The DAN ZONE

I’m known around my parts for my absolute obsession with cherry cola, Excedrin and anything chocolate. And it has also become apparent over the past 6 years (although doctors and allergists were never able to pinpoint this) that many of my digestive problems are exacerbated severely by caffeine intake, an allergy I seem to have acquired due to my overdosing on the stuff daily since I was 18 and was first diagnosed with TMJ (aka: worn out cartilage in the jaw joint that makes one of my favorite activities hurt like hell…singing, of course.).

The fun thing about this allergy is that along with it comes addiction. Which is why I’m a caff-fiend. I can’t look at the beautiful white, green and red of an Excedrin bottle without my stomach growling hungrily and my eyes dilating in anticipation! Thing is, it’s mega-hard to accept that you could have such a bad reaction to something that you spent years of your life enjoying with no side effects (other than dents in the walls as you bounced off them). Over the past few years, I’ve managed to get off the ‘juice’ a couple of times for several month stretches, and it was wonderful. But then comes that one day when I slip—I just have to re-experience a cherry cola with pizza, or must try that ‘NEW! Limited Edition!” chocolate bar winking at me seductively on the grocery checkout line. I tell myself it will be just that once, just for that day…and then I tell myself the same thing the next day…and the next day. And before you know it, I’m back in this vicious cycle of feeding my unhappiness about my GI tract and my bloating belly with the very thing that is causing it.

The longest I walked away from caffeine was about 3 months, and that was like 3 summers ago. And in those 3 months, I lost 15 pounds and all the bloating! So I decided my New Year’s resolution would be to do it again, this time for a year, and see how I felt overall. So I started January 1^st. On January 2^nd, I woke up and said to my partner, “I’ve been off caffeine for a day! And now…someone must DIE!” But here it is 11 days later, I haven’t had a hint of caffeine, and no one is dead.

Unlike other attempts in which I did it all myself, this time I blatantly told people in my life that I need their help, literally insisting that if they see me go anywhere near chocolate or soda or Excedrin, they should rip it out of my hands. And amazingly, people have been SO good. If my partner is indulging in chocolate or soda, he’s doing it outside the house while at work. Although, I have been trying to get him to finish up this bag of mini-Reeses that has been floating around the house since the holidays so they won’t be there calling my name, but he hasn’t touched them (Is he trying to suffer along with me?). And yes, I’ve looked at the bag, and, um…sniffed the bag…several times when home alone, but so far, I’ve fought the temptation.

My video game friend who comes over for weekend marathons and what used to be gallons of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi to keep us awake until all hours of the morning has said she would give up the juice for me for the video game weekends. Luckily for her, a worse enemy to my system than caffeine is any artificial sweetener, so I have no problem not touching that poison. And my friends at work, with whom I would go on chocolate runs around the office to raid other employees’ candy bowls, have stopped inviting me to these types of hunts and have not been dropping surprise pieces of chocolate on my desk as they used to simply to make me ‘happy’ because they knew I loved it.

So, that’s where this caff–fiend stands right now. Eleven days sober.

Marketer’s dream that I am, I saw a commercial last night for Domino’s complete new and improved menu. Supposedly, they took their customers suggestions and complaints about the taste of their food and changed all their recipes in accordance. As a lover of the Domino’s experience every now and then (you have to be in the mood for it because it’s not ‘real’ pizza), I new right then and there what I would be having for dinner tonight. Ordered a standard pizza with pepperoni, plus cheesy bread with marinara sauce on the side. I can say now from firsthand experience that Domino’s new recipes taste exactly the same as their old ones. I noticed NOTHING new. No different herbs and spices as the commercial claimed, no different quality in the pizza crust per the commercial. And that’s fine by me. Who wants their favorite junk foods altered anyway? Look at the fiasco with New Coke in the 80s. They changed it, people hated it, so they brought back “Classic Coke” to appease those customers…and then New Coke mysteriously faded away, leaving us to this day with ‘Classic’ Coke labels on the soda bottles.

Christmas really feels like Christmas this year. I have a house filled with Christmas cheer, two dogs who have been littering the floor with the remains of numerous Christmas squeaky toys all week, two feet of snow feel, I’ve been eating chocolate like I’m giving it up as my New Year’s resolution (oh wait—I am), and we’ve been doing a bunch of holiday week hosting and visiting (the downside being that I’ve actually had to shower, shave and get out of my pajamas every day, which is part of the fun of being on vacation).

This weekend I had friends over for a video game night. We were going to break in the four-player New Super Mario Bros. Wii game, so I had to run out and buy two more Wiimotes and Nunchucks. It was a costly, but it was worth it. The game is a blast. It’s total old school side scrolling Mario action, but this time with four characters on screen at the same time. We spent the night laughing until we were crying, repeating difficult levels over and over again, and blaming our friend who is the self-proclaimed king of the Mario world every time one of us lost a life, even if it wasn’t his fault. This game is so addicting with its inclusion of all the classic moves from old Mario games, including jumping on enemies, ground pounding, throwing enemies, flying on Yoshi, and so much more. The only real issue with the game is that, while two of the characters are Mario and Luigi, the other two are both Toads—and in all the chaos that ensues on screen, the Toads look way too similar to some enemies and mushrooms, which can be seriously confusing. Oh yeah. There’s one more problem. Once you’ve played with other people, you’ll never want to play it alone, because that would just crush the fun factor.

With a lot of baking going on in my house this week, the slice n’ bake cookie taste test still returns the same results—Nestle Toll House slice n’ bake cookie dough tastes fantastic baked but nasty when eaten raw, while Pilsbury cookie dough gets the medal for best raw cookie dough but can’t compare to Nestle Toll House when baked.

Something else that hasn’t changed is that Best Buy still sux. With gift cards in hand, I went there tonight to pick up the Blu-Ray discs of Paranormal Activity and Jennifer’s Body, both of which were released TODAY. There were approximately 2,000 copies of Paranormal Activity collecting dust, but Jennifer’s Body was sold out! How does a major movie retailer run out of that movie on the first day of release??? Are there really that many horny teenage boys who own Blu-Ray players and got gift cards as presents who are running out during Christmas break to buy a film just because the title suggests that the entire movie is about actress Megan Fox’s body??? Oh. I guess that all adds up, huh? Ah, to be a young, straight teenage virgin who scoffs in the face of a recession at the allure of Megan Fox’s naked body in high definition. What a way to ruin a gay horror lover’s Christmas vacation.

But there was one Christmas miracle this year, even though I hate to give ABC any props since it canceled my favorite new show Eastwick (gonna suck watching the last episode tomorrow night). However, ABC did make a brilliant programming decision this year that seemed logical to me when I was seven years old and Rudolph’s Shiny New Year first aired. They actually aired the show tonight, right before the New Year holiday instead of a couple of weeks before Christmas as has been done for over thirty years. It took over thirty years for them to realize they could garner some Christmas week ratings by showing a New Year’s holiday special between Christmas and the New Year??? Even better, there’s a Charlie Brown New Year’s special on tomorrow night! Two holiday specials to help ward off the post-holiday blues just a little longer. I really do feel like a kid all over again this year.

Snagged me some new Snyder Hersheys Dipped Pretzel Nuggets the other day. Figured they couldn’t really taste any different than the standard chocolate dipped mini pretzels. Wow, was I wrong. These are like the best thing I’ve tried since the “Hersheys Bites” series, which seemed to use a higher quality, ‘polished’ chocolate for its formula to make it extra delicious. That seems to be the case with these new nuggets, which sparkle like a diamond when you hold them up to a light. Chocolate is a Dan’s best friend. The chocolate is phenomenal, so I refuse to believe that they are using average Hersheys chocolate, the worst tasting chocolate on the market that’s only a step above those horrible Palmer brand holiday chocolates you can get at any dollar store.

These new chocolate dipped nuggets are not even in the same league as the standard Snyder Hersheys Chocolate Dipped Mini Pretzels. Which makes me thing the company may be using a better quality chocolate just on the initial presentation of the new product. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a year’s time, the nuggets taste just as boring as the mini pretzels. Has anyone else ever noticed how new food products seem to taste amazing when they first appear, but eventually seem to lose their unique flavor? Is it just because we become too familiar with them, or are we truly being hooked with higher quality ingredients that are later changed out for inferior ingredients? I know that Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms don’t give me the rush they once used to…

There’s been this Starbucks Instant Coffee Taste Test commercial airing recently that shows different groups of people tasting coffee while a voice over says, for example, “Civil War reenactors can’t tell the difference.” One clip shows a man screaming out loud in a public setting while the voice over says, “People who yell at town hall meetings can’t taste the difference…” Well, in a commercial that I pretty much ignored and had no interest in since I don’t drink coffee, that last line made me laugh every time I saw it. Obviously, it was poking fun at all those people who got their fifteen minutes of fame literally shouting at town hall meetings about the healthcare reform. They want fame? Well fame costs. So it was just a matter of time before their actions were spoofed. But apparently, these people have no sense of humor. I saw the ad this morning, and the town hall part has been REMOVED from the commercial. So I immediately made my way to Google, and lo and behold, these same people were up in arms over the fact that they were being parodied in this commercial, so I guess they got their way and bullied Starbucks into removing that part from the commercial. Now, if they’re lucky and get their way again, all their town hall shenanigans will ensure that not everyone in our country is guaranteed health insurance…

Rule number one when waiters and waitresses are put through service school is, when someone asks if you have Dr. Pepper, don’t offer them Root Beer instead. JUST SAY NO. Root Beer is not and never will be Dr. Pepper! There is no substitute. Aside from the fact that they taste nothing alike, Root Beer does not contain the devil’s drug, caffeine!!! If I ask for a Dr. Pepper, that means I absolutely want the devil’s drug running through my system.

Oh, and before you ask, dear food service person, a Dr Pepper is NOT the same thing as a Cherry Coke, so stop trying to push that substitution on me as well…

So, Danny went grocery shopping the other day and picked up some Chips Ahoy, which we haven’t had in a while. And yet another food product is being downsized to rip off America. I kid you not, each cookie is HALF as thick as they used to be! Chips Ahoy cookies are like paper thin wafers!!!

Argh. There’s got to be a stand taken about doughnut etiquette at work (and bagels, and muffins, etc). This morning at the office, I get a report from a coworker that there are Dunkin Donuts up for grabs in the kitchen, including one chocolate frosted one, so I run in there to find another co-worker cutting the chocolate doughnut in half to have a ‘taste’, after already having had a ‘taste’ of a glazed donut. So basically, the person had one full doughnut, but has now left TWO halves of different types. WTF? Do people think they are doing others a favor by leaving HALF a doughnut??? What if someone else wanted one WHOLE doughnut of one flavor and is left with a half that has been tampered with??? Isn’t it really the same as being in a restaurant with someone who says, ‘I don’t want a full meal, I’ll just have a taste of yours.’ And I hate to be pointing fingers, but it’s ALWAYS women who pull these half-doughnut stunts. A guy will just TAKE both frickin doughnuts if he wants to taste BOTH of them.

Naturally, it took just one commercial for me to know that I had to try new Domino’s Breadbowl Pasta Dishs. I actually really like Domino’s pizza as an occasional break from ‘real’ pizza (let’s face it, Domino’s and Pizza Hut are just…different), so I was looking forward to their pasta dishes served in an edible pizza dough bread bowl!

On a rainy Friday night, I picked Danny up at the train station after work so he wouldn’t have to walk home, and told him we were driving directly to Domino’s to pick up dinner. He was totally into it. So we decided to order two different breadbowls and split them. We got the Chicken Alfredo and the Italian Sausage Marinara. It was a bad sign as we watched them preparing the breadbowl dishes in the back and one of the workers picked up a typical squeeze bottle (like a restaurant ketchup squeeze bottle) and squirted ‘alfredo sauce’ onto one of the bowls!

The final products ended up tasting just as processed and fast food fake as they looked when being prepared! Yuck! What a disappointment. I couldn’t believe this slop was made by the same place that makes the absolutely flawless cheesy bread sticks! Have you ever had this delicious side dish? It’s melted cheese and some spices over pizza dough, sliced it into sticks, with the sweetest marinara dipping sauce on the side. We order it with our pizza every time, and then feel completely bloated and sick after we’re finished eating, because basically, cheese covered pizza dough sticks dipped in marinara sauce is really just…well…MORE pizza. But believe me, it’s really a totally different experience. REALLY!

It has always irked me that when you buy ‘rainbow’ sherbet, there are only THREE flavors. Over the years, I have noticed that, depending on the brand, rainbow sherbet has different flavors, and some sherbet flavors are never even included. So last summer, I came up with a brilliant idea. I would buy every varying rainbow sherbet I could find in the freezer aisle at my local store, as well as any individual supplemental flavors not included in rainbow containers, and make the ultimate rainbow sherbet. I came home with five containers of sherbet, including three rainbows with various flavors, plus a container of pink lemonade sherbet and a container of watermelon sherbet.

Once I’d scooped all the various flavors into one heaping bowl, I had created a concoction of orange, lime, lemon, pink lemonade, watermelon, raspberry, and wild berry…I anxiously delved in with a spoon for the ultimate burst of icy cold fruity goodness. Instead, I tasted pretty much NOTHING. It was such an overload of flavors that they all cancelled each other out and I couldn’t distinguish any one particular flavor! Before long, the melting sherbet started to form a nasty grayish ooze in the bottom of the bowl as the multiple colors blended!

So now I understand why three is the maximum number of sherbet flavors worthy of a single container of rainbow sherbet. But I’m still mad that Breyers took it’s phenomenal 5-flavor chocolate ice cream off the market in exchange for a mere ‘triple chocolate’…