Stop
Slippery When Wet
Scenic Route
Deer Xing
Gas Food Lodging
It's the regulatory street sign everyone can enjoy! Fans of law and order love its no-nonsense authoritarian message, free of silhouettes and other namby-pamby kowtowing to illiterate and non-English-speaking drivers, and free-thinking activists enjoy pasting phrases like "EATING MEAT" or "NOT FREEING MUMIA" at the bottom. A
I find this sign oddly soothing. Perhaps it's because the driver looks so placid and generic, in spite of the fact that his or her car is moving around like a Nerf ball in a jacuzzi. It's as if the sign is saying to me "Slippery when wet or icy, but you're going to be just fine, Tiger." B+
An interesting idea in principle, but it doesn't work too well in practice. For instance, near where I live there's a lovely stretch of highway that goes right along the West Coast. You can see crashing breakers, frolicking pelicans, lovely beaches, and other things that the gods put on earth to prop up the postcard industry. And at some point along this highway there's a marker that says "Begin Scenic Route." Suddenly you're in the land of government approved beauty. I refuse to take advice on California scenery from anyone who chooses to live in Sacramento. D
Pretty good. Straightforward, dynamic icon, only one problem: the antlers are on backwards. They really are. You'd think that the government would provide its icon designers with reference material, but apparently that's a little too much to ask. I suppose we should just be grateful the Ped symbols don't have three arms. D+
Of the Highway Trinity I like lodging the best. The circa 1957 design of the pump for "gas" is nice, and the fork and knife is refreshingly ironic, considering that most highway-side dining establishments would be better represented by a french fry box and a Mulan toy, but lodging wins because the icon looks like it should stand for "Warning: Giant Cocktail Onion and Twinkie Rest Area." A
Muffin Loaf
Frosted Donettes
Sno-Balls
Orange Cupcakes
Tiger Tails
I'm not sure what distinguishes a "muffin loaf" from "bread," or alternatively "cake." Probably the rising sun on the package, which is the Hostess ideogram for "eat this at breakfast, sugar-slave." Anyhow, this artificially fruit-flavored food brick has the same chemical mouth-feel as the rest of the Hostess gang, only sans filling and frosting. D
Leaving aside the fact that the word "Donette" would logically indicate a miniature Don, you have to admire the way Hostess extends the shelf life of these little bakery knobs by sending them out of the factory with the same taste and texture one would expect from stale doughnuts. Add to that the fact that the sell-by date doesn't have a visible year, and you have the ultimate chocolate-swaddled mystery snack. B
These are just plain weird. Even the ones that aren't dyed green are weird. When you observe other attempts to arrange a common-law marriage of marshmallow and baked goods -- s'mores, moon pies, &c. -- the unwritten law is "the marshmallow goes on the inside," the better to protect the chewing public from the Unheimlichkeit of fingering the marshmallow hive-mind. Sno-balls ignore this important stricture, even going so far as to dust the things with coconut sprinkles inevitably reminiscent of pubic hair. Heironymous Bosch would have chorfed these things by the armload. C
They're orange. They don't really taste like oranges, though. They're vaguely citric, but not something you'd want to accuse an actual orange of contributing to. They're very orange, though, somewhere between "Orange Crush orange" and "Sunny Delight orange." The sort of orange you figure could substitute for road flares in a pinch. As if they were designed to coordinate well with a home made entirely out of marshmallow circus peanuts. And they taste kinda that way, too. B-
Boy, that's an appetizing name! I can taste the fur already! And they look for all the world like Twinkies that have been decorated by third-graders! Thus we continue in the grand Hostess tradition of minor revamps of classic treats, the better to stomp Little Debbie back into the unfertile soil from which she was summoned. C-
Pocky
Everyburger
Seasoned Cuttlefish Crackers
Glico Something or Other
Meiji, um, Things
Hello Kitty Lips Candy
These are little cookie-like sticks dipped in chocolate. Very straightforward, and more addictive than "Ben and Jerry's Crack N' Tobacco Crunch." They also have Melon Pocky, Coconut Pocky, Giant Pocky, some sort of crunchy Pocky which I think has toffee or something, and "Pocky for Men." I'm not sure if those last ones have testosterone in them or just look good with a suit and tie, but there's a certain macho appeal to eating a man's chocolate-covered cookie snack. A+
Certainly there's no dearth of food shaped like other food in Western culture -- I had a Jell-O salad shaped like a pig just last week -- but Everyburger deserves big handclaps for attention to detail. The darned things look unnervingly like hamburgers. The chocolate "meat" is precisely the correct color, and the cookie "bun" actually has miniscule "sesame seeds." If Goldfish Crackers had that much devotion to verisimilitude, they'd all have little glazed eyes staring helplessly up at you. And who wouldn't enjoy that? A
I don't want to ever hear you say I never ate seasoned cuttlefish crackers for you. They're even shaped like cuttlefish, although I must admit I haven't spent enough time around cuttlefish to tell how precise the likeness is. If you've ever eaten shrimp chips, they taste kind of like those. If you've never eaten shrimp chips, you're probably not going to want to start at this late stage of the game. C-
More candy. I picked this one up because it had both a triumphant athlete and a wooden toy duck on the box. Unable to drum up the faintest connection between the two, I bought it. This is a common experience with me and Japanese candy. Anyhow, the wooden toy duck is because the box contains a wooden toy duck, and the triumphant athlete is because the packaging designer was insane. The box also contains weird squishy strawberry candy, kind of like gummi candy with no will to live. There's just no sports connection whatsoever. C
I don't know what these are, except that they're vaguely reminiscent of Fun-Yuns. Judging from the packaging, I had assumed they would taste like a happy frog, a hungry little guy with a beard, or a bowl of soup. Upon prying open the bag, however, I was greeted with the familiar aroma of curry and relief. These are quite tasty! They're little crunchy curry units! I can dig it! B
They don't taste a damn thing like Hello Kitty lips. D
