Name: Scandanavian Swimmers Brand: Trader Joe’s Place Purchased: Trader Joe’s (Silver Lake) Price: $2.99 Size: 14 ounces Calories per ounce: 107 Type: Jelly Rating: 7 out of 10

They’re a simple little candy, Mike and Ike, just elongated jelly beans. Listen in for some fun flavors they’ve come in and our suggestions for the future.

In the latest Candyology 101 podcast, Maria and I tackled a little-celebrated candy bar, the Whatchamacallit. We’re also trying out a new format, which is a little shorter, like a handful of fun size candy bars!

Let’s all take a break with KitKat on this episode of Candyology 101. Maria and I take a quick look at one of the most popular candy bars in the world.

How about something tangy? In this episode from last month, Maria and I talk about the never-duplicated LemonHeads and their companion candies.

Name: Crispy M&Ms S’mores Brand: Mars Place Purchased: CVS (3rd & Fairfax) Price: $2.50 Size: 8 ounces Calories per ounce: 113 Type: Chocolate/Cookie Rating: 5 out of 10

Name: HiCHEW Sours Brand: Morinaga Place Purchased: Daiso Market (Little Tokyo) Price: $1.50 Size: 3.17 ounces Calories per ounce: 113 Type: Chew/Sour Rating: 8 out of 10

Name: Hot Tamales Licorice Bites Brand: Just Born Place Purchased: Target (Glendale) Price: $1.89 Size: 8 ounces Calories per ounce: 113 Type: Licorice/Cinnamon Rating: 8 out of 10

Name: M&Ms Boo-tterscotch Brand: Mars Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock) Price: $3.19 Size: 8 ounces Calories per ounce: 148 Type: White Chocolate Rating: 7 out of 10

When I was a teenager, I went to a lot of small club shows to see bands. Usually, they were punk bands that played loud and I’d be right in front of the speakers. The next day at school my ears would be ringing so loud that I could barely hear anything. But it would […]

The post Do You Hear What I Hear? appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

I had a garage apartment built at my house last year, and beginning this past February I put it up on Airbnb. This coming weekend will be my 7th weekend in a row to have guests staying over and the people who have booked range from locals looking for an Austin staycation to folks from […]

The post Check Out My Airbnb in Austin appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

My dad died on June 12, 2002, and he was 61. Twenty years ago already. He was only nine years older than I am now and that’s weird to think about. In my professional life, I’ve probably spoken in front of crowds one hundred times or so. By far the most difficult time I ever […]

The post My Dad Passed Away 20 Years Ago Today appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

I think about September 11, 2001, daily. I was on the east side of 5th Avenue near the Empire State Building when I heard screams. I looked up. It was 10:28:22 AM, and the North Tower collapsed right before me. After a long journey by foot, ferry, bus, and hitchhiking, I made it home late […]

The post Medical Cannabis Has Helped So Much With My 9/11 PTSD appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

On October 16, 2017, soccer pundit Grant Wahl Tweeted: “Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt is set to move team to Austin, Texas, in 2019 if downtown stadium can’t happen in Columbus. Story soon.” That Tweet set off a firestorm on Twitter of angry Columbus soccer fans and excited Austin soccer fans. And I was there […]

The post Soccer is More Than a Sport to Me appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

I am heading back to Las Vegas. It’s the first time since late January 2020 that I have visited and my first time without being a part of Affiliate Summit. From 2005 through 2020, I was in Las Vegas every year, sometimes multiple times. But this time it is different. I am going to have […]

The post Back to Las Vegas For The First Time Since 2020 appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

Help! I’m taking part in the 31st Annual Austin Marathon Gives to raise money for Soccer Assist, who do great work for a cause that’s very close to my heart. The organizational mission of Soccer Assist is to help underserved, deserving youth (ages 7-11) participate in well-organized soccer leagues. In doing so, their collective goal […]

The post Please Make a Small Donation to Help More Kids Play Soccer appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

In April 2003, I attended an affiliate marketing event on a cruise ship out of Miami. This was the third year it took place on a ship after an inaugural version on land. Over those years, I met Missy Ward at these events and became conference friends. While sitting at a bar on the ship […]

The post Affiliate Summit Sort of Started as a Spite Store appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

I dreaded graduating college. After a rough start where I got a 1.0 GPA and landed on academic probation, I straightened things out. It took five years and one summer session (a Spanish class in a room with no A/C in the hot Maryland summer), but I finished what I started on May 20, 1993. […]

The post I Graduated from College 30 Years Ago Today appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

My life changed in a big way twenty years ago today. It was the first Affiliate Summit that I organized with Missy Ward and it took place at Baruch College in New York City on November 3, 2003. Pulling the whole thing together happened pretty fast. We chatted on the phone about trying to start […]

The post The First Affiliate Summit Was 20 Years Ago Today appeared first on Shawn Collins' Blog.

Do not buy a G37

Best vehicle I have ever owned!!!

Total piece of junk from day one

In summary, quite a useful general purpose car without being too shouty

Very reliable and an awesome ride!

Lots of repairs once the loan is paid off

Definition of Class from a Bygone Era

If newer vehicles weren't so expensive I wouldn't be tolerating this one

Remarkably solid machine, and great fun to drive and own

Avoid

A rare gem from the FIAT group

Great until 200k

Good work van; terrible main dealer, prices and staff...

I can't believe it's as good as it is. Beats expectations

Great vehicle otherwise. Just this issue causing me disappointment

Recommended

On one hand music sales have remained abysmal in recent years, with fewer places to buy it and existing stores cutting back on their selection. On the other hand, the strange revival of vinyl records continues, which I can't get behind entirely (I adopted the CD format about two years after it was introduced, and it was a revelation then) but applaud for at least keeping people interested in actual media and not disposable downloads. Jason Blackmore shot the documentary "Records Collecting Dust" with West Coast punk rock figures discussing and showing off the records that meant a lot to them, and has since followed that up with this sequel that shifts to the East Coast, primarily the Washington DC area. He goes into several of their homes, or in some cases used record shops or public hangouts, where we're treated to a basic show and tell of record collections (which are NOT collecting dust, but love...Read the entire review

Highly Recommended

Skip It

The Movie:

So I think Universal's Grand-Daddy Day Care may be the final part of an unwanted trilogy? Follow me for a second; there was 2003's Daddy Day Care with Eddie Murphy, then 2007's Daddy Day Camp with Cuba Gooding Jr. Now there's this one, and I'd imagine a Grand-Daddy Day Camp isn't far away. Or maybe it is and that's the idea, to make people forget about these things.

Robbie Fox (In the Army Now) and David Steinberg wrote the screenplay that Ron Oliver directed. It tells the story of Frank (Reno Wilson, Officer Downe), a bestselling author who hasn't had a hit in a while. He and his wife take in his father in law Eduardo (Danny Trejo, Read the entire review

Recommended

The Alice Howell Collection:

From where we are now, it's weird to think of these silent comedies as being filmed and released 25 to 35 years after the advent of motion pictures. I mean, with the first true examples of 'film' coming from the mid-1880s, you'd think that by 1914 a picture like Shot in the Excitement, featuring early film comedienne Alice Howell, would look more sophisticated. Aah, but those were the olden days, when horse-drawn carriages still regularly shared the road with motor cars.

This 2-disc collection of silent motion picture comedies, curated by Steve Massa and Ben Model, features Alice Howell, one of the earliest and well-renowned stars of slapstick comedies, who was active from 1914 to 1926 or so. The titles included here on disc one are the aforementioned Shot in the Excitement (1914, 14 minutes), Father was a Loafer (1915, 13 minutes), Unde...Read the entire review

Skip It

And in this corner, released just in time to frighten us on Halloween, we have one of the worst films of 2018, a ghastly gimmick cluster bomb that will have audiences gasping for the air that has been sucked out of the room by the worst acting you will see this century; London Fields! It really ought to be heralded, this monstrosity of a movie, so that future audiences can be forewarned, or else it ought it be completely wiped from our memories, so that none of us who have seen it will have to live with the pain. Rarely, if ever, does cinema swing this hard and miss, unless it's trying to in order to make a point; no ...Read the entire review

Recommended

Recommended

The Show:

Lately I've been using Paw Patrol the same way I had (and sorta still) use the Peppa Pig films for my son, albeit in a different way lately. In the past I'd been using them as a means of occupation while his meals for the day are made, now they are tied in to how he goes to bed the previous night. We're in sleep independence now, and if he does not stay in his bed or room, no Paw Patrol the next morning. We're not at a live or die without it point yet, but we could be getting there?

The premise of the show is very much like one you may be accustomed to when you were a kid and discovered television for the first time; a group of friends (in this case, dogs) join up when they are called upon to solve a case, for lack of a better word. It's storytelling 101, introduce characters, provide confl...Read the entire review

Rent It

Highly Recommended

The Show:

Back when I was half joking about the acumen with which Better Call Saul was going in its second season, you knew that it would head down a sad yet inevitable road, right? Jimmy (its second season) would become Saul eventually, despite his best efforts otherwise.

There are two big changes that have occurred since I wrote a lot of words down about the show; one being the death of Jimmy's brother Chuck (Michael McKean, This is Spinal Tap) and the introduction or reacquainting if you will of Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito, Breaking Bad), both of which occur in Seaso...Read the entire review

Recommended

The Show:

As my two-year old goes from infant to toddler and is more of a sponge soaking up data and information I try to keep his media above board with things on education, and having Sesame Street as your driver in the club bag is a clutch one I have to say. He can watch Elmo, or Kermit or Bert and Ernie with content while I get his meals ready, and he gets the chance to learn something in the process. So yeah, damn right I grabbed Awesome Alphabet Collection as a surrogate parent!

The disc is less a series of show episodes and more focused on segments, all of which surround a particular letter of the alphabet, that the Sesame Street puppets and humans talk through in a means of education and illustration. Occasionally a celebrity will pop by, whether its singers like Norah Jones, Pharrell Williams or Smokey Robinson, or actors like Ricky Gervais (Read the entire review

Rent It

Well, I guess I had to see it to believe it. After reviewing Time-Life's set of Laugh-In's third season, where all 26 episodes were affected by a serious mastering error, I didn't think the problem would have carried over to any of the other sets. In this set of the fourth season with 26 more episodes from the show's 1970-71 season, ONE episode (#22) seems to have come out right but the remaining 25 are still afflicted. I'll talk more about that in the quality section, but first a bit about the show itself:

Dan Rowan and Dick Martin still haven't let up by this point, continuing the show's mostly anarchic format that filled an hour-long slot each week when network TV...Read the entire review

Rent It

The Show:

Not going to lie, think I'm a touch melancholy when it comes to this installment of Peppa Pig. I've reviewed several of these titles for "The Talk" already, largely because my son has liked seeing them and has a little bit of the merchandise from the show. However, I think we may have moved on a little? Someone has started taking note of different shows on Nick Jr., and I'm not sure how to handle it.

Anyway, Peppa Pig The Easter Bunny is a collection of self-explanatory episodes around Easter and the Easter bunny. The web shorts run about 5-6 minutes each and don't overstay their welcome, running just over one hour in total. Ranging from Series 3-5, they get into all of the members of Peppa's family (Daddy and Mommy Pig and Peppa's little brother ...Read the entire review