I guess you could say that I’m a bit “particular” when it comes to lightbulbs.

I haven’t always been this way, mind you.  I’m sure that back when I was a teenager, the luminescence from just about any old bulb was good enough for me and my friends as we sat around listening to rock music and eating Doritos in between episodes of Saturday Night Live back when it was actually funny … but that was a long time ago and things have, shall we say, gotten a lot brighter since then!

You might even say that I’ve seen the light!

Oh yes, I’ve certainly seen it and let me tell you that it’s just the most beautiful, illuminating white light that you ever did see.  So clear and bright that I honestly could never even imagine going back to the disgusting, yellow incandescent bulbs of yesteryear, and I suppose that if having good taste in light makes me a bit of a snob, then I’ll gladly bask in the glow of superior lighting and wear such a badge with the pride that only a true spectrum of color could properly boast.

Just how much could I possibly love a lightbulb, you reluctantly ask???

So much that I actually packed them up and brought them with us when we moved to our new house, much in the same way that I packed our clothes and linens and prized family photos from throughout the years!  If the next people who live in that house want amazingly crisp and refreshingly lit rooms, they can go and buy their own stinking highbrow lightbulbs!!!

Whew…

Sorry about that – I guess I kinda just get a little carried away when I get going on about lightbulbs … the thing is, there are just so many people who don’t even know the difference between mediocre and brilliantly-crafted luminous electrical tubes, sometimes it drives me absolutely batty to think of how many poorly lit breakfast nooks and computer rooms exist out there, basking in that creepy, yellow glow that only a 29-cent incandescent bulb would dare shed across a decent family’s personal living space.  And it’s not even just about using those fancy, new compact fluorescent bulbs to save upwards of 80% off your average monthly electricity bill for lighting – it’s the hue of the light that’s equally, if not even more important when selecting the bulbs that will illuminate your beloved home!

Also, the word hue is just a fun word to say, if you stop and think about it.  Hue!

Look, I don’t want to be a Bossy McI-Know-Everything-There-Is-To-Know-About-Interior-Lighting or anything – all I’m saying is that if you don’t choose wisely when selecting the lightbulbs found throughout your humble abode … the ones that will brighten your children’s beautiful smiles and even help you to win some brownie points with the wife by really bringing out the colors in that new dress of hers that you haven’t even noticed yet, your house, your loved ones, and everything you’ve ever worked so hard to provide for your family is going to look about as attractive as split pea soup … at least from a lighting perspective, anyways.

I may be a snob, but I’m certainly no elitist when it comes to superior lightbulbs.  I believe that good, quality luminescence is a gift that every household should enjoy, as long as there’s an individual in said household who cares enough to give his family the very best that Thomas Edison’s successors have strived to give us through the bending and shaping and super-conducting of modern day technology.

If the man who first invented the lightbulb were still around today, do you think that he would still settle for substandard lighting?!

I don’t think so!

To experience your very own luminescent revolution like our resident lightbulb snob boasts about so proudly, check out GE’s line of Energy Smart Daylight Compact Fluorescent Spiral Light Bulbs, available from Amazon.com or in the home repair section at your local Walmart.  Be sure to look for the light blue packaging – otherwise you’re still getting pea soup-colored light with all of your electricity savings!

Please note that this is not a sponsorship by General Electric or any of its retailers … it’d just be pretty silly if I rambled on for 650 words about these truly awesome lightbulbs and then didn’t even tell you how to find them yourself!  Enjoy, and may you too one day see fit to become a lightbulb snob yourself…

So this is it, folks – my last column as a single man, and not so much in the doppelganger or evil twin lurking out there in the shadows perspective so much as the no more checking out hot chicks at the mall and thinking that I still have a chance with them scenario. Although I suppose just for the record, I probably never really did have those chances even as a single bachelor out on the prowl, if you will…

Anyways, what this ultimately means for you is that when you hear from me next week, as you sit down with a fresh cup of joe and a smile on your face to read my next hilarious humor column, is that I’ll officially be a married man. At least that’s the plan as long as her father’s dowry clears, that is! They say that this is to be quite the surreal time – a defining moment in a man’s life when he bids farewell to “the good life” that is being single and wild and free in favor of “the better life” of being secure in the fact that you will only ever have sex with one single person for the rest of your days…if you can manage to keep yourself out of the doghouse, of course!

Even so, however, it’s really not that big of a deal to me because frankly, just between you and me, I never really was a very good bachelor anyways…

I mean, sure, maybe bachelorhood is a hoot for the guy who’s out every weekend partying with a chick on each arm and a beer somewhere in between, but for the guy who spends his Saturday nights eating pizza, playing video games, and posting to his blog about his noisy neighbors?! Not so much! You’d be hard-pressed to find a Red Bull ad or an article in Maxim highlighting all the rage that is your average Doritos-fueled, all-night LAN party where the XP raids are plentiful and the closest thing to an actual girl in attendance is the occasional pop-up advertising for Viagra and porn. The scent of Axe body spray amongst my crowd would be called Passive, but we’d still all be too afraid to actually put any of it on in fear of encouraging interaction with one of those fabled, estrogen-based life forms.

Wow – when you put it that way, it’s a wonder I even met the girl in the first place, let alone managed to trick her into marrying me!

In all seriousness, though, aside from all of the typical stereotypes with regrets to being single that have never really applied to me anyways (see crazy, drunken nights that seemed to last forever…), I think I’m fairly confident in saying that the transition into married life is one that I’m ready to welcome with open arms. The way I see it, the daily routines for the most party stay the same – the only difference is that soon I’ll have myself a hot wife to drudge through all of them with! Sure, it’ll also mean a few more dishes to clean up after dinner and a little less elbow room in the bathroom in the mornings, but then again, it’s also another name on the list of folks who are pretty much guaranteed to get me a gift at Christmastime and that, the wise men tell me, is but the beginning of the give and take that makes up the union of marriage!

Now that having been proclaimed for all the world to witness, how much longer do I still have to put off writing these vows? Some things will never change…

Whoa, boy – it’s been a crazy week, hasn’t it?! And I’m not even talking about that Olympic fever that I hear has been going around lately. If you find yourself showing symptoms, I would recommend clearing off all those old episodes of Dharma & Greg on your Tivo, stocking up on beer and Doritos for sustenance (…because let’s face it, those who can’t do watch it on TV every four years instead of going out and getting a little exercise…), and then ultimately calling in for work for the next two weeks.

On the other hand, if you happened to live in Florida anytime over the last week, I would recommend thanking Jebus or your lucky stars or whatever imaginary idol that you might happen to worship for our state staying firmly planted on the map exactly where it was before Tropical Storm Fay wandered drunkenly into our lives from somewhere near the Dominican Republic.

Actually, Fay ended up being a pretty lame storm, but at least she was a storm at all and that’s more than we’ve been able to say for quite a while! It’s been a couple of years since we’ve really had to even deal with hurricanes, so if anything this was a good opportunity to see that we all still remember how to panic and run around like we’ve never conceived the notion of inclement weather even so much as glancing suspiciously in Florida’s direction. As if our homeowner’s insurance rates are sky-high just because our insurance companies enjoy fleecing their customers for everything their worth, plus another 45% next year, with state approval…

Our local news crews did their part of driving everyone into an absolute frenzy by offering 28 hours a day of storm coverage, bringing us such important news bulletins as how the lady down the street’s dog is preparing for the storm and what not to wear at the shelter to avoid getting beaten up.

As usual, grocery stores across the state sold ridiculous amounts of water just in case suburban families didn’t have enough crap to prevent themselves from parking in their own garages already. Also quick to fly off the shelves were pop-tarts, beef jerky, and of course, copious amounts of beer – because let’s face it, for many the idea of being stuck indoors with the family for an extended period of time and also being sober simply isn’t an option.

And then there’s our studious weathermen – what can we possibly even say about these guys that hasn’t already gotten me plenty of hatemail from columns past? Seriously, I think you’ve really got to hand it to them this time – they really nailed Fay’s path down with the pinpoint accuracy that one could only expect from a multi-million dollar system of radar and elaborate computer-generated models. I mean, first it was coming straight at us, then it was going to miss us by just a hair, then it was thinking about swinging back around for another pass after stopping off for 2-for-1 happy hour at Chilis – the only way their predictions could’ve been any more accurate would’ve been if they’d had a monkey just pick random cities out of a hat and then plotted those points on a map, then crumpled the map up and ran it through the dryer a couple of times. Keep up the great work, folks!

I guess the important thing is that we all made it out ok and didn’t end up having to pick up pieces of our roofs out of the neighbor’s yard, or worse yet, actually put that beer and jerky to use while enduring hour seventeen of Family Game Night: Hurricane Edition – believe it or not, even cheating at Monopoly begins to lose its flair after the third or fourth game. Of course, the other side of the coin is that we still have a couple of solid months of hurricane season left this year, so don’t blow through that booze stash just yet – you may still need it before the year is up…

Oh, who am I kidding – you can always buy more in a sobering panic the next time the news man sounds the alarm!

Does anybody know where the Doritos Headquarters is? I think it’s high time that we get a mob together and go knock some sense into those “flavor experts” of theirs…

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a long-standing beef with this company for the same reason that I find myself having beefs with most food companies these days, in that they have this extraordinarily obnoxious habit of introducing new and delicious products that I become instantly addicted to, only to find roughly six months later that they’ve decided to discontinue said deliciousness in order to pave the way for their latest and greatest offering…which consequently ends up tasting like dirt.

You may recall that last summer I had a similar problem, in which I was fanatically captivated by a scrumptious flavor called Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ after it surprisingly won in a sudden-death slugfest against a spunky Wild White Nacho. Doritos told us all that whichever flavor was more popular would end up remaining on the shelves of our local grocery stores for all to enjoy, but as you might expect, even after whooping Wild White Nacho’s tortilla-shaped butt something fierce, it wasn’t too long before both flavors had been banished from the shelves to make space for the company’s latest gimmick, Doritos X-13D – the mystery flavor!

* pause for dramatic effect *

The trick was that we were all going to blindly purchase these mystery chips off the shelves in troves, then flock to the Doritos website to place our guesses as to what this new and exciting mystery flavor actually was! Well, me being of the marketing group that food producers like to call Suckers, I picked up a bag myself and promptly proceeded to throw that very same bag into the nearest garbage after eating only three chips. Doritos later unveiled X-13D to be Crap-Flavored Doritos … well, technically the press release actually said that the mystery flavor was supposed to be Cheeseburger-Flavored, but I’ve never tasted a cheeseburger that was that grotesque, and I’ve eaten at Hardees, for what that’s worth.

When I found a similar black bag of what used to be my favorite nacho chips on the shelf the other week and opened them to find that some genius had decided that fruit-flavored Doritos was obviously the best way to go (they were quickly unveiled as Mountain Dew-flavored Doritos, as if that helps somehow…), I couldn’t help but cry just a little inside. In my eyes, Doritos are quickly becoming the Bertie Botts’s Every Flavor Beans of the potato chip industry, and while that reference just soared right over the heads of all you folks who claimed that the Harry Potter books were just for kids, the rest of us can certainly vouch that this isn’t exactly the best position for America’s favorite potato chip manufacturer to be in … that is, unless there’s some sort of underground market for grub or worm-flavored tortilla chips that the rest of us aren’t aware of.

It seems like a fairly simple task – create an awesome flavor of chips, then sell it to people. There are really only two steps in the process, and if they’d like, I’d even be happy to put it into some sort of PowerPoint presentation to further explain the concept. And I understand the whole concept of these companies labeling all of their latest offerings as Limited Editions in order to drive up sales, but at the same time, maybe they need to take a step back and consider the experience from the perspective of us customers. At the end of the day, we don’t want to guess what new product your flavor scientists have concocted in the Doritos Labs for us – we just want a delicious potato chip that we can enjoy without the underlying thought that we might need to go rent storage space and stock up on these things in the event that lightning hits Doritos HQ and we find ourselves faced with yet another FrankenDorito.

The truth of the matter is that I really like Doritos – they’ve been a vital part of my snacking lifestyle ever since my teenage years and they’ve given me some memories that I’ll cherish until the day that I die, but in that same light, I shouldn’t have to wait until I die and go on to Doritos Heaven before I taste those delicious flavors that I fell in love with oh so long ago once again. Taco, Extreme Chilli, even Pizza Cravers – all deliciously perfect in their own unique ways, with their only flaws being that they couldn’t remain new and hip forever…

These days I find myself enjoying the purple bag Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos, which while they aren’t Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ or any of my historic favorites, they still manage to hold their own both alongside a nice ham sandwich and even by themselves as a tasty treat…but I try not to get too attached. I know they say that when you enjoy a food, you need to open yourself up and give it everything you’ve got, but over the years I’ve just gotten hurt too many times that way and at this point I’m not sure if I’m ready to love a new flavor of Doritos again. The thought of losing another delicious flavor just hurts too much.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twenty or thirty times with a myriad of repulsive flavors that no man, woman, or child would willingly consume, shame on me…

Does it make me a bad person to wish that an alligator would mysteriously eat my neighbor’s cat in the middle of the night?

If it helps, there’s a possibility that it might not even actually be my neighbor’s cat, but simply a stray that no longer has a home and hence, no longer has feelings. You know, kind of like the homeless people that you pass every day driving home from work but never toss your spare change because you know that they’ll only spend it on drugs and booze anyways…

I think it pretty much goes without saying these days that I don’t really care for cats, although I’m going to keep bringing it up anyways for emphasis. As far as I’m concerned, cats are pretensious, self-centered, and despite the family dog, who proudly bears the title of man’s best friend and would gladly endure a terrible foot odor just to bring his owner his stinky slippers each morning, your cat really doesn’t give two shakes of the dog’s tail about you. Look at your dog from across the room and chances are his thoughts are something like, “Hey buddy, can’t wait to go down to the fishing hole with ya tomorrow!” whereas catch a glance from a cat across the room and it’s more along the lines of, “I’m better than you, and when you go to sleep I’m going to poop in your sock drawer…”

And just to clarify, though, for me it’s not even an issue with all cars – when I see a lion or tiger in the zoo, those are pretty cool because while yes, they do still give off that same I’m better than you vibe that your average housecat exudes, for all tends and purposes those larger cats actually are better than me! The average Bengal Tiger weighs two or three times my weight, is likely a whole lot more lean than myself because I’ve yet to see a tiger lounging around munching on doritos into the wee hours of the night, and it could likely shred me to pieces in a matter of minutes … I have no problem admitting a creature like that to being better than me. But a scrawny, little thing that just lays around the house all day, leaving behind a mess of hair and crap for me to clean up … not so much…

Hence the reason why when I started noticing a strange, black cat poking around our patio in the evening hours, my first instinct as a supporter of the Everglades was to put those mighty lizards to work reducing the annoying cat population. And just think, with each feline, errr, donated, that’s one less alligator in Florida going to bed hungry tonight … and really, in the end isn’t that what it’s all about?

I’m sorry if this brilliant, seemingly foolproof plan upsets the two or three fans of these snobbish felines out there, but we really don’t have any other choice. I’ve tried dealing with them in other “more civilized” ways – sending them up in a balloon or way out west, for example, but the darned things just keep coming back! One time I even devised a particularly clever idea to send one to the man in the moon – I really thought that one was a goner, but well, you know the song…

So ultimately I suppose I’m always open to your suggestions, but in the meantime if you happen to see any gators just waddling across the golf course near our home, let ‘em play through, will ya? They’re working for me now…

No cats were harmed during the making of this humor column, but tomorrow is another day.

Am I the only one who’s excited about this?!

The adrenaline hit me like a speeding buffet cart when I saw that huge, neon sign with my own eyes – it almost seemed too good to be true! All too often have my favorite foods been severed from restaurant menus and grocery store shelves, never again to see the light of my kitchen pantry in substitution for the next greatest thing, which sadly ends up translating to “some bizarre-flavored crap that Scott won’t be able to stomach, and yet enough other people will manage to enjoy that it will end up staying on the shelf for all eternity.” Cheeseburger-flavored Doritos, I’m looking in your direction…

As I pulled up to the drive-thru window, mouth-watering to the point where my upholstery might very well need replacing, the horrible thought passed through my head that what if it isn’t true? What if the employee in charge of putting those little letters up on the board didn’t have a knack for details and got confused, thus substituting “The Arby-Q is back!” for “The Arby-Q isn’t back!” or even “The Arby-Q is NEVER coming back!” Or maybe this was all some sort of sick, twisted joke targeting the world’s greatest Arby-Q fans, as listed by order of dedication via Arby-Qs enjoyed on The Official Arby-Q Fansite?! Could there really be someone on this Earth so cruel as to taunt us harmless lovers of that sweet and tangy barbecued roast beef? I’m not sure I want to live in a world where that kind of hatred exists, but fortunately my doubts subsided as I placed my order and the brilliant young lass at the window confirmed that yes, for a mere $1.49 she would be happy to bring me the blessed Arby-Q sandwich that I’d longed for all these years!

To steal the line from Richard Lewis, that first bite was just heaven. Layers upon layers of shredded roast beef soaked in the finest barbecue sauce this side of the Mississippi, all hoisted upon a delectable sesame seed bun – it was as if the King of Deliciousness himself had created the sandwich in front of me with his own two hands. I laughed out loud, I cried tears of joy, and somewhere out there in corporate America, an Arby’s executive got his promotion for daring to bring back the best sandwich to ever adorn their proud company’s menu of roast beef-related products!

My only regret was that I didn’t take advantage of their 5 for $5 deal – it was tempting, but that just seemed greedy in light of such a momentous unveiling.

Nonetheless, while my stomach remains high on Cloud 9 as it digests that blessed meal to its fullest, this pessimistic mind of mine can only wonder just how long this Heaven on Earth via Arby-Q scenario can last. You know, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice by taking away my beloved sandwich again and I’ll kill you in your sleep!” Maybe the folks at Arby’s wouldn’t do that to us, but remember – these are the very same people who sought to bring us the ever-disgusting Chicken Cordon Bleu, and don’t even get me started on the Market Fresh, No Seriously They’re Not Just Plain, Old Meat-on-Bread Sandwiches! Never trust anyone in the fast food industry farther than you can deep-fry them, that’s what I say. If only the Arby-Q were more like the McRib, the sandwich that refuses to go away, despite its growing more and more disgusting for each comeback tour…

All we can do now is hope and pray, my friends, that the powers that be behind our beloved barbecued delight will see it in their hearts to keep this old-time favorite around as a delicious alternative to that boring, regular roast beef sandwich that is now the icon of their business efforts. In the meantime, however, I must also recommend one thing – use this time to consume as many Arby-Qs as you possibly can! Keep in mind that the 5 for $5 deal also translates into the even tastier 10 for $10 deal or 100 for $100 deal. Hire Arby’s to cater your next business luncheon or your daughter’s wedding – what better way to say “I Love You” than with an Arby-Q? Make school lunches a snap with a quick spin through the Arby’s drive-thru to pick-up enough sandwiches for the entire week, and still have money left over for more Arby-Qs! The possibilities are only limited by your taste buds, and of course, this limited time offer.

Embrace it while it’s here, folks – viva la Arby-Q!

We did it, folks!

It’s been a long and arduous road for tortilla chip fans around the globe, however these are the times when we finally get to see the cheesy payoffs for all of our efforts. That’s right – we tasted, we voted, and now we triumphantly get to savor those tasty just desserts, or in this case just sides, as the votes have all been tallied and it’s official. In the battle between Wild White Nacho and Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ, there could be only one new flavor to grace our grocery and convenience store shelves, and that triumphant winner is none other than my own personal favorite, Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ…

What’s that? Serious, you have no idea what in the world this nacho-crazed fool is talking about?! What, do you live under a rock or other remote and also quite desolate location that prevents you from keeping up on whatever the big snack food crazes of the moment are? So sad…

But that’s ok because while tragically uninformed with regards to the potato chip world and all of its delectable glory, you are lucky in that you currently find yourself in the glow of a world-renowned snacking savant, so prepare to bask away as I patiently, but perturbedly bring you up to speed on what will no doubt be recorded in future history books as the single most important event to take place in the year 2007 … aside from that whole presidential pardon of Cheney’s creepy grin thing, anyways!

You see, it all began with a potato chip company and a dream – presumably a dream of not putting all of its eggs in one new chip flavor by offering up an unprecedented two chip flavors and leaving we, the people, to decide which delicious offering should remain on the shelves of our local grocery stores and which should go the way of the Arby-Q and disappear from the consumers’ grasp forever…or at least until enough time passes that they can be brought back for a limited time and charged a premium for. Either way, the Doritos company faithfully put their latest creations in our hands and encouraged us to let our snacking do the talking. The results of that suspenseful taste test now stand true on this very day…

It’s because of these reasons that today is a day for celebration – a day when man, woman, and child can join hands, cheesy fingertips and all, in harmony, savoring the feeling that the best nacho chip was crowned king on this momentous occasion for the world to enjoy. Although the road was long and filled with a variety of snacking distractions, it’s good to know that now all of that is behind us and the rewards of said battle are quite clear – not only long-sought-after bragging rights against that good fer nothin’ White Nacho crowd, but even more importantly still … knowing that we can walk into our local grocery store pretty much any time we want (assuming that they’re open for business, of course – our victory doesn’t circumvent the law) and within a matter of minutes, pending that other patrons honor the 10 items or less line appropriately, we can be basking in the sweet flavors of cheddar and BBQ as they mingle across our taste buds in a symphony of tortilla-loving magic.

Here’s to a long and fruitful shelf life for the newest permanent member of the Doritos family – Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ Doritos. May your flavors bring your parent company enough profits so that they don’t strip you of your crown a mere six months from now when the end of year figures are tabulated…

Looking back, it was one of those conversations that really could’ve gone either way! The setting was your typical, lazy Sunday afternoon during which my girlfriend and I had spent the better part of the day just laying around, swapping stories and enjoying the peace and quiet. As we’re both quite fond of the entire act of eating in general, we eventually transcended into a back-and-forth of “What’s your favorite ________?” and it was then that I was introduced to her “Better Than Sex” list…

Now of course, right off the bat, the first thing to cross one’s mind when discovering that his girlfriend has even spent a considerable amount of time constructing such a list is, “Uh oh…what’s that say about our sex life?! If a bag of Doritos is out performing yours truly in the boudoir, we’ve got problems!!!” Nonetheless, she quickly reassured me that it wasn’t intended to be taken personally…at least not most of the time…and as we continued to talk and she unveiled her own list of sweet spots, I began to formulate a list of my own in the back of my head. A corn chip here, a dollop of whipped cream there – a new project had been born! Seeing just how much effort she’d put into her own list, I knew that it was something that I could have a good time with and besides, it never hurts to have a backup plan should you come home one night to find your lady passed out on the bed in a fit of passion, a delicate blend of nacho cheese and cool ranch flavor covering her fingers!

Mind you, when creating such a bold list as to say that the consumption of a specific food would be even comparable to having sex, you’ve got to be very picky and sometimes favorites must be thrown to the wayside for the greater cause. For example, I really enjoy the TGI Friday’s Chili Cheese Tater Skins found at any convenience store, but when given the choice between a bowl of tater skins and a generous helping of that sweet, sweet lovin’, I must profess that I’m still going for the latter every single time – even if I haven’t eaten in two weeks, even if there’s a big sign overhead explaining that this will be the last batch of Chili Cheese Tater Skins ever created. I like potatoes, but come on…

I do have to admit that I ran into this scenario with just about every potential item to appear on my list – call me just your average, run-of-the-mill, horny guy, if you must – and eventually I decided that it would be necessary to make a few modifications to the rules if ever I was to make any progress with my own list. And thus, Scott’s Almost Better Than Sex List was born! Not only does it incorporate all of my favorites without discrimination, but it also serves to maintain the notion that there should be no worries about a bowl of Frosted Flakes taking precedence over my sex life! Sorry Tony, but your cereal isn’t the only thing that’s “Gr-r-reat!”

Scott’s Almost Better Than Sex List…

· Cadbury Caramel Crème Eggs – Throw all of your other Easter candy in the river, as far as I’m concerned…I only need one thing in my basket!

· BBQ-Honey Chicken Wings from O’Hana at Disney’s Polynesian Resort – Although not usually a big advocate of the chicken wing, few things have touched my palate that even come close to comparing to these delightful appetizers! My recommendations – don’t even bother eating anything else the day of your reservations…

· Maple Fudge – Another delicacy from Walt Disney World, this one found in the Main Street Confectionary at the Magic Kingdom (and other fine candy stores), out of all the flavors in that wondrous display case, the maple simply takes the cake.

· Maple Sugar Candy – Close, but still different from the fudge in my book, these tiny favorites are best found in any of a number of small candy stores across Northern Michigan – melts in your mouth, perfect for Christmas morning!

· Conch Sandwich with Authentic Key Lime Mayonaise – Straight from the islands, if it’s not from the Everglades or farther south, it’s just not the same. Jimmy Buffett would have nothing less when skipping through the Keys…

· Made-Rite Sweet-BBQ Ridged Potato Chips – Another treat from Northern Michigan, I have yet to find a potato chip that tastes as good as these – so good that it’s not uncommon for me to request that visitors bring a bag with them when making the trip…

· Peanut-Butter Truffles Shaped Like Mickey Mouse – Surprise! Can you believe it, a third treat from Disney to grace “the list”?! Well, truth be told, I could probably make an entire separate list just for the Mouse himself, but even then, these yummy, better than peanut butter cups found exclusively at the Beverly Sunset candy store inside Disney’s MGM Studios…

· Shrimp Gumbo from the House of Blues – And would you guess, it’s not on the menu anymore, either?! Why is it that as soon as I start groovin’ on an entrée around here, it’s suddenly stricken from the face of the Earth???

· Reese’s Fast Break – The official candy bar of Scott’s Almost Better Than Sex List, this little work of genius combines my favorite peanut butter, nougat and creamy milk chocolate into one truly delicious cross-country snack! Not necessarily in the shape of Mickey Mouse (see above), but still pretty damn good…

Scott’s Almost Better Than Sex List – the Honorable Mentions…

· Papa Johns Pizza – Although they don’t have a single, specific menu item that tops the list, I knew that I had to fit Papa Johns in here somewhere because they’re always my first choice when ordering out for pizza.

· The BIG Oreo - Not even made anymore, these were available during my childhood and I’ve longed for the nostalgia that only a 2000-calorie cookie can provide! What ever happened to these things, anyways?!

· An Assortment of Twix – Today only the caramel variety remains and I honestly think that our children are needlessly suffering because of this! My generation had Peanut-Butter Twix, Caramel Twix, Cookies & Cream Twix, and Fudge Twix and look how we turned out…

· A Good BBQ Pork Sandwich – Never you mind that a good portion of my list already has been barbecued to perfection, nothing says summer in Florida quite like a good BBQ pork sandwich and a side of corn on the cob.

· Mooney’s Peanut Butter Ice Cream – One last favorite from way up north, it only takes a few scoops of this to take me back to those childhood days when the entire family would hop on our bikes and ride down to the local ice cream shop. Ever since, I’ve searched in vain for a comparable brand of peanut butter ice cream…

Of course, this list could go on and on, and over time it probably will! But in the meantime, all this talk of food is making me hungry and it just wouldn’t seem right to try to hold back this kind of lust…

(Do you have a “Better Than Sex” list of your own? If so, send it my way and just maybe I’ll put together a follow-up column dissecting some of your favorites! If anything, I’m always open to new suggestions…)