THE SURFING PIZZA

The Superbowl is a Holiday

February 3, 2010 · 4 Comments

It’s Superbowl week and I consider the Superbowl a holiday. Deck the halls. I love the giant cardboard displays in the grocery stores with wide-eyed people in generic jerseys, cheering with a bowl of Tostitos, advertising to stock up on your Superbowl snacks. Seeing this stuff is the equivalent of seeing egg nog at Christmas or fun size Snickers at Halloween.

Don we now our gay apparel too. Dig out your cleanest sweat pants and sweatshirt from Sears. See the blazing Yule before us, because the Superbowl also involves a feast. No one watches the game eating a bowl of soup with some Saltines. To honor the football Gods, you set out the nachos, the pizza, the wings, and the nice dip bowls. For the Superbowl, you splurge on the party platter.

Sing we joyous all together. Fa la la la—SHIT. CATCH THE FREAKING BALL.

For those that don’t celebrate football, the day can leave one feeling empty. Believe me, I know. I, too, was a non-believer once. This goes back to the days of elementary school when I was just a twee child in glasses. Generally, twee children do not like sports. It breaks our glasses. Dodgeball was the worst offender. Unathletic and bookwormy, I had a resentment for sports (as well as the kid that threw the dodgeball).

And yet there was a hole. I considered myself pop culture savvy. I was an owner of both an NES and a Sega Master System; an avid reader of Nintendo Power, Disney Adventures, and the XXX t-shirt ads in the back of Revolutionary Comics–but there was a part of pop culture I was missing. I wanted to be a fan of guys like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, John Elway, Emmitt Smith, Bo Jackson. I couldn’t tell you what positions they played or why they were considered great; I only knew them from commercials and video games. It was my shame.

I half-heartedly tried to collect baseball cards, but mainly for the stale stick of gum. Plus, it was like gambling, which appealed to me, a chance to find some rare holographic card that was worth a million dollars. I also like going to baseball games because I knew food would be involved. My life revolved around getting stuff–the more exotic, the better. I could always squeeze a magazine or candy bar out of my parents at the grocery store, but something like a baseball game upped the ante. I could get something like a cotton candy or a popcorn. And of course, there was the Cracker Jacks, which ought to come standard with your ticket. As for my thoughts on the great sport of Baseball? I liked watching the Oriole Bird dance. That bird, what a kidder.

You know, I always liked the excitement of the Superbowl–the bustle of the day–my mother in the kitchen microwaving Velveeta to make a rubbery cheese dip. On regular Sundays, we had to eat things in casserole dishes. Rubber cheese dip was a Godsend. People came over to watch the game would tip me a dollar for each beer I grabbed for them. I worked my way around the sectional sofa making more money in the second quarter than I did during the last five Christmases combined. One year I even asked my mother to let me skip school the next day, since I knew I would be “hungover” from chugging Cokes and French Onion dip. She looked at my potato-chip greasy fingers empathetically and said yes. I knew the Superbowl was something special.

But I didn’t understand football and it might as well have been Chinese Checkers. I was bored with it. I did not give a freaking crap about football for all of my life, and then I met the girlfriend. She was a Ravens fan. She was one of those people with a jersey of her favorite player. What was wrong with these people? Were they pretending to play dress-up? She even wanted…to watch the games. It horrified me.

The thought of losing Sundays to the blackhole death of football scared me. I resisted it our first year together. It was 2007 and the Ravens worst-ever season, so she wasn’t heartbroken over missing a few of the games. I figured I had won. I had put my foot down. That was the situation. No football in this relationship. But I was wrong. She wanted to watch the Superbowl.

It was the year the Patriots went undefeated, only to lose The Big One in the final moments due to a dramatic Hail Mary catch. The girlfriend was cheering for the Giants. I was playing with a wind-up chicken spitting jelly beans out of its butt. While I’m doing this, you actually hear her telling me the Giants just scored the game winning touch down.

I present 16 seconds of genius — Superbowl Chicken.

Yep.

Then, in 2nd year of our relationship, something changed. And I don’t mean it in the Hallmark card way. No, I mean, we just got to that point where we did a lot of sitting around together. Every weekend didn’t have to be filled with spontaneous fun things. We were comfortable sitting in the same room eating chips. She started sneaking in some Ravens games.

I don’t know what happened. I got sucked in. Now I’m one those people with a jersey. I’m no longer hiding my deep dark secret. I love football. The Superbowl is a Holiday. Go Saints.

And to mark this holiday Surfing Pizza style, I’m busting out this gigantic chocolate football, made by our friends at Palmer.

Palmer has created a hollow double crisp football. It’s like Easter, only it ain’t. I saw this bad boy in the store and I knew I was a goner. I knew I’d be handing over five bucks for what is essentially a brown colored lump of vegetable oil. There is not a trace of chocolate in the ingredients. I love this stuff. I really do.

Love the detail. The grips of the ball are actually the crispy rice, nice touch. Out of the box, the thing had a greasy feel to it. The packaging considers the thing to be 3 1/2 servings, and the entire ball will set you back about 600 calories.

In the end, I’m not sure where this greasy loaf of vegetable oil in the shape of a football fits into my life. Probably the toilet. I ate enough of it that it will probably definitely be the toilet. To me, it’s like a perfect way to say Happy Superbowl to a kid, when they wake up early on Superbowl morning to find a basket of goodies left by the football drunk. Inside the basket will be a hollow chocolate football and Ravens shirt.

So if you’re watching this weekend–eat, drink, and be merry. We’ve got sour cream and onion chips. Hell yeah. And if you’re one of those feeling left out this season, take comfort. There’s always the Superbowl Chicken.

→ 4 CommentsCategories: Some Other Stuff · THE SURFING PIZZA: Your Source for Crap

Eighth Grade Art

January 14, 2010 · 13 Comments

“Art Stuff” had long been a staple item on the Christmas list, whether that meant simply a new box of crayons or a RoseArt 108 piece kit where the lids were always loose on the cheap markers. I’d pull the pillows off the couch and sprawl out on the floor surrounded by sheets of wide-ruled paper and lost marker lids. I’d draw squares for comic panels and fill them in with stick figures and dogs. Or I’d sketch the spikes of my monster for my future illustrated children’s book about a monster and a kid, because all books were about monsters and kids. You see, everyone was scared of monsters until the age they realized that monsters were actually our best friends.

I was a painter and filmmaker too. I remember going over the canvas carefully with dabs of yellow paint depicting a sunset. Happy little dabs. I remember adjusting the lighting of the living room, moving around the lamps to capture the most artful shot of the cat with the video camera. I was a whirlwind, a wunderkind, a creative genius, an artiste. In fact, I always considered myself an artiste up until eighth grade when the dream all came crashing down.

That was the year I made this.

Eighth grade art wasn’t regular old art class–it was the big leagues and we were no longer drawing bowls of fruit. The white walls of the classroom were awash in sunlight, the smell of paint stung the nostrils, and the staleness of baked earth hung around in the air. We were making stuff from clay and we got to use the kiln. Kids had been clamouring about this–THE KILN–since the middle of seventh grade–or at least since last week.

The teacher was Ms. Howard and she looked like a mermaid with red hair that was teased out for days, rocking sea-foam-green pants that were shiny and made a swishing sound when she walked. All her clothes were from New York and she had a different pair of ten inch heels to go with every outfit. Some rumors said she used to be a stripper. Some rumors said SHE WAS ON CRACK NO JOKE. But I knew the truth, that she was just an artiste. We are misunderstood.

I wasn’t interested in making bowls or pinch pots, painting my name on them. So philistine. I wanted to make a statement. My statement is about perspective, because sometimes the mouse can be big and the cat can be small. Yes, that’s what that glob of misshappen crap is–an enormous mouse head with a teeny tiny cat sitting atop. No matter your size you can still stand tall and mighty. I was like that mouse.

Ms. Howard must have seen that I was an artiste like her because she took a liking to me, encouraging my brand of “creativity” and helping me dip the newspaper in the glue, sitting uncomfortably close like the weird and vaguely hot teachers always do. She smelled like coffee and fruity perfume which must have been from New York too.

I recall being quite proud of this at the time–while everyone else would take home some crappy bowl to donate to their mother’s bookshelf, I would take home a piece of art.

Except now I do not see art. I see a pink blister that’s supposed to be a smile. I see a post-nuclear malformed turd. I see that I was not meant to be an artiste. Artistes are graceful and slender-jawed–not weird, oafy kids with shaky hands and glasses.

And as for the teeny tiny cat…

Well that just looks like a poop. It’s still a perspective piece, but the perspective is different now–some days you’re just decidedly the color of yellow diarrhea with a piece of shit on your head. In fact, that describes one of my days at work last week.

I remember seeing that thing come out of the kiln. THE KILN. Another something that didn’t turn out the way I had it pictured in my head. Story of my life. There was that time I nearly broke my sister’s nose after dropping my Dad’s MagLite flashlight on her face. That’s eight D batteries smashing into her face from fifteen feet above off the deck. The blood gushed. Whatever it was I had pictured in my head, THAT definitely was not it.

And finally, here’s proof that my mother loves me. If my kid made this, I would laugh in their face. And yet, next to the ceramic dog and duck, on the entertainment center under the Blu-ray player, sits my nuclear diarrhea mouse. It ain’t like I just made this last week and my Mom’s just being nice about it. I am twenty nine and I made this when I was thirteen.

But only mothers can love you in this blind way–sitting it next to something as class act as that duck. When the girlfriend saw this, she laughed the way a significant other generally reserves for your middle school yearbook photos and when you trip up the stairs.

I think it’s time to gather up all my missing marker lids and pack up my RoseArt kit. Time to go home. The periwinkle colored pencil was never used, a stupid color anyway. What’s it for? Sure you could use it to color the sky, but I prefer my sky robin’s egg blue. Periwinkle’s the kind of color you play golf in.

There’s a postscript for Ms. Howard out there somewhere. I like to think she’s taking the art world by storm–afterall, that is what artistes do. As for me, well perhaps it ought to be Pacific Ocean blue for the sky. Oh, I’ve got time to decide while I’m on my way back. Maybe magic scent blueberry. It makes me hungry. I am hungry.

→ 13 CommentsCategories: An 80s Childhood · THE SURFING PIZZA: Your Source for Crap
Tagged: nuclear diarrhea mouse

The Surfing Pizza Eats A Christmas Pig

January 8, 2010 · 6 Comments

Last year, November 2008, we discovered a church that had a German Christmas market thing going on. There were all kinds of imported goodies, ornately-carved decorations, and toys for sale. It was right up my alley and I planned to do a post about it. I practically pranced around the place taking in the Christmas goodness of church people and German shit. I was picking up boxes of quaint, delectable cookies to review and whistling Christmas songs all the way.

Then everything changed. One woman was selling these surprise bags for $5. They were plain brown bags stapled shut with a surprise inside–which she assured us was worth at least five dollars. I love surprise bags and immediately handed over ten dollars for two bags containing items I had no idea what they were.

I handed one to the girlfriend and we ripped open our bags. Inside each was a beaded bracelet. Ten dollars for some stupid bracelets. My will to live tanked and my idea for a Surfing Pizza post deflated. We came home and tried the cookies. They sucked.

But the girlfriend did buy this–

A marzipan pig. The girlfriend loves pigs and has a collection of pig stuff–stuff she claims was solely accumulated because she got pegged as the pig lover and now she’s always getting kitschy salt & pepper shakers heaped upon her. I don’t believe her. I’ve seen her buy this crap herself.

Anyway, she treated this marzipan pig like it was a fragile goblet that Jesus drank from. She refused to put in our bag with the other goodies we purchased, afraid it would get smashed by a boorish box of cookies. Instead of eating it like was supposed to be, she displayed it on her shelf, and for over a year, that’s where it sat. Until last week.

“Time to throw this out, I think,” she said, and tossed it into the can–where I immediately rescued it.

“Can we eat it?” I asked.

“It’s like a year old,” she said.

“I’ll put it on The Surfing Pizza.”

“Please don’t, you’ll get sick.”

And yet I sincerely doubted this shiny, slightly sweaty-looking pig with blue eyes could make me sick. Don’t think there’s any dairy in it and besides, everyone knows cute things don’t make people sick. I’d been waiting for one year and two months to unwrap this bad boy and take some oddly angled photographs.

I couldn’t get the thing to stand on its base–it had melted or warped a bit over the year. I thought this shot was kind of like lying in bed next to the pig looking in his bedroom eyes. I was getting artistic with it.

Then I got barbaric with it. The pig took like a beauty to the knife, a nice clean slice through the neck. I expected him to be rock hard after sitting on a shelf for a year, but he had remained wrapped the the whole time, and was still soft like butter.

So yeah I ate it, the whole head. Eating candy heads is one of my joys in life. I thought it was tasty. It reminded me of circus peanuts a little bit, but almond flavored. I didn’t get sick, but I also am still within the incubation period of many food-borne illnesses.

I wish I had more to say about it, but in the meantime while we wait to see if I develop symptoms of botchulism, please enjoy these artistic photographs.

The End
????

→ 6 CommentsCategories: THE SURFING PIZZA: Your Source for Crap

The Haul

December 31, 2009 · 11 Comments

It’s that time of year to show off my presents to strangers on the internet. And since my birthday was two days ago, also included here are a few of those gifts too. I had the best Christmas ever, which I declare every year anyway, and I am so grateful for all my family and friends and people who love me. Many of them read this and I want to say thank you so much.

Okay, enough of the humility. Let’s get to the haul.

Bass Beer Coozy. From the girlfriend. Every year she puts together a loose theme for my gifts. The theme was Things To Go With Things You Already Have. I just so happen to already have a man-sized bass pillow. Her name is Lisa. She is my fish girlfriend. The human girlfriend hates sharing the bed with the fish girlfriend, so most of the time, Lisa sleeps on the floor.

Beatles Trivial Pursuit. From Dad. Every year I get a few Beatles things which are always solid gifts. This year I also got a Beatles coffee table book, a set of pint glasses, and of course, Trivial Pursuit. This is awesome because a) I like the Beatles, b) I like Trivial Pursuit, and c) I like games I can win against weak opponents who don’t spend their time reading what Paul McCartney eats for breakfast on the Internet message boards.

I’ve done some research about the types of questions included in the game, and one of the criticims is that there are a lot of extremely detailed questions about the film Let It Be, a film that has never been released on video. Therefore, the only way to answer these questions is to own a bootleg copy of the film. Apparently, the Beatles ought to have released Let It Be as a companion to the game. (Aside to Beckner–before you think this gives you an advantage, I can assure you that we will be watching Let It Be on youtube this week.)

New Super Mario Bros Wii. From the parents. Great game. I love the multi-player feature. I’ve been teaching the girlfriend the ways of Mario. For whatever reason, she played outside as a child and therefore did not log hundreds of hours of her childhood playing Mario Bros 1, 2, and 3. I could spend a paragraph making fun of how she didn’t even know how to run fast, but that make me seem like an insufferable nerd, and I have to give her credit–she’s a solid Ringo in Beatles Rock Band. She nails the perfect drum solo on The End on Abbey Rd.

Luigi The Plastic Cheese Shaker. These are from the sister. She knows me well. How fucking awesome is Luigi The Plastic Cheese Shaker? The name itself is like poetry. They didn’t call it Novelty Mouse Cheese Dispenser. I love the word plastic in the name most of all. I swear. Sometimes I’m just going to be driving alone in my car down the street and I’m going to randomly shout Luigi The PLASTIC Cheese Shaker.

And the Bad trucker hat–totally amazing and uh.. 80s Japanese girl chic. I love it and it’s on the short list of family heirlooms to pass on to my unborn children.

The Complete Don Martin. From the girlfriend. It’s two huge volumes of every cartoon the guy ever drew, which is awesome because he invented words like THOINK!. The set easily weighs 40lbs and could be a deadly weapon. These are going to make beautiful coffee table books. The girlfriend has no comment on this.

Next!

Some Books and Balls. Baseballs with Roasted Turkey logos on them? Why yes, please. Here’s what I imagine. This is like my Babe Ruth signed baseball in The Sandlot. My kid borrows the Dill Pickles to play ball and it lands in the neighbor’s yard where a giant dog known for eating children roams. Hijinks and life lessons ensue.

And books. Michael Ian Black. Complete Encyclopedia of Disney. Not literary. Oh well. Fuck you Raymond Carver and your short stories that I got last year for Christmas and still haven’t opened.

And…

Awesome Whale Playmobil Set. From the girlfriend. Because I wanted that giant blue whale toy BAD. I eagerly ripped open the package on Christmas morning to take out the whale and hold him in my arms.

And another Playmobil set:

The Nativity. From Mom. Includes 3 Wise Kings! Plus Manger Animals! (It lists these as features on the box.) I’m positive this set was actually approved by baby Jesus himself. The backdrop looks like a cheesy piece of cardboard, so I may have to build a better manger for my Nativity friends like a carpenter. I’ll get like real hay too. Maybe from a farm. Probably from Michael’s.

Next-

Remote Control Ant. From the girlfriend. An Indiana Jones toy, Crystal Skull, which feels like it came out in the late 90s. A really random toy, which means I love it. I really appreciated the box it came in with the maddening twisted ties you have to pry apart to remove the toy from the box. They’re as hard as ever to untie, and then you gotta rip at the super strength tape. This used to be a Christmas morning tradition, trying to remove the toys from the boxes. This year, I appreciated having the reminder.

Finally,

Pocket Video Camera. From the girlfriend. This was my Big Gift. I love it. Look for world premiere videos of stuff on Surfing Pizza soon. I’m totally going to film a viral sensation, like a dramatic chipmunk eating a burrito. Or something with a burrito. I’m going to get one at Chipotle and just try to make things happen with it. I imagine I’ll end up with footage of Homeless Man Takes Burrito On Sidewalk Intended For Dramatic Chipmunks–CHRIST WHERE ARE ALL THE DRAMATIC CHIPMUNKS IN THIS CITY? Stay tuned.

I Love Cookies Cookie Okay, so this was not a real gift to me–because I would have stabbed that person in the heart. Instead one of the girlfriend’s roommates (and SP readers) got this an actual gift. She should have stabbed them in the heart, but instead she gave it to me as proof that people actually give these things out. STOP THE MADNESS.

Wait. Do you think dramatic chipmunks would eat these?

So there it is, my gross materialism shown off to the world. I wanted a way to counteract this in even the smallest of ways, so for my birthday the other day, I decided to donate a bit of what I got back to charity. The charity I decided is heifer.org which is a cool charity because you can buy animals for people in third world countries. The animals provide food and clothing, and in some cases, transportation and money.

I donated $20 towards a share of llama. Llamas are awesome and plus they wouldn’t eat the llama. It promotes gender balance for the women who can make crap from llama fur and sell it. (I’m told I could write the copy for the website.)

A whole llama is $160. I thought it would be cool if my idea to donate could produce a WHOLE LLAMA for a family, not just a share. I’ve already got the girlfriend and my parents on board, so now we’re up to $80. We have HALF A LLAMA. OBAMA MAMA RAMA. BANGARANG.

So if four more people donate $20, we’ll have a whole llama! Anyone wanna get in on the llama? Just go here and donate $20 towards a share of a llama.

Here’s the link: http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.2664289/

If you do, let me know. I will make you a Surfing Pizza Friend of Distinction. Not sure what this great award entails. Maybe entry to heaven.

Happy New Year.

→ 11 CommentsCategories: Christmas Stuff
Tagged: obama rama llama mama

Dispatches From The Snow Day

December 21, 2009 · 9 Comments

This past weekend we got our first big snow. Really big. Two feet. We mobbed the stores for dairy products and I killed a man for the last carton of eggs. I bought a 24 pack of bottled water in case the town’s communal well froze over. It is after all 1966. Actually, I don’t know why I bought the water.

We were ready to be snowed in. We had pizza, macaroni, grilled cheese, peanut butter, pancakes, beer and rum. There are no vegetables on snow days. The girlfriend accused me eating baby carrots, but it’s LIES, ALL LIES.

In the morning we woke up and peeked out the window. It was real and coming down. The weatherman did not lie to us like he did that one December in 1989. Me and my sister had even worn our pajamas backwards and danced in the backyard that night. There wasn’t a single flake, despite the predictions of the SNOWPACALYPSE.

Well this time, the snowpacalypse was quite possibly for real. This was the stuff you needed boots for. I leaped out of bed and announced that I was going to build a snowman. In fact, a snowman family. As the day wore on and the snow bore down, my dreams got bigger and included extended snow relatives. But when I actually ventured outside, all family members were swiftly shot down when the snow turned out not to be wet enough. They say Alaskans got 30535 words for snow, but I got one. Crap.

With nothing else to do, we ate our cheese and pancakes at regularly scheduled intervals.

It was six days before Christmas. I was done shopping. (Sure, nothing is wrapped, but these are trivial matters.) I had the crapfest of a plastic tree up. I had the Christmas station presetted on the radio. I had a few gifts for myself bought on the credit of impending Christmas money. And I had a Ninja Turtle in the nativity scene. But something was missing. I wanted egg nog.

I looked outside. There was a foot of the white stuff on the ground and there was no way I’d make to the grocery store. It was everywhere.

Snow days are about quests, and I had a quest inside of me. I wanted egg nog–randomly, spontaneously, and ridiculously, I yearned for a concoction of eggs, milk, and rum. If I were a cartoon, I’d tie tennis rackets around my boots, and tie a little barrel of hot chocolate around a St. Bernard’s neck.

No, I couldn’t make it to the grocery store in this weather, but there was a gas station within walking distance–and maybe–just maybe, they’d have one of those single serving To Go bottles of egg nog.

Now these things freak me out. Who would drink a To Go bottle of egg nog anyway–besides me? And would the Sunoco actually stock this? I rallied together the troops–er–the other folks I was snowed in with, my girlfriend and her roommates. I proposed the Snow Day Quest.

Come on now, my companions at arms, and fellow soldiers, in the field. We have a job to do and we must do it. All day and all night it has snowed all over these son-of-a-bitching roads, but we will never stop, never falter from our course, with snow falling all around us all of the time. We’ll get through on good old American guts. We will reach the Sunoco and find the single serving egg nog. If God is with us, who can be against us?

The girlfriend groaned and said that she was already nice and warm on the couch. Roommate Rob was up for it and soon we were suiting up in our boots and machine guns and hats and gloves. Before we walked out the door, the girlfriend started feeling left out and decided to suit up too.

After 6.5 hours, we reached the holy land:

It was actually only like 6.5 minutes. I probably did not need the three pairs of long underwear I had on. Or the machine gun.

We waddled in. I skiied over the melted snow sludge to eyeball the single serving milk section. There was whole milk, 2%, chocolate….

HOLIDAY EDITION. RUTTER’S EGG NOG. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

(And if I was HTML-savvy enough to make that blink and scroll across the screen, I would.)

THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. It was the not the first or last miracle I would declare this season, or even that day. Later when A&E had a new episode of Hoarders onDemand, I went ahead and declared that the Christmas Miracle as well.

As with the end to all great snow days, there is a snow party.

This is my innovation–snow-chilled beer.

Towards the end, I got a little out of hand photographing everything with the candy cane. I have about 23 more pictures of that candy cane. It was like the candy cane took on a life of her own. She called herself Lil but everyone knew her as Nancy. She even got a little sassy in some of the pictures. Then again, cabin fever was starting to kick in…

…or the egg nog.

→ 9 CommentsCategories: Christmas Stuff
Tagged: her name was macgill

Ninja Turtles Doing Christmas Stuff

December 17, 2009 · 7 Comments

Don’t give up on me. I totally want to do a fruitcake expose. I’ve never eaten fruitcake in my life. I have no idea what it is. I want to learn. Somehow even the word, Fruitcake is its own joke. You just say fruitcake in the right tone and people laugh.

But I won’t have time to explore the dark underbelly of fruitcake before Christmas. So we’re just going to have do a post-XMAS celebration of crap. There will be fruitcake and a pig. More about the pig soon.

But right now I want to show you these Ninja Turtle ornaments I found. One of our holiday traditions each year is new each pick out a new ornament for the tree–not like some crap from the pharmacy that comes in a box of six, but something that’s actually nice. (The post is titled TMNT Ornaments? Why yes…)

We go to this tree nursery that’s an ornament emporium. There’s lights, Christmas music, and 6943 coughing children. Last year I chose an M&M dressed like Elvis. Last year the girlfriend chose something a 90 year old grandma would pick out. This year I was going to go for 2009 Budweiser Clydesdales bulb. This year the girlfriend was going to go for something a 90 year old grandma would pick out.

But I saw Leonardo and it was a game changer.

Then I saw the other 3. What originally began as a quest to find The One ornament was now a quest to justify buying four. At $8 a pop.

No justification needed here. As you can see, this Michaelangelo is pretty much tailored for my life. He’s holding a glittery pizza, on The Surfing Pizza Christmas Tree. This gets me thinking. I know there is such a thing as edible glittter. Maybe I ought to make a real life glittery pizza for my post-XMAS bash.

For the record, the Surfing Pizza Christmas Tree is crap this year. It’s a small plastic tree. I hate plastic trees, but I’ve got no space this year for a real tree. I’ll give it this–the tree ain’t trying to be something it’s not. Those green squares aren’t supposed to mimic or resemble pine needs. It was a Wal-Mart special. $14.99. I loaded it with tinsel to see if it helped some.

Donatello’s bo staff as a candy cane is a brilliant touch. Another brilliant touch is my own here–I hung him over the manger. He totally witnessed the birth of baby Jesus. It was in episode 6 of the original Ninja Turtles cartoon.

I’m loving Santa Raph too. Merry Christmas to me. They’re a team. At $32 a pop. I’m sure I’ve overpaid. Those damn emporium prices. They’re charging you hidden fees for their delightful Christmas music and the joyous experience of 3358 children coughing on you. In fact, there’s no way in hell these things are worth as much as dinner at the Olive Garden.

But I’m overthinking it. It’s freaking Christmas, a time to waste money and loathe yourself. I’ve already promised the girlfriend that I think she’s going to hate all her gifts. She promised me that I’ll hate all mine too. AWESOME. (I know I’ll love mine. I think she might like 42.5 percent of hers.)

I just had another idea for a great post: The Surfing Pizza Drunk Wraps. I just don’t have enough time for all my genius. POST X-MAS BASH? U THERE?

→ 7 CommentsCategories: Christmas Stuff

Breaking Down 2009’s Stocking Stuffers

December 8, 2009 · 14 Comments

Hard to believe it’s December 8 already. Just two weeks ago it seemed too early to start celebrating and now it seems disturbingly remiss of me that I haven’t started yet. Let me share something with you. This stage of my life is known as ~~banging out~~ preparing a first draft of my thesis to have ready in about three weeks. I have a ~~shitload more~~ a bit of small ways to go yet. It’s all about revision.

I also have yet to begin Christmas shopping. And if the apocalypse were also coming, I wouldn’t prepare for it. I’d just try to wing it. In fact, preparing a first draft of a thesis, Christmas shopping, and the apocalypse are all on the same linear plane. But I’ve put up the Surfing Pizza’s holiday banner–which believe it or not–I made by myself in Paint. Doesn’t it make you feel warm and Christmasy inside? Me neither.

On top of this, I am absolutely determined to review plastic candy cane tubes with generic M&M’s inside.

This is a classic. I haven’t had one of these in a long time. This makes me realize stocking stuffers change over the years. As a kid, I received chocolate in various delivery systems (foil-wrapped, plastic-tubed, coin-shaped, Santa-shaped). As I grew older, I began getting Chapsticks. As an adult, I got packs of cigarettes and scratch-off lottery tickets. Since I’ve quit smoking, I now receive cute, tiny bottles of whiskey. Nothing says Christmas like vices. Sugar, smokes, gambling, and whiskey–and Chapstick, god damn you most of all. My lips just don’t feel RIGHT without it anymore.

The tubes were great because they could also be guns or secret potion containers. The potion was always tap water. The secret was always spit.

The candy inside is a poor imitation of M&M’s. The chocolate is too semi-sweet, almost dark, and leaves a syrupy aftertaste. Despite this, I have have managed to devour half the candies while typing this paragraph, and I still have several more candies to review.

Like another classic chocolate delivery system, the Santa Sack:

I’m a big fan of RM Palmer candies at the holidays. The stuff is dirt cheap and barely chocolate. It’s 99% vegetable oil and sugar, and it’s delicious. In Santa’s Sack comes three varieties–the Santa is double crisp, the bells are peanut butter, and the gifts are fudge flavored.

Also in Santa’s Sack came this:

This freaked me out a bit. In Santa’s Sack came what looked to be a half-eaten bell. A bell with bite taken out of it and then wrapped back up. For sure. Who knows what goes on in the RM Palmer factories? There must be a rat involved.

I always hear those stories about rats being found in jars of peanut butter. I pray that something like that happens to me one day. Lawsuit city baby. Was this my half-rat-bitten chocolate? Did Santa’s Sack bring me my golden ticket?

The answer is no.

It was just a malformed turd of a chocolate. So there we have it. Santa, the bell, and the malformed turd. I think I might title my thesis that. My stomach now contains a half tube of M&M’s, a bell and a Santa. (But not the malformed turd. Not tonight. Not feeling frisky enough for that.) I must keep moving on.

Here’s another oldie but goody:

The amazing Tootsie Roll bank filled with fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls. I’ve said it before, but let it be known—the chocolate ones suck. But the fruit ones are damn good. I always loved getting one of these just because having a Tootsie Roll canister as a bank is awesome.

I always thought I was going to save enough change to buy some big gift for myself. There were stories about overachieving kids in Scholastic Magazine or Disney Adventures who had saved enough money to take their families to Disneyland or whatever. I’d really get into it, even spelunking in the couch digging for coins, which was always a guaranteed jackpot for a few dimes and maybe an old potato chip.

But I never did that special something. All those dreams, lost. All those Pizza Points, never cashed in. Oh man, I’m depressed. I’m going to go drink tiny bottles of whiskey and smother my lips in Chapstick.

The next three items I decided to review aren’t classics. They’re just some of other random things I picked out in the stocking stuffer aisle. These are Holly Rings:

They’re sort of like Ring Pops, only with Christmas-themed sugar mounted on top. I took a couple of licks of each. Each was a different flavor, though I couldn’t tell you what those flavors were. They were cute more than anything, if somewhat doofy looking. They were difficult to lick given the tiny size and awkwardness of the base. I didn’t want a slobbery mess. So in true Christmas spirit, I bit the heads off for you. The Gingerbread Man was a bit of trick and I couldn’t get my teeth around his head. So I just scraped the face off. Merry Christmas!

I was really excited by this colossal candy cane stick, known as Big Jim–

To me, eating a candy cane always felt like it was taking an hour to finish. Taking on Big Jim would be like a taking on a half-marathon. I don’t even like candy canes that much, but it’s true–big things are just more awesome. You know what’s even more awesome? Eating the whole thing is 400 calories. The Big Jim is nearly a Big Mac.

I’m saving this beast for Christmas night. I’m thinking egg nog, present opening with the girlfriend by the fake $14.99 Wal-Mart tree, and a Big Jim.

Finally, I’ve procured another treat from the Original Gourmet Food Company.

I’ve reviewed several of their holiday offerings now, and I think it’s becoming a Surfing Pizza tradition. If you haven’t seen them, take a look at my reviews of The Halloween Cookie and last Christmas’s Gingerbread Cookie. Basically, I’m amused by this company because they sell the grossest-looking confections in the world’s most generic tins.

Over the last year and a half, The Surfing Pizza has received many Google search hits from people trying find something out about this elusive company. In fact, my favorite comment ever appeared this past March, from a reader named Matt. I want to post it here because it is so awesome and hilarious:

“I received one today and was so dissapointed at the first sight, I began a search for a website prior to even eating the gross thing. I figured I might want to eat it before writing to bitch at them for deceptive advertising and misleading packaging techniques. When you get there, not a single link to the companies inter network web site works. The one that does work is a link to some other site selling paintings. And I am curious as to wether those paintings are not actually stolen copies of Thomas Kincaid(sp) paintings. They look exactly the same in the style used as well as colors. Ok, the cookie sucked too. It was NOT a double chocolate chip. It was NOT original (unless the word original describes the year made). It was NOT the size of its container. It was NOT even half the size of its container. It was NOT that soft. It was NOT very good. IT DID have a dry and powdery like feel on the palate, like too much flour was used and not enough butter or egg or what ever is used to make a cookie taste other than like a bag of flour. The tin is bright and colorful like easter but useless due to its size. If you can contact this Original Gourmet Food Co., please attach a copy of this comment. They suck and should hear it from all two hundred forty three people who have mistakenly bought one of their crappy cookies. I think this company made all their shitty cookies and loaded them with chemical preservatives to last 100 years. Just so they could use the bakery for as short a time as possible, then sell it and package them elsewhere.”

Dear Matt, thank you, whoever and wherever you are. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And now for the annual look whatever crap is in this tin.

Wow. Talk about a malformed turd. That is not what fudge looks like. They do not love fudge (!!). It feels like a chalkboard. It’s smooth, hard, and completely dry.

I don’t even know what else to say. If I got this as a gift and was expecting fudge, I would be seriously depressed. Like cut myself with rusty pair of kindergarden scissors depressed. If you have reached my site today seeking help for depression over receiving this shitty tin, I realize if you are here, your life may be in danger. Are you feeling desperate, alone or hopeless?

The taste? It ain’t awful. It’s just pretty bad.

And well, that’s it. I’ve officially consumed half a candy cane tube, a santa, a bell, several Tootsie rolls, a snowman head, a gingerbread man face, and two bites of a malformed turd. My stomach hurts but I did it for Internet, and so I hope you just read all five pages. Check back, because I’ve got more Christmas 2009 crap to review.

I think this ought to be my Christmas card this year:

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