Blog Template Sibling

You know, my previous post about going gonzo crazy on the Red Bull has reminded me a bit of the weirdness on my other blog, plus some of my old Usenet postings and a lot of my past and present e-mail to friends. Not that the beverage is making me wild and exxxtreme, but occasionally I miss that style of stream-of-consciousness ranting about nothing of real importance. And this is one of my little corners of the web, right? I can Jackson Pollock the walls with mustard and ketchup if I so desire. I can't do that with some of the corporate e-commerce sites I administer.

I got bored later this evening, and in my continuing, gut-churning quest to empty the cupboards, I found a packet of Pop-Tarts, again, from my roommate. The toaster pastry in question was a Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tart. I toasted it in the toaster oven, found it way too sweet and ended up discarding about half of it. That's the first time I've had one of those things in over ten years. One of my weirdest anecdotes takes place in 1983. I was six years old, in first grade, attending a strict Presbyterian elementary school. They had recently installed a microwave in the lunchroom, along with a vending machine that dispensed plastic-wrapped frozen burgers and whatnot for reheating. I decided to throw my packet of Pop-Tarts in the microwave, and I set it for two minutes.

At the time, Pop-Tarts were encased in a pouch that was foil on the inside but paper on the outside, with no printed warnings about microwaves. (The current packaging is all foil and strictly forbids microwaving.) So I stuck it in there, and pressed start. Within about twenty seconds, sparks began flying. Another twenty seconds and the whole mess was in flames. The lunch lady raced over, blasted the interior with a fire extinguisher, and my Pop-Tarts were reduced to a pile of ashes and dry chemical fire retardant. As a bonus, I got to experience some of the great "public shaming" punishment that private schools were so fond of at the time. (When I cheated on a spelling test--the word "Wednesday"--they marched me in front of the teachers in the next grade and all of them told me that they would refuse to have such a worthless student in their class. Cruel, but I'd like to think I spell pretty well these days.)

I wasn't a huge fan of them at the time, but I remember that they were unfrosted didn't contain much fake jam or whatever on the inside. I always remember enjoying the "bread" portion more than the filling. Now it seems like they're all filling and outer frosting. So in search of the great unfrosted Pop-Tart, I Googled, and then I found a blog. That reviews Pop-Tarts. And uses the same Blogger.com template as me. Behold: The Pop Tart Brigade. And thus the rant comes full circle.