It Came From Chinatown (Webcam Edition)

I think we all saw this coming. My general lack of creativity... a brand, spankin' new cyber-toy that I just discovered but which hasn't been thought of by anyone else outside of thirteen year olds since the late 90s... a tendency to overstock on the odd Asian snack foods, ya know, just in case I want to eat something sorrow-based and unimaginably gross. That's like a lake of gasoline pooling with some spilled nitro-glycerin over crates and crates of dynamite. All it needs is a spark... or, in this case, an aimless night spent twirling around in an office chair in front of a laptop... to send the whole thing sky fucking high. Kids, the inside of my mouth tastes gross, my stomach is doing barrel rolls like a stunt pilot, and my brain is trying to rationalize why I do stuff like this to myself like I'm some sort of masochist or something... that's right, It Came From Chinatown is BACK!

For today, anyway. We'll see how it goes.

So let's get to it, shall we? I give you, with deep regret and sadness in my heart...

This Stuff:



Yeah. No idea. Labeless and menacing, this package of unnamed food (...?) has been siting on my bookshelf for about six months, glaring at me, taunting me like a schoolyard bully, almost daring me to rip open it's shiny, colorful packaging and stuff it in my perma-greasy maw. That I haven't is a testament to my iron constitution; I will not bend to the will of inanimate, nasty snacks. Particularly anonymous ones, as those kind of freak me out. What's worse? There's even a PICTURE of the stuff on the package... there's photographic evidence and I still can't figure out what the hell it is. Freaky stuff, man. Here, take a closer, blurry look:



Okay, the stuff on the left is obviously a pile of peppers (picked by Peter Piper while prodigiously puking, no doubt). From their appearance on the package, we can assume that whatever those fleshy, stringy bits on the right happen to be, they'll probably be spicy. Or, you know, not... half the time, what's on the packaging of Asian snackfoods has little to no relation with what's actually inside. Were there a direct correlation, all their products would taste like happy, cartoon Sumo wrestlers that ride pink hippos to dance parties on the Moon. But yeah... the stuff on the right side of the package... man, I don't know. Kinda scared, actually, in that "am I about to eat something that was once a Chinese dissident who was quietly taken care of by an unfeeling government" sort of way. Not that I'm accusing anyone of anything. I'm not. (please don't kidnap me under the cover of darkness and throw me in a hole where problems disappear, Government of China... was just poking funsies!)

Anyway, let's solve this mystery...



Um, ew. It's fish all right... of some sort. There's that unmistakable farty ocean smell that's halfway between cat food and the deli section of a ghetto grocery store that deals primarily in old meat. I've dealt with food from Chinatown long enough to know that that odor means whatever it is I'm about it eat... yeah, it used to swim. I also want to point out that all these little strips of grodiness being on a little plastic tray kind of creeps me out. Don't know why. I guess maybe it's because, when I think of little plastic trays, I think of horrible, Cronenberg-esque medical experiments like in Dead Ringers or The Fly. I'll grant you that this might just be a "me" thing. Still, it doesn't inspire confidence in the immediate task of eating this crap, nor in my overall life choices that have brought me here.

Here's a closer look at one strip of the... oh, let's call it... fish jerky:



Can't get over how much it resembles dried, human skin. Not that I've seen a LOT of dried, human skin, mind you... no serial killer, me, at least not as far as you can prove... but, dunno, I'm getting a strong Leatherface vibe off this, all the same.

Enough stalling... let's eat:



Chewy to an almost sarcastic degree. Like it's trying to redefine chewy for the new millennium. It's SO chewy, it almost comes all the way around to soft and creamy. Almost. Seriously, I've had Big League Chew that was less elastic. And it is, in fact, spicy. It's not going to give a good plate of buffalo wings a run for their money or anything, nor did it blow out the back of my head like a shotgun suicide of capsaicin glory, but still... you know... there was some heat. But mostly, it just tasted like old, dead fish that someone left in a gym locker with some sweaty towels for a fortnight, although truthfully... and as is so often the case with Asian snacks... not as powerfully so as the smell would suggest. In fact, it was just a tad on the bland side. And believe me, you have work hard to pull off both fishy AND bland. That's like the apex of snacking achievements (or the nadir, depending on your perspective).

Overall, shrugworthy times a million multiplied to the power of meh:



So there ya go... It Came From Chinatown, but with a lower image quality (seriously, some of these are very last known photograph-ish) and a collection of neckties floating in the background, which are there to subconsciously make you think I'm classier than I actually am. Because, trust me, dudes who eat icky shit on camera are not classy. In fact, here's a much more accurate depiction of my reality:

Family sufficiently shamed? Ah good... my work here is done. See y'all next time!!!