A VERY GRIMEY B-DAY

SO, TODAY I’M 32…

Grimey

And I'm not much for celebrating my own birthday, but I thought it would make a great opportunity to write a random filler article which kind of doubles for a junk food review, triples for a plastic crack review and, finally, quadruples for a social update if you will. What I'm saying is, I managed to find a few cool brand new (and 1 new to me) food items and a few birthday themed toys from my childhood to cram in this one so you have something sort of fun to read about in the name of my birthday. What a cool guy, right? It's a birthday, so we start with the food first.

BIRTHDAY CAKE FLAVORED JONES SODA!

I stumbled on these Jones bottles a few weeks ago. I never heard of this flavor and when I noticed it was a limited item and would be gone soon, I had to get a case immediately for this occasion. I had no hope for this one other than the fact that "Jones" is the maker and if anyone would do it justice, it'd be them.

Boy, was I right. The flavor is surprisingly really good! It tastes like liquid vanilla frosting, for the most part. This is the first birthday cake flavored soda I've ever had and its a real winner. One of the best birthday cake flavored items I've had ever and I'd be surprised if any other soda (aside from maybe the illusive Dr Pepper that I'll unfortunately never get my hands on) can top it.

Score: 8.5/10

Birthday Cake Pebbles

Pebbles of all kinds (fruity, cocoa, berry, sugar cookie) are my jam so, naturally, I knew I'd at the very least kind of enjoy these. It took me forever to find! I checked Walmart almost daily here as well as Martin’s and Giant Eagle. The local BiLo was the only store to come to my rescue.

Upon opening the bag inside, it's a straight up vanilla blast to the nose holes; extremely reminiscent of rice crispy treats. The problem with most birthday cake flavored things is it's either just vanilla or they're way too sweet in my opinion. This isn't either. It's sweet enough but not so sweet that it's overwhelming. I could easily eat 2 heaping bowls of this on a Saturday morning (I did). And it's not quite JUST vanilla. I don't know if it's the cereal texture or the added milk but it really works with this cereal setting it apart from other cake flavored foods.

Score: 9.5/10.

UTZ BIRTHDAY CAKE PUFFS

Utz has had some interesting flavors in the last couple years and I expected to really enjoy these after having sampled the cotton candy puffs last year but.... no. How to describe these.... you know when you're munching on a stick of salted butter? These are kinda like that but with a small splash of vanilla and a giant splash of cheap styrofoam texture. I don't honestly know how these turned out to be the worst out of the three but they easily did. Meh...

Score: I honestly can't Score these higher than a 0. I didn’t find them enjoyable at all, and I'm usually pretty generous with my ratings. These just aren't it.

We ate our food, now onto the toys! I'll keep it short and sweet, after all, these 3 figures belong together in a series called the Bodacious Birthday Turtles! Fun fact, my birthday just happens to land on national turtle day and it turns out that I'm a huge fan of the Ninja Turtles. I only learned this like 3 years ago but talk about strange coincidences! Here is the ever so sweet commercial for this line uploaded to YouTube by user Michael Hood.

Anyways, these three bodacious birthday dudes you see here are part of my childhood collection. I really don’t know how they managed to last in my supervision. I destroyed basically everything I owned before I turned 18. I didn't manage to keep the accessories, unfortunately... and there were a lot of them. We have Raph the Magnificent, Crazy Clownin' Mike and Classic Party Reptile Leo! This is another one of those sets that doesn't include all four Turtles and, for some reason, it always seems like Don gets the shaft. I have to wonder what they would've done with Donnie had he been featured in this line... perhaps a cake baker? Maybe a DJ? It's not a party without some music or some karaoke.

Back to the story, they came with these really sweet card backs that look like a birthday card with a spot for your name and the givers name that you can see in the picture above which I stole from the web as I don't personally own these items to show off. Not long ago, these were measly $25 figures mint on card. Since the pandemic, these (as well as most vintage toys on the market) have bumped up a bit in price. I know this because I've been watching them like crazy on eBay. I'd love to own these carded figures for the packaging alone!

And now, the social update. It turns out turning 32 has lead me to take small steps towards taking this whole situation a little more serious. I'm 32, I have a full time job but I also write sometimes on the side and it's enjoyable. I guess I feel like if I'm going to continue to do this, I should probably make some changes. I've used "Optimus Grime" as my Instagram handle since I started and it's not something that really rolls gently off the tongue. As a matter of fact, I really kind of just... pulled that one out of the air and went with it not thinking I'd ever do anything like writing with complete strangers who'd later become basically my second family.

So, moving forward, my profile name (previously Optimus_Grime814) will be making the change to Retroplasm! Above is the new logo I made! What's Retroplasm? Well, I liked the idea of fusing TMNT retromutagen with Ghostbusters ectoplasm. It's kinda cheesy but, I dig it. Plus, I'm not aware of anyone else using that combination of words and it was hard as hell to find something I liked that wasn't already taken. I'll still be writing with the homies here at DemBoys, but there will be some other cool things following soon which would work better under a brand type name rather than just an Instagram handle. You'll see.

Lastly, I want to thank anyone who has ever fallen randomly on our work whether it was here or on Instagram or wherever you found it. Would also like to thank anyone who has followed ItsDemBoys, bought merch from the shop, participated in our giveaways or viewed any of our videos and live shows on Instagram. We've met some really cool people and we've felt nothing but love from the community so far and this wouldn't be near as enjoyable without yous. So, more to come soon; stay tuned. Thanks all!