NOVELTY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS... MUST BE NOVEMBER!!

If there is a holiday I've learned to seriously dislike, it is Christmas. Earlier in the week, and it is now November 21st, I heard freakin' Christmas music on the radio! It's NOVEMBER!!! Pineville, a small city next to Charlotte, already put up their Christmas decorations. It's NOVEMBER!!! I see posts from friends on Facebook about how they already purchased their Christmas trees. It's MOTHERGRUBBIN' NOVEMBER!!!

I seriously dislike this holiday, and I don't think I am alone.

I wanted to grabbed something Thanksgiving related for this review but when I walked into the Dollar Tree there wasn't a single Thanksgiving-related item in the entire store! Not one... Of course not. How ridiculous of me to try to go to a store a week before Thanksgiving and expect to find Thanksgiving-related items.

I did find row after row, endcap after endcap of Christmas crap! Red and green all over the place. Christmas toys, decorations, food, candy, silverware, dinnerware, novelty items, etc. Just Christmas... Ugh.

Anyway, so, I am going to jump on the bandwagon and review Christmas products in November. And in December, I am going to review Easter-related items. Take that corporate America!!!

The first trinket I found was Instant Snow in a Can (or Neige Décorative Instantanée en Conserve for our Canadian friends). How can anybody resist this? It's instant freakin' snow. Which we don't get enough of here in the Charlotte area. According to the can, all I have to do is add water and I can have something that looks and feels like real snow.

The instructions were simple, open your can, add water and you'll have a mess in your hands.

I quickly opened my canned snow and realized that I am actually kind of excited about this. I noticed that the can opened on both ends. The top lid comes off completely, like you would a can of soup, while the bottom opened with a tab the way a canned soda does.

The instructions didn't say anything about the openings so I opened both ends. This decision was supported by the stupid graphic depiction of the snow coming out of both ends of the can in the instructions.

Once gutted, the can contained a small plastic shove, a baggie of cocaine and instructions. Well, the instructions were almost exactly the same as the once outside of the can, but the warnings took up about 75% of the rest of the instruction sheets.

Following the instructions we started shoveling the white powder in the can. Unfortunately, this was an idiotic way to do this as the bag was too small for the shovel and ended up shoveling about 1/4 of an ounce at a time.

Eventually, Girl #2, who was one of my helpers and testers, just decided to pour the whole baggy in the can just to get it over with.

Once we poured the water the "snow" did appear immediately. The second the water touched this stuff, which is also what they put inside diapers, it became a gelatinous, snowy blob.

The girls were excited and and immediately dunked their hands into it. They said it was awesome and ran it through their fingers and hands. But, unfortunately, after only a few seconds, Girl #2 asked what they were supposed to do with it. I told her she could do anything she wanted. After one more minute they just ended up dumping the whole thing in the trash.

Girl #2 tried, and failed, at making a snowball. The amorphous, rubbery blob has absolutely no binding power to itself. So, no matter how hard you press, you're not getting a snowball to save your life. Also, when you touched a mount of it, it jiggled oddly and rather nastily, the way Jell-O or tapioca pudding does. ewww....

As a devout fan of Mr. Wizard's World back in the day (the 90's, not the 50's), this was a really cool experiment for me and the girls. But the fun factor is very, very, very short lived and once you have your snow, there's really not much else to do with it. Possibly if you're using this to decorate your house for Christmas some time in November, this will do a really good job.

Score:

CHEESE AND BREAD....

Hey kids! Since I just made up that today would be 2-for-1 day, this review has two products!

So, while I was writing the last post I got hungry and remembered that during my last trip to The Dollar Tree I bit the bullet and bought some american "cheese" slices and bread to review. First, the "cheese"...

The product itself is called Sunny Acres American Slices and the product description is "Pasteurized Processed Sandwich Slices", so, on the plus side, they're not lying to you, IT AIN'T CHEESE! They're just "slices". The package is open because Boy #2 got to it before I did and his verdict was that it was "disgusting as shit". I can only imagine the nightmarish monstrosity appearance this shit must have when it's being pumped out of the processing machine. I looked up Sunny Acres online and there is no such thing. Then, I noticed that the back of the package had the name and a URL address for the distributor, SmartPrice Sales & Marketing, Inc. Certainly doesn't sound like a cheese factory.

These people create a bunch of products with different lines that are sold at "Extreme Value Retailers" (I didn't even know we got all P.C. about dollar stores) around the country. From their site, "In 2010, ranked  #311on INC.500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America, and composed of a growing number of brands, including Sunny Acres, Northsire County, SmartPrice Sales & Marketing will have you say "Wow, what a fantastic value!" HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Oddly enough, all their ingredients in the back are in Spanish and the side panel, which is much smaller, is where the English version is. Dude, check out the laundry list of chemical ingredients in this thing!

I speak Spanish and I don't know what half of that shit is. Anyway, I plopped one slice out on a paper plate and it looks like it's made from plastic. Shiny and unnatural are the only two worlds I could come up with to describe this. I was going to take a bite of it just to taste but I shuddered at the thought.

Ok, so, let's set the cheese aside and move on to the bread now. The name is just Family Style White Enriched Bread. And it's distributed by European Bakers out of Thomasville, GA. Ah, but as per usual, there is no European Bakers in Thomasville, GA.

European Bakers is just a brand name for Flowers Foods which is Flowers Specialty Brands, LLC. Which apparently has been in the baking scene for over 80 years. Don't be fooled, they ain't no small ma and pa shop in GA. They also make some of the, in my opinion, better brands out there like Nature's Own, Cobblestone Mill and Tastykakes! Ah... Tastykakes, that takes me back to my college den where I frolicked from opium den to opium den eating tastykakes. Memories...

Sorry, back now, not much to this product. This also has a laundry list of ingredients I just did not want to invest the time into reading. Reaching into the bag, the bread was nice and soft and airy and fluffy. I was actually expecting it to be stale and nasty but it really wasn't.

I finished making my sammich and took the first bite. The bread was good, I mean, if I didn't already know that it was from the dollar store, I would have never guessed it. It was fresh... then my palate touched the cheese... Holy hell, that was disgusting. It felt like chewing on a piece of rubber and it tasted off. I can't really describe it but it was dry and slightly bitter. It tasted totally artificial... like taking a bite out of Nicki Minaj where she made of pasteurized processed sandwich slices.

I actually did finish it but the last couple of bites were kinda rough. Someone, the cheese got to my brain and all I could taste was the damned cheese... oh god... the cheese... I think it got in my hair... Oh no, it's in me!!! Scores:

Cheese:

Bread: Score:

POWER X CRYSTAL GEL DISHWASHING DETERGENT

Hello there! I'm back!

I recently lost my job which means I have a helluva lot more time to squander on the internet and blog. Since we lost one source of income, it also probably will mean a lot more trips to The Dollar Tree to cut corners. Such was the when it came time to buy more dishwashing detergent. Unlike before, The Dollar Tree now seems to carry several brands of most of their products. I actually had a few options when I went to pick up this lemony jewel which was a nice surprise.

There are 8 people in our household, myself, the little lady, and 6 "chirrens" so you can imagine the mountains of dirty dishes that pile up daily. Add to that the fact that nobody around here enjoys washing dishes and you end up with an overused dishwasher and morbid amounts of dishwasher detergent.

I opted for Power X Crystal Gel because the packaging was very similar to the name brand stuff and it looked the least cheap of the bunch. As with 99% of the products The Dollar Tree offers, this too was "new & improved" with a Fresh Lemon Scent... if your idea of lemon scent is a combination of semen and PineSol.

Another interesting fact is that, unlike most of the crap I buy here, this is a true 'Murican product made right here in Missouri (which is one of the handful of states I couldn't find on a U.S. map if my life depended on it) by a company called CSI Products, Inc. I would tell you more about this company, but I even being bored and unemployed couldn't get me to sift through a website for a company that makes cleaning products.

Lastly, on packaging, even though the label comes equipped with a fancy QR code, it takes you to a broken link.

I put my PowerX to the test with a small load since I had one of the kids load and they just plain ol' suck at it. This is actually only about 20% of what we usually cram into the poor dishwasher.

Power X pours a Lemon-Lime-Gatorade-Yellow but with the consistency of mucus-from-a-toddler-with-a-runny-nose. Directions are plain and simple, "fill all holes with our goo" sorta deal and press the start button.

A little while later the dishes came out spotless and awesome (forgot to take a picture). But, awesomely enough, Power X did he job perfectly and for 30oz for a bottle, it's a great deal. I think this is gonna be a keeper instead of buying the name-brand stuff from now on!

Score: