Unhappy little Vegemites

Testament to the power of television and advertising is how I’ve never seen the ad for Vegemite on television, yet I still know the theme song. The whole thing. I don’t even remember the Australian National anthem, Advance Australia Fair, as clearly as I do the Vegemite song. C’mon, sing it with me – you know the words:

We’re happy little Vegemites as bright as bright can be
We all enjoy our Vegemite for breakfast lunch and tea
Our mommy says we’re growing stronger every single week
Because we love our Vegemite
We all adore our Vegemite
It puts the rooooose in every cheek!
(Dum da-dum)

But there were loads of unhappy little Vegemites out there yesterday, as Kraft announced that the competition winner – and the name of the new Vegemite – would be Vegemite iSnack 2.0. No, I’m not kidding. There’s a hot debate out there right now about whether this is a marketing stroke of genius because it has made people talk about it, generating buzz (the Twitter hashtag #vegefail peaked at 7th place in the trending topics), or else the ultimate in Corporate Stupidity. The name fails on multiple levels: the use of the trendy “i-” prefix for a product completely unrelated to technology, the “2.0” version number and the notion of it being a snack when everybody knows it’s just a spread.

It sounds so wanky to say “I’ve tasted iSnack 2.0”, but I have, and it’s not too bad – if you liked Vegemite before chances are you won’t mind this. Just think of it as regular Vegemite with less salt (so it doesn’t shrivel up your mouth) and more fat (to make it much more spreadable). Nutritionally speaking though, the old Vegemite was probably better for you.

The product wasn’t exactly flying off the shelves, and it was discounted quite regularly – I picked up 2 jars for $5.

Have you tried the new Vegemite, and do you think the name is an epic fail, or clever marketing ploy?

Pork pies

It’s been a long time between drinks, eh? I’m back, bitches! Yo, ho, wassup bling yo and all that. My desire to write has finally returned, albeit the skills side of things is a bit rusty. Going for quantity over quality is probably the way forward for now, so you’re going to have to put up with drivel like the above (or more of the below, depending on whether you like my style) until I regain my awesome writing powers.

What’s been happening? Well for one thing, I’m now married since the last time I posted. Jenny is wonderful. Life is good. What more needs to be said? There was a time when I really wanted to write to chastise the not-insignificant number of people who piked on our wedding reception, and I may still return to that topic in the future (maybe a 1-year anniversary blog post or something) but for now you have the benefit of a busy work schedule to thank for not having to endure that particular diatribe.

Lastly, pork pies. I picked up a couple of these on special from Coles the other day. Given my love of pies, I figured these little gourmet numbers should be pretty good, their being made out of pork notwithstanding. But no, they were horrible. If you’ve ever had those “Little dragon dumplings” in any restaurant that serves Northern Chinese cuisine, you’ll have an understanding of what the filling is like. A salty chunk of minced pork, “soup” and all (you know, that volcano-hot liquid that squirts right to the back of your throat when you bite into the thing, and burns all the way down your oesophagus), except that it’s wrapped up in pie pastry instead of, um… the Chinese dumpling pastry. I can only describe the overall experience as “yumcha pie”. Suffice to say I will be sticking to your good old regular Aussie meat pie from now on.

Ugly food

I hate insects.

You can argue all you like about all kinds of interesting roles that these creepy buggers play in the ecosystem, but at the end of the day, all I care about is that they’re vile, disgusting things that do nothing but cause me grief (ok… with the exception of the army of ants that clean my kitchen of food scraps. I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords…)

Yesterday morning, I opened a pack of pasta that had been stored in my pantry only to find out that it had been infiltrated by a bunch of dead insects that were keen on a bit of Italian food. My yes, it was disgusting. Fortunately, I made the discovery by tipping the pasta into a pot of BOILING HOT WATER! Which brings us to today’s topic: ugly food.

Now you’re probably thinking "pasta isn’t ugly!" Oh my dear friends, how naive and innocent your puny little minds. I was talking about the insects. Yes, that’s right. Boiled insect. Nah, just kidding. Sort of. Ladies and gentlemen, what I’m talking about today is seafood.

Have you actually taken a look at your nearest lobster lately? I mean, what are crustaceans, if not just great bloody huge insects? If you thought pulling the wings off flies was bad, what about tearing off the leg of your friendly neighbourhood spider crab and having a bit of a munch? One of my workmates was just telling me about his recent experiences with drunken prawns: take 1 batch live prawns, 1 x cooking pot filled with alcohol and combine. Leave for a few minutes until the little suckers get shit-faced, and then rend their heads from their bodies while they are still in their inebriated stupor, and eat of their juicy, alcohol soaked flesh. Yum.

…NOT!

Don’t even get me started on shellfish.