Wow, I've been eat a fu-ton of ice cream lately...

Specifically Ben and Jerry's and BlueBell. But it's sooooooooo goooooood!!!!!

Hence, here are some BnJ reviews on a greatness scale of bad to top notch, bad being the bad-est and top notch being the top-notch-est. haha:

bad / okay / good / top notch

Cheesecake Brownie - bad
this is basically a slightly cheesecake-y tasting cream ice cream (very boring) with very few pieces of mostly brownie tasting brownie pieces. ugh. so disappointing. doesn't even taste like cheesecake. just a weird cream ice cream with like 4 brownie slivers here and there.

Magic Brownies - top notch
This black raspberry ice cream base is good enough by itself. It tastes distinctly of fresh well-picked raspberries well-blended into a simply smooth sweet cream ice cream. The cream complements the berry taste addictingly. It is truly magical. Not to mention there's a decent amount of gob-sized fudge brownie chunk treasures here and there that complement the base perfectly.

Dublin Mudslide - good
The flavor itself, if you are an irish cream liquor fan is good enough to merit the re-spoon repeatedly at an alarming rate. The consistency is bland, the cookies are less-concentrated brownie-ish tasting, but still delicious. "Premixed" favorite to come back too now and then. (As opposed to smothering any chocolate-themed BnJ's with Kahlua or Baileys. Or sometimes even vodka lol.)

Everything but the... - top notch
Crunchy roasted almonds covered in good-quality chocolate are the finishing touch that made this a solid favorite. If you are feeling the mix-ins, go for this one. Compared to a plethora of BnJs lacking in the-actual-things-that-it-claims-to-be-filled-with-a-decent-amount-of, it is generously filled with good quality add-ins. Plus, as simple as it is, chocolate and vanilla ice cream eaten together is surprisingly good. Try just the two together sometime and you'll see what I mean. (Bluebell great divide). You'll see. Solid base.

Phish Food - top notch
This is my favorite. Ever. It's the high quality fudge fish that melt in my mouth, making me reminisce of encountering dove chocolate for the first time as a preteen. One of the first good pieces of chocolate that I ever had, that made me remotely interested/delighted in eating chocolate. (I didn't like chocolate as a child because I never ate it when I was younger. Everyday now, I come to love it more.)

Late Night Snack - okay
again, okay, but could be way better. It's the serious lack of topping amount that causes failure in this ice cream that has sooo much potential for greatness. If only it had more salty potato chip clusters, it would help counter the overload of sweet. Maybe the caramel is also not salty enough. It tastes like normal caramel swirl, not that much saltier.

Oatmeal Cookie Crunch - top notch
Here's why: lots of cookie chunks, it's actually crunchy, and good quality ingredients. Plus an addicting sweet/salty yin and yang.

Schweddy Balls - bad
I got super-psyched on this one and went out and bought it ASAP. Unfortunately, it lacked in both the base and fillings. I could barely barely barely taste the rum in the vanilla ice cream. The malt balls were few and far, far outnumbered by the rum "balls" (which where half-decent). Plus, the malt balls were worse than whoppers. They were … :P waxy… ewwwwww.

Peach Cobbler - good
Yummy, doesn't taste fresh enough or have big enough shortbread pieces too be top notch. Maybe if it had softer peaches and more of them, peach ice cream AND cream ice cream in a swirl, and a caramel swirl instead of a peach swirl (which tasted more like simple sweetness than peach.)
Still, yummy.

America on 7.4.11

Tans come and go,
so do friends, ex-es, and buses
at least for now this country's somewhat standard, stable, and androgynously embraced
I love you America
You are my mother
You are my father
You are my oscillating mother/father
America, I shout with joy for you when I return
America, thoughts of you keep me from enjoying the other land
America, you're a delicious baby covered in slobber and spit
America, why do I feel obliged to wipe your nose? Here's a wet one.
America you formed me in the womb
Unknowingly, America, you cultivated antiquated change
America, you give people the freedom to feel restless
America, I'm restless. I want a divorce.

poems I wrote when I was 16

nails

my nails are gone
I bit them off
one by one
one by accident
the others by force
I kept my thumb
nice tip, smooth, white
but they kept coming
into my mouth
so I'd remember
and stop the chomp
but keep them there
and nibble some
until the underbeds were riveted
then I lied myself over
they had to go
I miss them so
They were so pretty
Ladylike on my hand
now, stubs, stranded on dry land

mistake

do it for my sake
eat this rake
this spoon
this cake
this mop
this galvanized plate
oh looks
ripley is here
snap snap
my love
is dead
(acrobats)
forgetting the fuming ambitions of the one I stand on
I wave to my friends
I fall, she falls, we all fall

Mayhem in the pitied malaise
came to me
cried out
everything
gone

So he asked me where it was
and I said "what?"
he said, "the map, you fool, the map"
I pursed my lips and thought
I neatly placed my hands on my lap
then jumped and screamed,
"that way! go there!"
gone, back, now more so
I sighed, the light faded now
"my hands," I said, "my hands-
you see,- "
"The map!"
"My hands," I held them up
He looked away... "my hands,"
I said, "my hands, you see,
they-"
"Shut up!" He snapped and
marched straight off, I sat
and clucked my bitter tongue
tsk, these hands, these worn out hands...
these scars... were they still worth it?
to writing on my pretty hands?