Monthly Archives: December 2011
Meals Regretfully Eaten, Part 1: MREvils
Contributing Authors: neuroparadox (NPX), ramalamalongdong (RLLD).
INTRO BY RLLD
I used to be in the army. Yup, it’s true, a long time ago I wore the uniform that demanded respect, admiration, and shit ass meals. The vacuum packaged meals were made to eat anytime and anywhere, so long as you had… well, considering you didn’t need bullshit like “water” or “a pot”, you really needed nothing. Just remember not to lose your tactical spork though; that part is crucial.
Your expectations of these meals, understandably, should be about as low as your expectations for an Alberta NHL team’s playoff run. The army is all about health and fitness and keeping you going for as long as possible, so until they develop the Mobile Military McDonald’s or MMM™, you’re stuck with this shit.
Today, thanks to the glorious blessing that is the internet we have acquired a handful of M.R.E’s to prepare, taste and report back to you, our adoring fan (Hi Mom!)
You ungrateful bastards better appreciate this. So if ever you have to partake in this taste bud odyssey yourselves, you’ll hopefully have a better understanding of which one sucks less.
To begin, NPX and I shall offer you our expectations going into this food version of Jackass. Right after we finish a few WMV’s and give each other a few BJ’s… That stands for BaJa’s people! SHOTS OF BAJA ROSA!
Off of each other's dicks!
EXPECTATIONS
RLLD : I’ve been down this road before so my expectations aren’t very high. I’m not sure if these are Yankee fuck rations, or Canadian one’s. I am pretty sure that they’re American, even though I couldn’t find any McDonald’s fries in the packing or ketchup.
Last time I had one of these though I am pretty sure we boiled it on our portable hot plate things. I remember it being “Salisbury steak” and cutting it with my spoon. Of course as memory serves me, we were one step away from boiling a sock and eating that. Luckily… it didn’t come to that, even though I’ve never eaten a sock I can’t say which would be worse.
NPX: I’ve never had military food before, unless you count KFC which is technically made by a Colonel. And the only combat training I have received was from the Star Wars Kid videos. Regardless, I have high hopes for these meals. I mean, how bad can they be? *Thunder Crashes Outside*
"I'll see you very soon."
MRE # 1: SPICY PENNE PASTA VEGETARIAN
Contains: Peanut Butter, Crackers, Drink, Raisins, Penne Pasta, Dessert, Gum, Matches, Moist Towelette.
It's like opening Pandora's box...
Peanut Butter and Crackers:
RLLD: Fucking gross. From the odd-coloured Peanut butter to the petrified wood crackers, I’ve never had less fun eating. I wasn’t a huge fan of the ol’ nutty butty going into this, so maybe I am just biased. You definitely need a beverage to wash this down with. I recommend gasoline. By the way, one of the ingredients was something called “Rapeseed” so that brings this rating up a point.
RATING: 
“Rapeseed is the new name for my sperm.”
NPX: The crackers alone were not a good start and tasted like a stale newspaper that was used as a spray guard for someone rust-proofing their car. The peanut butter tasted somewhat like it should except left my mouth so dry I thought I was going to shrivel up like the guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
RATING: 
”You have chosen…poorly.”
You'll notice that Brown is the main color in most dishes.
Orange Flavoured No Fruit Juice:
RLLD: Even Al Bundy wouldn’t be happy to find on this on his dinner table. I can’t tell which the bigger enemy would be. This shit, or Al Qaeda. What a way to ruin 12 ounces of water. *Adds 6 ounces of Vodka* Thish ishn’t mush betterrr!
RATING: Without Alcohol, “I think it gave me diabetes.”
RATING: With Alcohol, “I can’t tell if I threw up from being drunk, or poisoned.”
NPX: The packet of no-fruit fruit drink contains enough mystery powder to be a guest star on CSI. Ignoring paradoxical title of the drink , when added to water the liquid seemed to lack any flavor. That is until the after-taste, which left me feeling like I had just enjoyed a cup of medical waste tea. But, as with any other foul-tasting beverage (I’m looking at you, Mountain Dew), just add ice and booze and all will be forgiven.
RATING: Without Alcohol, ”A cross between an orange, a tangerine and donkey compost.”
RATING: With Alcohol, ”EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!”
Pictured: Evolution
Raisins, Osmotic:
RLLD: FUUUUUUUCK! It’s like the worst day of my life… in my mouth. Is this what they use to torture prisoners? No, I am pretty sure the juice is what they use to execute serial killers. It’s going to take a piledriver to keep this down my throat. If you covered these in chocolate, you’d have chocolate-covered shit. I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy food again…
RATING: “I’d rather pull my foreskin over my head than eat these ever again.”
NPX: OMFG! The smell…sweet baby Jesus. Military surgeons must use the odor from this packet to cure Coma patients. These “raisins” are the primary cause of Hulk turning green and smashing things. Apparently military grade raisins are not sun-dried, but slowly curdled in Rosie O’Donnell’s colon. Osmotic must mean “LOL I can’t believe you just ate that!” The same grapes are used to make Arbor Mist and turpentine. I would rather swallow a bullet than another one of these fruit abortions. Even the picture I took of the raisins didn’t turn out.
RATING: “I’d rather eat my underwear after curry night at Jeffrey Dahmer’s place.”
This is what the military thinks raisins should taste like.
Penne Pasta with Vegetable Crumbles in Spicy Tomato Sauce:
RLLD: It’s not fair rating anything after that last episode. How I could not rate this breath of fresh air anything less than a 7 out of 5 on the “not another raisin scale?” It didn’t taste like raisins, or a marathons runners ball sack, so this was a welcome alternative. I suppose not tasting like raisins isn’t so much a means to rate this all that high considering I could have replicated the flavor given some hot water, and bits of cardboard.
RATING: ”It’s the same consistency as a brain from someone on Jersey Shore.”
NPX: If I ate this and a bowl of sawdust mixed with soy milk I am 60% positive that I would give the edge in flavour to the Penne. It is blander that a female trying to do comedy and must be what Chef Boyardee’s diarrhea tastes like. It wasn’t bad, but it is far from being edible in non-combative situations. I only consider this fit for dogs to eat, and that’s just because I fucking hate dogs.
RATING: “At least it doesn’t have raisins in it.”
Looks like the remains of what you might find in the back of a windowless van.
Spice Pound Cake:
RLLD: Someone spelled “Desert” wrong on the packing.
RATING: “I think it drank my water!”
NPX: Yay dessert! Finally something that is potentially good. Though the fact that there is a ‘Do Not Eat’ packet resting on top doesn’t bode well. *takes bite* WATER! For the love of L. Ron, someone give me water! I think they made this moisture void out of the reject crackers from earlier and sprinkled it random spices like nutmeg, baby powder, rapeseed and whatever Marvin the Martian used to dehydrate all those monsters.
RATING: “They could have used this to soak up that whole Katrina mess.”
This could blow Sham-Wow out of the water.
Bonus: Gum
RLLD/NPX: What the fuuuuuck? Who packed these MRE’s? IRAQ?! I thought gum was supposed to make your breath better… I’m pretty sure this is what they give the soldier who is bleeding out in the battlefield to end his suffering. Either that, or those taint-flavored raisins. After the gum we had to eat the matches to get the taste out of our mouths.
RATING: ”It’s like that hard chunk of toothpaste on the end of the roll after you lose the cap.”
Only not as good.
MRE # 2: BEEF PATTY
Contains: Pretzels, Drink, Wheat Bread, ”hamburger”, BBQ & Cheese Sauces, Pasta, Gum, Matches, Moist Towelette.
"Just want to note that looking at what this M.R.E has to offer is looking pretty good right about now!" -RLLD
Beverage Base Raspberry:
RLLD: If hate were a liquid, this would be it. It’s like I chilled some transmission fluid and poured it into a glass. This shit would kill a cockroach. Wait… uh oh.
RATING: ”I wish we weren’t out of Vodka.”
NPX: Notice the dim light in the background of the cup? That is actually a “holy-fuck-that’s-bright” flashlight set to full, blinding power and it barely shines through. This must be for getting soldiers used to the idea of drinking the blood of their enemies.
RATING: ”Tastes better with the last of the Vodka.”
When is stare into the beverage powder, the beverage powder also stares into you.
Nacho Cheese Pretzels:
NPX: Other than smelling like an old ski boot and looking like rabbit shit, these aren’t completely inedible! Not bad.
RATING: “Finally something that doesn’t taste like armpit!”
RLLD: These taste like armpit! Salt seasoned, deep-fried sand filled with nacho cheese. Compared to the raisins it’s like Aphrodite spat in my mouth.
RATING: “I’d buy these if they were made by Dorito’s.”
I wonder if they were cut from one really long pretzel...
Beef Patty with BBQ sauce on Wheat Snack Bread topped by Cheese Spread with Bacon:
RLLD: This one just pissed me off! Now I know bacon and I didn’t detect a hint of it in whatever this shit was. But I didn’t taste the devil’s dick either so I can’t really complain. This conCOCKtion still wasn’t anything to write home about. Yes, it wasn’t that bad, but it was like the medal they give the Special Olympic athletes who finish an event without pissing their paints. The bread reminded me of that pound cake, minus 75% of the sugar. I’m trying to be funny but for some reason my skin is feeling really clammy all of a sudden…
RATING: ”After this, I am never going to eat a food that’s heated by a ¼ ounce of water and mystery powder again.”
NPX: Well it smells like the exact in-between of dog food and athlete’s foot. Despite the bread being harder than Chinese algebra, the meat making me sweat like a homo eating a hot-dog and the cheese spread looking like it had already been eaten once before…it didn’t make me want to throw up. Still better than Arby’s, but not as good as Fancy Feast.
RATING: “My stomach hurts…Remember that scene from Alien?”
Still smells better than a Whopper though!
Mexican Style Mac and Cheese:
NPX: I have never had what appears to be Mac & Cheese Au Jus before. While having the consistency of slug snot and not tasting anything like cheese, I can safely report that this tasted slightly better than the spoon. There seem to be an abundance of chilli peppers in the mix, maybe as a tactic to fry your taste buds before they have to be subjected to the wet-cardboard favoured macaroni. The only thing Mexican about this dish is the way that it working it’s way through my bowels like Speedy Gonzalez.
RATING: “I found another use for the moist towelette…”
RLLD: I wanna know what flavor it was they added to make everything brown? Did my roommate cook this? This is going to pass through me quicker than a bunch of banditos crossing the border.
RATING: “Those should be brown stars.”
Seriously, why is everything fucking brown?
MRE # 3: SLOPPY JOE
Contains: Trail Mix, Drink, Wheat Bread, Sloppy Joe Filling, Cheese Spread, Dessert, Gum, Matches, Moist Towelette.
Please Mr. MRE, don't ruin sloppy joes for us like you did pasta and hamburgers.
Nut Raisin Mix:
RLLD: This tastes normal….Why is my throat swelling up?
RATING: ”Why am I doing this? I am allergic to nuts…”
NPX: I haven’t had such a mix of nuts in my mouth since Richard Simmons and Clay Aiken spent the night at my house. These weren’t as salty though. At least the raisins tasted normal and looked somewhat like miniature versions of a certain American Idol Runner-up’s coin purse. It seems that RLLD likes them so much he is turning blue.
RATING: ”Nuts…Beautiful, beautiful nuts. Ohhhh and some trail mix!”
Carbohydrate Electrolyte Beverage Powder Lemon Lime:
RLLD: Looks like I’m getting a canker sore for Christmas. I couldn’t finish this, but luckily enough my car’s battery fluid was running low and this was the perfect amount to top it up.
RATING: ”So long, stomach lining.”
NPX: I don’t know what an electrolyte is but I had high hopes of this drink giving me Sith-like powers to smite enemies or effeminate Jedi’s. Judging by the size of the package that this drink mix came in, I think it’s safe to say that is the opposite of efficient packaging. After you have your tasty beverage, you can use the wrapper as a sleeping bag.
RATING: ”I can’t wait for the cheese spread next!”
"Two tablespoons of powder? Here, use this envelope."
Wheat snack bread & Cheese spread with Jalapeno’s:
NPX: Ughhhhhh it’s the worst. The “cheese” spreads on the brick bread like oily Silly Putty. They should have called this CheeseW40 and should only be fed to cars. I asked Johnny Knoxville to try some and he just laughed at me then stapled his balls to Steve-O’s dick. Worst thing yet. Feed only to the gimp.
RATING: “Toss me some matches.”
RLLD: They give this shit to starving countries? No wonder they’re starving! This shit ruined my will to eat too. The only thing I have to look forward to after this is the massive weight loss that’s sure to follow now that I don’t trust food anymore. For once I am grateful I wasn’t drunk before doing something stupid; not that I could forget this experience no matter hard I will try.
RATING: ”This gets one star because it came in a small amount”
I am pretty sure this gave us AIDS...
Sloppy Joes:
RLLD: It’s like sweet and sour flavored. Again, the main course isn’t too bad, but that’s comparing it to some of the other crap I’ve ingested today. Thank goodness for the tiny bottle of off-coloured tabasco sauce. At this stage I could be seasoning this food with winning lottery numbers and it still wouldn’t help.
RATING: ”I kind of like the Kool-Aid Demi-Glacé.”
Shown for scale, not as a recipe.
NPX: Looks like baked beans in ketchup. Tastes like baked ketchup and sugar. The tiny balls of meat all seem to be the same size and have little M’s printed on them. This was the best entrée of the bunch, but that’s like saying that this is the best smelling old person in a hospital.
RATING: “Dessert for dinner?! I’m Sold.”
Maybe we were supposed to put the cheese on top of here...
Fudge Brownie:
RLLD: The packet seemingly baked into the dessert says “DO NOT EAT”. Probably too late now to be looking for warning signs. It tastes like pure cocoa, that’s been pressed together by an elephants ass cheeks. The plus side to eating this crap was finding out how many cavities I have. Which are 3 more than when I started.
RATING:
NPX: With all the air suctioned out, this brownie was left denser than a blonde at MOMA. I think all the sugar from this was put into the Sloppy Joe’s by mistake. It wasn’t really all that bad, kind of tasted like if you took gas station paper towels, exorcised the flavour and ran it over with 18-wheeler hauling RLLD’s ex-girlfriends.
RATING: Brownie, “Reminds me of Morgan Freeman for some reason”
RATING: RLLD’s exes, “Bahahahahahaha”
Mmmmmm chocolate brick
That’s about all our stomachs can take for now. But believe me there is more. Stay tuned next week for the next 3 flavours of tongue-numbing, gut-wrenching, boner-softening rations.
Haiku:
These might taste okay
If your next meal was going
to be a land mine.
—RLLD/NPX
Video Games: Producing Surgeons and Serial Killers since 1982
Well, our views of what a video game is, are certainly different from what they were was 20 years ago. Hell, it’s different than what it was 10 years ago. If my grampa couldn’t grasp the idea of a controller 20 years ago that didn’t change the tv channel, I can only imagine the super-stroke he would have trying to grasp the concept of triggers and bumpers.
Gone are the days of the simple NES controller, replaced now with wireless controllers that keep companies like Duracell sporting boners that you can see from space. As a reward for being able to hook up sound through a receiver, amp and subwoofer, to your Plasma Skynet 1080p 3D tanning booth of a TV, you’re rewarded with gorgeous games that you can beat in a single sitting. Yippee frigging yay.
I think back to 1988 when I got my very first Nintendo Entertainment System. I was the coolest kid on my block in Burnaby, BC not because I was white but because I was able to play games like Duck Hunt, Super Mario Brothers and… well, that’s it, because you couldn’t rent sweet fuck all back then.
No, I really do! Just ask my maids.
Nope, you needed friends, and good ones at that, where you could go and borrow, or trade for games just so you could play something new! This allowed you a hint of variety in your growth into a basement dwelling, sun fearing, Troll of a human being.
Not once did I play a game back in the day that I could sit down and beat in a single sitting, without cheating like a mother fucker. (Except ‘Where’s Waldo’, but he’s such a ball gazer that you win by not looking for him in the first place.)
He's in there.
Back then there was only one cheat, and EVERYONE that knew anyone with a Nintendo Power subscription knew it.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A was the secret passcode for like 1 in 3 games. Whether it gave you 30 lives, made you invincible or let you choose your level it still didn’t matter because YOU STILL COULDN’T BEAT THE STUPID THING, BECAUSE YOU WERE TEN! If you wonder what I’m talking about just look at how a woman plays video games. Fucking unbearable isn’t it?!
If only...*Sigh*
Mind you, it wasn’t like my attention span was anything to write home about back then either. Just getting through that cheat code was a victory in itself. Invincibility, or invulnerability for all you scholars out there, was just a perk on top of it. Up up down down left right left I’M FUCKING BORRRRRRRED!
Let’s face it, at that age some of us NEEDED to cheat. Despite the praise from my mother at the time who read an article by some fucking idiot in readers digest saying that “Video Games will spawn Surgeons as they develop hand-eye coordination!”
Well, don’t tell my girlfriends, but I’m not actually a surgeon. If anything I should have been a Major League pitcher given my ability to throw an NES controller at 90 MPH.
"Firstly, I want to thank Nintendo and Super Mario 2 for being my inspiration to train."
Thankfully for that though, as limited as the technology was, game developers, like most manufacturers back then made shit to last! So when your controller skidded along the floor, into the NES, then into the TV and off the family cat, the only thing that suffered any defect was the cat.
"Meow? Meeooow?! MEEOOOWWWW!"
Toys never broke unless you wanted them too. Cars were as good as you drove them, none of this “Oh it’s a great ride until you hit 60k and then your transmission falls off when you’re going down the highway.”
For the first 15 years or so of video games if a game looked like shit, then chances were it was going to be as tough as shit!
Now finally… my point. Here’s a list of some of the games that I will NEVER forget, no matter how much medication they shoot into my ass cheek when I go into a fit of Nintend-rage.
So here they are. The steamiest, dick-suckingly aggravating video games that PTSD hasn’t repressed in my memory.
Be warned that I have been waiting since 1988 to let this out in a way that didn’t involve a ticket to Japan, a tour of Nintendo dressed as a plumber, and a shotgun.
Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Or Ghost ‘n Goblins.
Whatever! They can both blow me!
This motherfucker!
Ask anyone that has ever attempted to beat this virtual hernia, how fun it was! You were given 3 chances to beat this game. That was it, and that was all. You had a suit of armor that you lost if you took a hit which revealed you were actually Tom Hanks from Castaway underneath your armor. Then you were reduced to bones if you should take another hit. Never fear though, you had two more lives to get it right!
This is the game Jesus tried to beat before he decided it was impossible and walked across a lake.
Now, I was never there to vouch for it, but YouTube says that if you did so happen to be the son of God and manage to make it to the end and beat the boss without removing your own fucking head with a spoon, you’re rewarded with the equivalent of a digital kick in the sack.
You get to do it ALL over again. Yup. The end boss breaks the news to you saying that the first play through was all a big ruse and he was just kidding, so now go and do it again. Careful though. If you got hit, game the fuck over.
"But seriously, go fuck yourself" - Ghouls 'n Ghosts
X-MEN “I’ve repressed what it was actually called”
Yes, this piece of horse shit damn near ruined me before anything else.
You know what you did!
Now this was a game I worked, saved, begged, pleaded and did just about ALL I could do to get my hands on. I loved the X-men and anything superhero related. To finally get the chance to control them was an elementary school kids dream come true! The funny thing about dreams though, is that they aren’t always good, and this game certainly was about as euphoric as a roofing-nail enema.
Tell me this. Who the fuck wants to play a game about a superhero with no powers? That’s like playing a racing game with no gas in your car!
Despite its short coming’s I still managed to sit through a few levels, ultimately wasting days upon days trying to fumble my way through this piece of silicone shit.
Eventually, I made it to level 5, where I was told with no message or prompt that I had to reset the computer, which meant reset the Sega Genesis console; because that makes complete fucking sense! All this entailed was touching the reset button, and the game screen would fill with binary code, and voilà, off to level 6. At least it would be had I not been a complete and obvious ignorant ten year old and held the button for half a second, and not the required 1/10th. Gee, what was I thinking?
Phew! 64bits were not kind to you hey Mega Man? Remember, visors aren't JUST for frenchman and russian hockey players.
This game was horseshit! Wait, no, it doesn’t even qualify as shit! It’s a much too low grade to fit that bill, in fact I can’t even begin to describe how I truly feel about this game because of this ONE part! Oh wait, yes I can describe it. It was probably like the time I got wasted and shaved my gooch and balls with my roommate’s beard trimmer, then got drunk again a month later and thought it would be funny to tell him about it.
Burn in Hell X-men!
Now… even after all of this bullshit I was able to pick up the piece’s (of these games) and make it through life to play bigger, and better games. Gone were the days of 8-bit bullshit, and born were the days of the super systems, namely the Xbox, Sony PlayStation and Nintendo Wii!
Yup, Microsoft decided it wanted to first date rape anything and everything competitive, so Bill threw his hat into the pile and thus was born the Xbox.
Now if anyone had played games like Ninja Gaiden for the original Nintendo, you were excited as all hell to learn that they were remaking it for the Xbox! It was a classic, so really, how could better graphics, better sound, and a super in-depth story be a bad thing? Like, how could it possibly be bad? Easy, it wasn’t! Not at all and everyone ate this game up, as did I. Video game sites blew their proverbial nerd all over their xbox’s when they reviewed this gem, as it was damn near a home run!
So after all this praise what on earth could my gripe be with it? Well, remember how I said back in the day “If we can’t make it good, we will make it hard!” With Ninja Gaiden, they decided to do both. They made this game so fucking hard that after I beat it, I felt like that chick from Star Wars 3.
Her.
Ninja Gaiden ate my soul and my will to fucking live. Every inch of this game was designed to be so hard that the true test for gamers was not to commit suicide when they died repeatedly!
Whoever made this game should have their heart ripped out of their asses and shown to them before they die so they can see how cold it is! This game was like No Man’s Land for nerds.
Just when I thought my trials and tribulations were near an end I found that in order to beat the game, I had to perform a slight miracle to do so. Now, I won’t expect any of you to understand exactly what I am talking about, or how frustrating it was to have to fight three bosses with half health, nor any way to replenish it or why I am known on the forums as Smashicus: “Destroyer of Controllers.”
"YOU WILL ALL FEEL MY WRATH!"
Now when we do something in life, we technically call it practice. The more we do it the better we get at it. Right? RIGHT?! Wrong! The more I died, and the more times I repeated this last stretch of virtual shit, the worse I got at it. It’s like a woman, the more you try your hand at making them content or understand them, the worse you get at it.
But hey, I CARE about my video games, but enjoying this is like trying to get a horse to wipe it’s ass with an eagle!
Now it’s time for a Haiku:
Suck my fucking dick
You piece of Nintendo shit!
I need therapy
–-RLLD
Related articles
- The 7 Dumbest Video Game Innovations (neatorama.com)
- Video Game Knockoffs Gone Wrong (techeblog.com)
- A Look Again At Video Game Historical past – Do You Keep in mind that Percent Man, Area Invaders And Tremendous Mario Brothers? (tfollowers.com)
