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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here .
Eating Vomit and Boogers for Breakfast
The Harry Potter marketing onslaught has begun in earnest – and the latest film in the franchise doesn’t even open for two more weeks. Right now, there are more products being plugged by the boy wizard on store shelves everywhere, thanks to Tinseltown’s magic marketing. And even this muggle bought into the hype. I paid $1.99 for 1.6 oz. of "Bertie Bott's Beans" in a box -- that works out to almost a nickel for each of the 44 jelly beans. What a waste of money.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Bertie Bott’s Beans, they have, umm, interesting flavors. In addition to lemon drop, cherry, cinnamon and buttered popcorn, etc., there are flavors like booger, vomit, rotten egg, earwax, dirt, earthworm, black pepper, soap, grass and sardine. (Maybe these flavors were out last year, I don’t know – I’m not a Harry Potter or a jelly bean fanatic.) But the two newest flavors this year are sausage and pickle.
“Ha! That’s funny!” I said when I saw them at Borders. “Aren’t these cute flavors?” What a great marketing scheme to appeal to kids! They’re made by Jelly Belly, so “dirt” is probably a root beer flavor in disguise, right? So on the Metrolink on my way to work this morning, I popped a few.
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Yeah, cute and funny my ass.
I tasted one of those sausage m-fers. After one bite, I knew I had to get rid of it, but I didn't have a tissue or paper, so I race walked to the closest garbage can and nonchalantly spit it out. I thought they couldn't all be this bad, so I found a "booger" and popped that in my mouth. It turned out to be pickle. So I ran back to the garbage and spit that out, too. I still can’t get the taste out of my mouth. There was no way – even for the sake of this post – that I was going to try the vomit one for breakfast. I can totally relate to what this guy went through .
So if there are lessons to be learned here, it’s that (1) at least Harry Potter can’t be accused for false advertising – and (2) from now on, I'll stick to the lemon jelly beans.
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But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.
We’re asking you to stand up for independent reporting that will not be silenced. With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else. Become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission.
Thank you for your generous support and belief in the value of independent news.
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