{"id":217,"date":"2008-11-21T09:09:30","date_gmt":"2008-11-21T14:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/?p=217"},"modified":"2009-02-25T09:06:04","modified_gmt":"2009-02-25T14:06:04","slug":"products-that-just-shouldnt-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/2008\/11\/21\/products-that-just-shouldnt-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Products That Just Shouldn&#8217;t Be"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some days ago we stopped at the supermarket for a couple of things. Standing in the checkout line we saw something new &#8211; Chocolate Skittles.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_218\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-218\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/chocolate-skittles.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-218 \" title=\"chocolate-skittles\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/chocolate-skittles-300x282.jpg\" alt=\"Chocoate Skittles\" width=\"300\" height=\"282\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/chocolate-skittles-300x282.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/chocolate-skittles.jpg 454w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-218\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chocolate Skittles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Now, I actually like <a title=\"Skittles Web site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.skittles.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Skittles<\/a>. Especially the sour ones that are encrusted with that crystalline stuff that stimulate your taste buds not unlike a full <a title=\"Wikipedia: learn about Marshall amplifiers\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marshall_Amplification\" target=\"_blank\">stack of Marshalls<\/a> cranked up to 11 does to your ears. My kid, like 99% of all kids, loves that stuff, too. (An equal proportion of adults hate that taste stimulation, incidentally, which I believe is by design.)<\/p>\n<p>But these chocolate things? Ugh! Gave &#8217;em to my kid. He gave &#8217;em back. My wife refused to try &#8217;em after watching our reaction.\u00c2\u00a0&#8220;Tastes like ass.&#8221; To say that the\u00c2\u00a0flavors in the package &#8211; S&#8217;mores, Vanilla (huh? vanilla in a &#8216;chocolate mix&#8217;?), Chocolate Caramel, Chocolate Pudding, Brownie Batter &#8211; seriously miss the mark is a gross understatement.<\/p>\n<p>Products don&#8217;t just spring into being without consideration. Somewhere in Mars there was a meeting, the result being a decision taken to bring these abominations to market. Probably a bowl or two of &#8217;em right there on the conference table, alongside the coffee cups and water bottles. I wonder if any of the suits actually tasted &#8217;em. Somehow I doubt it.<\/p>\n<p>Some years back I knew a girl that worked for Mars. She said that samples from their (rather extensive) product line were freely available in all their offices. I&#8217;ll bet the bowls of these never, ever need to be refilled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some days ago we stopped at the supermarket for a couple of things. Standing in the checkout line we saw something new &#8211; Chocolate Skittles. Now, I actually like Skittles. Especially the sour ones that are encrusted with that crystalline stuff that stimulate your taste buds not unlike a full stack of Marshalls cranked up &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/2008\/11\/21\/products-that-just-shouldnt-be\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Products That Just Shouldn&#8217;t Be<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[67,73,70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timeoff.org\/rick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}