Up, Down, A, B: The consumerist’s roundup.

Also known as…
Things I Really Love These Days

Rayman’s Rabid Rabbids: This game is so awesome. If you are amused by the following:

  • shooting toilet plungers at rabid, wild-eyed bunnies
  • dancing a la Dance Dance Revolution to a bunny-sung rendition of such classics as “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “Rapper’s Delight,” and “La Bamba”
  • frantically milk cows
  • racing a giant spotted warthog around an abandoned ocean island
  • playing dentist by pulling worms from the rotten teeth of a rabbit, or
  • listening to fart noises

…then you will probably like this game.

Basically, if you’re as schizophrenically-interested in video games as I am, have my (i.e. a five year old’s) level of maturity, or have a sick twisted sense of humour (e.g. me), there’s no way you will ever have to spend $70 on another Wii game.

I also like Danone’s Silhouette “spring water-based beverage” made with “natural flavours” and is “sugar free”. It’s kinda wack that a yogurt company is bottling water, and I can only assume by the label, which indicates it’s bottled by “DNW,” that it probably means Dasani (a.k.a. Coke’s successful campaign to sell a de-ionized version of our own tap water back to us for ridiculous mark-up) is behind it, so the morality is kinda sketch. But, it’s addictive. I can’t vouch for any flavour other than the Pink Grapefruit Green Tea, but my god, finally a drink that isn’t sickly-sweet. For $1.29 you get one litre of delicious, 0 calorie, subtle deliciousness.

Still, so many questions: how can it be naturally-flavoured green tea with no green hue? Is there any actual juice in it? Does Danone actually think anyone is going to implement a full Silhouette-approved diet lifestyle and subsist entirely on unappetizing, saccharine, fat-free yogurt and “water beverage”?

These questions are yet to be answered.

Speaking of horrible cliches, here are some
Things I Don’t Like

Token Journalism-Related Rant: I hate newscasters, especially sportscasters with a horrifyingly low regard for journalistic worth, using the following phrases:

  • remains to be seen
  • has yet to answer
  • the question remains
  • it’s still unclear whether

The Dollar: As if I didn’t need another reason to hate Bush and his insane economically-driven-plundering-of-the-Middle-East-disguised-as-democratic-zeal, my paycheques are now worth approximately 60% of what they used to be when I started last July (then, $1 USD = $1.4 CDN; now, we are beyond parity… two cents over, to be exact). I work for a San-Francisco-based small press company. Thus, I am paid in American dollars. When I was hired on, I was being paid the equivalent of $14 an hour as a publishing intern, an unheard-of rate in an industry as rampantly cheap as book publishing. Now, almost 16 months later, I’m making less than I did as a shopgirl at H&M. Thanks a lot, asshole.

The worst part of this is, not a single business has adjusted their consumer product prices to match the dollars’ values. Until this stops, I’m not buying anything that is a) not on American eBay, or b) has more than a 5% difference in MSRP. Here’s a guy that agrees with me.


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3 responses to “Up, Down, A, B: The consumerist’s roundup.”

  1. Wes Avatar

    My dad works for an American based company too, so I totally know what you’re ranting about! In fact, he has a USD bank account that he plops any excess cash into so that he doesn’t have to convert it directly into CDN dollars if the exchange rate is in flux. Of course, I wouldn’t have enough excess money to let sit around like that, but… :P

    Also, video games. whee!

  2. Roger Avatar

    I like your rant. Add to that the phrases “Only time will tell” and “Arguably” which can be said about just about anything without adding any credibility to the story.

    — Roger

  3. ashley Avatar
    ashley

    HEY! I rented that game, and yeah, it was super awesome. I want to play again, but my brother has been dominating the wii time with his guitar hero three. plus i have exams…. anyway, you know what game i did not like? the rounding up of cows? chickens? I can’t remember, while you’re flying on some pterodactyl. (sorry for the butchered spelling).
    I tried the silhouette raspberry flavour (I think) and it was pretty good. I still think its got that artificial sweetner taste to it though, but it wasn’t bad. Maybe I’ll try the green tea one too. In other news, hi again. I pop up intermittently!

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