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

09/27/2007: Dissecting Gummy Frogs, with Crab Chip bonus.

The latest Halloween Countdown entry, which I am dating as yesterday’s to keep myself and check and not try to skip a day, turns one of the most memorable and disgusting moments of grade school into hot Halloween candy. It’s the Gummy Frog Dissection Kit, and it comes with a knife and everything!

And as if that didn’t spike your appetite enough, get a load of these:

I wrote a big long hate rant against Clamato in my youth, but the truth is, I’ve warmed to the idea. Went to Canada a while back and had dinner with a bunch of locals who all ordered Bloody Caesars, which more or less take a Bloody Mary and replace the tomato juice with Clamato. I’ve always regretted not joining in. I love Bloody Marys, but I never feel right ordering them because I’m always the only person in the place who wants one. Caesars are like, the official drink of Canada. Everybody drinks them. It’s close enough to a Bloody Mary, and I’m tempted to go back there just so I can finally down the swishy red drink without having to be the only idiot in the joint with vegetables protruding out the top of his glass.

It’s those inklings that make me not at all averse to Lay’s new “Crab Spice Seasoning” chips. I never saw them before yesterday, so if they aren’t new, they’re at least new to my city. The list of ingredients vaguely refers to “crab spice seasoning,” but I’d say that they’re basically regular potato chips dunked in a pit of Old Bay. They really aren’t that bad, and while I wouldn’t christen them as the new “it boy” of Potato Chip Land, it’s neat to see bright red crabs on the potato chip bag you’re eating from.

Old Bay makes everything edible.
You can eat mashed cardboard if it’s got Old Bay.

So is it, like, crab flavored or spice flavored? Crab flavored chips would be really gross….

I have to get one of those frogs for my little brother! I did the disection thing in 10th grade and couldn’t touch it- i was super grossed out. Also, I’ve suffered from lifelong frog fear so that didn’t help.

When I was in 7th grade (home schooling sucks, don’t ever home school your kids or I will punish you) my mom borrowed a frog dissection kit (one with a plastic frog skeleton that one would pour some sort of green jell-o-like substance around) from another “home school mom”. A real religious whacko type.
The kit came with this little pamphlet, talking about frogs and how they live, etc. It started out “for millions of years frogs have been hoppin’ around and shit” or something like that. But the “millions of years” part was blacked out with magic marker, as well as a part later in the pamphlet about frogs’ habitats being destroyed by pollution. Apparently there is no such thing as millions of years or pollution.
I am pretty sure I refused to do it just based on who it was borrowed from.

We didn’t do frogs in middle school, we did Sharks in high school. Much, much better in my estimation.

I was excited at first, then hesitant when it was plopped down in front me, then sawing away like a demented mortician. Within I found quite possibly the most beautfiul thing I have ever seen: a turquoise heart with bright red viens and arteries interlayed. It was a gorgeous

I must have one of those frog dissection kits! I never thought I would say this about a zoological procedure, but that looks like a blast and a half!

And I’m curious to know if those are spice-flavored or crab-flavored as well. As an avid fan of crab the meat, I would at least give those a one-chip try.

By the way, I feel compelled to inform everyone that my school didn’t do frog dissections (but I did assist on a cow eye dissection) and that I dropped out of my zoology class last semester because it was boring. Thus gummy frog dissection is right up my alley!

We didn’t dissect frogs in school either. We dissected rats and biology was right before lunch. I can never eat turkey sandwiches again with out getting a whiff of phameldahyde.

We dissected frogs, grasshoppers (and i’m talking HUGE–like the size of your face HUGE), and worms. My science teacher was actually a taxidermist on the side, and was REALLY creepy. There were stuffed animals EVERYWHERE! Anyway, since he was so excited about dissection time, he’d let us take the frog’s eyeballs home. Needless to say, there were “frog’s eye fights” in the hallways and on the bus on the way home. Fun times.

I hope its OK to veer from the blog topic, but I had a question and thought this site was the best venue to ask it in. Has anyone else noticed to lack of 80s movies airing on basic cable these days? I can’t figure out when it happened, but it doesn’t seem that long ago that movies like the Goonies, Princess Bride and Back to the Future were on tv constantly. Now I can’t remember the last time I saw any of them. True, I own all those movies on dvd and can watch them whenever I want, but it makes me a bit sad that movies from my childhood are now too old for most TBS viewers. And how are todays kids going to discover these movies if they’re never on TV??

julie, mostly I think they’ve moved to the prime stuff, HBO or cinemax. I saw all three recently on one of those networks. maybe they realize as we get older and have more money we are willing to pay to see older shows on HBO. which to be honest works for me as I will put it on even though I own them.

Old bay is amazing, put it on French Fries, put it in vinegar and dunk crab meat in it, its just too delicious. Have always hated crab chips though. Just not for me I suppose. 17th is probably the closest to first I’m ever going to get… FIRST! I feel like I’m on aintitcoolnews.. what a loser I am.

Oh yea… I was cleaning out my garage and I found a Rude Ralph… and NOW it feels like Halloween countdown time.

hmm. I’m Canadian. and i HATE caesers. and I think that out of say 20 of the people I drink with frequently (I’m in college) one person likes Clamato. personally I’d never touch the shit…i’ll eat someone’s celery if they don’t want it…but that’s about it.

I had to dissect frogs…AND worms and grasshoppers AND final year in highschool biology a PIG FETUS. thinking about the smell still causes me to gag.

We didn’t do frogs at my school. We did rats. Sadly when I opened mine up it was full of babies. I never thought I’d see a biology teacher almost throw up…

I went to Target today, searching for Halloween goodness. Not only did I find the massive Halloween section, but I also found a horrible affront to common decency…a Christmas section in September. It’s not as if this was just wrapping paper that looked Christmasy and a few strings of lights that don’t quite fit the orange and black of Halloween…no, this had Christmas trees and stockings and other such indicators that this was genuinely a Christmas section already showing it’s red, white, and green in September; a part of my soul died today.

Utz (potato chip company in the NE) has made Crab Chips for years. I got addicted to them when I lived in Baltimore, and every so often come across them in NYC… but it’s a gamble. Good to see that I might have another source of Old Bay-enhanced potato goodness. http://www.taquitos.net/chips/Utz_Crab_Chip

I’m not a big fan of seafood and I see this as the potential for a disturbing trend. Popcorn shrimp flavored popcorn? Lobster Jerky? Salmon Popsicles? Where will this madness end???
The frog looks tasty though…

Anna: That is about the worst story I’ve ever read. They made you cut up mammals? And worse yet, rats? Pregnant rats?

Crab flavored chips? Sounds interesting. I once ate a crab mousse at a New Year’s bash. Weird tasting stuff.

I definately remember frog dissecting. I think it was sixth grade biology for me. While someone else in my group did most of the cutting (which, even with a scalpel, is harder than it sounds), I had fun digging around with the tweezers. What made it fun is that you didn’t know what gender your frog was until you cut it open. Some students were disappointed they didn’t get the gender they wanted. My group got a female, which was fine with me because that just meant an extra organ or two to check out.

The school nurse dissected a cows eyeball in second grade, which was cool because of all the goo. I also remember a pig’s heart later on. I think I may have also did a pig fetus, too. But really, once you dissect one whole creature, there is really no need to do it again.

In my Biology 2 class my junior year of high school we did…wait for it…cats and rabbits! I kid you not, we were cutting on bunnies and kitties! All we were missing was a few puppies for good measure. Now that was truly one f***ed up class!!!

At my school we did worms, frogs and sharks. The only drawback was we did the shark’s in the summertime at a school with no A/C over the course of a week. Talk about a rancid smell!! Ugh!

i once had a hamster mommy dissect a fully formed and furred baby. i came home to find fur and bones. literally the baby was the size of two thumbnails. i think it died and the mom ate it.

theres a few computer programs you can rent from the library or flat out buy from i guess barnes and noble or other education type places, it lets you vitually dissect animals.

Gross! What’s happening to snack foods these days? Can’t they just make something blue and call it good? PS Have you seen the new budweiser/clamato drinks they put out? It may be a Texas thing, but it makes me wanna puuuuuke.
http://www.rumorsdaily.com/brd...t/uploads/2007/07/dsc05380.jpg

Eddie
It’s not just TX, they have it in Colorado too. I’ve seen a banner for it at the liquor store just down the street.

Just as a reminder to those kids who are grossed out by the frogs: if you played around with a certain nerve, you can make their legs twitch. ;D

FIVEEEE years ago on the Halloween Countdown:
Knock it off. There was no Halloween Countdown five years ago.

SIX years ago on the Halloween Countdown:
Stop it already you are grasping at straws.

The article was great. I didn’t dissect a frog. I actually had dissections in my senrior year of High School in marine biology. We dissected cool things, like clams, a crawfish, and a small shark!

Also, speaking of Clamato, my college cafeteria had a single bag of the Clamato Tortilla Chips at one time…I regret not buying it and trying it.

heres a site that shows the dissection (click my name)software…theres tons of it on google.

If it weren’t a life-sized gummy frog, I’d say that “dissection kit” is a huge waste of potential. No gummy organs? Come on.

Also, there’s a Pennsylvania based chip company called UTZ that makes crab chips- defiantly supposed to taste like crab spices, and not actual crabs.
Actually, UTZ is a pretty fantastic company. They’ve got a Chip of the Month club and snacks by the barrel for christsake.
http://www.utzsnacks.com/products.html

Nobody else did pig fetus dissection like I did? Another honor of graduating from the Alabama school system

I wanna try these chips because I love weird chip flavors, but I kinda doubt I’d be able to find them in this landlocked state I live in.

We dissected the pig fetuses. The mouth had to be sliced open Ichi the Killer-style, which made the urge to treat it like a Muppet that much harder to resist.

Sometimes I wish we had Target here in Canada. Sounds like they have a cool section. I remember oddly enough, The Bay of all places used to have a really neat Halloween area. But they haven’t done that in years. Ours here doesn’t even sell toys anymore.

Ha, I didn’t even know Caesars are a Canadian thing. I see those commercials on TV for Clamato and everyone starts salivtaing watching the girl in the outdoor patio drink her Caesar, but I guess I thought they were American ads. My brother told me a couple of years ago he was shocked to look at the ingredients and find clams actually listed. Well, there are clams on the label! But he said he thought it was just a name, like Kellogs Apple Jacks not having anything to do with apple.

Popcorn shrimp flavored popcorn? Lobster Jerky? Salmon Popsicles? Where will this madness end???

There’s already Candy Corn flavored Popcorn. Can’t even begin to list the wringness in that.

Shame about the insides. When i saw that faint dark glow from inside i imagined all sorts of crazy tiny little organs.

Instead, shitty pieces of brown crap that in no way resemble flies, unless they went technical and the flies are already digested and ready to be excreted.

Here in NC we did fetal pigs freshman year. All I can say is eyeball fights (yuck!)

In college I took a Zoology class, which was my favorite class I took (wondering why now that Iâ€™m thinking about all of this dissection) Well, my professor was OBSESSED with dissection. I can recall sharks, worms, frogs, cats :-(, sea anemone (anemones, anemoni??), star fish. There were probably more, but it was too many years ago to remember. Thankfully I had a partner that would do EVERYTHING for me

Seventh grade? Jesus, we didn’t have to do the whole frog-dissecting thing until Grade 12. Oh wait, no, we dissected frogs in Grade 11 — a year later we were dissecting small pigs. Now I remember.

We cut up cats as well, I collected serveral paws that day, friend of mine ended up with few cat fetus as well.

As soon as I read about “formaldehyde and froggy juice” it all came flooding back; the smell of the bucket of frogs, the lab tables, and the pleasing way our frog danced and sang like the Looney Tunes frog.

I saw those crab chips at the local pizza place/deli. My hand was drawn to them, as if there was some sort of magnet…a hand magnet.

Ugh, I hated dissecting stuff. We had to do fish repeatedly (for some reason they see fit to dedicate a large chunk of the science curriculum EVERY YEAR to fish), and in middle school I had to do cow eyeballs twice, since one classmate missed that day and it needed to be done in partners. I nearly hurled several times because of that horrific formaldehyde smell. Eeeeewwww…I can still smell it!! Gah, thanks for reminding me, Matt.

A flower
An egg
Owl pellets
A worm
A crayfish
A sheep’s heart
A squid
A fetal pig

Never did the cow eyeball either. Our high school had cats and rats, but those were reserved for anatomy class.

Bluejay, I was starting to think I was the only one who had to dissect a squid. I guess it makes sense now that I think about it, considering most places are landlocked. Outside of a worm in elementary and some owl pellets, that’s all I ever had to do. There was a picture of a pig fetus on my most recent biology book though. I covered that shit up with baby animal stickers. Full term baby animals.
I swear, you show me someone who didn’t hate middle school? I’ll show you somebody I’d like to punch in the face. Present company excluded, I’m sure.

One thing I’ll never understand,is why it is that if you believe in Jesus,than you have to NOT believe in pollution. Noone’s ever been able to explain this to me. If God were real,wouldn’t he be angry if you threw garbage in his woods,or put chemicals in his air? I don’t understand the correlation between God being real and pollution not being real. Pollution has nothing to do with your religious beliefs or political affiliation,and I’m not some tie dyed Dave Matthews fan driving an electric car to protest rallies,but poison in a lake equals a poison lake,poison in the air equals poison air. It’s pretty cut and dry.
Sorry,feel free to flame me.

That frog looks so much better to dissect than the actual frogs we got to dissect.
We did all our dissecting in 10th grade.
It went from an earthworm that was about a foot long , the biggest GD crawfish I’d ever seen, through cows’ eyes, onto a horse head, with the capper being fetal pigs.
Our teacher, the greatest one I’d ever had, was a bit of a freak and made us name each thing. The only one I can recall, is that we named our pig Hamlet… and, it turned out to be a hermaphrodite.

Back when I was in grade 10 (which was a whole whopping 8 years ago) we dissected frogs and pig fetuses..wait a sec..is that supposed to be feti? Anyways, it was a baby pig. And a lamb’s brain. Except I went to high school in a small Newfoundland town of 1500 people (counting surrounding areas) and the pigs weren’t preserved right. Or they were way old and were opened once and some shit. Anyways the pigs just were decaying as we were dissecting them. The smell was terrible and many of us (including me) ended up running to the bathroom and puking. Even if we didn’t do it we got a pass cause of that little incident. Eww..

In my small home town in Maine, the AP (advanced placement) science classes did cats. :( Thank God the system did NOT label me as an “advanced” student.

I did however fail bio my 10th grade year, because I refused to touch those damn fetal pigs. When I think about the smell, and that grey/green flesh…OMG…I am going to throw up. I had this OLD bitchy hard core science teacher whose only power in life was to pass or fail students…and of course she failed me.

The next year, I was a junior in with ALL sophomores for bio, but we had this new awesome young teacher, and she tells me, oh, I can get you a copy of the virtual dissection. She let anyone who wanted to, do the virtual dissection on the computer. That teacher kicked ass, we all loved her!

I wonder why schools dont just find a local vetrinarian, who would be willing to allow students in an operating room, to view SAVING an animals life?! I would have been all for that!

Hoo boy…I took zoology my senior year of high school, so we literally had to do one dissection for each class of the animal kingdom! From sponges to rats and everything in between. The worst were probably the rats, since they were literally SATURATED with formaldehyde. It smelled like moldy cheese, which seemed really wrong since I like cheese a lot. The scariest was some kind of parasitic worm, since, as my teacher put it, there was an “extremely slight chance” of catching it… I enjoyed learning about animals, but all that dissection put me off going into zoology.

I saw this thing at Target and thought it looked amazaing but then remembered that for as long as I can remember I’ve hated anything and everything to do with gummy. I just can’t do it. But, you make this sonofagun out of jello, and I’m there.

Until I read this article I’d never even heard of Clamato. I’m still not sure what the heck it is.

Wal-Mart has gone all out Christmas too. At least they had the decency this year to sepearate the holidays, putting the Christmas stuff in the gardening section and the Halloweenie stuff right smack dab in the middle of the store. Most of the time Halloween’s in the gardening section and as October progresses, the back row becomes a little Christmasy until finally giant Santa and Frosty statues are standing back there mocking Halloween, slowly advancing forward, and ruining my life.

They’re also carrying a new line of stuff that I think originated at Hot Topic. It’s called “Pretty Freekin Scary” and features cute little skeleton kids, the kind of stuff I would probably have propped up somewhere in my apartment all year round anyway. There’s a tote bag in the line with a picture of one of the kids on it with the words “You Smell Dead”. Guess Wally World’s trying to cash in on the Hot Topic crowd, or trying to compete with Target’s thing about putting creepy goth cartoon characters all over everything.

As far as dissecting goes, freshman year we went from small to big–working our way up from an earthworm, to a starfish, to a frog, to finally a fetal pig. I remember we had to scrape away the spine of the pig with the scaplel, cut the head open, peel back the skin, cut through the skull and after all that, if we could successfully remove the brain and spinal cord intact and all connected, we got an extra A+. My brain held up pretty well, but when I tried to take the whole thing out the spinal cord kind of fell apart in several pieces. And yeah, I agree, you NEVER forget that smell.

Kid Nicky - I’m an environmentalist and I believe in God (at the same time!) and I’m actually the organizer of a group that is trying to get our church to become more environmentally friendly. The correlation between my faith and environmentalism is obvious to me, but are tons of people who still think, for some reason, that ’subdue the earth’ means ‘destroy it’.

You guys only dissected animals in school? So very boring. Next you guys will tell me that no one here has sliced up a human.

Back in Jr. High we cut up earth worms and a frog. It was gross but still managed to be very informative and a lot of fun. Call me crazy if you will… but I did have a frog foot, wrapped in brown paper towel, in my locker for a couple of days afterwards. I don’t recall what I did with it, but I am sure that I had grand plans of sticking it in someone’s PB&J sandwich at lunch or sneaking it into the hood of a random kid’s coat while standing in line for the bus.

I was a little skeptical about those crab chips at first. But, then I realized that I love Zapp’s Crawtators, so now I would like to see how Lay’s compares.

Also, Bloody Marys are quite common to drink at breakfast or brunch around here, but I’ve never had one because I hate tomato juice. Bleh.

I think the gummi frog dissection kit may be one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. I think I may have to try and track one of these down. Kind of surprised they didn’t have a gummi worm dissection kit as well. Always hated worms for some reason and never seemed to have a problem slicing one of those suckers in half to see what made them work.

Just to clarify,I did not mean that ALL Christians are anti-environment,my anger is directed towards those that are,and use Christianity as their dreasoning. My girlfriend is Christian and she is against pollution.

Yes, Old Bay DOES make everything better (though it’s generally used with seafood and potato chips). We’ve sold those in the grocery store where I work for a couple of weeks now, and many of my customers are very happy. You wouldn’t believe what some people would do for a chip that tastes like seafood seasoning.

That’s a very creative form of candy. Although it’s weird to see merchandise for a nearly-forgotten series of cartoon shorts that ran on Nicktoons TV a few years back.

In other Halloweeny news: for those interested in Clive Barker’s Jericho, there’s a free demo available for download on the XBox Live Arcade.

TB Tabby Jericho might be the single reason why I decided to get a X-Box 360 over a PS3. I’ve been on the fence about it for a while but once I heard Jericho was coming out, that settled it. I’m a big first person shooter guy and completely obsessed with Clive Barker, so it’s a marraige made in heaven as far as I’m concerned….or actually, in hell I would think. I can’t wait to get my 360 now. Too bad I gotta wait a while so I can actually afford it! It’s gonna be my birthday/Christmas present to myself.

Damn. I’ve typed like three different messages only to delete them all since they didn’t really represent exactly what I wanted to get across.

I’ll just say that in my opinion, sadly, some Christians probably deny the ill-effects of pollution (global warming, etc) because the people that are the most vocal in those causes are usually also the most vocal in calling anyone that subscribes to the idea of a higher power “idiots”.

I would bet that most Christians believe in cutting down on pollution, conserving resources, and not littering. You just don’t hear them ranting about it on TV, the newspapers, or the internet. They are just normal people who are living normal lives. You typically only hear the zealots on television… on both sides of the issue. Whatever the issue.

I remember that during frog dissection, some of the boys in my class figured out that you could pop the lenses out of the frog’s eyeball. They spent the rest of the lab bouncing them on the floor. As I remember, they were quite bouncy. That’s my weird 7th grade story. As to dissecting other things, I also am from TN and had to dissect a fetal pig. I wonder if it’s a TN thing. I would have liked to get to dissect a squid, but alas, my poor landlocked state makes that nearly impossible.

Jill Who knew that frog eyeballs were all bouncy? Never would have thought it. I ate a fish eye once at a Chinese restaurant on a dare.

I’m just glad someone else around here lives in the south. I’m in SC and thought I was the only one. Not that I’m all full of some kind of super southern pride or anything. Just nice to know that someone else around here can relate. Although, I think someone else mentioned something about being from Texas once.

I don’t know why, but those chips look really good. But the frog I am disappointed in. I would have liked to have seen frog guts.

I once had a Christian tell me he didn’t believe in global warming because “God wouldn’t let that happen”.
He was one of the most ignorant fucks I ever met, who just parroted everything his ignorant fundamentalist fuck parents (the ones the dissection kit came from!!!) said.

not sure how they make there drinks in Canada but in Mexico that is also a very popular drink but they call it a Clamato ( wonder why?)

Fill glass with ice
Half a lime
A little worshitshire sauce (not sure on spelling
tobasco I like allot some people like a little
shot of Vodka
Clamato
Dash of celery salt and dash of pepper
stir vigiorsly

Rob Zombies reimagining of Michael Myers
I started a Human Dissection class in college; but we’d only gotten through the SubQ fat when the school’s refrigeration system went off by a couple degrees. They had to scrub the whole semester’s labs.
I changed majors, anyway, so never got to finish.

And, yes, Old Bay makes everything better… I stay away from crab and fake crab, so don’t know that it makes them taste better.
Crab seasoning seasoned chips would be good; seasoned crab chips… not so much.

y2jay
I know that’s Clamato’s ingredients; but I’ve always wondered, how does one juice a clam? That’s a completely nasty thought.

I remember trying to dissect a cow’s eye. Gave me a whole new respect for cows. When a creature has an eyeball whose surface is tough enough to break a scalpel, you respect it.

Sorry to be off topic but…
whoa, I didn’t know there were such clear pictures of Matt on here.
I’ve been reading this sight for over a year but have only just started reading through the really old stuff.
As if brains,charm,talent and wit weren’t enough…he’s pretty too!
Congrats on winning the genetic lottery on all counts,Matt.
‘Super-Angel’ and ‘Jailbait’ made my day.
(This observation, coupled with my name, is gonna make me look really superficial isn’t it.I’m not.)

My high school biology teacher REFUSED to let us dissect anything…. Although, the AP kids got to do cats. Somethin’ Funny I hate all the people who deny global warming. It doesn’t even matter if we are or not…what really matters is using resources sustainably. We are runing out of oil! And me and someone with similar perspective to the guy you were talking about just had an annoying conversation about this.

Being as I’m from the Baltimore, MD area, crab chips are something I grew up with. Absolutely love them and anything covered in Old Bay! It is the ubiquitous seasoning in these parts. The UTZ company makes the best crab chips ever, and even though they have a limited distribution area, one can order them from the UTZ website.

I love crab and all, but I don’t want to think about crabs while I’m eating my Lays. :) Bonus points to anyone who reads that in a sexual way….

We had to dissect worms, frogs and pigs in junior high, and I still don’t get the point. But they really missed the boat on this one, they should have stuffed that gummy full of organs! I understand not wanting to scare the kids, but come on… How awesome would that have been? Candy liquid blood, maybe some marzipan in there somewhere…. Dude, maybe I’ll make that for next year!

Somethin’ Funny and Stefania - I’m not saying I deny global warming, but I have to say I’m not entirely convinced. After all - in the 70s there was a big deal about global cooling, which turned out, of course, to be horseshit. Even if global warming were not real (which it probably is) that is no reason for us to change our behavior; we should be caring for the planet no matter what shape it’s in.
“God wouldn’t let [global warming] happen” is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. What did the kid do when his grandma died? How can you go through life with that worldview?

if you have any on-demand function with your Staten Island Cable, do yourself the biggest favor and check out “Ghoul-a-go-go”. It’s in the 1000’s (channel), under “Staten Island on Demand”. It’s free… there’s about 5 episodes… and it’s my new favorite thing in this whole entire world!

It just occurred to me that I have an inherited “Cut out dissection - teach respect for life” sticker on my mirror. I don’t really have a problem with dissection but I do kind of think it should be limited to higher level classes. It seems unnecessary and outdated. Though of course it did give us that very special Good Morning Miss Bliss.
I’ve never had a Bloody Mary. I think the celery always put me off, but that’s obviously stupid. I’ve got a “Bloody Maria” recipe here that uses tequila, would that be totally gross? There’s another recipe here that uses gin and ketchup-but-no-tomato-juice, and I know that would be disgusting.
Pam’s eating Utz chips on The Office! I’ve never had them, I don’t know if they’re around here.

i was gonna mention the clamato-and-budwieser in a can, but Eddie Lightning Frog already did; and incidentally, i live in texas, too.

i never got to dissect anything other than frogs and worms (did you know that a frog’s lung will fill up like a balloon if you stick a straw in it and blow? yep, just like a little wet, red balloon.
in high school, one class would dissect a shark, and it made the whole place stink for a week.

so that gummi does look pretty rad. i never got to dissect a frog, but across my years of biology classes i have had to dissect a cat, a fetal big, a cow eye, numuerous worms, and owl pellets. to be honest, i liked the owl pellets the most just because they had skeletons in them….but oh well. crab flavored chips seem a little out there, but not if its just old bay seasoning because i swear if i dipped my own hand in old bay seasoning i would eat it.

also….since when did X-E become a vehicle for political debate? i dont want my halloween joy tainted by the anger of those who give a damn.

i forgot about those owl pellets. i got to dissect some at outdoor school, back in 6th grade. weird to think a bird shits that thing. can you imagine shitting bones?

I read this site every so often, I really enjoy this Halloween countdown. Matt you should be getting paid for this, I’ve already bought 2 or 3 things in stores thanks to your site since I started visiting a few years ago.

Off topic, but does anyone remember McDonald’s Halloween Chicken McNugget toys that came in the Happy Meals? Those are some of my favorite Halloween things of all time, along with my dancing frankenstein that sings thriller. I wish they would do it again, I can only remember them doing it for 3 years. The buckets they do were cool as a kid but I could give a shit now.

I’ve never tried Old Bay but I don’t know that I would necessarily want to start with crab flavored chips on that one.

Jones Soda has gone off the effin’ deep end. They are now offering DIRT and SWEAT flavored sodas. If THAT does not warrant them finding a slot on this year’s Halloween countdown, I don’t know what does.

Crab Spice potato chips….drool. I will be looking for those tonight when I re-supply myself with Ghost Dots (my son and I have devoured a bag in the past week). I don’t think I could bring myself to eat a gummi frog, especially one that big. I wsouldn’t eat it all at one time and I think I would find it even less appetizing partially eaten on the counter. I could never bring myself to eat cat litter cake (the one with tootsie rolls as cat poopie) despite the fact that many people have made “delicious” ones here at work. If it resembles something normally less than appetizing, I have difficulty ingesting it, no matter how good someone says it is. A word of warning, stay away from the gummy eyeballs at Target. It may be my fore-mentioned aversion to “gross” foods but the eyeballs tasted awful.

scott, I think one of us is misremembering…don’t owl pellets come from the other end?
We were just talking about kitty litter cake at the office yesterday, since someone brings one to the Halloween potluck every year. I don’t understand how anybody that’s ever had a cat could think about eating that.

oh yeah. i guess i forgot that. still, imagine how traumatizing it would be to puke up bones.

oh god. i did a google image search for kitty litter cake, and it was horrifying. my friend’s place always smells like his cats shit, and i got some olfactory flashback when i looked at those cake pictures.

Kitty litter cake is one of the most disgusting sounding things I’ve ever heard of. I hate that dirty catbox smell so much.

It was 8th grade that we had to dissect frogs. I can still remember the day that we did it too. I was very angry that I had to take apart a poor frog, but once I had the thing cut open, it was really interesting. Then once we had the organs all labeled and were going to throw the frogs away; one of the boys decided to cut the head off his frog put it on a pair of tweezer and started to make it talk and sing to all the people in the class. The advanced science class had to dissect cows eyeballs and a pig fetus. That was one time I was glad I sucked at science.

Hmm, since we’re talking about dissections, I may as well relate my experiences with ‘em. I never got to dissect any frogs myself, however I DID see the aftereffects. Once I arrived for my science class, and the previous period’s class had apparently done frog-dissecting, and there were multiple trays of dead, sliced-open frogs sitting out. This was back in ‘99, and Dragonball Z was still cool, and my class was filled with geeks, so there were a lot of Captain Ginyu jokes flying around… As for what I did, dissection-wise, I did slice open a cow’s eyeball… in Physics Class. We were doing the unit on Lenses and Light, and the eyeball was done to show… something to do with how the lenses in the eye refracted light. I also cut open a rat in Bio class… The formaldehyde stench was horrific, especially when the rats turned out to be part of the final exam, where there were 30-something dissected rats sitting out with pins stuck in various innards, and the exam was that we had to identify the innards and what they did. There was also the incident where I found a mysterious chunk of gray, formaldehyde-smelling meat under my retainer later that night, and spent 20 minutes and half a tube of toothpaste frantically trying to remove formaldehyde from the inside of my mouth…

I remember those Halloween McNuggets toys, Paul. That is, I remember going to McDonald’s with my grandmother, ordering a Happy Meal, then having my grandmother tell the person at the counter to leave the toy out because it looked stupid.
That was my mean grandma. I wasn’t sad when she died.

Chris Martin; Cutting up rats is standard in UK schools it seems. We do rats rather than frogs. My rat was not supposed to be pregnant, that was just my bad luck (and the rat’s, I suppose). I hope I didn’t make your evening too icky!

Sorry Leigha! I get a little passionate sometimes; environmentalism is a big part of my life. Let’s see if we can connect the topics with some bad science…I dissected a frog once, and if we keep dissecting them, there will be none left and this will throw off the ecosystem and everyone will die! Hence, no more Halloweens.

An aside - was this day surreal for anyone else? Like the weather, however your day went…my day was really strange and kind of freaky, but I can’t put my finger on the reason. Must be Halloweentime!

Crab flavored chips.Look at what our science has wrought.Next thing you know, we’ll have Solyent Green flavored chips.And we all know we don’t want that.

I saw that Edgar and Ellen stuff at Target and was mesmerized. I didn’t see that gummy frog for some reason, though. :T

The crab chips are nothing new here, though. My mom and dad would always get the Utz Crab Chips, but I can honestly say I’ve never tried them. They always sounded gross, and I was never a fan of seafood.

FNT baby!! Wooooooo! (I’m usually doing something else on Saturday, so I like to make my own SNT out of Friday.) Join me! FuNT can begin!

Until this article I had never heard of Old Bay seasoning. Guess we don’t have it round these parts. I’m sorry, but the idea of crossing potato chips with the taste of seafood just seems completely foul to me. I love them both seperately, but together? Yeah, I don’t think so.

In case anyone gives a care, I’m working at my current job right now Mon-Fri and driving an hour and a half away to train at my new job on Saturdays and Sundays, which I will start full time in about a week. I’ve counted it up and since I’ve started training all the way to my last day at my current job (which will be next Thurs), it’ll be 25 days straight working somewhere without a single day off. Today is Day 19 of that. I think on Day 25 my brain will fall out of my ear.

The good news is, that day is next Thursday! So, I have to train tomorrow and Sunday, then have 4 more days at my current job, I’m off on Friday, and move on Saturday. And on Sunday, I shalt rest.

Science classes in USA sound gross…although when I was in school, we were supposed to dissect cow’s eyes and hearts. I never did it though, because my teachers always let me off when I said I would vomit everywhere.

I was going to switch to Science at uni until I found out that Biology was required for at least one semester, and at my uni you had to cut open a rat while it was still alive so you could do an experiment on its heart. YUCK!! They were cute little pet rats too!

Yeah Bloody Marie’s are sometimes better without the Bloody. I just like spice!

Oh, and I got the X trilogy for the price of a single DVD!!! That’s good seeing as my copies of 1 and 2 are currently in the possession of someone I’d rather not ask them back from

It’s cool Jessica Marie, I was just joking anyways. you guys can talk about global warming all day long….although i did watch an inconvenient truth, and al gore is the man. the day after i watched the movie i decided that i should ride my bike to the kent state campus….since that is where i go to school…..and its like 3 miles away. needless to say after i got there i felt like i was dying. and then on the way home, i definitely flipped the bike over and got some serious road rash and chipped the bone in my forearm. so the only environmental thing i do now is recycle…..i guess that is better than some though……

Hey Matt, you hear Jones Soda made some sports-related sodas? They include DIRT and SWEAT flavors.

I know it technically isn’t a Halloween-related item, but it sounds pretty terror-inducing to ME. The first flavors in awhile that I’m too scared to try. ;_;

I just pre-ordered the Seahawks collecter pack. Jones Soda outbid Coca-Cola as the cola vendor for Qwest field for the next five years. GO HAWKS!!! I don’t know if they serve it in bottles or draft at the games since I only drink beer while I’m there.

i just checked out the jones soda site, and i am slightly disturbed by the dirt and perspiration flavors…..but im wondering if they are really supposed to taste like those items. also, i finally broke down and listened to the X-E halloween jukebox, and i effing love it. i just wish there was more depeche mode on it….but that goes for any playlist….and perhaps joy division….i am stuck in an 80’s timewarp when it comes to my choices….but oh well

Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to add that I hope they don’t serve the sweat, dirt or grass flavors.

Friggin’ Target … I swear, that damn place can entice me with ANY seasonal item. I went in yesterday for a wedding anniversary card and “30 Rock” Season 1, walked out with Pillsbury Halloween funfetti cake mix/icing and a five-pack of Halloween Hot Wheels cars. I told myself, “Hmm…for the nephew,” but they’ll wind up on my bookcase. Target…gah!

Oh, Matt. Everyone is not gone. As a matter of fact, X-E Readers are definately not a whole lot of things (gone being one of them). There is a theory that, in fact, the total population of X-E REaders, in the statistical sense of course, are actually not almost everything. We are certainly less things than we are not. That’s a lot of stuff not to be, man.

And yes, tomorrow is definitely slated as a “hit every store in the city for Halloween stuff” day.

Cant sleep…baseball…was too exciting for me tonight! Anyone else watch the joy that took place at Fenway?!

This was a ways back up the thread, but I see some peeps were talkin about Happy Meals. Those Halloween buckets kicked ass. I remember my Grandma took my brother and me to Burger King, and this was when Beetlejuice was like the hottest thing, and my brother HAD to have one of those kids meals toys. My grandma asked the nice girl behind the counter for a “Beet Juice” Toy”…I have never seen a 4 year old boy so embarressed as my brother was at that moment…lol.

I can’t even go Halloween stuff hunting yet, nobody here in Canada has anything. I spent hours searching for those skull and zombie candles in vain.

Which brings up an interesting question: I wonder what Halloween is like in other countries. Canada, specifically, because you wouldn’t picture it being that much different. I live in such a small bubble.

I don’t think it is too much different, just we don’t get anything interesting. People don’t buy as many decorations for Halloween and we also have Thanksgiving in early October to compete with.

Hey Knegative - Do you really think WTF is an appropriate comment on a site where people regularly go on about crab flavored chips and Kitty Litter Cake? I think NOT!

I’m really not sure what I should do for Halloween, the original plan was for my friends and I to go as the Aquabats..but I don’t see that happening. Any ideas?

Well are you looking for an activity or a costume. I know near nothing about group costumes but for singles, and Indiana Jones costume is easy to throw together and impresses people. I overall spent maybe $15 throwing it together.

If you’re looking for an activity, check out your local amusement parks, the usually have a Halloween fright night thing. The tickets are usually cheaper and line-ups may not be as long.

Legit Manaphy. In the Cherish Ball (first in the US!) Also, if you do go, you need Mystery Gift activated.

Missed it crazy_mainer, but I’m sure it was something. And Bostons got a great team this year, so they really earned their division spot, although I’m not really a fan (Blue Jays man, so shitty that they were never really in it this year).

And Matt, in typical Canadian fashion, Halloween tends to be really cold. I don’t know what its like anywhere else, but when I used to go trick-or-treating, I’d usually have to wear pants and a jacket with my costume, which makes it really hard to look like a convincing spawn of Satan.

Aye, I can agree with the pants and jacket thing. I was a grossly misshapen mummy.

If you like that, next time you buzz through DC/MD/VA, look around for the Utz brand Old Bay, or any of the small chip producers’ versions. Mmm… the burning…

Actually a potato chip brand called Walkers (and some other brand name in Australia) make chips that taste like crab, shrimp, bacon, roasted chicken and around Thanksgiving a “Turkey” flavor, even though they do not celebrate our holiday, it’s still a seasonal hit (the chips, that is). I was introduced to all of these by an ex who is british and I have a friend who occasionally sends me a box full of chips. And to be honest they are WONDERFUL and AWESOME.

My current girlfriend is an Aussie (wow I am the international man of mystery) and she sends me different flavors too.

Seems like other Marylanders pretty much covered all the bases, but I just wanted to point out that Herr’s is another PA based snack company that makes a crab chip. (Most snack food in the Northeast comes out of PA– I think it’s bc they invented pretzels, natch.

We dissected all sorts of stuff at my school, from frogs, to fetal pigs, to worms, to grasshoppers, even cow eyeballs (mine still had eyelashes stuck to it…errrgh).

That gummy frog is kickass. I hope my Target has them. I bet my one year-old will help me eat it once I’ve cut ‘im up (the frog that is; not the one year-old).

they’ve had Utz potato chips with old bay seasoning for years. the lays are nothing new.

One of the biggest things I miss from not being in college bio anymore is all the dissecting we did. It was really cool, fascinating stuff. We did a fetal pig, a sheep brain, a heart (don’t remember the animal), a goldfish, and a cows eye.

The coolest one was the goldfish, becuase we actually had to wear the magnifying glasses that surgeons use. It was really interesting seeing the tiny vessels. The cows eye was nuts because you had to get out of the way before you cut it open. As soon as you make the first incision, fluid squirts everywhere, it was nuts. Fun but nuts.

I personally don’t like the taste of clamato but caesars are amazing. The spicier the better. I don’t think all of us Canadians drink caesars but there’s a large portion who do enjoy them quite a bit. The only problem is that they’re a pain to make: rimmer, celery, worchestshire sauce, hot sauce, lime, vodka and clamato. That’s a lot more than rye and coke.

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