I realize that blood atonement may be only acceptable way to pay for my non-blogging sins, but I don't feel like bleeding. Instead, an assortment of wacky shit intended to make your Saturday night 2% more interesting:

I've had my eye on this Child's Play DVD box set for months, but despite the awesome spectacle of a three-dimensional Chucky cover, it's a pretty lame set, cramming four movies on two DVDs and excluding the first film for what I assume to be some kind of rights issue that I can't be bothered to research.

The upside is that the set's been out for a while and has become cheap: 15 bucks gets you Child's Play 2, Child's Play 3, Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky. That's enough Chucky action to run a movie marathon from dusk till dawn, which is something I'd suggest if I thought I was among a larger group of people capable of watching that much Chucky.

I probably don't need to tell you what this soda reminds me of, but for the sake of grabbing three errant hits from Google searches over the next year, I'm going to do it anyway: Crystal Pepsi. Sierra Mist's "Undercover Orange" (a Get Smart tie-in) is pretty much the son of Crystal Pepsi, hiding its flavor within a two-liter sea of totally clear cola/soda/pop. I would've bought at least three more bottles if giant Steve Carell heads weren't all over them. Nothing against Steve Carell; it's just that I don't think his head belongs on soda bottles. We all have our quirks.

Actually, the orangey, lemony-limey flavors of "Undercover Orange" are far better suited to this all-clear package than Pepsi ever was. I've been struggling for the last ten minutes to come up with some reason as to why that is. It must be residual effects from seeing so many Starburst commercials displaying pieces of fruit all aglow in the wash of splashing water. I guess Sierra Mist's "Undercover Orange" looks a lot like the splashing water from all the old Starburst commercials. Chicken Doritos.

The natural follow-up to a story about clear soda is something on ancient Freddy Krueger toys, so, here. This Nightmare on Elm Street "Scare Stick" was only partly meant to frighten the holy fuck out of everyone around it. I'm pretty sure that its more marketed purpose was that of a trick-or-treat signal light deal, as Freddy's eyes light up through the mystical powers of two AA batteries, and shine brightly enough to have helped any jaywalking trick-or-treater avoid getting smacked by a befuddled driver on Halloween night.

The Scare Stick was created in 1991 by a company called Marty Toy, which is only slightly better as a name for a toy company than it would be for a person. I'd let myself buy Freddy Krueger junk from a place called Marty Toy, but I don't think I could ever stay friends with a person named Marty Toy. It's misshapen rocks on the tongue.

The choice phrasing on the cardboard package gives me an idea, and it's got less to do with Freddy Krueger and more to do with the "Impact" font and a picture of a wide-eyed cat. But then, I'm behind on my memes. Full stop.

You might be wondering what the Scare Stick can do. I've decided to convey its purpose it two ways. The first is with the animated GIF below. The second is with this YouTube video, featuring my attempt to make the Freddy Krueger Scare Stick beep the lyrics to Frère Jacques.

I kind of love this absolutely pointless thing, with its copious amounts of sci-fi laser beam chirps and psychedelic eye-flashing. It'd be impressive enough with a lamer character, but adding these traits to Freddy Krueger's disembodied head makes the Scare Stick something I want to make sweet, sweet love to in the back of a funky van.

Moving on, I picked up Kraft's new Macaroni & Cheese Crackers, arriving in both cheddar and white cheddar varieties, and looking something like this. It's an amazing idea, but the execution is terrible. I can name thirty brands of cheese crackers, or maybe seven at least, and these would likely end the list if I was organizing by favorites first. It's not that they're actively bad...they just aren't very good, and they don't taste any more like mac & cheese than any other big brand cheese cracker does.

Also, they're not very...pretty. I don't know. Cheesy junk food has an unspoken sense of aesthetic value, and in that regard, these are appalling. Between the shape and mouthfeel, they're more reminiscent of a generic brand picked up from an outrageously ethnic dollar store. I like the way the boxes look, but since I'm only going to allow random box-love one instance of purchase-justification in each blog entry, these can't compete with the Chucky DVD jacket. Fuck you, crackers!

Oh, and then there's these. I still haven't played the new Mario Kart game, but I bought it, and when I bought it, Toys "R" Us had a trough full of these cute Super Mario figures right near the checkout line. Even at the fairly ridiculous price of four bucks per pack, I couldn't resist. I especially like the Goomba/Bob-omb two-pack, mainly because they're the only figures in the series that don't look exactly like the Mario toys I got for free inside Happy Meals during the early '90s.

Finally, fish eggs. The green stuff is wasabi caviar, and I must suggest that you try it at your earliest convenience. For the record, the smaller fish eggs shown here -- usually called "tobiko" -- have virtually no flavor, but share a chewing consistency with bubblewrap. That's the selling point. If you order the wasabi version, though, you'll get it in an alluring jade green shade, and you'll get it hot. Every would-be baby fish pops in an explosive display of horseradishy heat, turning any visit to the sushi bar into a fist-pounding-table adventure. If you're grossed out by this, be glad that I forgot to take a picture of the oyster shooters we had last weekend.

This is your Saturday Night Thread. Hope you're here for it.

Posted by Matt on 05/17/2008. E-mail me!