The 10 Greatest Cereals Of All Time! For The Glory of Quisp!

I was listening to the radio on the way to work today and Johnny Danger from 94.1 WJJO was talking about a survey that voted for the greatest cereals of all time.  He starts out with LIFE at #97 and works his way up through APPLE JACKS at #40 and FROOT LOOPS at #38.  Then he starts talking about the Monster Cereals at #30, #27 and #17.  He rattles off a chunk of the Top 10 and then says "Guess what Number 1 is?"

*DRUMROLL*

I pump my fist and yell "YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!" at my radio when he says "QUISP!"  The greatest cereal of all time...OF ALL TIME!  Man, I loved that stuff.  My dad and my stepmother used to buy it for my brother and when we visited them on the weekends as kids and I'm pretty sure we killed an entire box, at least, every week.  It was so amazingly badass.  It's like CAP'N CRUNCH without the total roof of your mouth destruction that comes with it.

So, it's a good list.  A "Tremendous" list, if you listen to Donald Trump. They got #1 right at least.  It got me thinking about my favorite cereals.  After much deliberation (and countless thousands of boxes of cereal consumed in my youth), here they are...the Top 10 Cereals of All Time!

My profound apologies to TRIX , APPLE JACKS, LUCKY CHARMS, GRAPE NUTS and HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS, which all narrowly missed my list.

#10 - FRANKENBERRY - No disrespect to COUNT CHOCULA or BOO BERRY (or even YUMMY MUMMY), but this is my favorite Monster Cereal. I love drinking the strawberry milk from the bowl at the end!

#9 - SUPER SUGAR CRISP/SUPER GOLDEN CRISP - I guess at some point it became politically incorrect to call out a cereal for what it is: pure sugar.  That's when the name changed to SUPER GOLDEN CRISP.  A shout out here to SUGAR SMACKS, which are essentially the same thing.  I "Dig 'Em!"

#8 - C3POs - C3PO is not my favorite STAR WARS character.  Not by a mile.  In fact, he kinda sucks.  Regardless, I have fond memories of eating these in the 1980's at my friend John's house.  We loved them.  Many boxes destroyed on the weekends.  I wish they still made this stuff...

#7 - COOKIE CRISP - Yum.  I could eat a box of these in one sitting, I swear. They've had a ton of mascots over the years.  Check this out:

#6 - CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH - Sugar overload!  Delicious.  Ditto eating a whole box in one sitting.  This stuff is ridiculous.  God damn it!  I have the commercial jingle in my head now!

#5 - HONEY NUT CHEERIOS - Classic.  My son loves it.  My wife loves it.  Good luck keeping a box in the house for very long.  I could do without the mascot, though.  I hate bees.

#4 - GOLDEN GRAHAMS - Yummmmmmm!  I love me some GOLDEN GRAHAMS.  There's a fine timing involved in eating these where the milk has started to soak in, but the grahams haven't gotten soggy yet.  It's an art, really.

#3 - CRACKLIN' OAT BRAN - How the hell did this cereal not even chart on that Top 100 list?  Sure, it looks and sounds like Old People Cereal(TM), but it's not.  It's fantastic!  I'm craving some now.  I might have to go buy some over lunch.

#2 - CAP'N CRUNCH PEANUT BUTTER - The classic.  The standby.  Probably the cereal I had most often growing up.  We always had a box in the house, it seemed.  I think my mom must have stopped and bought a box every night after work before coming home.  She was the greatest.  LOVE YOU, MOM!

P.S. The balloon racer on this box was amazeballs!

#1 - QUISP - I own a QUISP wrist watch.  I'm not even joking.  This stuff is the bomb.  I'm happy to say that even though the cereal was discontinued in the late 70's or early 80's, they still sell this stuff online at Amazon.com!

I think it may be time to introduce my son to the glory...

Cheesy Chicken Broccoli Recipe

If one positive thing came from being unemployed for a year, it was that it gave me time to teach myself how to cook. I've come up with a number of recipes over the past year, including my famous Tex Mex Casserole Bake. That was a big hit! Hopefully this will be, too...


Kenn's Cheesy Chicken Broccoli Casserole!

Ingredients:

1 lb. Baked Chicken, Shredded

1 26 Oz. Can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 7 Oz. Can Mushrooms Pieces & Stems (Drained)

1 12 Oz. Bag Broccoli, Frozen, Chopped

1 14.5 Oz. Box of Farfale Pasta (Or Rotini or Penne)

1 8 Oz. Bag Shredded Cheese (Cheddar or Colby Jack)

1 2.75 Oz. Packet Pioneer Brand Peppered Gravy Mix

DIRECTIONS:

• Remove the baked chicken from the bones, shred, put in a bowl and set aside.

• In a large pot, start the water boiling for the pasta.

• In a separate medium sized pot, make the Pepper Gravy as directed with two cups of hot water. Add in the shredded chicken, cream of mushroom soup and the drained mushrooms and cook over medium heat.

• Start cooking the pasta noodles in the boiling water (takes about ten minutes).

• While the pasta is cooking, put the frozen broccoli in a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold water in the sink for a few minutes to defrost, then drain.

• Add the broccoli to the gravy/soup/chicken/mushroom mixture and stir in over medium heat.

• Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

• Drain the pasta noodles and return them to the large pot. Add the contents of the medium pot to the noodles in the large pot and mix together thoroughly.

• Spread the combined gravy and noodle mixture evenly in a large, glass baking dish. Top evenly with shredded cheese.

• Cover baking dish with tinfoil and bake in oven at 350 degrees for 25 – 30 minutes to heat through and melt the cheese.

• Serve hot with Pillsbury biscuits (Optional) and enjoy!

Let me know how you like it!

A New Sports Blog + 2012 Progress Report!

I outlined several goals for myself in 2012 in my first blog post of the year. How are they coming along, you ask? Not too shabby, I guess, but there's still room for improvement.

So far I've:

• Read The Scarlet Letter and started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Watched The African Queen
• Lost another 4 or 5 lbs. (I'm still working out every day.)
• Been playing Chess regularly.
• Updated my journal every day (not yet today).
• Blogged more often (Twice already this month!)
• Been working on my writing portfolio slowly, but surely.
• De-cluttered, some. I've been throwing stuff away and getting other stuff ready to sell.

And finally, I wrote a new article for Pocket Doppler: The 10 Most Heartbreaking Playoff Losses In Green Bay Packers History!

The article was inspired by the 37-20 beatdown the Packers suffered at the hands of the New York Giants this past Sunday. The loss came in at Number 5 on my list. Of the ten games, I've actually personally witnessed 8 of them. Lots of heartbreak in Packer land over the years... Head on over to Pocket Doppler and give it a read!

One other goal I've decided to add to my resolutions is to take better care of my teeth. I had a dental exam and I need to have a bunch of fillings. I brush twice a day, but I need to use an electric brush and I need to force myself to floss. I've been flossing at least every other day since my appointment. That's better than I was, but still not good enough.

Bring it on, 2012! I'm ready for you!

Words With Friends = Rage Against Friends

Zynga's WORDS WITH FRIENDS has become a cultural phenomenon in the past few years. It's got millions of users and fans and it even got Alec Baldwin kicked off of an airplane. It's basically electronic Scrabble. You can play up to 20 games simultaneously with your friends on Facebook or on your smart phone. Sounds awesome, right?

Well, I hate it.

Why, you ask? I have an English degree with an emphasis in writing and I've been a writer my entire life. I have a vocabulary that's larger than most. I love to read every day and my spelling abilities are far above average. So why can't I win when I play this stupid game? I've been trying to figure it out.

When I play WORDS WITH FRIENDS, I try to make the biggest words I can with the letters I have. I generally start out the games pretty well, but inevitably my opponent kills my six, seven and eight word masterpieces with a bullshit word like "Qi" played on a triple word or triple letter score.

Do you know what Qi means? Of course you don't. No one does. It's a variant of the word "Chi," as in Chinese energy. I'm telling you, no one knows that. But the game does. And so does every WORDS WITH FRIENDS player who's had it dropped on them. It also allows other B.S. two letter words like "El," and "En," and "Lo," and "Et."

Why does that matter?

Because it allows people to basically play random letter combinations in order to nail a Triple Word Score in another row. That's what's happening. People sit there and play random letter combinations until they find something the game will allow, legitimate word or not. It's crap.

I've learned that to keep games competitive with these "I'll just try the letters until something works" players, you have to strategically try to keep the game in the center of the board as long as possible and away from the Triple Word Scores. But what fun is that?

It isn't.

It's only a matter of time before the punk you're playing gets a break with a two or three letter word no one's ever heard of that allows him to make a big Triple Word. I've won about 30% of the games I've played, lost 30% and rage quit about 40%. I've decided it's just not worth it anymore.

The final straw? I was playing a friend of mine from college. He had a 30 point lead on me in the middle of the game, but left me an opening. I played "JIVE" on a Triple Word and Triple Letter score for 97 points and felt so guilty about what a bitch move it was, I wanted to kick my own ass.

I haven't seen him online since. I get the feeling if I ever see him in person, he's going to punch me in the face.

I think that's enough WORDS WITH FRIENDS for me, thanks.

Happy New Year, 2012!

It's hard to believe it's 2012 already. With the exception of my wedding in August (which was amazing!) and the Packers winning the Super Bowl (hooray!), 2011 was a complete and utter waste of time for me. Let's not kid ourselves...it was a Goddamned horror show.

Pi Studios imploded back in February and I've been out of work and looking (with very little success) ever since. Money has been a problem. The housing market in Houston tanked big time. I had unemployment issues. I failed to start a business. The Badgers lost the Rose Bowl. Yes, 2011 was truly an awful year in every sense of the word. Good riddance.

I guess there was one other bright spot: I still have my health (*knock on wood*). I managed to lose 20 lbs over the course of the year. Back in January, I was sitting at an all time high of 252 lbs, but as of this morning I was down to 232. It's still a long way to go to get to my goal weight of 210, but I'm hoping to do that this year.

That brings me to the point of this blog, actually. Goals. Resolutions, if you will. I have big plans for 2012 and even though you probably don't care much, I thought I would share them with you anyway. So here goes...

My 2012 New Year's resolutions!

• First and foremost, get a job that doesn't make me want to jump off a cliff and get back to being a productive member of society.
• Finish the long overdue repairs to the house (I may have to sell it soon!)
• Cross off a bunch of movies from the AFI Greatest Movies Of All Time list that I haven't seen, including Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Singin' In The Rain, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, All About Eve, The African Queen, Dr. Strangelove, Bonnie & Clyde, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Annie Hall and To Kill A Mockingbird.
• Read more of the classic literature I failed to read in school growing up, including, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, Lord of the Flies, The Prince, The Catcher in the Rye, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Brave New World, East of Eden and The Red Badge of Courage.
• Get my weight down from 232 lbs to 210 lbs.
• Play a game of Chess at least 3 times a week
• Write something in my journal every day (the first time I've ever kept a journal in my life)
• Blog more regularly (minimum of twice a month)
• Assemble a polish a diverse writing portfolio I can be proud to show people
• Re-design and re-launch Thundarr.com (or pay someone else to do it)
• Become more proficient in Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio (building my job skills)
• Write and publish at least one sports article per month for PocketDoppler.com.
• Finish writing at least one feature length screenplay
• De-clutter my life by throwing away, giving away, selling or donating all of the extraneous crap I've assembled and have been carting around with me over the last 38+ years.
  

There are probably other things I should be doing, but I think this is a good start. I really do have high hopes for 2012 and I hope you do, too! Cheers to bigger and better things for all of us in the New Year!

Oh, and let's hope those pesky Mayans didn't really know something about 2012 that we don't... ;)

15 Useful Free Android Apps and Resources For Writers

According to Google, 500,000 new Android devices are being activated daily. Android phones are amazing pieces of technology with an even more amazing selection of games, widgets and applications at their disposal.

If you're a writer with an Android device, you can put your Droid to work for you! Here are 15 great, free Android applications and resources to help you increase your productivity and achieve your writing goals.

15. Tweetdeck (Twitter) - Promoting your writing online? Manage all of your social media accounts from one convenient app. Tweetdeck features the ability to post from multiple Twitter accounts as well as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz and Foursquare. Very convenient for the self-promoting writer on the go!

14. WikiRhymer.com - Writing poetry, rapping or songwriting? This isn't an app, per se, but it is a very nicely formatted website you should bookmark on your Android web browser. If you need a rhyming word, you'll find it here in one convenient easy to read, easy to search location.

13. Diaro (Itesta) - Writers should keep a diary or a journal for their memoirs after they become rich and famous, right? Diaro is a free, password protected journal that supports multiple languages and multiple social networks if you feel like sharing your innermost secrets with the world.

12. Fact Book (Urbian) - Fact Book puts the world at your fingertips. Thousands of facts and statistics using data from the CIA World Fact Book and from the United Nations for every country and region in the world. A great, free informational resource.

11. Stopwatch and Timer (SportsTrackLive.com) - Need to block your writing time?Need to bill a client by the hour? This free Stopwatch and Timer is simple, straightforward and elegant for all your time tracking needs.

10. Kindle (Amazon) - No Kindle required! Amazon's free Kindle app for Android devices lets you read ebooks anywhere. Everyone knows that to be a good writer, you need to be an avid reader. Kindle makes it easy!

9. Inspirational Quotes (AppFlute) - Feeling stuck? Feeling down? Don't feel like writing today? Every writer needs a little motivation at some point. Browse hundreds of inspirational, motivational sayings by famous people to help motivate you to get back on that writing horse!

8. Urban Dictionary (Tim Clark) - The best free urban dictionary for android devices (for mature audiences only). Look up urban terminology from a growing, user generated repository of modern slang. Features word of the day, random words, word sharing and the ability to star and bookmark words.

7. Quickpedia (Next Mobile Web) - Voted one of the "Top 9 Google Android Apps" by CNET, Quickpedia searches Wikipedia articles and downloads the content to your devide so you can easily do research on the go. Optimized for easy viewing on small screens. E-mail entries to yourself or others, even with a non-Gmail account.

6. Advanced English & Thesaurus (Mobile System) - Features 140,000 entries covering 1.4 million words. Possibly the most comprehensive free dictionary and thesaurus on the Android platform. Very useful.

5. Cam Scanner -Phone PDF Creator (IntSig Information Co. LTD) - Scan documents, text, images, white board writing, notes -- just about anything, convert it to a .PDF and e-mail it to yourself for later reference. James Bond would be proud!

4. Spell Checker +Voice Free (AndroidSX) - The #1, most popular spell checker for Android with over 1 million downloads. Self exp... Self expla... *looks it up* Self explanatory!

3. Tape-A-Talk Voice Recorder (Markus Drosser) - Record your ideas on the road, in your car or anywhere else that isn't a movie theater, library or monastery. Records even with the phone display off and stores the .wav files on your SD card. Make high or low quality recordings and upload them via FTP!

2. Google Docs (Google) - A must have app for writing on the go. Create, edit, upload and share your documents. Makes collaborating easy! You can even take a photo of printed text and instantly convert it to Google Docs format. Every writer should have this.

1. Evernote (Evernote) - The mother of all free writing apps, Evernote allows you to take notes anywhere, clip text and images from websites and sync the information with your PC, Mac and mobile devices. Never lose or forget anything again! Once you start using Evernote, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it!

There you have it -- 15 useful, free android applications and resources for writers. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and write something great!