Review: New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies & My Own Uniformed Take On the LeBron Situation
Junk Food Nation, if you’re a sports fan like me, you’re well aware of the LeBron James situation. LeBron, who spend a few years with the Cleveland Cavaliers, his home state team, getting to the Finals but never winning, left Cleveland via the horrible “Decision.” He took his talents to South Beach, and visited the NBA Finals four times with the Miami Heat, winning twice. He was never the highest paid player on either the Cavs or the Heat, despite being the greatest player in the game. And now, after losing the last NBA Finals to the aged San Antonio Spurs, he and the other two of the Big Three opted out of the final years of their contracts, becoming free agents. The question holding the entire league hostage is “Where will LeBron sign?”
Amazingly to me, it’s clear at this point that staying with Miami or returning in story book fashion to the Cavs (who have the cap space to pay him well) are the two options on the table. Reporters have been camped outside LeBron’s door. People have been tweeting speculation constantly. NBA Free Agency opened this week and *gasp* LeBron didn’t make a decision right away! Cue the reasons tweeted WHY he hasn’t made a decision right away. He still hates Dan Gilbert. He wants to keep living in Miami. Riley did/did not show enough in terms of team building. The Cavs have a coach who has never coached in the NBA.
Here’s MY uninformed take on why LeBron hasn’t announced yet – because he’s sitting around wondering “how could I have miscalculated this so badly?” I’ll explain.
LeBron is the greatest basketball player in the world, and he’s also a savvy business person. He is a known perfectionist, and so he wants everything to be perfect. Getting drafted by him home state team was perfect. Leaving for Miami, one of the nicer cities that has an NBA team without the shadow of a long history, where he could great his own legacy? That’s pretty perfect. Getting to play with his superstar buddies and win not five, not six, but 7-8 rings? That WOULD’VE been perfect. And then the decisions after that WOULD’VE been perfect.
If LeBron had, in his four years with the Miami Heat, won four straight rings – then there’d be no question that he’d be staying. Wade could ride off into the sunset with five total rings, making salary room for incoming stars. The Miami Heat would pay him the max money he wanted. And there would be a line around the block from scrubs to veterans who wanted to play in Miami. He planned his arrival to make Miami a win magnet. And he was almost right, winning two of four.
But where did the miscalculation come? He didn’t plan on Wade to look so old in the playoffs. Yes, Wade had a wonderful regular season even despite the games off – but when it mattered most, he looked lame. LeBron knows this is not going to get better next year. He didn’t plan on Bosh feeling like a third wheel, only getting on and off chances to shine, and not really being the post presence Miami needed. THAT certainly is not going to change next year either, especially with Houston dangling max dollars to Bosh. He didn’t expect Miami to not re-sign Mike Miller, their locker room glue, and he didn’t expect to look around the Heat locker room vs. the Spurs and think, “Whoa – these guys aren’t good enough.”
LeBron planned for the perfect run in Miami, believing that within this plan the locker room faces would be refreshed with hard working ballers who could support the LeBron show with ease. Win win win – it’s not that hard. Oh, but it is, isn’t? Yes, the Mavs and Spurs had to play perfect basketball to STILL defeat crappy teams with the stud LeBron on it, BUT IT HAPPENED. LeBron had to do EVERYTHING in the Finals this past year. You can TELL he didn’t enjoy it. The sheen of Miami has worn off.
So now what? Now we’re here, waiting for LeBron to decide between Miami and Cleveland. Will he cede some financial pride back to the Heat so Riles can make a move and goes Miami another playoff run? Wade’s super old, Bosh might still leave, and excuse me if Josh McRoberts and Danny friggin’ Granger don’t get me off. Or will he return in fantasy fashion to Cleveland. They have Kyrie! They have Wiggins! (Unspoken: Yeah…but so what? Who else do they have – a disgruntled Dion Waiters and Anthony Bennett? Ick – you might as well try to win with the skells in Miami.)
The truth is, if WINNING was LeBron’s goal, he’d go to Chicago or Dallas…but that wouldn’t be as perfectly scripted for him. With Chicago he’d had to endure more Jordan comparisons, and with Dallas, he’d have to admit he needed a team more than they needed him. So it’s Cleveland or Miami – two imperfect choices. A situation that he didn’t expect to arise. I don’t know where LeBron will end up, and as a Wizards fan, I don’t really care, because he’ll still be a roadblock in the East. But it’s clear to me that wherever he goes, it will not be perfect, it will eat at his perfectionist soul, and LeBron will have to deal with it.
Thoughts? Tell me in the comments below.
Today’s junk food: New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies!
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: The Money Shot
I’ve stayed away from the Keebler line of Simply Made cookies ever since I had just a just-ok experience with the plain chocolate chip Simply Made Cookies. I didn’t even bother to buy the sugar cookie ones. Despite the flavors being ok, they were just sort of no-frills and dry. And with all the new Chips Ahoy, who has the time for simply made cookies? Not I.
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: “five” ingredients?
But when I saw these New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, I thought, OK OK – I’ll give this line another shot. One of my favorite memories of growing up wa when my dad brought home peanut butter chocolate chip cookies from his hospital’s board meetings. These appealed to those memories.
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: PRESUMPTUOUS
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are “uncommonly good?” Slow down there, Keebler – I’ll be the judge of that.
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: 70 cal per
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: Cheaiting!
How is Peanut Butter listed as one ingredient on this package of New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies? Peanut butter itself has a ton of ingredients. Something is amiss…
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: smelled like PB
I opened up this package and sniffed – these New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies definitely SMELLED like semi-fresh baked peanut butter cookies. I definitely got a more salty peanut butter smell – very different than the Reese’s Oreos.
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: ROUGH
The texture of these New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies was sort of rough. These are not soft baked cookies. Breaking one in half, it sort of crumbled – which, if that’s what you’re going for, is pretty nice.It was definite cookie-crumbly. I liked that.
New Keebler Simply Made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies: Decent!
The flavor of these cookies? In a word: DECENT. Like the other Simply Baked cookies, these were pretty plain (and simple) – again, very no frills flavor. They actually tasted pretty good. The cookie itself was nice and buttery. When I chewed it, it wasn’t super sweet, and the salty peanut butter flavor came out slowly. The chocolate chips helped add some sweetness, but they were sort of small and only added enough chocolate flavor to reflect off of the peanut butter.
Neither the peanut butter nor the chocolate chips OVERWHELMED me with flavor, and in the end, these cookies were just a not-so-sweet peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. If you want your PB Chocochip cookies to taste like a Reese’s Cup, these are not for you. If you don’t mind a more simple flavor – then I think you’ll like these.
PURCHASED AT: Walmart
COST: $1.98
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 - 13 Comments
Well that was quick – I post my article, and LeBron signs with Cleveland! You’re welcome, world 😛
I’m coming home!! http://youtu.be/k-ImCpNqbJw
@Steve B: When I was searching “Going Home” songs in Youtube – there’s a TON OF THEM. Good lord.
I was going to say, “Who the heck cares?” Then I saw that your post went on for like 37 paragraphs about him and had my answer. 😉
Done no frills, peanut butter is pretty much peanuts, oil, and some salt. The fact that you didn’t find them that sweet indicates they haven’t loaded up the PB with sugar like the PB in jars on the shelf. I think they probably are really just using mashed peanuts as their PB to continue the ‘simple’ story line on these cookies. Most of the blogs I read for recipes urge you to not use natural PB for baking because it separates. I think they’re playing with the term ‘peanut butter’ here, because they’re not using oil to make it spreadable. If you took what they call PB on this package and tried to use it for anything else I doubt you’d have much luck spreading it, for example.
@Dana: If you get these, let me know what you think. I thought they tasted good, but were very dry (because of no oil).
Authentic ground peanut butter can actually be only peanuts but I bet dollars to donuts that the peanut butter they used was not this.
The only part that hurts about all this FA stuff has been Stephen A every where I turn. Shoot me. ESPN must be on fire by the fact that he went to SI so they can now report that “our insiders report having read a report….” 🙂
Seriously though, good for the city of Cleveland.
More importantly, why are there no peanut butter EL Fudge Keebler?
The peanut butter E.L. Fudge cookies did exist in 1987.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojI1jxvObYU
@Brent: MMMMMMM PB EL FUDGE
@Marc P: LOL re Stephen A Smith being everywhere. ESPN was all over the place with their coverage, did you notice? And most of it was wrong – Chris Broussard, the “insider” reduced his % that LeBron was going back to Cleveland like 1 hr before the letter his the web.
I’m a Magic fan, but I’ve always really liked LeBron. Think he gets way too much hate from the common fan, so I’ve in turn always rooted for him.
I think his signing in Cleveland shows one thing, that he never really wanted to leave, but felt he had to. The Cavs were just not improving the roster around him, and while he got a Finals appearance in with the Cavs, he knew that was probably the best he could hope for in any given season. So he found an opportunity to pair up with Wade and bring Bosh along and get a lot more competitive in a hurry. Good for him. The tv special was over the top, but even there the revenue went to the Boys and Girls club, so intentions were better than execution.
Now, the Cavs, thanks in large part to James’ leaving, have assembled a team that can certainly be competitive, especially if the also somehow pull off a Kevin Love trade, which apparently is rumored. He likes Cleveland, he’s happy and comfortable at home in Ohio, and I say good luck LeBron.
Except when playing the Magic.
@Sascha: I’m now more and more skeptical that the Love deal will happen. I don’t understand Cleveland. They said they are not willing to trade Wiggins to get Kevin Love. Seriously?
Yeah I had a similar experience with Simply Made. My friend had these in his pantry and I stole one while he wasn’t looking. Bad choice. To me the chocolate chip flavor tasted like cardboard. I dunno, maybe it’s just a bias I have on Keebler, but these where really poorly made. Maybe I’ll give these a shot since I like pb cookies.
@Colt: Did you ever try these? What did you think?