The Cynical Critic

Uhh, wow. I guess it has been awhile since my last post. Well, in case you haven’t guessed it, I decided to take a little break from my vigorous once or twice a week posting schedule. Also, I ended up going on vacation, and was feeling way to lazy to actually get around to writing something on a computer. But anyway, I am back now, and I plan on putting up a new review tomorrow, along with a preview (as well as a bunch of other crap I still have to do).

On another note, I finally got around to acquiring the technology that allows me to do video reviews, so hopefully I can get around to doing that soon too.

Finally, in case you were hoping to find something rather amusing from this post, I have decided to put up a video showing one of the adventures I had while on vacation. It’s a video of me and my friends swimming at a pool. Yes. I know. It sounds way too exciting for any one person to actually sit through, but give it a watch anyway. You might just be surprised.

Meh… I rate this video a -5/ 10 for crappy editing, and gayness resembling that of Brokeback Mountain.

Hey everyone. Just a quick update here. I apologize for really cutting back on posts over the past week or so. I probably won’t be posting anything for the remainder of this week. I have finals, and I have really been devoting most of my spare time studying for those. Come next week though I will have at least a new At a Glance (I have some thing VERY special lined up), possibly a T.T. review, and I’ll be starting to review the past three Indiana Jones movies to lead into the new one which will be coming out soon.

Anyway, thanks for your patience, and please check back soon.

This just in: Through my sifting of the Internets, just last night I came across a deal I just had to post on my blog. Right now on Buy.com, they are having this promotional deal with Google Checkout where if you make an account with them you instantly save ten bucks off your order. Now generally a savings like this isn’t that big of a deal. Most of the time it’s only ten dollars off when you spend like fifty or more dollars. But this isn’t the case. You save ten dollars off anything that is ten dollars or more. So technically, if something was ten dollars, and you used the deal, you would only pay for shipping. As if that wasn’t a good enough deal, a lot of things on Buy.com have free shipping, so it’s like getting an item for free. Let me say that one more time for clarity. If you buy SOMETHING for TEN DOLLARS, and it has free shipping, you pay NOTHING for the item.

I know this really sounds like a scam/ rip-off of some sort, but me being the paranoid person that I am, I sat and read all the fine print that went along with this deal. It’s for real. The only thing you might want to be sure to do, is to uncheck a box that comes up when you buy your order. It’s just simply a thing that asks you if google can share your email address with other sites. By unchecking it, it simply stops them from doing that. No harm done.

Signing up is easy to do. Whenever you are finished shopping, just go to the checkout part of the site. It will ask you if you are a google checkout member, just click no, then fill out the info they put in front of you. Afterwards it will deduct the ten dollars from your total price, and you will then be able to finish the processing.

So, just to add to your savings, I have compiled a quick list of some great deals. They are as follows:

Sandisk Sansa 2gb MP3 Player: This is a great little player, and has sweet reviews on Cnet. After the deal it’s only 16 bucks. Sandisk Sansa 2 GB Mp3

Kingston 2 GB Micro SD: A nice Micro SD card, for those of you that need it. I posted it here because you could buy this along with the MP3 player, and for less that 25 bucks, you have a nice 4 GB player. After the deal the card is only 5 bucks. Kingston Micro SD 2 GB

Maximo IMetal Isolation Earphones: These are pretty sweet earbuds, and after the deal they are only 10 bucks. If you need a new pair of earbuds, or you wanna replace the crappy stock ones that come with your player, I suggest checking these out. Maximo Earphones

I’m far too lazy to be posting anymore deals, so you can look for more yourself. Also, just today I tried using the deal twice by just using a different email address, and it worked. Be sure to check out the DVD’s too. I actually bought Godfather Part II last night for like three dollars (and I might buy Mystery Men later today for 2 dollars). Finally, just in case you some how missed it here’s the link to the site I have been talking about this whole time: Buy.com

So it’s Tuesday today, and yet their seems to be no sign of a “Terrible Tuesday” post. Yes, that’s right. For the time being I am way too lazy to think of something worthwhile to review. Or for that matter, something crappy to review. However, time dictates that I try to post something at least once or twice a week in order to attract viewers. Go figure. So here it is. My completely and utterly pointless review of McDonald’s Sweet Tea. Are you mad yet that you even bothered to click on the link to visit my blog? Well too bad. It doesn’t even matter at this point if you read this or not. All that matters is the TRAFFIC I receive from you being here. HAHAHAAA.

Ahem. Well, anyway, I guess we might as well get this time waster over with. Here’s a pic in case you don’t have any idea what I’m talking about.

Yay. It’s a picture of tea. Yay. This is a review of tea.

I guess I should start with describing the product or something. In case you haven’t notice the thousand commercials that have been advertising this product, McDonald’s released their own version of Sweet Tea some time last month. The tea itself comes in a special “ICECOOL” container that supposedly layered with a styrofoam of sorts in order to keep your drink “Nice and frosted.” Yeah. Basically it’s a cup. Why does McDonald’s feel the need to give you a different cup than what they serve all their other drinks in? I really have no clue on this one. The tea itself costs 99 cents, so technically it makes it cheaper than their cheapest soft drink (which is a dollar). Just think of all those great things you could be buying after saving a penny. You could:

• Ride the horse at Meijer
• Buy a stick of gum
• ????

• Kill some one by dropping it off the top of the Empire State Building

Yeah. Doesn’t the feeling of saving one cent make you feel all warm and special? Yeah… Okaay. Anyway, let’s move on to the taste aspect. For the most part, McD’s Sweet Tea isn’t bad. However, it is a bit too sugary for my tastes. Now I know it’s SWEET tea, but it is so sweet it almost gets to the point where it is so overbearing that you don’t really even get to taste the tea part. Also, it might have been just me, but I swear the tea had a really weird after taste. I don’t really know what it was, but it definitely tasted kinda icky on the way down.

Comparing McDonald’s Sweet Tea to that of my favorite brand of Iced Tea, Arizona Tea, I feel that for the most part McDonald’s really fails in comparison. Although you do get more tea from McDonald’s in the ounce for ounce category (McD’s gives you 32 ounces, Arizona cans are around 24 ounces), it can be assumed that a good amount of that will be made up of ice (when I got mine, it was easily 35% ice). But as far as the overall taste is concerned, their really is no match. Arizona demonstrates why they are the kings of iced tea. Their Sweet Tea is exceptionally sugary, yet they also blend the tea with it nicely so neither flavor overpowers the other. Not to mention I feel that Arizona’s regular Iced Tea with Lemon beats the crap out of both sweet teas any day.

In the end, McD’s Sweet Tea isn’t a bad deal by any means (with the summer months ahead it may serve to be a nice alternate to that of a soft drink), but overall the drink really leaves you feeling less than satisfied. But then again, maybe I am just being overly critical…

Wow. I can’t believe I just wrote a review on iced tea. Terrible.

Umm, hey, whats up, and stuff. My name is Josh, and apparently I am the author of this blog entitled, “The Cynical Critic” (I guess that would make me the critic then too, wouldn’t it?) Well, I guess if you are here you may be wondering what this blog actually is. So I guess in a word, it’s kind of a review site for all things movies/ music/ games/ random stuff/ etc. Basically, it’s just a place for you to come, read my thoughts on stuff (specifically consumer related crap, although I will give my opinions on stuff that can’t be purchased as well), agree or disagree, then rant about it in a comment or blog response of your own.

Along with reviews I plan on doing some previews of certain things too (we will call those specific entries, “At a Glance”). Eventually, if all goes to plan, I even plan on doing a video entry about once a week or so, where I can show you a review hands on (of course this all depends on a number of factors happening. more on this later). Finally, I plan on having special events/ blogging days where I will occasionally change everything up. Once again I’ll explain this all in due time.

Anyway, until things get rolling feel free to check out the “About” section, and be sure to stop by in the future.

Thanks.

(wow, looking back at my entry I just realized I used a million parentheses. heh, I’m actually using another one as I type this. great. this is just what I want to do to impress new readers. type a bunch of stuff in little brackets that no one really bothers reading anyway. why am I still even typing? okay. I’m stopping now. bye.)