Moving from the suburbs of Chicago into the city.  Adjusting to a new and longer commute.  Painting.  Unpacking.  Trying to stock the pantry and get settled.  You know.  BORING LIFE THINGS.

That being said, getting a cardboard cylinder with a label that read: “The Lazy Baker” was a truly magical moment.  Lazy baking seemed an oasis of relief from my life’s recent death march.  And then I lost the cylinder during the move.

I’ll probably find one of these in a box of fine china.

Well, they were kind enough to re-send it.  This time I read the label…and was rather surprised to see baking instructions.

Let’s break it down to semantics.  Baking cookies is an inherently easy task.  Some flour, some eggs, some sugar, baking powder and butter and whatever chocolate-type sweet thing and you eventually get cookies.

After three failed attempts to create these cookies, I buckled down.  I beat a stick and half of butter, added some vanilla and then mixed the mixture in.  If you have a nice mixer, use it.  I decided to act like I didn’t have a mixer and see just how lazy these cookies were.   I received a tender wrist from the proceedings, mixed in the chocolate chips and rolled them into little balls as per the instructions.

After about 10 minutes the double chocolate cookies came out warm and melty and soft.  A day later they they were crispy, as one would expect.  Fine cookies.  Tasty even.

The quandary is thus: The cookies are delicious, but is the baking process truly lazy?

No, these aren’t lazy.  Pillsbury cookie dough tubes are insanely easy to bake.  Remove wrapping, cut to desired thickness, place on baking sheet and bake.  You can’t get any lazier than that.  It is the end of the evolutionary arch of the cookie.  First there is no cookie, then a cookie from scratch, then Pillsbury.  There is no step beyond that ultimate benchmark of laziness.

Therein lies the rub, my friends.  These Lazy Baker items aren’t lazy enough.  Pillsbury has set the bar so low that the “Lazy Baker” moniker itself becomes a detriment to the product.  I was led to believe that I could bake these cookies while unpacking boxes, catching up on laundry and cleaning the bathtub.  Alas, these are not “Multi-Tasking Baker” or even “Low Maintenance Cookies.”  They are for cooks and bakers with a scrap of dignity left, those who still embrace the process of baking but might not have all the time in the world.

The cookies are delicious, friends.  If you have a mixer and 20 minutes to kill, Lazy Baker is your weapon of choice.  If, however, you have no sense of decency and feel justified in baking the laziest cookies in history, Pillsbury brand cookie dough will be your Excalibur.  I judge ye not.  Go forward and bake!

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Via Next Round and Jock and Balls.

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As a promotion for Cheeto’s newest product,  Giant Cheetos, Gizmodo was sent “the world’s largest Cheeto.” So what did they do with it? What else? They made a member of their team eat it over the worlds most expensive keyboard. Check out the video below:

H/T Gizmodo and Scandalist.

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Original Post: They have arrived. But I will admit, I didn’t even know they were coming. Big thanks to @mvpitts for alerting me to the existence of this bizarre product after sharing a USA Today article covering weird new food creations such as Giant Cheetos, Pancake Puppies and Oreo Fun Stix.

For its article, USA Today spoke to Frito-Lay about the inspiration behind the idea:

“People are looking for anything to break the negativity,” says Ann Mukherjee, marketing guru at Frito-Lay, which, at one point even considered — but junked the idea of — Cheetos the size of tennis balls.

Frito-Lay hired cultural anthropologists who watched stressed workers fiddle with stuff on their desks — including stress balls. So why not Giant Cheetos, instead? “It’s a ball you can eat,” Mukherjee says.

BookofJoe also posted about them yesterday, and Taquitos provides a review:

Each piece in this bag of Cheetos was quite large, as you would expect from the Giant Cheetos name, with a tube-like shape, kind of like a marshmallow, though somewhat irregular, with rounded-off ends. Each tube was about an inch and a half in diameter about an inch and a half long.

Gigi-reviews got their hands on some last week and has described them as well:

It is shaped like a neon orange marshmallow. And unlike marshmallow it is not smooshy and sweet. It is super cheese flavored. It’s as if they took the amount of cheese flavor in a regular cheetos and upped it to 11. Actually it reminded me of an old school Planters Cheese Ball more then a Cheeto. By that I mean it’s saltier then a normal Cheeto and the cheese flavor is a little more fake, but it’s so good in that ‘it’s bad but it’s good’ way that you don’t care.

So exactly how big are these Giant Cheetos? Well, Gigi-Review provides a photo showing some scale:

That’s a big ass ball of Cheeto.  Isn’t part of the fun of Cheetos the skinnyness and crunchyness? I fear that a giant puffy cheese ball will be too similar to the puffy and light – and far inferior, cheese puffs you can get from any supermarket store brand.  I want to try one of these badly, but my health, and my wallet, can’t justify actually spending money on crap like this.  Oh, but Flamin Hot Cheetos FTW.  That is all.

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Anything that involves Twinkies, Vienna sausages and a turkey baster filled with sour cream has bad idea written all over it.  Now I applaud the resourcefulness and creativity, but unless this is going to be bronzed and sent to the Smithsonian, I don’t see this ending well for anyone that partakes in this gluttonous display.

Thanks to Deadspin for the news. See Holy Taco for the stadium creation play-by-play.

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Via Book of Joe.

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Here’s how it went down:

The company decided to cater snack food for us and set it up on a table down the hall from the kitchen, right beside the sports department. Naturally those in the news department went over to the abundant spread and indulged themselves too – that is until the sports people became selfish and rude, not allowing those in news to eat their goodies. News then retaliated by claiming the kitchen as well as all inside it as theirs (they get catered snacks too). They even put up a sign which read “FOR NEWS ONLY – NO SPORTS!” The most ridiculous part of this whole thing is the food choices were very similar and there was a surplus – everyone could partake in all the food and we would still have leftovers! The worst part: I’m caught in the middle, because I help out both departments! Actually truth be told its not so bad. I get the novelty of the sports snack table, while enjoying the kitchen and all its conveniences as well – but it has provided for some awkward situations.

This wouldn’t be so bad if it were a one time thing. I could chalk it up to stress and just move on, but this happens all the time. People are always complaining about how someone stole their lunch/soda/snack from the fridge, or how “so-and-sos” food smells really bad. This got me thinking, does this kind of food fighting happen in all offices? Does anyone else have a lunch thief in their workplace? Because we can’t get rid of ours – not even passive aggressive notes on the fridge have deterred him. Any advice or even just the knowledge that I am not alone would really help right now – because if I have to hear about this kind of stuff one more time, I might just kill someone!

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Photo and knowledge of this marvelous creation via Serious Eats and Two Bites in Suburbia.

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A colleague of mine does work for the creative web design agency jess3. While perusing some of the web pages they’ve designed, one jumped out at me: DCSnacks. As someone who both lives in DC, and enjoys snacks, I was surprised that I was unfamiliar with this company. I decided it was time to do a little digging. First things first, I checked out the DC Snacks website:

The site seems easy to use, easy to navigate, and being able to place an order online and use your credit card is a HUGE convenience. The prices for the products on the site may initially seem pricey. However, with no delivery fee , the cost of the convenience you are getting is built into the cost of the goods (and if you are tired or drunk at 2 AM and jonesing for some good snacks but there are no stores open, it is a BIG convenience).

The site isn’t just for those with the late night munchies either. You can order things like cigarettes, cloves, hookah tobacco, DVD’s, batteries, over the counter medicine and even condoms…for when the mood strikes and you want to be safe, but you don’t know where to find an open store.

DC Snacks deliver from 7 PM to 2 AM Sun – Wed, and 7 PM – 3 AM Thurs – Sat. Their delivery area includes most of the biggest neighborhoods in Northwest, covering Chinatown, Logan Circle, Dupont Circle, U St, Georgetown, Foggy Bottom and the Western side of Adams Morgan.

Sadly not covered: my apartment, which is on the eastern side of Adams Morgan. However, looking at growth trends in DC neighborhoods, I would imagine eastern Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights would be the next neighborhoods added if any expansion occurs.

To find out a little bit more about DC Snacks, I interviewed Matt Mandell, co-founder of the company:

So Good: Who founded DC Snacks and why?

Matt Mandell: DCSnacks was born under the name CampusSnacks in January of 2003 when I was 21 and the other founder was 20. We were upset that we could not find food and services we were used to having grown up in NJ / NY metro area. We wanted to serve the residents of DC. We never had a business plan or thought about money, we wanted to fill a need and originally operated only 3 nights a week from 8pm – 4am.

So Good: What made you think originally, or continue to think now, that DC Snacks can be a successful and profitable venture?

Matt: When I speak to customers, or when customers meet me and recognize my name and they suddenly smile. I also know this as I look at sales numbers and the number of customers who continue to order from us each night.

So Good: How many people do you employ and who are they?

Matt: We maintain a staff of anywhere between 25 and 50 employees with a mix of students, couriers, professionals looking for additional money, or people who love to ride their bikes. I often hear, you are paying me to ride my bike which is something I love and not work to me. I think this adds a lot to the company culture.

So Good: In terms of where you operate from and the territory you cover, why did you choose the areas you did? Are there any future plans for expanding your delivery area?

We operate our base of operations from a location near the white house. We choose areas based on our ability to efficiently serve it. We are working on an expansion plan which would serve larger and more areas, both inside and outside of the DC market.

If you live in any of these delivery areas, check out DCSnacks.com and see what they have to offer.

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A day later a version with some people speaking English appeared:

Two users, bobtel08 and benzin513, both of whom joined YouTube on May 28th, have now posted several different videos of people popping popcorn with a cell phone, some in French, some in English.

For the past few days, people have been speculating if the videos are a fake and if cellphones can really pop corn. They’ve debated if cellphones emit enough radiation to do so, if their is a hotplate under the table etc. This is not a discussion worth continuing. The videos are clearly fake, as several bloggers have pointed out. Their is no hotpad involved, and the popcorn on the table is not actually popping. It is purely an editing and camera trick, as you can see the kernels popping on to the camera from the bottom of the screen, and the other kernels next to the “popping corn” magically don’t move and are undisturbed by kernels popping next to them. Also, the people in the videos are also definitely actors.

This is a viral marketing campaign, plain and simple. Judging by the views on the videos (over 3 million views so far) it’s a highly successful one. But the question remains, who is behind it and what are they selling? If you are selling a cell phone, would you want to give people the impression that your product emits enough energy to pop a popcorn kernel? Perhaps this is a bizarre way to advertise for a new low-radiation cell phone? Seems questionable. Of course the possibility remains that these videos are only being used to get attention, and whoever is behind them is going to drop a video promoting something totally unrelated to the original clips.

This question has been driving me crazy all morning, so I’m going to throw out a few theories of who is behind these videos. Click below to read on about a few shot-in-the-dark guesses about who could be behind this.

1. Apple: The timing oddly matches up with the announcement about the new iPhone, with the videos first being leaked online a little more than a week before the announcement of the iPhone 2. There were rumors in March that an ad had appeared on Craigslist looking for “regular people” actors for an iPhone 2 commercial. The ad was quickly pulled from Craigslist and scrubbed from the AppleInsider site. Perhaps this ad was from Apple’s ad agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day? Interestingly, on the Macrumors site, one individual leaves a post titled: “iPhone 2 Short Film/Ad – It’s True” in which he writes that he thinks TBWA was working with video producing firm Smuggler to create an “Apple Short”:

I work in TBWA\Chiat\Day’s mailroom and I overheard Laurie Coots talking to some guys from Smuggler about “the Apple short”. We normally only handle production through big guns like Partizan, so the fact that Smuggler was in the office got me kinda suspicious. There is definitely something in the works.

There were also reports in April, that Apple’s ad agency was seeking “Asian men who speak Mandarin; Hasidic males fluent in Hebrew; a French-speaking cab driver; a pair of Jamaican (or West Indian) women who can ’speak with a thick patois accent’ and others.” We have seen versions of these popcorn cellphone videos in French and English, but no other languages – yet.

The use of popcorn could also be an angle in which to remind people you can watch movies on your iPhone.

Downsides of the iPhone 2 guess: First off, this isn’t really Apple’s style, they have a strong enough brand name they don’t need to generate buzz with viral campaigns. Second, I contacted Smuggler to ask if they were behind the cellphone popcorn ads – he denied they are behind these ads and I have no reason to assume he wasn’t truthful. Doesn’t mean they weren’t made by/for Apple, but if they were, it wasn’t by Smuggler – perhaps TBWA enlisted someone else to make these videos?

2. Net10: This cell phone company has already made the foray into videos of hazardous uses of cell phones, having posted a video of a cell phone being put into a microwave. A demon then climbs out of the cell phone and you are urged to visit the site no-evil.net. The site features other videos with titles such as “Is your cell phone company supporting deadly bacteria?” and “Is your cell phone company taking advantage of homeless dogs?” It sounds like this is the kind of company willing to make a risky video like the cellphone popcorn ones….maybe a play on the “your phone is evil” theme?

So could these popcorn videos be a part of their viral video campaign? The YouTube user who posted the cell phone microwave video just added one of the cellphone popcorn videos to his profile about 5 hours ago.

On the flip side, Smuggler confirmed to me that they DID produce this video (the microwave one), so they would have had to admit to making this one but not fess up to the cellphone popcorn ones.

3. A popcorn company. It just doesn’t make sense that a cell phone company would scare people about the harmful effects of cell phones with these videos. So why not a new kind of popcorn coming out? But from who?

Is it Orville Redenbacher? Act II? Is it Pop Secret trying to promote their Pop Secret Films? Maybe it’s the popcorn board? If I was forced to guess, I’d say Dale & Thomas – they probably don’t have the budget to do TV advertising, but they could afford something like this. If we find out in the next day or two that it was Dale & Thomas, it will coincide perfectly with their attempts to push sales of their gourmet popcorn for Fathers Day this weekend.

4. Florida Orange Juice. Isn’t it kind of odd that in one of the videos they are all drinking orange juice? Who eats popcorn with orange juice? And who serves orange juice in an open top pitcher like that?

5. Beer. In one of the videos with some French guys, one of the dudes is holding what appears to be a beer.

6. A company totally unrelated to popcorn or cellphones that is going to find a way to utilize all the attention from this to put out a final video promoting something totally irrelevant to these videos.

So those are some possibilities. Lets hope one of them is right, because theoretically there are hundreds of thousands of companies that could be behind it – guessing it right with just a handful of guesses out of hundreds of thousands wouldn’t be bad.

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Headlines rejected as even more tasteless than the one I used:

“Once your heart goes pop, the fun will stop”
“A life that stopped, an urn that goes pop”
“Betcha can’t bury just one”

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1. Snickers
2. Doritos Big Grab
3. Peanut M&M’s
4. Cheetos
5. Cheez-It Original
6. Twix Bar
7. Strawberry Frosted Pop-Tarts
8. Rice Krispies Treat
9. Lay’s Chips
10. Mrs. Freshley’s Jumbo Honey Bun

A few interesting observations from this list. First off, the Mrs. Freshley’s is probably the most unknown entity on that list. As one of my friends pointed out, breakfast options in vending machines are limited, which might account for the popularity of Pop Tarts and the Honey Bun’s.

Nothing else jumps out as me as particularly surprising, with one exception: Peanut M&M’s. Where are the regular M&M’s? They didn’t even crack the top ten. Do Peanut M&M’s really outsell regular M&M’s? Or is that just a vending machine phenomenon?

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(Photo via Slashfood)

I’m a sucker for any spicy snack or anything jalapeño, so I’m eager to try this. Adage and Slashfood both got a hold of a bag and have written reviews (Note to Frito-Lay: where’s the free sample love for So Good?)

Adage writes:

The verdict? These are good. So good, in fact, that I somehow managed to eat the whole bag. They’re not as spicy as I’d like but there is enough of a kick to make your mouth pleasantly tingle long after you’ve swallowed the last chip.

Slashfood seems to agree:

After tasting the chips, I am forced to admit that they are darn tasty. They aren’t actually all that spicy, but they capture the heat and greenness of a jalapeño pepper in a way that is addictive and delicious.

Damn. Sounds like I need to get a bag. Fritos has said the chips are currently available in select areas, and will be available nationwide shortly.

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