I take the blame for one of our least lively rounds. Alas, bananas appear to be devoid of talent as a muse and nobody appears to have seen that Twilight Zone episode.  That said, we do have a winner in our most challenging challenge ever, and it is time to announce her:

gemdiva Says:
April 4th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

In what can only be described as a ghastly lapse in judgement the chef for the state dinner honoring the King of the Bananna people mistook the protocol book for a cookbook, effectively severing all diplomatic ties with Bananna Land before they had begun.

Congratulations and whipped topping to gemdiva, who walks away with the trophy once again. Cheeta, what do we have for our winner today? What else could we chose but the Glory leopard thong from Donald J Pliner?

Babies and kids are big business. That’s why there are a million different toys and safety items and educational thingamajigs and anything else that you can think of just for them.   Products are trumpeted as the latest and greatest, things that you just can’t live without.  But is that really true?

Some of these I sort of covet, but wonder if they make life simpler or just that much more complicated.  Are the concepts revolutionary, or just a way to get you to spend some money? Are they truly useful, or are they just products that prey on parental insecurities?

Shampoo Rinse Cup- Instead of a regular cup, this one has a soft, flexible edge to keep the water and shampoo out of eyes.  Ummm, how about just being really careful? Although if you have a child that screams bloody  murder when water gets on their face, it might be worth it. Although you should discount any future competitive swimming career.

Snack Catchers- I can see why people would like these because they are reusable, but they also seem to possibly go a bit overboard.  Don’t say the name of this too fast, though, it could come out a bit raunchy. 

Babeebrite Hands Free Mobile Light- This is touted for those 3am diaper changes or for checking on your baby in the middle of the night.  It could be the best thing ever, or just another gadget that becomes too much trouble when you can just get a soft night light.  Nobody expects a 3am diaper change to be perfect, anyway.

Auto Seat Back Protector- Whatever happened to the good old days when parents would just scream at their kids to stop kicking the back of the car seat, or so help them God, they would pull over?

Child Locator- For twenty bucks, this device will enable you to track your child up to 150 feet away and through concrete walls.  In one sense, I think parents should obviously keep track of their kids, but for certain events, I could possibly see the usefulness of this. 

Juice Pal- Keeps those annoying juice boxes and pouches from being squeezed too tightly by little hands and spurting all over your beige carpet.  I can see where this would come in handy, but kids aren’t supposed to drink a lot of juice, so I’m conflicted.

Inflatable Bathtub Liner- You inflate this with a separately sold pump (because with an infant you just have so much extra time for blowing up liners!) and you simply line the tub so that your child won’t hurt his/her self on the sides of the tub.  It isn’t designed to keep your child from slipping in the tub, so I don’t quite see the point.

Crustless Sandwich Cutter-  All right, I have to admit I’m a fan of the cute little shapes, but is this truly necessary?

DaysAgo Digital Day Counter- I for one remember being extremely sleep deprived in those infant days, but was I so far gone that I needed to stick a digital counter on my food to tell me if it was still any good?  And you have to set the thing to boot. 

Stroller Safety Flag- Attach this to your stroller, and everyone will see you!  How about just being very conscientious when pushing your stroller, whether it be in a crowd or entering an intersection? And don’t they know that people already avoid women with strollers like the plague?

I would love, love, love to know what you all think of these.

Have fun with this, from the superfantastic Gallery of Regrettable Food:

Remember Tang? It’s what we had before we had SunnyD. Old people remember Tang, and the thing we remember best about it is that the astronauts had Tang in their space ships, and so we wanted it. We wanted it with all the blind zealotry that preschoolers can muster. We wanted to be astronauts, too, and we knew we had the right stuff, and we figured we might as well get a head start by acclimating to the menu as early as possible. But we refused to eat the dehydrated peas, and so we grew up to be bloggers instead.

Where was I?

Ah, yes. The astronaut menu was all about the dehydrated, the freeze-dried, the vacuum-packed, the foil-lined, and the otherwise meddled-with. If you were off to the Moon you wouldn’t think to pack an apple until it had been reduced to something resembling the stuff you scatter on your driveway when it’s icy. THAT is real down-home astronaut cooking. Unappealing, impractical, expensive, and synthetic.

Until now.

my head almost exploded when I recently found PB2. PB2 is my newest peanut butter obsession. Basically, it’s just powdered peanut butter... a fine, insanely delicious-smelling, peanut butterlicious powder that is EXTREMELY versatile.

According to Bill Keith, head of sales and marketing for Bell Plantation, the company that sells this delightfully bizarre foodstuff, it’s better for you than regular peanut butter.

Here are the nutritional facts : Reg PB has between 190-200 calories per serving, PB2 has 54. Reg PB has between 140-150 fat calories per serving, PB2 has 25. PB2 is all natural. There are no additives.

But wait, there’s more! Sure, it’s self-evidently astro-fabulous, but it is also delightfully reminiscent of some of the shall we say less orthodox archetypes of the Sixties.

As HungryGirl says:

I literally spent an entire Saturday night experimenting with this stuff and had the BEST time (it was not nearly as pathetic as it sounds, I promise).

No word on if she put it in brownies. And from Bill’s recommendations on the RandomThoughts blog:

You mix 2TBS of PB2 w/ 1 TBS of the liquid of your choice. Water will reconstitute it to the consistency of regular PB. You adjust the formula to your taste. JC’s granddaughter likes it w/ grape juice. Try it with your favorite liquid. I know someone that mixes it w/jalapeno juice. Talk about a kick.

Hmmmm. Who would do a thing like that?