“America runs on Dunkin.” Well, maybe now, since the company’s has a practical monopoly. But growing up, we actually had more than one donut shop to choose from, I was a Mister Donut fan. There was one a few blocks from my house, and my folks used to take me there often for the classic breakfast confection.

Of course, it eventually closed as Dunkin Donuts grew ever larger and squashed everything in its path. To add insult to injury, Dunkin Donuts moved in to the old Mister Donut location down the road from my house! They may have renovated the place to make it look more attractive to customers, but it didn’t matter; Mister Donut was gone. (Oddly enough, Mister Donut is hugely popular in Asia. I found that out a month or two ago, and it floored me.) Don’t even get me started on the clerks that worked at this new Dunkin Donuts, either; what a bunch of fucking morons. These clowns could barely brew a pot of coffee properly!

I guess even that’s apocryphal now, as the entire half of the plaza that Mister Donut/Dunkin Donuts sat on was recently razed to make room for another massive CVS. Cripes. A brand-new standalone Dunkin Donuts was opened next to it, but based on what I’ve seen at the new joint, it’s not looking good.

We also had a family-owned bakery known as The Doughnut Shoppe in my hometown, which made the best damned donuts I’ve ever eaten. Of course, they closed down too. The only non-Dunkin place left was The Whole Donut, which operated two locations in my hometown. They’ve hung on for years, and I’ve always enjoyed their donuts and coffee.

A few years ago, though, one of them disappeared, to be replaced by the Sugar Shack. This place sells big donuts, as well as soft-serve ice cream. The latter is most certainly what’s kept them in business. Recently, the other Whole Donut franchise has become King Donuts. With a Dunkin Donuts one block away, I’m not so sure King Donuts will stick around for too long, especially since I’ve never even heard of the company before.

There’s eleven Dunkin Donuts locations in my hometown now. Eleven. Eleven! Shit, do we really need that many?! The town’s not that big, people. Some of the stupid things are literally across the street from one another! As delicious as Dunkin Donuts products can be, it pisses me off to see them put smaller donut chains and shops out of business. Competition breeds creativity, and in the donut world, that means tastier stuff! Not to mention that places like the Whole Donut, Sugar Shack, and so forth have cheaper products that are just as good, if not better, than Dunkin Donuts. With the little guys out of the picture, Dunkin can raise their prices with impunity, and we all suffer.

I hope everyone’s enjoying their Turkey Day. I know America’s got a severe obesity problem, but today, the hell with it. You people had better be enjoying your Thanksgiving food and drink, and spending some quality time with your families! I’ll be at my aunt and uncle’s place today for our annual feast.

Also, make sure you watch some football. I’m not a football fan (hell, I’m not a sports fan of any kind!), but that doesn’t stop me from hanging out with the rest of the family to watch a game (or at least part of one). It’s all about the camaraderie, not the game itself. And speaking of television…don’t forget to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, tonight at 8 PM EST on ABC. (If you watched it when it aired this past Tuesday, then you’re excused if you wish.)

On a final note…fuck Black Friday. Don’t give in to that commercialized bullshit; stay home, and just enjoy a day off from work! (If you have to work on Friday, you have my sympathies.)

I’m a big fan of breakfast; after all, it is the most important meal of the day. While a majority of my morning meals are high-fiber cereals (for energy and pooping), I’ll usually splurge once a week on some sugar-laden confection. Most recently, I tried out Kellogg’s Keebler Cookie Crunch, thinking it would be an interesting competitor to the more popular Cookie Crisp (produced by General Mills).

Well, if by “interesting” you mean “shitty knockoff.”

Seriously, what the hell went wrong? Keebler cookies are delicious. The cereal, however, is boring and nearly tasteless. Sure, the requisite sugar is in there, but it tastes like Generic Sweet Cereal Brand X instead of cookies. Those little Keebler elves fucked up somewhere when crafting this recipe; the box says the cereal’s supposed to taste like their popular Fudge Stripe and Chips Deluxe cookies, but it tastes like neither. It’s a mushy, bland mess. Maybe the elves hired the Cookie Crook to steal the Cookie Crisp recipe, and he gave them a fake instead? It would certainly explain why we’ve seen neither the Crook nor Officer Crumb in quite some time; if the Crook sold the elves a fake recipe for a few million dollars, he likely retired somewhere in the Caribbean. Officer Crumb is probably busy chasing other cereal thieves, like the damn Trix rabbit. (Or throwing back shots of whiskey in Paddy’s Pub, like the stereotypical Irish cop that he is.)

Okay, that was a bit of a tangent. The moral of the story is, don’t buy that Keebler Cookie Crunch junk. Stick with the Crisp!

I bought lunch at Burger King the other day, and noticed that their current Kids’ Meal toy promotion is Neopets. There’s a whole shitload of the little buggers available, but two in particular stood out.

The first is Mynci. It’s supposed to be some type of monkey, obviously, but all I could do was snicker at the name. I’m assuming that “Mynci” is pronounced “minkey,” just like how our hero Inspector Clouseau says it in The Return of the Pink Panther. If you’ve seen that movie, then you know exactly what scene I’m referring to, and thus you’ll understand why the name of this Neopets character makes me laugh. (If by some twist of fate you haven’t seen the film…what the hell are you waiting for?!)

The second one is a penguin-looking animal named…Bruce. What the fuck, all of the other characters get unique-sounding names, and this guy’s stuck with “Bruce”?! No wonder he looks so depressed. What kind of message are they sending to the children? I can only image how shitty kids named Bruce must feel when they see this sullen bastard.

But I’m sure Bruce will one day get his revenge; when the zombie apocalypse comes, he’ll be feeding his fellow Neopets to the ravenous hordes of the undead. Now that’s a BK Kids’ Meal toyline I’d like to see. Neopets vs. the Zombies!

Explain this to me: how you can have a candy store entitled “Captain Candy,” and not have a costumed superhero mascot out front hawking the sweets? It makes no sense!