Android App Spotlight #35: Untappd

So you're checking in to the locations you visit and the boring shit you're doing at home, but are you really sharing all the meaningless information you can? The answer is no, at least if you are the makers of Untappd, a new mobile app that seeks to answer that question that has plagued us all  from time to time: "Whatcha drinkin'?"


To me, this seems like more than just another checkin app, if only because tracking beer is something to which I am no stranger. Since this time last year, I've been taking photos of the beers I've drunk and keep a collection of them online. (it's been a while since I've uploaded a new batch, but they're patiently waiting on my camera) I got the idea for this from a guy I met (and many like him) who collected beer bottles as wall decorations. I liked the idea of collecting them, but thought that keeping track of hundreds of beer bottles could get out of hand, and moving them would suck. This served as a fun compromise.

Untappd is like this, except more social. You make friends like you would on any other social networking site, and when you're at the bars, you can "check in" the the beer you're drinking. You can also share the bar you're at, too. From there, you can check in to just the app, or you can share with your friends on Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter. You can earn badges, too, if that's your thing.

What's notable about Untappd is that it's not really an Android app at all - it's an html-based mobile app, which you access through your phone's browser. Traditionally, I'm not a fan of these types of apps, as they're not as stable as their locally-stored counterparts, nor do they take advantage of the platforms unique features, but they do allow for widespread use, and - in Untappd's defense - this is the nicest mobile app I've ever seen. I've still come across some flakiness while using it, though.

(You do know how to make a shortcut to a website on your home page, right? How you bookmark the website in the browser, long press on a blank area of your home page, select shortcuts, select bookmarks, and select your bookmark? You totally knew that, right?)

No God-fearing American dislikes beer, and if you expand your tastes beyond Miller Lite, you might want to share these tastes with friends. Untappd lets you do that, and hey - no precious MB's taken up on your phone's hard drive.

Lean Cuisine Review #4: Apple Cranberry Chicken

Grilled chicken in an apple reduction with cranberries, french cut green beans and whole wheat pilaf


We return again to the Lean Cuisine Spa for their Apple Cranberry Chicken. After exploring some of the other locations on the map of the mighty LC, I'm thinking this spa might be the go-to place for the good stuff, as the ACC was one of the best LC's I've had so far.

Maybe I just like too many vegetables, but I find a lot of these meals are lacking in veggies. Come on, LC, I'm trying to get healthy here! What's cheaper and more filling than vegetables? Well, whole wheat pilaf is. Except the folks at Lean Cuisine obviously think that my hunger pains somehow cloud my ability to think, because ol' Brad knows that pilaf is dish primarily consisting of rice, not the rice-shaped orzo pasta which I found here. I can hear them now - "Oh, the fatties will never know. They're too busy stuffing their face with a combination of sugar, trans fat, and sadness." Well, this guy found out your scheme, and he's about to blow this racket WIDE OPEN, bitches.

It was nice to see the pearl wheat mixed in with the noodle-which-definitely-weren't-pilaf - it gave them a bit of chew, and the texture difference allowed to savor each bite rather than simply swallowing a load of soggy noodles.

Cranberries freeze very well, so the ones found in my dinner were just as good as you would find anywhere else, and their tartness was helping the dish tickle the taste buds in several different directions. This only got better when you combined it with the "apple reduction" which honestly tasted like the gel stuff you would get on the "apple cobbler" of the old-school TV dinners, but when used in moderation, there was a definite apple-flavored sweetness that got the job done.


Chicken is a LC staple protein, and I've found the quality of the chicken bites varies from dish to dish. The chicken breast in this meal, however, was some of the best I've had in a TV dinner. And when you combine that with the rest of the dish, you have a series of flavors going in several different directions, and it makes you almost forget that you're eating a stupid diet frozen meal. The stark, black tray that stares you in the face after eating it all snaps you back to reality.

Rating: Four out of Four sad-faced Brads. The person, not the tiny nail which is also called a "brad".

The Four Loko Experiment

With all the hubub around Four Loko, it's only a matter of time before they're banned nationwide. On a recent trip to the liquor store I noticed the variety of brightly-colored cans in the cooler and thought today was the day to try one for myself. I can only imagine what the dude working the register thought when I brought up my made-my-own sixpack of seasonal and regional craft beers, only to augment it with a Four F'n Loko.

Last year, I had a bad experience with a "malt beverage" called "Wild Blue" which I mistook as a microbrew, but turned out to be made by Anheuser Busch and tastes like blueberry-flavored ass. It's the only beer I've ever thrown out, in fact. While I'm not a stranger to terrible beers, I wasn't expecting the same thing from Four Loko. Rather, I was expecting something like those nasty wine coolers my mom used to drink on the rare occasions when she drank at all.

My favorite artificial flavor is watermelon. At least, as a kid it was. I don't know what it was - it didn't taste like watermelon at all (not that I'm particularly a fan of regular watermelon flavor to begin with), but whatever that super sweet flavor was patterned from, I literally ate it up, particularly in the form of Bubblicious. Ergo, I was super excited to see Four Loko offered a watermelon flavor, which I bought up with much haste.

As if the name, or the drink being found amongst the alcohol not being indication enough that this was an alcoholic drink, they are certain to spell it out for you along the top of the can. They also happily call this a "premium malt beverage with artificial flavors, guarana, taurine, caffeine, and FD&C Red #40." I have no idea what FD&C Red #40 is, nor why they would want to brag about this fact alongside the caffeine and taurine, but now we know it's there. Also of note is the can is 23.5 ounces, so not even Four Loko is immune to the damage of the grocery store shrink ray.

I poured the Loko into a glass to best enjoy its flavor. I also allowed the pleasurable pink drink to rest for several minutes to breathe. The picture doesn't fully convey just how unnaturally pink this substance really is.

As I mentioned, I was expecting the heavy liquor presence of a watermelon wine cooler, but I was surprised to find the sweetness of the sugar water coming through before followed by the harsh and sharp liquor presence. By the time I was making my way to the bottom of the can, the liquor was getting more cloying, taking me longer to swallow after my sips. The sugary watermelon flavor was making my teeth hurt, too, though I guess kids who drink those sugary sodas would be used to this. It doesn't taste good, is what I'm saying, though really, who is surprised?

Is there a buzz? Of course - the thing's 12% alcohol. Of course, there are good microbrews that are 10+% too, and they have the added benefit of not tasting like shit. Beers don't have the energy drink properties, though, so I guess you could call that a win for the Loko. The argument in support of Lokos, when faced by prohibition by governments, is that you can get the same alcoholic and caffeinated properties by downing the occasional Red Bull during your drinking session, and I would claim the same. So, in the end, my Four Loko experiment was foiled by the fact that this thing tastes disgusting, and as I would hope these kids would learn, you can still get a mighty good buzz without sacrificing flavor. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some nice beers to which I should attend.

Lean Cuisine Review #3: Pizza Margherita

Tomatoes, red onions, garlic, basil & reduced fat mozzerella [sic] cheese with an olive oil tomato sauce on a crispy thin crust.

Image courtesy thespicybananas.com

Behold. The pizza margherita is perhaps the truest and best form of the art of pizza-making that is or will ever be. If pizza was a band, and the toppings combinations were its songs, "pizza margherita" would be the one that's played as the second encore on the last concert of their farewell tour. The combination of the soft, salty cheese, sweet tomatoes, fresh, crisp basil atop a crust of the simplest ingredients toasted to a crusty perfection in a wood-fired oven - it's perfection in its simplicity.

Of course, there are some liberties that can be taken with the recipe: some artisans prefer to use tomato sauce instead of fresh tomatoes, some choose to finish the pizza with a splash of olive oil, and - if you're Lean Cuisine, ignore all tradition altogether and create a margherita in only the vaguest definition of the word. Continuing on the band analogy, if pizza is a hugely-successful rock band, this version of its classic ditty "margherita" would be the shitty cover your loser brother has been trying to master on his guitar in his room for the past three weeks.

Certainly if you're over the age of sixteen you've had at least one run-in with microwave pizzas, but, if not, here's how it works - the frozen item is placed atop a flat piece of cardboard, the top side of which has a metallic circle upon which the pizza sits. The metal helps reflect the microwaves, which toasts the bottom of the pie at a higher temperature than the rest of the pizza cooks. The back of the box said that it only took a scant two minutes and thirty seconds to cook the pie, though if I wanted crispy crusts, I could leave it in for another fifteen seconds. Not being a communist, I cooked the pizza for 2:45.

The first thing that hit me was a big scent of basil that came from the large amount of dried stuff that I could clearly see sitting on top of the pizza. I guess the intent was to use the herbs to cover up the tastelessness of the "mozzerella" cheese, which tasted like a combination of salt and bad dreams. Though I use canned tomatoes on a very frequent basis, they're can't replace those recipes that call for fresh varieties, imposing a curious staleness in texture and flavor. I don't know why LC even bothered using "fresh" tomatoes, because there was also a base of tomato sauce, which tasted better anyway, though it provided a slick surface for that terrible amateurish experience when you take a bite of pizza and half of the damn cheese comes sliding off into your mouth, leaving your next three bites of pizza being nothing but crust. The crust was like many other pizzas in its field - tough and chewy, though there's a little hint of olive oil and garlic powder that took some of the edge off. Crispy? What do you think?

Lean Cuisine and other diet frozen dinners have been getting a bad rap for years because they didn't just taste bad - they tasted really, really bad, and it made people sad at times in their lives when their body image was already plenty sad in itself. There are some (relatively) decent Lean Cuisines, but in a case like this where they take a dish renowned for its freshness and purity and make it out of crappy frozen ingredients and salt, it makes me :'(  . The only consolation is that I noshed on this as a slightly-inebriated late night snack, so I didn't have to rely on this as my only means of sustenance for eight hours.

Score: 3 1/2 forks out of a possible 79.

Lean Cuisine Review #2: Cheddar Potatoes With Broccoli

Roasted potato wedges with tender broccoli tossed in a rich and creamy cheddar cheese sauce.


I'm pretty sure Lean Cuisine makes standalone side dishes, but I don't think this was intended to be one. I mean, it has just as many calories as a typical LC meal (and an even higher amount of sodium thanks to the cheddar cheese sauce), but maybe I was just missing something. Perhaps there was something more than just broccoli and potatoes in this "meal."

The cheese just kinda sat on top in
a big puddle

Now, don't get me wrong, potatoes are my favorite vegetable by far, and they're the most versatile foodstuff this side of corn, and broccoli is perhaps my second-favorite vegetable, with me eating literally a head of it in a sitting. The thing is, only one of these vegetables freeze well, and it's not the tater. The starch prevents things from resurrecting very well, and the crisp, tender potato I envisioned in my head prior to my first bite was nothing like the mushy brown cubes waiting in my tray. Some green vegetables, like peas, are just as good frozen as they are fresh, and others are good enough, and I think broccoli falls into the latter category - it's not the same as fresh stalks, but when I'm intending to eat an entire bag of it, I don't mind all that much.

The cheddar cheese was the exact same rubbery, vaguely-nachoish cheese that are found in many dinners and vegetable packs showcasing the stuff, and served only as a means by which to cover up the failings of the vegetables. Honestly, though, I would have been much happier just eating the potatoes and broccoli with a little salt, knocking the calorie count down by 100 or so, and feeling free to open up another LC, treating this "meal" as the side dish it really is. Even worse is that this "meal" isn't even really difficult to make. It's, like, really easy. Why did I pay $2.50 for this "simple favorite"? Why do I keep using so many quotes? Who am I? How did I get here, and why am I still so hungry?

Android App Spotlight #34: ASTRO File Manager

Price: Free ($3.99 for no ads)
Website
AppBrain


This is one of those apps that's so integral to the way I use my phone that I take it for granted. You're probably already familiar with it, but if not, you should be: Astro is a simple and effective way to browse the file structure of your phone and the contents of your SD card without needing to hook your phone up to a computer.

It's pretty much a full-featured file manager, allowing you to rename, edit, and delete any file on your phone, plus the search function has come in handy a couple of times. Most importantly for me, it's been an easy way to install non-Market apk's - just throw them on the SD card and navigate to them through Astro. While typing this, I've discovered that the app even has the ability to backup and restore all of your apps - something for which I've been searching for quite a while. (It's said that if you restore apps through Astro they won't appear in you Market's listing of your installed apps, which would make updates difficult. However, they should show up in your AppBrain list of apps, and if you install new updates via that program, it should get the Market to recognize that you have it installed again.)

Astro is one of those must-have apps back in the day when Android didn't have that many "must-have" apps of which to speak, and it's easy to see why. If you have any desire to tinker around with the guts of your phone, you will need an app like this at some point.

Lean Cuisine Review #1: Butternut Squash Ravioli

To offset my terrible, terrible diet when dining out in restaurants, I cop out a lot of the time at home and stick with the Lean Cuisines. I mean, if I'm going to eat something that's healthy, why bother cooking it myself? Over the course of exploring the wide and diverse offerings from the LC menu, I've found that some are better than others, so in an effort to expand my Lean Cuisine palette, I thought I would branch out from my comfortable revolving stable of flavors and try some of the many other varieties offered in my grocer's freezer.

Butternut Squash Ravioli? How could they take such a delectable gourmet treat and put it inside of a microwavable tray? For starters, it's part of their Spa Cuisine collection, which I guess implies this is the type of food that you would find at some sort of fancy fat camp. The ones the celebrities attend, no doubt. Rest assured, this one's sitting at a cool 4/5 stars on the LC website, so I'm certainly in for a treat.

I figured out how they were able to cram these ravioli into a healthy packaging - there's, like five f'n ravioli in this damn thing, and they try to hide it by covering it with a shitload of vegetables. In fact, there's nothing but vegetables in this meal - no meat.

The Italian cream sauces traditionally achieved their texture from the use of eggs, butter, and cheese, though the Italian found in the Olive Gardens of America usually weigh everything down by covering it with heavy cream. Obviously, neither of these options are particularly lean, so the cream sauce is created here through skim milk, chemicals, and a loose definition of "cream sauce." The box claims that walnuts are in this dish, though what they actually mean is that one lonely walnut has been broken into several pieces and scattered through the tray, perhaps as a game to distract you from how fat you've become. Obviously there was only one texture in this dish - mush - and the yellow butternut squash goop that filled my ravioli was a nice change from the other vegetables, which are constantly reused in most of these meals. Things could have used some salt, but at 590mg already, I didn't dare add anymore.

I think pasta dishes are tricky because they can't add too much without upping the calorie count, plus I'm sure that butternut gel isn't cheap to make since they can't use it in any other meal. If I was at a spa and someone tried to serve me this, I would punch them in the mouth. Still, the ravioli and sauce tasted somewhere in the ballpark of butternut squash ravioli, and the abundance of vegetables means I'm at least full for the time it takes my stomach before realizing it was gypped with regards to meat.

Final Score: 57 out a possible 133.