Posted by palabomeno on Sep 1, 2018
The Housewives Tarot is a deck published by Quirk Books and designed by Paul Kepple and Jude Buffum of Headcase Design. It was first printed in 2004, and has since been followed by a semi-sequel, The Zombie Tarot. The deck is inspired by the aesthetics of 50s America, with martini-sipping housewife culture. The deck’s “backstory” involves the mystic Madame Marlena, an otherwise unassuming housewife who introduces the tarot to her group of friends as a way of life.
Here’s my thoughts on the deck of the so-called Marlena, under the cut.
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Posted on Aug 25, 2018
Nacho Fries! They’re back!
Then again, we didn’t really notice they were ever gone. And from the looks of it, they came back in July, so we dropped the ball on this one right through the floor. Whoops!
Nacho Fries first popped up back in January of 2018, filling a long-pondered-about hole in Taco Bell’s menu. Taco Bell, ostensibly being a Mexican-themed restaurant, has never before offered French fries in America. Their staple cheese-saturated side dish has always been their nachos (officially, ‘Chips and Nacho Cheese Sauce’). But we, as Americans, have a long and storied love of the fried potato that extends back generations; just about every other fast food restaurant has to serve french fries, whether they want to or not.
Recognizing this, Taco Bell has added other potato-based dishes to their menu - first and most notably, the home fries-esque “Fiesta potatoes”, as well as breakfast hash browns - but the addition of real French fries is a genuine first for the chain.
The real question is, should they have added fries at all? This “nacho” style is an interesting Taco Bell-themed twist on regular French fries, but was it the right choice to move further away from their already distorted view on Tex-Mex cuisine? Let’s find out how we feel about this.
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Posted on Aug 18, 2018
Surge…
Want to impress someone who was born in the 90s? Tell them you have an unopened can of Surge at home. Surge was a somewhat popular citrus soda released from 1997 to 2003 in the United States. Intended to be a competitor to Mountain Dew, it never managed to find a solid market and was eventually discontinued. Dedicated Surge fans didn’t take this sitting down and immediately launched a dedicated campaign to have the drink returned to store shelves.
The campaign has paid off with small victories in the past (namely the introduction of Vault, which was also quickly removed from stores) but their ultimate goal was accomplished in 2015. Surge was released as an internet exclusive on Amazon, and eventually returned to store shelves. It’s since been available pretty consistently since then as a total 90s nostalgia cash-grab. We don’t know if you can still get it in cans or bottles right now, but it’s openly available at any Burger King with a Coke Freestyle machine.
Should they have bothered to bring it back? Let’s find out.
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Posted by brilokuloj on Jul 30, 2018
As of today it’s no longer a secret that I’ve never had a Dole Whip.
Dole Whips are a cult classic treat you can get at a few places, notably Disneyland and Walt Disney World. It’s a soft-serve dairy-free ice “cream” treat made with pineapple flavor. It’s either served by itself, or as a “Dole Whip float” with pineapple juice.
I don’t know what it tastes like, because as I’ve just said, I’ve never had it. But I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT TO
So let’s look at my options.
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Posted by brilokuloj on Jul 23, 2018
In case you fell asleep from the years of 1997-2007 or were otherwise lucky enough to be spared from the onslaught, Harry Potter is a quasi-beloved fantasy book franchise about a little wizard boy and his little wizard friends.
One of those kids is named Ron Weasley, who briefly had a pet rat named Scabbers. Pet rats weren’t very well-regarded by the general populace at this point, but around the release of the film adaptations, quite a few people found the little rat man quite charming and it quite inexplicably became profitable to sell rat-themed merchandise to wee ones.
Then Scabbers turned out to be an old man pretending to be a rat to deceive the children, but that’s not relevant to this article. What we’re talking about today: SCABBERS MERCHANDISE! And uh, Ron too, I guess.
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Posted on Jun 6, 2018
Possibly the biggest news in video game archiving history so far has been broken: A complete copy of the Pokemon Gold and Silver demo from Spaceworld 1997 has been leaked! This development version is almost totally different from the release, with dozens of previously unseen concept Pokemon that have been either radically changed or completely cut.
The full contents of the leak are being compiled by @TeamSpaceWorld into a table that you can view on Google Docs. To see the new Pokemon, just click on the ‘Pokemon’ tab at the top of the page. If you’re a Pokemon fan, this is a treasure trove of new Pokemon designs that have never before seen the light of day!
We’ve compiled a list of what we think the ten best “lost” designs are!
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