“Gross!”  ”I’m offended by this!”  ”Why McDonalds? WHY?!?  ”When is Ruben Studdard making a second album???”

These are some of the reactions people have had to McDonald’s new Mac Snack Wrap.  That last person presumably is suffering from post concussion syndrome and believes it’s 2004.

The Mac Snack Wrap is McDonald’s latest menu addition, a creation that I decided to try today to exercise my curiosity, and my freddom as an American citizen.  McDonald’s loves to find new ways to cram mass amounts of calories into a small item, much like a donut.  So after you eat it you grab another one and think “this can’t be so bad, it didn’t even fill me up,” no it didn’t, but did it add 275 calories to your belt?  You better believe it!

The Mac Snack Wrap!  You'll never believe it has that many calories!

Introducing The Mac Snack Wrap! You'll never believe it has that many calories!

Now for those of you who haven’t heard of the Mac Snack Wrap, allow me to explain:  McDonalds has turned the Big Mac into a wrap.  That’s all the explanation you need.  The health conscious, rational thinking person will look at this and think “why would they do that?”  Well I’m a daring guy, I decided I’m game for anything that has gotten the go-ahead on a fast food restaurant menu, which as Taco Bell’s Chilito proved, isn’t actually too difficult a nod to pick up.

I like to advocate the  ’don’t knock it ’til you tried it’ policy, because even if something sounds gross, if it tastes good then who cares?  I really developed this mindset in college, when I would often prolong trips to the grocery store and would continue to make feasts work long after I had the items in my fridge to qualify as an ordinary meal.  I have put together some ridiculous combinations in my day, I won’t go in to detail but let’s just say I’ve used hotdogs with more things than I care to admit, and I learned to never sleep on uncooked Ramen noodles as an ingredient for anything.

So I walked right up to McD’s and said “ONE MAC SNACK PLEASE!”  …Okay actually it was through a drive-thru speaker and there was approximately a minute and a half’s time spent figuring out the correct number of McDoubles I was ordering, but I digress.

I tried the Mac Snack Wrap, and one word came to mind- vomit.  That is usually not the word I like to accompany my meals.  I’m not sure where it went wrong, ground beef is usually tasty, cheese is always good, and I almost always enjoy tortillas as my edible encasement.  Perhaps it was the special sauce, but something didn’t sit right as I consumed Ronald McDonald’s daring invention.  -Real quick, can we all just imagine Ronald McDonald inventing an actual McDonald’s product?  I imagine it would look something like this:

Here Ronald can be seen scampering from one dish to another

"I'm inventing a new McDonald's product!"

Awesome.

Overall, it didn’t taste right going down, and tasted the same coming back up, with a brief unsettling feeling in the moments in between.  Perhaps my Snack Wrap wasn’t cooked thoroughly, but I think my experience today was enough to conclude that me and this item don’t mix.  ’Twas a good try Ronald, maybe next time.

Don’t let me stop you from experimenting, go pick one up yourself and give it the old college try.  Now if you’ll excuse me, there is a BBQ sauced Ramen Noodle hot dog and cheese sandwich in the kitchen with my name on it.

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2010
01.18

NewCastleXperience

NCX: Killin ‘em Softly

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Castle and Mestizo kill it again… softly.  In this episode:

-It’s St Patrick’s Day!  And in case you didn’t know, St. Patrick was a G!

-What makes you happy?

-The sexting phenomenom

-5 things I hate about Cal State Fullerton

-The Rock running the box office?

-And if a man shoots his neighbor in a tree, and they live in Malaysia, is it considered an F’d up story?

It’s the dead of winter, meaning it’s the season of commercially enhanced love, all-star games and of course – tedious award shows.  The time where flavor of the month celebrities are showered with a praise and accolades on a platform that allows them to thank God and their agent. 

It seems like there is an award show for everything nowadays, so it got me thinking: is there any reason there can’t be a Castle awards? And thus, The First Annual Castillo Awards were born. 

The Castillo award

estimated value: $2800 wing wangs

For those of you who may be lost on why the name of my award show resembles the name of a Latin baseball player, “Castillo” is the Spanish translation of “Castle” –so it’s only semi-random.

I rarely watch awards shows myself, because everytime I do I end up hot and bothered at the injustice that takes place when the so-called experts of a given field get together and decide what they want to push on society.  It seems like anyone can be an expert if they deem themselves one.

And thus, the theme of these Castillo Awards will be honoring the things I know nothing about. All the following winners are what I assume to be of the highest quality in its category, each of which I have, for one reason or another, never really experienced.

Enough talk, let’s get to the winners!

Best Entertainer -Danny Gans
Gans in his 'just chillin' pose

Gans in his 'just chillin' pose

My first spiky-headed statuette goes to the late Danny Gans, who was claimed to be the entertainer of the year ten years running on huge billboards all over Las Vegas, yet my unwillingness to pay $140 for a single ticket has left me in the dark on exactly what he does.  Unfortunately, Gans was a member of the epic class of dead celebrities of 2009, succumbing to an overdose of pain medication.  I like to think he still entertains alongside Michael Jackson Sammy Davis Jr and Gregory Hines on the big stage upstairs, doing what exactly I don’t know, but then I never did int he first place so it all works out. 
Best Movie - Citizen Kane
I don't know what's going on here but it looks intense
I don’t know what’s going on here but it looks intense
I don’t know why, but me and this movie have never been in a room together. Yet I’ve always heard good things.  Plus Orson Wells was a total badass.
Best TV Show – “M*A*S*H”
I usually stop paying attention right around the helicopter in the opening credits
I usually stop paying attention right around the helicopter in the opening credits
My parents loved it and that seemed to be the unanimous opinion of their generation.  And I trust their opinion, even though I can never pay attention through a full episode.
Best Music - The Rolling Stones

 

Somewhere people are going crazy... and that somewhere is in like 1973
Somewhere people are going crazy… and that somewhere is in like 1973
I apologize to their legions of fans, their sound just doesn’t really do it for me, so I tend to never listen to any Mick Jagger-led tunes.  But I’m pretty sure they sent a good message and I’m in support of that. Not to mention they’ve sold something like nine trillion albums, so they must be doing something right.
 
Best Book – The Da Vinci Code

 

something about a murder in Paris and Jesus's alleged bastard child involving a cryptic message in the Mona Lisa and there's a pentacle involved or something... this is making me sound really stupid, isn't?
something about a murder in Paris and Jesus’s alleged bastard child involving a cryptic message in the Mona Lisa and there’s a pentacle involved… this is making me sound really stupid, isn’t?
I heard the movie is outstanding, but only if you have read the book. And if you do take the time to read the book, you will feel way more intelligent, which is always beneficial to one’s cultural cognizance.  I have done neither of these things.
Best sport - Cricket
How does this not look awesome??
How does this not look awesome??
I don’t really understand it, which is saying something considering I’ve actually taken the time to try to figure it out. But the British can’t get enough of it; they eat that cricket stuff right up.
 
Best food - Caviar
is that what caviar looks like?
is that what caviar looks like?
It’s expensive, right? At least it sounds expensive … I don’t even really know, but it sounds classy enough to take home a Castillo on this occasion.

 

Best pet - Dog or a Jaguar
This is my doguar, Clifton, he's a loopy little bastard
This is my doguar, Clifton, he’s a loopy little bastard
I actually never had a dog growing up, but I am a firm believer thatthey give the companionship a young kid needs in life.  But let’s turn it up a knotch because these are the Castillo’s, and Castillo’s honor the extraordinary. Think about how cool it would be to say, “I’m going to go feed my pet jaguar.”  Yeah, that would be awesome.
Best car - Motorcycle
If you buy this motorcycle it comes standard with two chicks and a big dude to back you up

If you buy this motorcycle it comes standard with two chicks and a big dude to back you up

If you can just sack up and get over the death-defying stunt you are attempting the entire time you’re riding, you can speed through traffic paying an eighth of what every large vehicle you pass is paying for gas. Plus, I would look like a total badass.