost five thirty, i gotta work at 8, god im gonna be a fuckin’ zombie!!

Heat probably would work, but everyone else has already suggested that. How about punching yourself in the back of the neck as hard as you can? That always works for me*.

I don’t remember having any of these prizes, but that joke machine reminds me of all of those "101 Monster Joke Book" type of books from when I was little. Woo doggie.

You just don’t want to go to the doctor because you know he’ll tell you to stop smoking and drinking so much. Why not consult your good friend Dr. Sbaitso?

Little known fact: Doan’s contains no active ingredients. Their sole therapeutic value is the they cause those who take them to try and look at their back in the mirror to see the pretty colors. This causes users to twist their neck and back beyond anything they would normally, providing even odds that the offending crick will pop itself back into place. Strange but, for all you know, true.

I remember the joke machine. I rememer it got old quick too. You just couldn’t play with it over and over. I miss the Sugar Bear commercials. I also, cannot believe you ate the gummi bears. But then again, you ate Nads.

I knew there was gonna be an article posted last night, yet I still made the stupid decision of attempting to get enough sleep. Sigh.

I heart this stuff. Brought it back with me from my last trip to Toronto, which like 8 bottles of Canadian Tylenol. I love Canada. Swiss Chalet, Roots, Codeine over the counter, hockey galore. It truly is a fairy land.

From the perspective of spending one’s first full decade of life in the 70’s, I miss Smedly, the Peanut Butter Crunch Elephant. Then again, I remember when those carboard records used to be on the backs of boxes. One of the oddest premiums my siblings and I ever got was a Presto Magix set in a Jiffy Pop. It was to promote Disney’s "The Rescuers." It was a scene of the bad guy’s hideout and, of course, we put ‘gators in trees, and upside down mice in the water. Makes me wonder, when did they stop putting good stuff in cereals and other food packaging? Did it just slowly phase out, or was there a sudden cold turkey moment?

Figuratively, or literally? Guess I should read and find out.
I’d suggest heat for the neck, one of those fancy pants patches, or the classic "nuke a wet washcloth and toss it into a plastic grocery bag" method. Careful, it gets real hot

I was going to say heat works for me with pain like that, but squee beat me to it.

Has anyone looked closely at the top of the Joke Machine? It clearly demands that you pull Crackle’s finger. I weep for the future of our children.

I was always confused by Sugar Bear’s Dean Martiny voice. Maybe it made sense originally, but by the 80s he still had the voice, and as a kid I wouldn’t have known who Dean Martin was if he was pouring vodka on me. I honestly thought Sugar Bear was supposed to be from some other country, but I wasn’t sure which one.

I hated Sugar Bear! I thought he was a conceited bastard! So, I never ate Sugar Crisp as a kid on principal.

….now I eat boring, "adult" cereals. Although I used to love TRIX, Golden Grahams, and Pac-Man cereal the most.

Matt- Any chance of ever doing a review of the Nintendo cereal they had briefly? It had two compartments inside, and a different picture on each side of the box- it was 2 boxes of cereal in one! One side was MARIO BROS. and the other ZELDA- I think. Does anyone know what I am talking about? I only ate it for a 2 week vacation at my cousin’s house as a kid, and then never saw it again…

…and did anyone else notice that there are like 5 ads about relieving neck pain at the top of the site here? Is that coincidence?

I can’t believe that it would take you as long as that to get a sack of gummy bears from Sugar Crisps. You know, if you recall those ads you’d know that Sugar Bear must have been on downers.

Muppet Baby– I absolutely remember Nintendo cereal. It was even called the Nintendo Cereal System! I refused to eat it because I felt that it cheapened the serious nature of gaming. Grrr… such an angry child.

Not only do I know of Nintendo’s Cereal System, I also partook of its conceptual sibling, Nerds Cereal. Does anyone have the bowl you could mail-away for? It had a dividing partition that you could remove to mix the two flavors together. Now I want neon-colored fruity cereal. All part of this X-E snack.

So this is my firts post EVER (in 5 years). And JoshC brought me out of my shell. I just have to chime in on the nutmeg thing. Even if you don’t decide to use it for the neck pain. Its definitely a very fun (legal) recreational drug. Get the whole nuts, though, and chew them really well with some hard candy like lemon heads or that christmas ribbon candy. Then wash them down with a good gulp of coke. It takes a while to kick in, but its pretty fun. Enjoy!

The blog ads change to match the context of the entry and comments. It’s neat to see them change around as the posts drift from topic to topic. If you look back at a few older entries you can really see it.
They sell codeine over the counter in Canada?!? Next thing, you’ll be telling me that Mexico is decriminalizing weed!

Never liked Golden Crip either. Nothing wrong with the mascot, who is cool, I just never liked the taste of the cereal. Still don’t. I also now eat boring cereals; Shredded Wheat (with or without frosting) is a favorite.

The "joke machine" rings bells; I think that’s another small vendor/fast-food meal/cereal premium toy my sisters and I had laying around our rooms for five or six years. (Some of them were around for so long, my brother eventually ended up with them when he got old enough.)

Errgh. Matt, I kinda know how you feel. I’ve had massive sinus headaches for weeks now, probably because I’m not used to being around so many trees. I’ve been taking generic sinus capsuals and aspirin. It’ll go away for a few days, then come back. It’s annoying, to say the least, and it makes work very difficult.

Here’s my two cents: You can temporarily relieve the pain in your neck with vicodin and a huge batch of margaritas. It’s been working great for me.

My friend had a stuffed animal much like Lotsa-Leggs, except I’m pretty sure it had plastic feet. Around the age of 7 she hit me in the face with it during a pillow fight gone awry. One has not known pain until they know the pain of being pelted in the face with a welfare Lotsa-Leggs [with plastic feet].

And lastly, around the same time Super Mario Bros. had a cereal with two compartments of cereal, so did Barbie. One kind was gross and one kind was good and one morning my mom poured me the gross kind and I complained and she insisted THEY WERE BOTH THE SAME FLAVOR! That conversation still irates me, as they were obviously NOT the same flavor. If they were the same flavor what would the point of two compartments be? I’m gonna take the Barbie cereal incident, and the rage that followed, to the grave with me.

Bludge- Glad you remember the cereal…but, you thought it cheapened gaming? I thought it advanced gaming’s importance, and made NES even more important in my life! Nintendo was everywhere- even in my breakfast!

They DONT sell codeine over the counter in the US? Geez, what a bummer. You gotta love the Tylenol 3s.

This whole nutmeg thing intrigues me… what kind of effect does it have on your tummy?

kingklash- That bowl sounds awesome. Sounds like something I would actually use a lot!

this has nothing to do with bears or muscle relaxers, but I felt the need to respond to an article from back a few years ago when i was young and full of life, that i only just saw today, when i am old and waiting for a bus to hit me so my cat can get the insurance. CONSUMERS rocked! That’s the catalog store where you just go in, pick up a catalog, and they check to see if they have what you want in their secret warehouse youre not allowed to see. I scored a Hordak figure and a few other hard to find
toys there as a kid. we didn’t have a Toys R Us for a while, so Consumers was the place to go if Kay Bee and the department store toy sections didn’t have what you wanted. Also, Child World with the big panda logo was wicked swell for big/rare toy finds too, you must remember that store especially if you’ve spent lots of time in Jersey.

Yeah, I’d like to know about nutmeg effects too… all I know is that Denzel Washington’s prison buddy gave it to him to help him get over withdrawal in Malcolm X. I guess nutmeg is a wonder drug. Deodorant be damned, I’m sprinkling my pits with nutmeg tomorrow.

"A risk of any large-quantity ingestion of Nutmeg is the sudden onset of Nutmeg Psychosis, an acute psychiatric disorder marked by hallucinations, excitement, thought disorder, a sense of impending death and agitation."
-wikipedia.org

So euphoria OR a sense of impending death. I guess it’s not so great after all… although Nutmeg Psychosis would be a good name for a band.

I swear on my life, and the lives of everyone around me - that Excedrin Migraine helps ALL PAIN. Seriously. Of course, I take it for headaches/migraines, but also any other kind of pain, no matter what, and it takes it all away, and makes you feel like a brand new person.

I just found an old inhumanoid coloring book and two super naturals figures today from when I was a kid. Sweet.

Nutmeg just makes me REALLY stoned for about 24 hours. It kind of messes with your time line. What I mean is, in reality you would get out of bed, go in the bathroom, and brush your teeth in that order. But nutmeg makes you think you get out of bed, brush your teeth, and then walk to the bathroom, then get out of bed, then walk to the bathroom, then get out of bed, then brush your teeth, and eventually your back in bed again. Its pretty fun.

Damn you, Muppet Baby, I now have the jingle from the Nintendo Cereal System ad running through my head …

Late posting, but I just read the link to Group 017 and I had to tell you, not only do I vividly remember having prizes 69 and 72, I’m almost certain I still have them. Given my propensity for clingy-ness, I’ve never been able to throw things away. I have drawers full of crap like that. I rarely go back to them, afraid I might get the urge to clean the mess out, so I just get new containers when old ones fill up. Some would call this being a packrat. My parents call it being a filthy slob.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 12:15 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.