Pepperidge Farm Soft Baked Chocolate Chunk, Dark Chocolate Brownie cookies.
“Frome your first bite, you’ll see why Pepperidge Farm Soft Baked Chocolate Chunk Cookies are The BEST Chocolate Chunk Cookies in the World!
Baked with an abundance of big chunks of rich chocolate and crunchy macadamia nuts or chewy caramel. Also enjoy our Soft Baked Oatmeal Raisin cookies. So satisfying, so delightful, so scrumptious.”
Intrigued, I snagged the bag after a rigorous workout at the Fieldhouse. “Best Chocolate Chunk Cookies in the World” huh? Well that’s pretty presumptuous. They must be right to make that kind of claim.
The cookies are the darkish brown or light black and smell of Hershey’s distinct dark chocolate aroma. Well, at least they’re accurate. I took a bite.
Meh. I am sorry I just implemented one of the most overused words of my generation to describe something that was neither correct or wrong, good or bad. It was just…meh.
Which got me thinking: How does one make the greatest cookies in the world? Or better yet, how do you rate them? By what standard that exists are we rating these cookies?
I suppose the standard of opinion, but that’s not much of a standard. These cookies obviously aren’t the best cookies in the world to me, so how does one advertise and attempt to skew my opinion which will be whatever it is upon tasting the morsel. I keep expecting a Pepperidge Farm Jedi to show up at my door, wave his hand and say, “These are the cookies you’re looking for.” Oh well, they didn’t quite hit the spot, in fact they were off by about 60 yards, but who’s counting?
Anyway, what I hope may become the JFS band (the Brass Sextet, really) had their/our first performance Thursday and more or less rocked the house. True, our intonation and dynamic balance was off, and I’d like to kill our first trumpet for tuning backstage while slouching and then sitting up straight for the performance and playing sharp. BUT, for a premiere performance, it was well executed. Most of us have long-term plans for the ensemble, and we learned a lot from that concert.
Speaking of concerts, the Wind Ensemble is really funny drunk.
Wait, let’s backtrack. We performed Mirror, Mirror by Stacy Garrop (wicked-cool lady) for the second time on Monday. The Sackler competition founders, Mr. and Mrs. Sackler, were there to witness the performance too, along with the Dean and Music Head. Though I spied Mrs. Sackler clutching her ears, her face all screwed up, during some of the more dissonant sections in the second and third movements, she later said it was just her “old ears.” From my seat, it was a joy to play something with a contemporary style, but a programmatic approach. Too much of the “harder stuff” we play has mucho dissonance just for the sake of sounding strange; the dissonance builds a lot of tension, but never resolves into a distinct melody. Mirror, Mirror felt like a film score, and comparable to James Horner’s ability. I’ve been humming this tune (Mirror, Mirror) for the past week, it’s that good.
But after the performance, they gave us White and Red Wine, amazing triangular brownies, and cheese. I stuck with water, which was actually club soda…which I drank a third of before “accidentally” leaving it on a resting tray and forgetting about it. No one was tipsy after the wine, but after we got back on the bus for the 2 and a half-hour ride back, the trombone section broke out the Captain Morgan. Nuff said, I fell asleep and woke up just in time to see the tank scene from the Last Crusade. Golly I love that movie.
Well, time to go practice before Sisterhood stuff (which is going quite well), and then I’ll travel to Bridgeport for the Basketball Tournament (I hope we win).
Thanks for reading and have a great day.
Over and Out,
Adam
PS: There wasn't a lick of Caramel or Nuts in those cookies, lying possums.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Saint Pat's Weekend
Well, Friday was chock full of drunk people. Drunk people in the halls, drunkards in the lounge, not to mention a few guys who decided it'd be a good idea to decant into the window well into the basement, where the pungent stench of urine emanated into the room as we played the next four games of Bang!. We closed the window soon after.
That being said, we avoided the inebriated masses with adroit and proceeded on our merry way. I was quite pleased to play Bang! again and not be held resposible for reminding everyone of the rules. Andrea knows the game well enough now that she outspeaks me when we catch someone misusing a green card. Four fast rounds, but one was absolutely wonderful: Robin got Elena Fuente, whose power is that "any card can be used as a missed card," upon which Robin gave a cry of "I can't die!" Oh yeah?
So I Cat Baloued three times in a row, depleting his early arsenal and proceeded to Panic another card from him. This method - and I was darn lucky to get and be able to use what I did - deprived him of cards for at least the next three turns. As Robin's ire continued to rise, though, Andrea kept everyone else at bay by sticking us all in Jail. I eventually was killed off by her...but Cat Balouing an entire line of defense in one turn was priceless enough for it. :)
Saturday yielded interesting results. I had a late start, intending to wake at closer to 8, rather than 10:00, but I still had a substantial amount of work done before Dan showed up in the lounge and began cooking breakfast. No, not just breakfast. FRENCH. TOAST. Real, homemade (if you can count the dorm as "Home"), French Toast, as made by a Quarter-French-Canadian. We brought our own silverware, as Dan only owned two forks, a knife, and one plastic spoon. It was like a starving artist's...no, a Peasant's feast. Two slices each, with various - as Dan calls them, Real Maple Products - to help slather and lather all over the Toast, their gooey substances consumed atop 2 plates, 1 towel, and 8 scraps of paper towel dredges. Now THAT's a meal.
Dan promises to try again soon.
Then proceeding to practice all day, I made my way over to Battle of the Bands at the South Dining Hall, Rome Ballroom. In summation, the final two acts made sitting, standing, and sleeping through the last four worth it. True, the lead singer to Bare Necessities (Band #5) is a music major, I cringe to think that he could ever sing. However, their last song was a Nintendo music medley, and especially for a new band on the block, they handled it skillfully. It's fun to be a Nerd.
But Tap Out (Band #6), one of the first Ska bands I have ever seen - 2 Trumpets, 1 Sax, 1 Trombone, 2 kickass guitarists, 1 drummer, and a very enthusiastic, on-key vocalist - took the show from the first song. By the third, Spence, the Pianist from Bare Necessities, turned to his drummer and said simultaneously: "They won."
That they did, and I wanted more. I left the ballroom on a mental high. Ska rules...my ears are bleeding, but Ska rules. Where metal makes you want to kill someone, Ska makes you just plain happy. Go forth and have fun, my friend, have fun.
Instead of sleeping, though, we ended up watching the Ringer.
If only I could type something other than "Shudder" to tell you how much I shuddered with this movie. It could have been so much better than it was...and it wasn't much. It hurts too much, let's not talk about it.
Sunday was a visit to the Gym, another late lunch, Homework, and then a Premiere performance of Mirror, Mirror by a new composer named Stacy Garrop. This lady is freakin' awesome. A joy to work with, and one heck of a songwriter. We perform again in Stamford tomorrow (technically, heh, today), so I'll post again after that so you can get the whole scoop.
Hope everyone's weekend was a blast. Thanks for reading and have a great day.
Adam
PS: I'm getting more sleep, can you tell? :)
That being said, we avoided the inebriated masses with adroit and proceeded on our merry way. I was quite pleased to play Bang! again and not be held resposible for reminding everyone of the rules. Andrea knows the game well enough now that she outspeaks me when we catch someone misusing a green card. Four fast rounds, but one was absolutely wonderful: Robin got Elena Fuente, whose power is that "any card can be used as a missed card," upon which Robin gave a cry of "I can't die!" Oh yeah?
So I Cat Baloued three times in a row, depleting his early arsenal and proceeded to Panic another card from him. This method - and I was darn lucky to get and be able to use what I did - deprived him of cards for at least the next three turns. As Robin's ire continued to rise, though, Andrea kept everyone else at bay by sticking us all in Jail. I eventually was killed off by her...but Cat Balouing an entire line of defense in one turn was priceless enough for it. :)
Saturday yielded interesting results. I had a late start, intending to wake at closer to 8, rather than 10:00, but I still had a substantial amount of work done before Dan showed up in the lounge and began cooking breakfast. No, not just breakfast. FRENCH. TOAST. Real, homemade (if you can count the dorm as "Home"), French Toast, as made by a Quarter-French-Canadian. We brought our own silverware, as Dan only owned two forks, a knife, and one plastic spoon. It was like a starving artist's...no, a Peasant's feast. Two slices each, with various - as Dan calls them, Real Maple Products - to help slather and lather all over the Toast, their gooey substances consumed atop 2 plates, 1 towel, and 8 scraps of paper towel dredges. Now THAT's a meal.
Dan promises to try again soon.
Then proceeding to practice all day, I made my way over to Battle of the Bands at the South Dining Hall, Rome Ballroom. In summation, the final two acts made sitting, standing, and sleeping through the last four worth it. True, the lead singer to Bare Necessities (Band #5) is a music major, I cringe to think that he could ever sing. However, their last song was a Nintendo music medley, and especially for a new band on the block, they handled it skillfully. It's fun to be a Nerd.
But Tap Out (Band #6), one of the first Ska bands I have ever seen - 2 Trumpets, 1 Sax, 1 Trombone, 2 kickass guitarists, 1 drummer, and a very enthusiastic, on-key vocalist - took the show from the first song. By the third, Spence, the Pianist from Bare Necessities, turned to his drummer and said simultaneously: "They won."
That they did, and I wanted more. I left the ballroom on a mental high. Ska rules...my ears are bleeding, but Ska rules. Where metal makes you want to kill someone, Ska makes you just plain happy. Go forth and have fun, my friend, have fun.
Instead of sleeping, though, we ended up watching the Ringer.
If only I could type something other than "Shudder" to tell you how much I shuddered with this movie. It could have been so much better than it was...and it wasn't much. It hurts too much, let's not talk about it.
Sunday was a visit to the Gym, another late lunch, Homework, and then a Premiere performance of Mirror, Mirror by a new composer named Stacy Garrop. This lady is freakin' awesome. A joy to work with, and one heck of a songwriter. We perform again in Stamford tomorrow (technically, heh, today), so I'll post again after that so you can get the whole scoop.
Hope everyone's weekend was a blast. Thanks for reading and have a great day.
Adam
PS: I'm getting more sleep, can you tell? :)
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