Best Blog Ever
Not to brag or anything, but I'd have to say that this is gonna be one of my best entries of all time. I promise all of you reading this that you will not be disappointed.
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Last night, my roommate helped me change the brake pads on my car in our driveway. I'd never done it before, and I was leaning towards taking it to the dealer, but he convinced me that it was a simple job and to save myself the money and hassle.
Well, it turns out that it was indeed a simple job, which took maybe about an hour beginning to end to finish. Other than getting a whole bunch of cuts on my hand from ramming it into metal edges (my own fault), I'd say that changing your brake pads on your own is better than taking it to the dealer in every way. Dealers rip you off, make you do extra work that's usually unnecessary, wasting your time and overcharging you in the process. I hate those bastards.
If anyone out there needs new brake pads put in, and is thinking about taking it to the dealer, contact me first. I would be happy to pass on the knowledge if it means saving someone else from getting jacked by their dealer.
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I think my favorite cereal growing up was Kellogg's Corn Pops. Probably wasn't the most healthy of cereals, which is why my mom always bought us Cheerios or Total, but I had to have my Pops. The light, airy texture was good, with a nice sweetened taste, but in my opinion the best feature was that it didn't get soggy in milk very easily. Especially since I'm one of the slowest eaters I know, a big problem with Cheerios, Total, Wheaties, Frosted Flakes, etc. was getting to the bottom of the bowl and finding that the rest was disgusting mush. And since my mom is Chinese, she had conditioned me to avoid wasting any amount of food regardless of the circumstances, so of course I had to finish that disgusting mush.
On a side note, I think one thing that Chinese parents tell their kids (or maybe it's just my mom and my aunts) is that if you don't finish your bowl of rice completely, you'll grow up to marry a wife/husband that has "ma-lien", meaning a face dotted with marks like the bowl dotted with rice you left behind. Most kids are dumb and just believe everything adults say, but being the smart, critical minded boy I was, I argued that I wouldn't be so stupid to marry someone if she had ma-lien. But they countered with the argument that of course she wouldn't have ma-lien when I married her, but she would develop it after the wedding, and then I'd be screwed. That shut me up for the time being. Damn, outsmarted in the end by my own parents...
Anyways, as far as Pops goes, I decided to start eating them again this week. They were pretty much the same as I remember except now I think my taste for sweetness isn't the same. I guess as I got older, the appeal of sugary stuff somewhat faded. Still a great cereal overall though.
Here's a quick rundown of my top 5 cereal rankings:
1. Pops - Discussed above. Commercials were stupid though, when they always had someone freaking out cause someone else finished their box of Pops.
2. Cheerios - Didn't taste as good as Pops, but definitely more healthy and not too shabby of a breakfast either. Also, me and my sister used to like the commercials when they showed someone flexing their bicep and a Cheerio was on their bicep, so we'd try to imitate it by licking a Cheerio and sticking it on our arms. Man, were we weird as little kids, I probably shouldn't have shared so much. Anyways, there were other versions of Cheerios too, like Apple Cinnamon, but I only liked the original and maybe Honey Nut Cheerios too.
3. Lucky Charms - Surprisingly, my health conscious mom actually bought us these once in a while. Maybe she had coupons for them or something. I liked Lucky Charms, even though the commercials pissed me off. Why do kids have to be so mean to the leprechaun? The cereal itself tasted good and held up to milk pretty well, but sometimes it was frustrating to maintain a reasonable marshmallow-to-cereal ratio. And the worst part was that when you got to the bottom of the box, it would be all the grainy crumbs of crushed marshmallow and tiny pieces of cereal, which was really disgusting when added to milk.
4. Total Raisin Bran - I forget if this was actually a cereal, or if I'm mixing up Total with some other brand of Raisin Bran, or maybe my mom just bought Total and added raisins to it. Anyways, I didn't really like plain Bran but they were somewhat redeemed with raisins to shake things up. I don't believe in adding anything else to cereal, like they'd always show pictures of cereal with strawberries or banana slices in them and I'd be disgusted. Overall, this was never really my cereal of choice, even if it was good for you.
5. Wheaties - I really hated these. Like I mentioned earlier, the worst part of cereal is the soggy milky mush at the end, and Wheaties always left that. I didn't care if Michael Jordan ate it, or if it really was that healthy and could make me into an awesome athlete. The taste and texture weren't that great to begin with, and they only got worse as you progressed through the bowl.
When I think about it, I really haven't tried too many cereals throughout my life. That top 5 might as well be my bottom 5 too. I think other than those, I've sampled Kix and Life and that's about it. Maybe Trix as well. Sometimes I wonder what else is out there, if I'd like Count Chocula or Cap'n Crunch? Intriguing...
It's kind of interesting though, as I wrote about my cereal history, I noticed that pretty much with all of them I associated the cereal itself in some way with their commercials. Advertising is totally powerful when it comes to brainwashing 8 year olds watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I didn't even watch as much TV as other kids when I was little, so I'm sure there are probably people out there that are my age right now, who still hear stuff like "Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids!" in their dreams.
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I'm sure most of you out there reading this blog have noticed by now that it is not as awesome as I promised it would be. Well, it's too late for you to go back now, you already wasted your time. HAHA APRIL FOOLS BEEEITCH!!
