Critique: Totino's Party Pizza!

It's Halloween, 2013 and I find myself home alone with nothing but a Totino's Party Pizza to keep me company. Outside, it's dark and all sorts of little rug rats are running to and fro, all under the watchful eyes of parents who sit patiently in their cars burning gas while wondering if they will be able to afford the dental bills that will be sure to arise from their kids eating all that sugar! For my part, I'm hiding inside my home, drapes closed and lights off, hoping the little beasties will stay away. Why, you ask? Have you seen the cost of candy lately?

My little pizza, which tacitly promises to get me into a party mood cost only $1.34 (it was on sale), sits on the top rack of my oven which I obediently set to 450F. According to the directions, I needed to cook said party pizza for about 15 minutes prior to 'digging in'!

Now, back in October of 2012, I did a short critique on a similar pizza made by Celeste. That pizza could be prepared in either the oven or the microwave and so was a bit more convenient. It cost about a buck and a quarter on sale and so was a little bit cheaper – at least when on sale. Even the calories are similar 370 for the Celeste versus 360 for the Totino's version. So, as you probably have guessed, both these dudes are basically from the same branch of the pizza tree! That is to say they are small and go down really fast.

After heating my party pizza for the required 15 minutes, I sliced it into quarters, poured a glass of milk and sat down to ingest. Frankly, I found this pizza to be pretty bad! The crust was a little hard for my taste and the toppings were somewhat...tasteless. Sadly, I give this one a 4 on a scale of 10. Think I'll be sticking with Celeste in the future, or better yet, I'll just shell out more money for a real fresh baked pizza!

Update: December 2nd, 2014. And yes, I've decided to try this deal again.. (Hey, I'm a sucker for punishment)! This time around, the cost of this Totino's combo pizza was up a few cents, now at $1.39. Still very affordable, but the real question remained. Is there a better way to make the unpalatable more palatable?  So, instead of baking it for 15 minutes at 450F, I brought the time down to 13 minutes, thinking this might improve (as in make softer) the texture of the crust. When the timer dinger went ding ding, I knew it was time to PARTY!

The verdict: Yes! The crust was much softer! And while the taste was still on the bland side, it was edible, none the less! One half the pizza (which I ate) was about 350 calories.

Critique: Lean Cuisine Steak Portabello!

At a sale price of just $2.50, this frozen entree from Lean Cuisine sported a couple of words that I really relate to; the word steak and the bastardization of the word portabelly. I love anything that's steak and happen to sport the other around my waist! And just check out that picture! (How can a mere mortal like myself NOT want to embrace such a sumptuous meal)?

So, I brought this 'incred-a-deal' and got it home post haste. And even though the package looked, how can I say it... a bit on the petite side, I was sure that it would satisfy the hungry man inside me. Well, shouldn't it?

At first glance, the 150 calorie content was bliss to a man on a diet, and while the sodium was a bit high at 450 milligrams, I was still a go! (I just figured that out there in the land of cheap deal meals, they had to use a lot of salt to make it taste...edible). Was I wrong to think that?

The Land of Reality

OK, here is what the dinner looked like after following the simple instruction of making a slit in the plastic and nuking on high for four and half minutes! Sweet! And you know what, I actually liked what I saw! Sure, the amounts were very small (especially the steak), but the taste was all that I could hope for. This creation gets a solid 8 on a scale of 10 and yeah, I'll plan to buy it again in the near future.

The real environmental elephant in the room!

While the media and some politicians prattle on and on about climate change and how it's in everyone's interest to do something about it, no one seems to be addressing a problem that becomes more critical with each passing day and which will unhinge America and other nations in the near term.

While global warming is something the media likes to talk and talk about, and while Obama is pressing for his so-called 'carbon tax' (which is currently stalled in the Senate), there are bigger problems brewing... I'm talking about potable water and the lack of it on planet earth. Strangely enough, for a planet that is covered by some much of the wet stuff, it's sad to state that only about 1% is actually drinkable. And, of that portion, much of that small amount is tied up as ice on both poles! That leaves precious little for the some 7 billion souls now inhabiting mother earth to drink each day!

Here in America, the fresh water is already becoming scarce in some states. Of even more concern are the dropping water tables across the mid section of the country. Reservoirs that experts say will take something like ten thousand years to refill, assuming we all stopped using it today. Our government is now projecting that at least 36 states will soon face severe water shortages because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.

Other continents, like Australia are even now in the midst of a critical shortage of water as wildfires burn up the parched land. (Sadly, Australia's longest river system, the Murray-Darling, which drains a basin the size of France and Spain combined, no longer carries enough water to carve its own path to the sea and must be dredged on a 24/7 basis). You think that will end well these folks? In fact, many of the world's rivers, including the Colorado in America, China's Yellow river and the Tagus, which flows through Spain and Portugal, are suffering a similar plight as increasingly thirsty hordes drain them faster than they can be refilled by rainfall. The truth of the matter is that there are just too many people, too many industries and animals to supply all their needs even today. If these trends continue, experts predict that shortages could become critical in just another decade or so....

Imagine a scenario where over a billion people are suddenly forced to move because they are slowly dying of thirst! Imagine, too, the effect on our world stability as they cross foreign borders in a tidal wave of wild desperation! It won't be a pretty sight and when it does begin to happen it will happen overnight. And yet, what is being done about this pending nightmare? Nothing. The media and the president would rather spend their time talking about global warming and how the CO2 might climb above 400 part per million! Heaven forbid!

Jefferson Airplane 1967 with White Rabbit!

OK, this is just wrong! I remember the Airplane and gee, it can't be all that long ago... but yet, it was. Still, watching Gracie Slick and those penetrating eyes of hers and remembering all that was part of that time in our history. Well, it was special... very special to me and to a generation! Crank it up and enjoy! Now, what the heck happened to my Valium>???

Cell phone canceled due to Obamacare!

Today, I had to call my representative at Verizon and told her to cancel my cell phone account. Her name was Kelly and she felt sad to see me go after so many years as a valued subscriber. The thing was, I would still be a customer had had it not been for ObamaCare and the high costs associated with it. And, on reflection, I couldn't help but wonder if there will be a tidal wave of future cell phone cancellations that will sweep America, as millions come to the realization that some of the conveniences they took for granted may no longer be easily affordable.

I'm also guessing that phone companies all across the nation will be experiencing smaller bottom lines come the spring of 2014. The real question is, will they be just the tip of a much larger iceberg?

The ubiquitous cheeseburger and fries at McDonald's!

Eat Me!

Going to McDonald's is a love hate relationship for me. Over the years, I come to a sort of détente as I've learned to eighty-six the Big Mac and extra large fries for the more reasonable cheeseburger and medium fry. The two combined contain 630 calories for a cost of $2.81(valid at Forsyth MO as of the 14th of October 2013), which is a livable set of totals for me as long as I keep the visits down to about once a week. As I'm currently on a 1,800 calorie per day diet, this one meal (usually eaten at lunchtime) puts a large dent in my overall meal planning and thus requires I either skimp on breakfast or exercise. Usually it's both!

So, is the awesome taste worth the hassle? For me it is even after they jacked the price up another dime on the 15th! Was this due to a tax or was it the franchise? Who knows...

Easy to make spaghetti sauce - the movie!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vtdx7r98c&feature=share&list=UUJ7CUejD67Bv7N1QtX-LnJA

A good homemade spaghetti sauce should be easy to make, taste delicious and actually be healthy to eat! Prego can maybe make two of those claims, but not all three!