Review: Intense Pickle Doritos & Oh, A-Rod. Please Make the Crazy Stop.
Junk Food Nation, I’ve finally had time to process the whole A-Rod ordeal after the recent release of documents, so I wanted to give a few of my opinions since some of you have asked me about it. I am a labor attorney who deals with arbitration, so I do have a personally-slanted view of things, and for that I apologize. Mostly for being a lawyer at all. But I jest (not really 😛 )
1. A-Rod will not succeed in federal court. My colleagues can attest to this as well; if there’s one thing that courts do not want or like to do, it is overturn decisions by arbitrators that have been mutually chosen and agreed upon between unions and employers. Whether the employer OR the employee wins, the arbitration process is agreed upon for a reason, and its a tough sell to overturn it – the CBA is a set of rules both parties agree on to keep things OUT of court. Which brings us to my second point…
2. A-Rod doesn’t understand what the CBA is. When he says things like, “This is one man’s decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial jury…” it’s like, well, right, because as an employee of MLB and member of the the MLB union, you kind of agreed to be covered under the CBA. That’s how unions and management work. You have a CBA, and you fight fight fight fight over the CBA, but the basics of the CBA, like having an arbitrator instead of a jury, are seldom argued over. It’d be like a criminal arguing, “Why is there a jury here? I didn’t agree to this! Where’s the three dozen llamas I want to hear this case?” It’s like, these are usually NOT the things which people have a problem with. Which tells me that A-Rod does not understand the CBA, or just doesn’t believe it applies to him. Which is like a soccer player using his hands all the time because he doesn’t believe in the FIFA rules of the game. Which brings me to my third point…
3. His lawyers don’t give a shit. Because his lawyers DO know the CBA. They understand the difficulty in federal court. So this federal lawsuit happened one of two ways: either 1) they explained to A-Rod what was happening, his possibility of success, and A-Rod, as the client, asked them to go forward anyways, and they are proceeding despite the odds because they don’t care and love racking up billable hours, or 2) THEY are convincing A-Rod he has a chance in federal court despite their actual knowledge of likely dismissal, which means they don’t care about A-Rod’s future and just want to rack up billable hours. Either way, his lawyers just see this as a cash cow. Which comes to point #4…
4. A-Rod is completely delusional, or getting REALLY bad advice, or both. Look, I can see all the arguments. MLB was heavy handed and had a vendetta. Anthony Bosch is a unbelievable sleazeball. A-Rod is a cheater. The Yankees are the Evil Empire. I GET IT ALL. But, at SOME point, A-Rod had a choice – he could’ve accepted the penalties and served a suspension and then got back to playing baseball. OR, he could believe that this whole world is conspiring against him, MLB, the union, Bosch, the courts, EVERYONE. I mean, this is the SAME guy that ADMITTED to taking steroids even after stating firmly on 60 Minutes that he DIDN’T two years prior! So, when A-Rod reached that choice, he either believes he never did anything wrong, in my opinion a delusion, or someone convinced him he could beat this, which I think was bad advice.
5. The Yankees need to pay him the $61 million, and cut the cord. The thing about A-Rod is, I’ve heard, he actually a likeable lockerroom mate. He’s a good teammate unlike Bonds, Kent, etc. – people in Seattle, Texas, and New York all liked him, as a person. But A-Rod, outside of the lockerroom, can’t reconcile what horrible impact his shenanigans might have on his teammates. He’s going to keep fighting; he’s not ready to heal anything. It’s blood he wants. And the Yankees can’t have this. A-Rod actually thinks he’s going to show up to Spring Training in a month? No way. Get rid of him. Let him fight this crusade on his own, Empire.
Today’s junk food: Intense Pickle Doritos!
Intense Pickle Doritos: The Money Shot
Intense Pickle Doritos were sent to me by my friend Danielle (WHAT UP, DANIELLE?) who bought them in Canada. It’s amazing to my that pickle Doritos are available just across the border, but not here in the US. As part of my recent MunchPak contest (GO ENTER) many have said how much they like these exact chips! Well, green bag and all, it’s MY turn.
Intense Pickle Doritos: 10-ish cal per chip
Intense Pickle Doritos: DILL WEED!
Intense Pickle Doritos contain some good stuff, including extracts of dill weed and cucumber. Yummy.
Intense Pickle Doritos: Normal looking chips
Intense Pickle Doritos SMELLED like pickle when I opened the bag! Or, rather, they smelled like vinegar, in that nice Salt n’ Vinegar chips-sort-of-way. I did get a hint of pickle. Other than that, these Doritos looked pretty standard, almost like Cool Ranch Doritos. Munch time!
Intense Pickle Doritos: Speckled with …. pickles?
Okay, these Intense Pickle Doritos were just delicious, but you have to 1) like pickles, and 2) like dill. I, by chance, happen to like both of these things. And if you do too, then you will really enjoy these chips!
The Dorito texture and crunch was the same as any other Doritos I’ve had – light, flaky, small corn flavor. But the first taste I got when I crunched one of these chips was a strong dill pickle flavor! It’s like I dipped a Cool Ranch Dorito in pickle juice.
The initial flavor was tangy, sour, but with a nice pickle and dill taste. It held on well, as I chewed, and then faded quickly to a nice creamy Cool-Ranch-ish flavor, which I think was a good complement to the initial zing. The sour fade to creamy made the whole chip taste savory, and wasn’t overpowering. Despite the strong initial flavor, my lips never puckered like when I eat Salt n’ Vinegar chips. No, I got pleny of pickle flavor with enough creaminess to feel satisfied.
VERY tasty. Thank you so much, Danielle. I’m jealous you get to eat these all the time, Canadians!
PURCHASED AT: mailed to me by my friend Danielle!
COST: dunno, but I’m sure they were normal price. Four bucks. Whatever.
Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 6 Comments
A friend of ours also provided us with these a couple of years back. Our friend happened to be traveling through Canada on his way up to Alaska (via car- lucky for us, but crazy for him). We really loved them as well. It is not very often (maybe ever) that pickle flavor is used on a tortilla chip, but the combo seems to work. So much so in our opinion that they made out Top 25 Chips 2012!
Thanks for the reminder of these 🙂 but not, for the reminder that we cannot readily acquire these 🙁
@Chip Review: OH SWEET! Top 25 status! And thanks for letting me know they’ve been around since 2012 – had no idea
You are correct, sir. A-Rod is getting some of the worst legal advice ever and at the same time, making his lawyers rich.
@Eric Glover: Rich AND famous. Any publicity is good publicity.
I’ve given up on pro baseball as I have on pro football and pro basketball. I’ve simply had my fill of all the cringe-inducing scandals, obvious fraud, chicanery, manipulation. I think pro hockey is the only sport left I have any compunction left for. But the rest are entirely bogus in my opinion. I won’t waste my time watching an NBA where the refs can tacitly admit they know who’s going to win the championship before the series begins. All the hoopla and showmanship and ‘diva following’ by the media, why bother when its clearly a rig-job? Why play along with it all?
I won’t bother watching football anymore after they discovered the friggin Saints had a pay-per-hit program and that franchise only gets a wrist-slap and the filthy players involved turn around and sue management for ruining their reputations. Gall beyond belief. Or, having to worry about them taking kickoffs out of the game, or the never-ending tweaks to make the game less rough and less hard-hitting, or primadonnas drafted every year supposed to be unstoppable because they can run as well as throw, but it turns out they really are easily stoppable; or cripes just the goldang sight of football teams coming out onto the field all dressed up in pink accessories for women’s breast cancer month for cryin’-out-loud!
And I won’t watch the MLB after something like the Ryan Braun scandal where he lies through his teeth to get out of a bad urine test with a lame Fedex excuse and the head of the MLB vouches for him, aka ‘this is the new face of baseball, these fine upstanding young guys are clean as whistles’ and then Braun gets snagged again and has to admit that yes he was lying all along, just a scum-sucking sack of you-know-what. Seriously. I have no respect for any of these money-grubbing cretins, from top-to-bottom of the whole industry; I plan on never watching another televised sporting event as long as I live. Same 3-ring circus every year.
Totally had enough of ‘sports’.
@CH: agree with many things you said.