Doctor [Clone] Soda Drink: Dr. Bob by Stop & Shop

Another interesting item that I have found at the Stop & Shop mart is the Dr. Bob soda. I am a big fan of Dr. Pepper soda, and it is my 2nd favorite soda after Coca-Cola, so giving a try to Dr. Bob was a-must, especially when the price per 2L bottle was $0.77 [plus tax and deposit]. The graphics on the label were pretty doctoriffic, so it was a no-brainer to me that at hand was a Dr. Pepper clone: a store brand variation of the globally popular soda. The name was also pretty forward -  Dr. Bob: a drink for the average guy.

Back of the label.

As you can see from the photo, the soda was well carbonated, with a very foamy head, so I was pleased to know that the soda will be at least well-carbonated. The taste was similar to Dr. Pepper at first but then it went to a different direction, nonetheless it tasted like a decent copy of Dr. Pepper and I was not disappointed with it. Where the taste in Dr. Bon went away from Dr. Pepper was not in a bad direction, just in a different one, and I had no problem with it, since I did not expect it to taste 100% like Dr. Pepper. I would say that Dr. Bob has around 75% or so being similar to Dr. Pepper, which is good in my book. Usually Stop & Shop 2L sodas retail for $1.00 or so, so the $0.77 sale price was of very good value. I rate Dr. Bob at 4.0/5.0 with a value rating of 4.7/5.0 and would recommend it to anyone that likes Dr. Pepper and doctor clone sodas. I wish that they had them in aluminum can inside 12-packs, but they had none in stock when I was in the store, so maybe they have them at another location, because doctor drink inside the cans would be much preferable.

Some one's collection of cans and bottles of doctor soda clones.

Hot Pockets: Limited Edition BBQ Recipe Bacon Burger Buns

I was at the Target store yesterday and stumbled upon these new "Limited Edition" hot pockets buns, and since there was "BBQ" printed on the box, I knew that I had to give this product a try. The price was $2.29 on sale, and I figured that 1 box would be sufficient for the taste-testing of it; a year or so ago there was another Limited Edition Hot Pockets that had macaroni, garlic and something like Parmesan cheese stuffing inside, and I bought several boxes of it and hated it, so now I just buy 1 box so not to make that mistake again. Front side main ingredients listed as: "hamburger, cheese and bacon with sauce in a bun", so it sounded like a promising stuffing to me. While technically these Hot Pockets buns are classified as Hot Pokets sub-brand/lineup of SideShots, the name "SideShots" is nowhere to be found on the packaging, but there is a text of "4 buns" in a couple of places. To tell the truth, I actually prefer the SideShots soft buns over traditional Hot Pocket crispy pastries. The only negative thing that I tell right away is that the SideShots, especially the ones at hand, have experienced the shrink ray: 8 ounces now compared to 9 ounces before: thats 29 grams less of a product, and it makes me disappointed already.

Back of the box.

Box-O'-Vision.

What's inside the box.

Cold buns.

Warm buns.

These SideShots taste heavenly when cooled down: the tangy BBQ sauce, mixed with cheese and yummy bits of meat [burger]. I did not tasted much much of bacon, but I did not care much for it, but it is there; in small amount. These SideShot buns are totally awesome and I ate all 4 of them one after another, and I can definitely see myself eating a pile of 12-16 of them in 1 sitting, they are so good. The BBQ sauce was the most outstanding ingredient in these buns, and it is the same "Hot Pockets BBQ Sauce" that the other Hot Pockets [regular and lean ones] feature: tangy, with a pleasantly sour kick to it, but nothing like your regular store-bough BBQ sauce tastes like. I rate these BBQ Bacon Burger SideShots at 4.8/5.0 with a value rating of 4.4/5.0 [just because they are so small and the price per bun is around $0.57 or more]. Give these Hot Pockets SideShots a shot, because they taste great and will not be available for long.

Those Magical Coupons: McDonald's Fall 2012 Coupon Book [Волшебные Купоны]

Last week  McDonald's coupon booklets came-in the in the weekly circular pack, so here they are above. I was able to get 37 of them from all the circulars that were available in my building, so my coupon supply is well-stocked. Let's take a look at what is being promoted for the next couple of month [coupons expire at the end of the year]:

Front of the booklet with this month $1.00 promo Hot 'N Spicy McChicken Sandwich. Its pretty much like a standard McChicken sandwich but a bit spicy, not too much.

Back of the booklet with an ad for 2 for $3.00 Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddles. Its a pretty good deal and I've tried it 2 weeks ago for breakfast: they taste good, are filling, and a good value.

Coupons for BOGO burgers: Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, Filet-O-Fishes, Premium Chicken Sandwiches, Angus Third Pounders and the new CBO sandwiches.

Different free with purchase coupons: pretty much fries and fries with soda. Not really worth unless you really want a meal type of a deal.

Coupons for coffees: I am not into them but the middle one sound like a good way to try the Cafe Con Leche.

Apple Cinnamon Walnut Oatmeal kasha. I hate this kind of food.

Coffee advertising. I'm not into coffee, so it ain't for me.

Dollar menu items. McDouble is excellent for $1.00, then McChicken. Sweet Tea is also great.

Jarritos Tamarind Mexican Soda

Couple of days ago I stopped by the Stop & Shop store that is just around the Flatbush avenue, just to check if they have anything good on sale. After flipping through the circular and finding nothing that I was interested in, I figured to take a walk around the store and see if there is anything worthy that was not printed in the circular. While walking around, I stumbled upon the soda isle, which had wide assortment of sodas. But in the next isle or so, there was another bunch of shelves with lesser-known and foreign sodas. On one of the shelves I found several flavors of Jarritos Mexican soda, and since in my neighborhood they are either unavailable or expensive, I decided to get the tamarind flavored soda for $0.79 per bottle. I never tried tamarind soda before, so I was intrigued at how it would taste.

Back of the bottle.

Pouring the drink.

The drink tastes like...tamarind? I don't know, but it does tastes very refreshing with tingling-sharp carbonation. I've seen a picture of tamarind on another brand of tamarind soda and it looked like a cross between a turd and potato, so I was worried that this drink would be some kind of crap. But the drink turned out to be pretty good an refreshing I must say that I really like it and looking forward to buying couple more bottles of this tamarind soda. I rate this soda at 4.7/5.0 with a value rating of 4.8/5.0 at the price of $0.79 per glass bottle. This soda is a definite winner and if you are curious about it then by all means give it a try, its worth it.

Escape From Far Rockaway

My grandparents live in one of the senior citizen high-rise buildings on Far Rockaway, and since the hurricane Sandy hit the area, they have been living on one of the topmost floors without electricity, so I went there every once in a couple of days to bring the food and other life necessities. Most [if not all] stores have been closed recently, and the volunteers began going from floor-to-floor only a week after Sandy, so there was bunch of stuff for me to bring. One of the things until recently that was a nuisance, was the fact that the buses [Q35 and Q22] stopped running to and from Brooklyn after 6:00PM and 4:30PM due to "poor visibility". The whole place is pretty much pitch black, other than the floodlights, police and FDNY vehicles. I did not knew last week about that buses stopped running after a certain time in the evening, and I was stuck overnight at the grandparent's place without any heat and electricity. There were candles, couple of flashlights and cold water, but the absence of heat was very disturbing and uncomfortable. The day later when I got home, I send a bunch of tweets and emails to anyone that I could think of, to let them know that there was no heat in the buildings where bunch of stranded seniors live in, and within 2 days or so period, the heat was on. So today was my latest trip to Far Rockaway, and since I found my service-less phone with built-in camera, I took a couple of photos with it during my trip there on my way back home:

Everyone wants to get on the bus, but I always make sure than I get on as first as possible so I can get a seat to sit on.

 The whole place is pretty much without power, with only generator-powered floodlights. 

Bank on wheels.  

Big trailer with brand-name mealies-on-them-wheelies.

 I asked if I could get something to eat, but the worker told me that they are wrapped-up for the day.

Hunting for Empty Bottles and Cans

Couple days ago I noticed that I have a bunch of empty bottles and cans from all the soda drinking, so I decided to save them instead of throwing them out so I can make a couple of dollar by throwing the stuff into those recycling machines. Then I thought about how can I get more of bottles and cans, and figured that I can just check the garbage rooms inside my building, because the resident leave these articles in the bin instead of throwing them down the garbage chute, so whatever is there on each floor is up for grabs. Evening and late mornings seems like the best times of the days to hunt for the "empties".

 $0.85 worth of recycles from 2 days ago evening hunt.  

 $0.25 worth of recycles from 1 day ago morning hunt. 

 $0.75 worth of recycles from yesterday's evening hunt. 

$0.45 worth of recycles from today's morning hunt.

I went to the recycling place and began feeding 2-litter plastic bottles into the machines, and in the midst of it the machine broke down and worker had to fix it, so I went home and took the glass bottles to recycle. The glass recycling machine was idle, so I began feeding it but most of the bottles were not accepted: the feeding mechanism spins the bottle around while the laser beam scans for the bottle barcode, so I guess that they do not accept the brand that the place sells. Old Chinese people seem to have a hold of all of these recycling places and it is difficult to find the machines that are idle, so one can recycle, because Chinese recycle 24/7 and they have their "assistants" cart, bike and drive huge garbage bag-fulls of empty cans and bottles. So far I have 2 receipts that total to $0.50, which I yet have to cash-out.

Hedge Fund Trader Nick Gentile: Say Cheese, Nigga!

Laughs at Nick Gentile, the Staten Island hedge fund trader who had his Oakwood Beach house ruined by hurricane Sandy.

He screwed-up last year with MF Global and now he got hurt again with hurricane Sandy. I am just glad that he has to suffer along with regular folks [aka 47%], and I am not the only one who thinks like this:

Craig Anthony Swinson said "I don't feel sorry for him, not one bit on the MF GLOBAL loss. He plays in a risky game, with sharks and untold risks, he uses others money to basically bet on a market, and he got burned. Maybe if he was better at what he did he could have minimized his risk by splitting his risk over several firms. That old saying, don't keep all your eggs in one basket, goes for money and firms or banks too"

Gerarg Mcparland said "get a real job! sitting behind a desk and playing with other peoples money.... boo hoo"

Marty Cohen said "when things were good these guys were buying toys that costs more than a years salary for the average slob , over charging commissions and sand bagging customers with bogus trades , now that Karma is a itch don't feel sorry for the greedy slug!"

Wally Walter said "This is great! I hope he ends up in a homeless shelter workin 3 jobs. Voodoo economics was created by douches like him and the Gov. Now they get what they deserve. HHAHHAHA"


I just hope that this motherfucker will suffer more and more further on.