Today's Review: Wotsits Wafflers

According to my darling wife-to-be, these things were around for a while when we were kids, but I sure don't remember them. So when I spotted them in Poundland I had to grab a pack for her, even though she only remembers the cheese ones. But the blurb at the top right assures me that yes, these were once a thing.

Wotsits Wafflers are waffle shaped Wotsits. As such, they're more structured, so they're crunchier than your average Wotsit, so really they're like differently shaped Frazzles. I just wish I could try the cheese flavoured ones, because I've never been a fan of meat flavoured crisps. Still, these weren't so bad, but I wouldn't go out of my way to look for another pack. I much prefer the cheesy originals.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Ted

Yes, Seth MacFarlane has wandered into movie territory, and strangely under Universal instead of Fox. Oh well, maybe they didn't like the swears.

Ted (MacFarlane) was once just an average teddy bear, owned by John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg). But when John made a wish that Ted could come to life, it came true, and while the bear was thrust into the limelight for a while, John and Ted simply grew up together as best friends. Which means, of course, that this teddy bear loves to swear, drink and bang hookers. But when Ted appears to be putting a strain on John's relationship with his girlfriend (Mila Kunis), it seems like it might be time for this man to leave his teddy bear behind.

It's a romantic comedy, with a talking teddy bear. It's a foul mouthed Family Guy, you know, before there was a family. The comparisons are inevitable, because this is so obviously a MacFarlane movie. His natural, Peter Griffin voice comes unabashedly from Ted, and the pop culture and self referential jokes run rife as always. But it's a bit of a breath of fresh air seeing as Family Guy has become all awkward cutaways and overused gags. This is a new situation, with new characters, and while many aspects are similar to Family Guy it's a good movie in its own right.

Not that it's without its flaws, obviously. I was fine with all the similarities with McFarlane's other work, but there were a few points where random bits were thrown in that didn't quite work. Also, Mark Wahlberg's accent was really weird. I guess he was going for Boston, but Ted doesn't say his words weird like that.

So yes, I would recommend Ted. It's a well made comedy, and while the humour may run a little dry or depend too much a knowledge of pop culture, there are quite a few genuine laugh out loud moments. It's not a perfect movie, but for his first, MacFarlane has managed to pull it all together nicely.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer

I'm not particularly a fan of either alcohol or ginger beer, but I felt compelled to try this because it's quirky and unique, like a beautiful snowflake, and me, according to my mummy.

This alcoholic ginger beer is just that, ginger beer with alcohol, but the alcohol site isn't overpowering. I managed to finish the whole bottle without getting sick of the taste, which is good for me. It's not too heavy on the ginger either, so it's really a smooth, mellow experience all the way through. Way better than I was expecting.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: Tesco's Scan As You Shop

I love a bit of technology, I do. I was pretty excited when the self service tills came along, but now look at what we have. It's a handheld scanner you can take around Tesco, scanning each product as you go, and you simply pay at the end. Awesome stuff. You have to agree to their lengthy terms and conditions, but they're pretty much summed up as "scan everything, steal nothing, but if you do we'll fine the shit out of you". If you're cool with that, just scan your clubcard on the large wall of scanners, and a receptacle glows for you, willing you to pick up your one true scanner.

It's a pretty neat piece of machinery. It fits nicely in your hand, or in the little scanner holders they've put in each trolley. It's touchscreen, and has quite a few buttons as well, so it's quite easy to cancel any items you've mis-scanned or don't want. It updates the price as you go as well, letting you know how much you've saved through offers. It even lets you know which products are on offer when you scan them, I was mightily impressed with all the things this little device could do.

One of the best things about it is that you can pack as you go. No need to bundle it all stressfully into bags at the checkout, you can methodically pack as you make your way through the aisles, providing you grabbed a few bags on the way in or brought your own. You may think this would arouse suspicion from employees, but we had no trouble. Of course there are staff members on hand to make sure you pay for everything at the end, and there is a random check they carry out, but this just involves scanning a few items to make sure they've been registered. All in all it was a pain free experience, and the kids were pretty entertained by scanning our groceries. Here's to the future of the supermarket. What next, RFID tags that charge your card as you walk out of the store? Yeah, that'd be awesome. But this will do for now.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: Choka Blok's Peanut Butter Nutter

Peanut butter. I love the stuff, but I've met a lot of people who hate it. There's nothing quite like tucking into a big old peanut butter sandwich, and that's all I did with the stuff for a long time. Then I discovered that in America peanut butter is one of the main food groups, and suddenly peanut butter was as versatile as cheese, everything is better with it. Peanut butter and jelly? Good stuff. Peanut butter chocolate bars? Delightful. Peanut butter burgers? Yes, still good.

The UK has been quite slow in catching up with this whole peanut butter thing, I can never find a jar of Goobers around here. But the good folks at Choka Blok are helping the movement along with this peanut butter infused ice cream. Of course, it lives up to its name, it's chock full of stuff. We have peanut butter flavoured ice cream, mixed with caramel swirls and chocolate chunks, wrapped in chocolate embedded with peanut pieces. Does that sound good? Well, it is. The first bite has a distinctly peanut buttery flavour, and while I was expecting it to be a bit odd, it was  pretty damn tasty. Unfortunately the flavour faded as I progressed, but the rest of the contents kept my taste buds busy, and there definitely was a hint of peanut butter throughout. It's an intriguing combination of stuff shoved into one bar, but for me, it's a winner.

My rating: 5/5

Today's Review: The Griffin Survivor Case

I got a shiny new iPhone 4S the other day, and naturally I was scared to even touch it in case I scratched it. But now I can live safe in the knowledge that it would be fine if I threw it straight across a car park. Why? Because I got a badass case.

The Griffin Survivor case is like 2 cases in one, but better. It comes with a snap on plastic case, which then fits snugly into a chunky rubber receptacle for ultimate protection. Just watch this video, see the punishment this case can go through. It may make the phone twice as thick, but at least I know that when I want to take this phone out to sell it it will be in fantastic condition.

Of course, there is some trade off, on top of the aforementioned chunkiness. It makes the phone pretty heavy, and all of the slots and speakers are covered by thick rubbery flaps which you have to move out of the way whenever you want to access them. That's the only reason I was unsure about buying this thing, I'm a sucker for nerdy novelties, and was severely tempted to get some video game related snap case. But then I realised, what's nerdier than a case for your phone that can withstand being chucked down an icy hill? It may be a little ugly, but it's an awesome product.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: The Lorax

I'm not sure what to think of Illumination. They did pretty well with Despicable Me, but then they churned out Hop, which was not particularly great. But I was quite excited to see they were making a movie based on a Dr. Seuss story, seeing as the recent Horton Hears A Who adaptation is one of the only non-Disney/Pixar animated features I love. Did they deliver?

Zac Efron stars as Ted, a boy living in the city of Thneedville, which has no natural plant life. Of course this cuts down on the air supply, but the villainous O'Hare is on hand to sell air to the residents for a hefty price. But Ted's freakishly tall crush Audrey (Taylor Swift) has a dream of seeing a real life tree, so without a second thought Ted rushes out of town to find the Once-ler, a man who has a story about what happened to the trees, a story involving a little orange man known as The Lorax (Danny DeVito).

If you can't get the environmental message this movie is putting across then you probably have no thought processes and are legally dead. Still, they present it in a nice enough manner, the preaching guardian of the forest is particularly delightful, because he's voiced by Danny DeVito, and that man can do no wrong. The whole O'Hare air storyline is quite inventive too, especially as none of that was in the book to begin with.

But this movie cannot be carried on story alone, and it's when observing the rest that the cracks start to appear. See, the story isn't that complex, and there's a lot of stuff thrown in just for the novelty and cheap laughs. Most of the forest creatures in the backstory are just annoying, especially the fish who spend their time screeching theme songs and bad impressions. There are a whole bunch of songs thrown in for good measure too, but none of them are very good. In fact, there was something off about the sound in general. I wouldn't normally make a point of this, but it was prevalent throughout the whole movie. Backing vocals in songs were way too quiet, as were background sound effects during action sequences. It just felt very wrong when there was a lot of stuff going on in a scene.

I do hold The Lorax in higher esteem than Hop, but I can't say it's a great movie. It's good, sure, but it seems to be riddled with annoying filler and other flaws. After Illumination kicked out a really good movie with Despicable Me, I figured they'd be able to iron out the creases with this one. It just seems like they gave up before they could really make it something great.

My rating: 3/5