Tom Ackerman Reviews Some More Stuff

      That's right folks, only a month had gone by, but I already had to fall back on reviewing more crap.  But this time you all get to learn how my college radio show got its name.  

October 22, 2007

By Tom Ackerman

          Old Spice High Endurance Body Wash:  I have known for many years now that Old Spice makes darn good body wash.  What I really like about the current body wash I have though is that its particular fragrance is called “smooth blast”.  What is smooth blast?  What does it smell like?  Does this body wash accurately recreate the odor of a smooth blast?  I cannot answer these questions.  Looking at the ingredients of the body wash, I can see no “smoothened essence of blast” or “smooth from concentrate”.  I do however see METHYLCHLOROISOTHIAZOLINONE.  I’m serious, that’s a real ingredient.  Hopefully such a long winded chemical is helping to cleanse me.  The scent is nice, but I really love the name.  I named my WU Wire radio show after this body wash.  Praise doesn’t get much higher than that.

            CHEEZ-IT Baked Snack Crackers:  I must confess, Cheez-Its confound me.  The first twelve Cheez-Its I eat always taste like cardboard; particularly dry and salty cardboard that may have once, in its youth, seen some cheddar cheese, and that was the extent of their relationship.  But after that first dozen or so, the Cheez-Its start to taste better and better, until I find myself shoving handfuls of the wretched things into my mouth, not stopping until the box is empty.  Other people I polled related similar Cheez-It experiences.  This frightens me.  Why, I ask myself, do I eat the first dozen Cheez-Its?  Is it simply because I know that they get better?  How do they get better?  Every Cheez-It is conceivably the same as the next.  The glorious Cheez-Its at the bottom of the box must be essentially the same tasteless orange squares that I first put into my mouth.  The only answer I can think of to explain this phenomenon is that Cheez-Its must contain mind altering drugs.  If Cheez-Its do indeed contain mind altering drugs, than this review is fundamentally unsound.  If they do not, well I still don’t like or understand the strange compulsions that Cheez-Its create in humans.  I give Cheez-It Baked Snack Crackers a big unadulterated question mark out of ten until somebody can figure them out for me.

            The Men’s Bathroom Near The Library Entrance:  This bathroom scares me.  It is not dirty per say, it is just creepy on every level.  The floor of the bathroom is a gray and brown moonscape with a strangely disconcerting texture.  The walls jut out at strange angles and create a very claustrophobic atmosphere.  If Courtney Love were ever found dead in a bathroom, I bet it would look like this one.  It is the kind of bathroom that would be right at home in the movie SAW.  When I’m in this bathroom, I fully expect the dim lights to flicker and something inherently terrifying to appear right in front of me.  In my imagination, it is a bald, eyeless, albino man who drools blood and is clothed in nothing save for the tattered remains of his victims.  That isn’t really relevant, but nobody should think such thoughts while trying to go to the bathroom.  That being said, all of the bathroom equipment seems to work just fine so I suppose it gets points for that.  I give the Men’s Bathroom Near The Library Entrance one thumb down, and six frightened whimpers.

    For those of you who don't know about WU Wire, I should tell you that you ought not be impressed that I had a college radio show.  The WU Wire was streaming internet radio only, though we could, at the time, "broadcast" our soothing sounds into Montag (a rec room/school-run convenience store), thus making unwilling listeners out of anyone playing pool or buying a late night snack.  My co-host Garrison Coy and I called our show "Smooth Blast 2.1".  We thought the number on the end made it sound much more futuristic.  We had an hour long show once a week.  Those were good times.

      Nothing else to say about CHEEZ-ITs. 

     I had for a time thought about ranking all of the bathrooms on campus (well all the men's rooms at least). But then I realized that that would be a lot of work, and all I really wanted to talk about was the men's bathroom near the entrance to the library, because it is a truly terrifying place.