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Twinkies: The Breakfast of Champion Programmers Still Hard To Get

An anonymous reader writes "When Hostess, baker of Twinkies, filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in November, Twinkies were no more. Then, a private equity firm bought the business for $410 million and planned to resume production in 'The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.' Now, an article in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports that they're still hard to get, since an unprecedented demand has caused orders to exceed production capacity 'by a significant amount.'"

145 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's pathetic that there could be that much of a demand for 'Twinkies'; the food of the unhealthy and overweight.

    1. Re:Pathetic by Sockatume · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's a bit rich coming from someone making an anonymous comment on an internet article, which is about the intellectual equivalent of a vending machine breakfast. I say this as a past-master at both activities.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    2. Re:Pathetic by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've never had a twinkie. I want to try.
      besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..

      what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Pathetic by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is this magic healthcare we pay for that makes them healthy and keeps them alive as long as you and I?

      My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient. Odds are these are going to be cheap deaths. If you want to lower healthcare costs you have to get people to do more of this stuff. Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.

    4. Re:Pathetic by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..

      heh, in the US we tariff the hell out of sugar and subsidize high-fructose corn syrup. To support the War on Triglycerides, apparently.

      what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

      Are you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.

      FWIW, there is a mountain of Twinkie boxes and a 5x8 advertising banner at the entrance to the WalMart in Claremont, NH. I won't need any until October, when the boy wants some of those Minion cupcakes for his birthday party.

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    5. Re:Pathetic by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 1

      What I don't understand is why Twinkies are so popular when Suzy Qs are so much more awesome and they never even get a mention.

    6. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Except, it wasn't really in such high demand until the stories came out that it was being discontinued. Hoarders and attempted opportunists quickly bought up the remaining stock and now the "no, I won't pay $300 for a box of Twinkies" majority of the nostalgia-afflicted surpass the production rate.

    7. Re:Pathetic by SQLGuru · · Score: 1

      There was an entire end-cap full of them when I went grocery shopping yesterday.......I passed them up, but I could have easily filled several shopping carts with them. Had I known I could still turn a profit on them, I might have grabbed a few.

    8. Re:Pathetic by ebno-10db · · Score: 1

      most countries have taxes on sugar etc.

      Which countries? (seriously). I'm curious if we're talking levels high enough to alter behavior (which I suspect would be awfully high). The US taxes sugar imports, which is part of why HFCS is used so much.

    9. Re:Pathetic by BrokenHalo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In any case, what exactly is a twinkie? And are they designed for oral ingestion or for insertion via another orifice?

    10. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      besides, most countries have taxes on sugar etc..

      heh, in the US we tariff the hell out of sugar and subsidize high-fructose corn syrup. To support the War on Triglycerides, apparently.

      what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

      Are you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.

      FWIW, there is a mountain of Twinkie boxes and a 5x8 advertising banner at the entrance to the WalMart in Claremont, NH. I won't need any until October, when the boy wants some of those Minion cupcakes for his birthday party.

      They also managed to extract all the money from the employee's retirement fund and give it to themselves in the form of bonuses, then continue to reduce pay (while increasing bonuses) until the workers couldn't afford to work anymore. Then they sold the company for millions. I'd say they managed the "bankruptcy" brilliantly, from a cut-throat, anti-working folks sort of way. Now those same working-class folks are going to go run out any buy the product to reward it.

    11. Re:Pathetic by glennrrr · · Score: 1

      My impression is that the company had some expensive labor contracts and bankruptcy was its answer to voiding them.

    12. Re:Pathetic by kannibal_klown · · Score: 1

      Don't bother trying it.

      I was the same way: I never had one and wanted to try. I finally had one when I was like 20yo: I couldn't take more than a bit or two and threw the rest out.

      I'm not a pastry snob or anything: I've tried and enjoyed a number of mass-produced pasties. I used to LOVE Butterscotch Krimpets.

      But I can't see why the Twinkie is so popular, it tastes like junk. I mean: out of all of the mass-produced pasties out there... Twinkies are like the bottom of the barrel. Even the other Hostess products were better.

    13. Re:Pathetic by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Informative

      Us healthy folks living into our 80s and 90s requiring round the clock care is where the real costs are.

      The "Death Panels" will take care of you. [ /sarcasm ]

      The death panels already exist and have existed for years and years - however their correct name is Actuary.

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    14. Re:Pathetic by Sockatume · · Score: 2

      Something almost exactly unlike cake.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    15. Re:Pathetic by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      besides, most countries have taxes on food etc..

      Here, FTFY.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    16. Re:Pathetic by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 1

      That's as stupid as the people who think people so poor that they don't pay taxes are somehow cheating us.

    17. Re:Pathetic by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Probably because no jury would buy a Suzy Q defense.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    18. Re:Pathetic by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

    19. Re:Pathetic by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 1

      Twinkies were never all that great. HoHos and Dingdongs are where it's at.

      Hostess has pretty stupid product names.

    20. Re:Pathetic by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      No, what's pathetic is a society which makes it easier to get a bag of cocaine 365/24/7 than it is to buy a package of Twinkies at the store. It doesn't matter that the cocaine is probably healthier. If you want want to make Twinkies easy to find, the government needs to label them a Schedule 1 substance. Nothing creates a market like prohibition does.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    21. Re:Pathetic by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      Shut UP! Didn't you RTFS? Do you really want the awesome chocolate-like goodness to become as thin on the ground as the yellow logs of styrofoam?!

    22. Re:Pathetic by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 1

      Suzy Qs

      Tastes awesome AND has a cool name.

    23. Re:Pathetic by psergiu · · Score: 1

      A (semi)solid food equivalent of a "sugary-water" drink.
      Basically, a device created to facilitate the ingestion of sugar and/or corn-syrup.

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    24. Re:Pathetic by davydagger · · Score: 1

      agreed. To this day, I've never actually seen a nerd consume a twinkie.

      I think it just comes from some gross prerojitave that if someone is fat they must eat twinkies.

      Good grief

    25. Re:Pathetic by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've never had a twinkie. I want to try.

      I live in the UK, and tried one towards the end of last year. (*) In all honesty, I really couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

      Even accounting for the fact it may have been marginally stale- since it was an import- it had that almost "uncanny valley" fake quality to it of something that would never have been conventionally "fresh" in the first place. It reminded me of some off-the-shelf (also long-life) waffles I'd tried previously and been similarly unimpressed with.

      The snack itself was just bland; mediocre cake and an uninteresting, over-sweet cream filling. Nothing disgusting, just... pointless.

      "Long life" baked goods like Twinkies don't seem to be as culturally important over here. I'm only guessing, but possibly the popularity of long-life snacks like the Twinkie may be greater in the US because being more geographically spread out than other countries made keeping goods fresh more of an issue, particuarly when Twinkies (etc.) rose to prominence in the mid-20th-century.

      (*) The fact this was around the time of the bankruptcy was pretty coincidental; a new shop importing US snacks had opened, and I was curious to try one. I paid something silly for it- around £1.75 IIRC- but again I doubt that was because of the bankruptcy- the shop markup was already high, and they were charging more for individual ones split from their packs.

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    26. Re:Pathetic by jimbolauski · · Score: 1

      what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

      What happened was Hostess had no capital to run, and no ability to borrow so they had no choice but to close. It was not until after the bankruptcy that the debts were clear, pensions reduced, and union contracts ripped up that Hostess became a viable company to buy. It was simply too big a risk to buy until the ink was dry on the bankruptcy filings.

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    27. Re:Pathetic by tlambert · · Score: 3, Informative

      What is this magic healthcare we pay for that makes them healthy and keeps them alive as long as you and I?

      It's called "private medical research" and "medical tourism".

      My understanding is no amount of money will fix type 2 diabetes and obesity in a non-compliant patient.

      Your understanding is out of date. We are currently using Porcine stem cells and islet transplants to treat diabetes, albeit it's still considered experimental treatment in the U.S. so that insurance companies, which we still have to pay for our healthcare, rather than having a single payer system like the rest of the world, don't have to pay for the treatment:

      http://www.mmf.umn.edu/diabetes/

      On the other hand, if you are willing to travel to Russia, Finland, the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Panama, or Poland, they'll happily take your money, and provide treatment for Diabetes, Parkinsons, and a half dozen other conditions, and several of the countries will even let you buy antiaging treatments as well.

      When Porcine stem cells are used, you have to sign some pretty strict agreements, since they down't want PERV (Porcine Endogenous Retro Virus) crossing species boundaries, unless you agree to sexually isolate yourself on the order of the protection necessary to prevent the spread of AIDS (condoms, etc.).

    28. Re:Pathetic by davydagger · · Score: 1

      no, the ceased production because demand dropped to the point they were no longer profitable.

      http://idle.slashdot.org/story/12/11/16/1849212/hostess-to-close-no-more-twinkies

      they were going through the death throws, i.e. cutting wages, etc...

    29. Re:Pathetic by davydagger · · Score: 1

      yeah, stupid unions wanting working wages. They weren't asking for a raise, they were asking that their salaries didn't get cut from $18/hour to $14/hour!

      and how much does management make to sit with their thumbs in their asses?

      If they wanted to save the company, they could have. The press decided to blame it on the unions.

    30. Re:Pathetic by xaxa · · Score: 1

      most countries have taxes on sugar etc.

      Which countries? (seriously). I'm curious if we're talking levels high enough to alter behavior (which I suspect would be awfully high). The US taxes sugar imports, which is part of why HFCS is used so much.

      Denmark had a fat tax, and proposed a sugar tax, but both were scrapped in 2012. http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/11/denmark-abandons-sugar-and-fat-taxes.html

      I found a paper copy of the British Medical Journal, and found this article informative: http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2931 but I don't have a subscription (there's a paywall).

    31. Re:Pathetic by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 1

      Claremont, NH? I'm not surprised. I curse that God-awful town every time I have to drive through it.

      --
      "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
    32. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

      The patients ask for it. I am a doctor. Many people say that they are at peace with dying, but when they are actually near death, NO ONE really means it. In 20 years, I have seen too many people die than I can count. All of them wanted everything done, regardless of the cost and side effects, and questionable benefit. If there was even the slightest question of prolonging their life 10 minutes, as long as it was covered by insurance, then they insisted on the treatment. But I'm sure you don't want to hear that. It's easier to blame the doctor.

    33. Re:Pathetic by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

      Doctors!? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's fearful obsession with trying to eke out even a possible tiny few months more of life? What about 85 Year Old Cancer Man's family who sues the doctor years after Cancer Man dies because the doc "didn't do all he could and spend tens of thousands of dollars to eke out another few months of pitiful life for our father/son/husband!!!!11lleleventy"

      Talking directly to Cancer Man I say this: dignity, motherfucker, do you speak it? Try dying with it then you selfish asshole. The ultimate issue is that in the US, there is no dialog on death and dying, there's only more fear. We don't talk about dying, we don't want to deal with dying, we don't want to see people dying, we don't want to deal with what we sometimes must do after death (like plan funerals, etc.) Death and dying as a natural part of living are treated as almost a kind of taboo subject and rarely intrudes into public consciousness except for when complete fucking morons spout off about "death panels" and pile on more and more fear.

      As a people, Americans are now defined by and controlled by every kind of fear imaginable and more the kind of fear that is only imagined.

      So tell Cancer Man and his family to sit down, have a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up and figure out how to make his dying as best as circumstances allow instead of driving up everyone else's medical costs, suing good doctors into oblivion and/or driving good people out of medical practice in the first place due to these hysterical lawsuit-happy SELFISH ignorant fools.

      --
      "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
    34. Re:Pathetic by _KiTA_ · · Score: 5, Informative

      They are pound or sponge cake with a highly fat filled marshmallow creme filling. They are incredibly easy to make.

      Todd Wilbur has a great video on how to duplicate them at home. He does the same for a lot of snack foods -- Does a great Oreo too.

      Personally I'm not terribly excited for Twinkies' return. This most recent mess was the result of a bunch of Romney-style Capitalists trying to bust Hostess' Union for more profit, being helped along with assholes on Fox News blaming the victims of 10+ years of those assholes sucking Hostess dry.

      The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent -- and no American should ever support Union busting.

    35. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So if you mod me to +5 Insightful you're doing your patriotic duty?

    36. Re:Pathetic by _KiTA_ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We could do with doctors having some end of live training. I have watched too many elderly relatives treated with expensive and painful procedures that only managed to lengthen their suffering a very short amount of time. Often increasing their suffering for that time. Yeah, lets try chemo on an 85 year old who is more cancer than man! What the hell is wrong with these doctors?

      It's the same reason you get an XRay every time you go into the Dentist. You don't need them (visual inspection will tell almost everything you need to know), but they are a very simple and easy procedure that will get the dentist a good amount of money from the Insurance company. In addition, like mechanics and the specialist equipment they have to buy, paying off that XRay machine they are forced to buy will probably take a few thousand XRays, so they have to do it in order to survive.

      A lot of the medical decisions we make in this country are satisfied by this basic economic pressure: The exact point where they can bleed as much money from the Insurance companies (who bleed as much out of you).

      This is why we should have went with single payer or Universal health care in the United States, instead of using the Affordable Care Act to prop up a diseased industry. Perhaps in another 10-20 years we'll be at that point in the US, it depends on how fast the current Ultraconservative Party collapses.

    37. Re:Pathetic by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      In a civilized society, we take steps to prevent our fellow citizens from dying preventable deaths.

      In a free society, we allow people to make their own choices to a degree.

      If you have freedom and civilization, you will be paying a small part of the price for your fellow citizen's twinkies. That's just how it is. There are still incentives to stay healthy, namely that you don't feel and look like shit and have parts cut off of you, so don't worry that everyone is going to get obese and make you pay for it.

    38. Re:Pathetic by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I can't believe there's such a thing as Minion cupcakes, after googling for images I think I'd be sick if I ate one at my age.

      Me too - I'd contract the diabetus on the spot. But I also don't run around screaming for three hours at a set. Much.

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    39. Re:Pathetic by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      You blew it. You should have said "It tastes almost, but not quite, entirely unlike cake."

      Get your Adams quotes straight!

    40. Re:Pathetic by mrbester · · Score: 1

      Stop it. They were hard enough to get in UK before the bankruptcy and all you're doing is making me want one even more.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    41. Re:Pathetic by Politburo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A union is an association of workers, and the right of free association is protected by the First Amendment. Why do you hate freedom?

    42. Re:Pathetic by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First of all, Talent? They were making Twinkies. Not growing human brains on mars. I'm pretty pro union, but this union voted for unemployment, rather than a concession on stupid job conditions. They're the idiots that aren't needed in organized labor in this day and age. Many people saw corruption and incompetence take root at unions and decided they were better off without the unions at all. In the end for most, the decision was simply choosing the method of death. Unions need to be smarter and have pay and benefits aligned with the company's financial health.

      --
      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
    43. Re:Pathetic by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

      Not everyone gets xrays every time they visit the dentist. I get them about every 4 years. Few cavities in my life, so less xrays.

    44. Re:Pathetic by mrclisdue · · Score: 1

      ...not to mention that unions are responsible for the decrease in child labour. Why does he hate children? Please think of the children. I wonder if he beats his wife. I'm convinced he's a terrorist.

    45. Re:Pathetic by asylumx · · Score: 1

      If you think the work week should be shorter, or that x amount of weeks of vacation should be mandatory, then have it passed as law.

      And somehow you think this protects your freedoms?

    46. Re:Pathetic by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Don't forget those of us who are unhealthy underweight twinkie-eaters.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    47. Re:Pathetic by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Suzy Qs

      Oddly, they don't serve Suzy Qs at Susie Q's. Really good fried chicken, though (Google streetview picture is before Mike bought, renovated, and opened it).

    48. Re:Pathetic by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      Ah, but that wouldn't be accurate. It tastes like the very apotheosis of cake. I just don't know what the hell it actually is.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    49. Re:Pathetic by shadowrat · · Score: 2

      It's the same reason you get an XRay every time you go into the Dentist. You don't need them (visual inspection will tell almost everything you need to know), but they are a very simple and easy procedure that will get the dentist a good amount of money from the Insurance company.

      thanks to a dental xray, i just found out i have a number of small cavities forming on the opposing faces of some of my molars. That seems like an area that's pretty hard to just look at.

    50. Re:Pathetic by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

      Personally I'm not terribly excited for Twinkies' return. This most recent mess was the result of a bunch of Romney-style Capitalists trying to bust Hostess' Union for more profit,

      I don't care about Twinkies, but the situation was much more complex than your stereotype. Half the union workers were in favor of the breakup. Why? It was Teamsters against the Bakers union.

      Hostess was not profitable, I don't care if you're pro-union or anti-union, if you're not profitable there will be no union. The bakers realized this, and blamed the Teamsters for making Hostess inefficient. They thought if they went through bankruptcy, the court might get rid of the Teamsters, and a new buyer would come and re-open Hostess, and they would get their jobs back (that is basically what happened).

      The Teamsters opposed the breakup, because they preferred to keep their jobs (naturally). The problem was massive inefficiencies made them uncompetitive. Union rules required that different products be delivered on different trucks, and a different person had to come with the driver to unload the truck while the driver had to just stand there waiting. They maintained an entire network of outlet stores (did you ever visit a Hostess outlet? Neither did anyone else, but they stayed open anyway).

      --
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    51. Re:Pathetic by platypussrex · · Score: 1

      They are incredibly easy to make.

      The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent

      If your first statement is true, it's hard to see why the second one would matter.

    52. Re:Pathetic by blackest_k · · Score: 1

      Baked goods in Ireland get taxed at 23% VAT when they have high sugar or chocolate content.
      unfortunately high sugar content means a longer shelf life so your typical supermarket has no interest in stocking any dessert or cake which isn't high in sugar.

    53. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I 100% support the right of unions to exist and collectively bargain. What I don't support are unions forcing the unwilling to pay dues. That is against the spirit of free association.

    54. Re:Pathetic by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      re you kidding? That strategy has generated billions of dollars worth of free advertising for the Twinkie brand and demand is now at an all-time high; profits from now go to the new owners, losses from then are accounted for in the bankruptcy and get paid for by the creditors. It's brilliant, really, in a sociopathic sort of way.

      Not to mention it gave them the opportunity to reduce product size and redefine 'fresh'.

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    55. Re:Pathetic by HereIAmJH · · Score: 1

      Cocaine is schedule II. Cannabis is schedule 1. See, you can learn something from CNN. There doesn't appear to be any real facts to support pot being a gateway drug to cocaine or heroin, but I'll bet you can find proof that it's a gateway to Twinkies.

      --
      Another day, another update to a Google android app.
    56. Re:Pathetic by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is the part I don't get.
      The "Obesity Epidemic" Started in the late 1990's, Before that it wasn't a big problem.
      We often blame the "Obesity Epidemic" on things like Soda/Pop, Fast Food, Junk Food snacks...
      However these food foods have been around for many generations, I would expect if they were a major cause to the "Obesity Epidemic" then they would have shown up much earlier after they started to gain popularity.

      So either something changed in these foods that makes them different then they were a hundred years ago (such a replacing Sugar, with Corn Syrup) Or there is an other cause, probably more complex that average Joe doesn't want to think of.

      My Hypothesis is to the "Obesity Epidemic" is the rise in Mass Media creating fear.
      Pre-Late 1990's much of new media came from 3 TV stations, and news papers. Which for the most part were rather toned down and didn't try to put people in a major panic about everything. Sure the Russians wanted to blow us up, but that gave us a single enemy to look at. But now we have breaking news on everything, and every little detail is analysed and shown how it will react in a worse case... News of kids missing anywhere in the US is getting headlines, discussion of all the other problems all begins to weigh on us. We have been trained to be afraid of the world.

      So we are afraid of the world, we won't let our kids to go outside and play, because we are afraid of the Sex Offender across the street will take them away, or if they accidentally step on the neighbors flower they will get hit by a massive lawsuit. Or if you see other kids you are too scared to discipline them when they are doing something dangerous or wrong, because you are afraid that you will get some sort of child abuse claim against you....
      So we keep our kids inside all day. Kids have energy but they don't have means to burn it so they are playing video games all day... However their body is growing so it is telling them they should eat, so they eat, but it leads to excess.
      If we are adults and we are afraid of the world we put on a few pounds early on mostly because we grew up and didn't adjust our food intake to match our adult needs. However we don't want to be seen as the Fat Guy at the Gym, or the Fat Guy running down the street, that TV Comedies like making fun of. So we will tend to stay inside or do activities that are safe from ridicule. Then combined with the body image that you are Fat means you will begin to accept your weight as part of you identity and not really try too hard to change it. Sure we will try some fad diets loose 10-20 lbs but it will ware us out and will put them back on, plus some. Being that it is called an "Obesity Epidemic" means we are not completely at fault either, because it is part of a bigger problem, so we will sit and weight for those who are smarter then us to solve it.

      This Fear model tends to make sense with the trends of higher Obesity.
      Uneducated: Untrained in dealing with information, more prone to throw stuff out of proportion.
      Poor: Often Uneducated, however they are worrying about making it to the next day, so they will do what they need to get to the next day, however fearing what will happen tomorrow.
      Minority Races: Fear of going out, as they are prone to more suspicion, even if they are just doing the same thing the Majority Race is doing.

      Sure eating junk food in excess will not be healthy... However they are fine in moderation, and with balance of healthy living.

       

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    57. Re:Pathetic by judoguy · · Score: 1

      Your understanding is out of date. We are currently using Porcine stem cells and islet transplants to treat diabetes, ...

      Type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, not lack of insulin. All a continued and increased insulin flooding does is mask the symptoms for a while and further wreck an already messed up metabolism. Getting the patient to curb carb intake is crucial to reducing the effects of insulin resistance labeled as type 2 diabetes.

      --
      Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
    58. Re:Pathetic by zildgulf · · Score: 1

      These videos seem to be more work than needed if you live in the US or Canada. If you are an American ex-pat these videos are very valuable since getting such comfort snacks could be expensive or difficult to get. Somehow Pringles are easy to get anywhere. Go figure.

    59. Re:Pathetic by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      A foamed cake filled with a foamed vanilla aerogel.

      Morpheus: You're buying...air.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    60. Re:Pathetic by infodragon · · Score: 4, Funny

      They have been used as a unit of measure for psychokinetic energy.

      "Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds."

      --
      If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
    61. Re:Pathetic by sjwt · · Score: 1

      I heard the OP Googled Pressure Cookers..

      --
      You have 5 Moderator Points!
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    62. Re:Pathetic by davester666 · · Score: 1

      > In any case, what exactly is a twinkie? And are they designed for oral ingestion or for insertion via another orifice?
      Yes!

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    63. Re:Pathetic by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 1

      agreed. To this day, I've never actually seen a nerd consume a twinkie.

      I think it just comes from some gross prerojitave that if someone is fat they must eat twinkies.

      Good grief

      Anyone else find it amusing that someone would be more embarrassed that people might assume they eat Twinkies than they are about being fat?

      Although I'm not even sure where this supposed "all nerds love Twinkies" stereotype is even coming from. The only time I've heard of it is in the Slashdot summary for every Twinkie story. It makes me wonder if it's actually samzenpus who is addicted to Twinkies, and he's just assuming that all other nerds are too.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    64. Re:Pathetic by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      Now those same working-class folks are going to go run out any buy the product to reward it.
      Not likely, without a job. They'll have to export all those Twinkies to another country where the citizens have jobs.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    65. Re:Pathetic by HairyNevus · · Score: 1
      --
      You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
    66. Re:Pathetic by stymy · · Score: 1

      IAAA (I Am An Actuary), and I can say that actuaries (that is Fellow Actuaries) are far too well paid to be involved in making decisions for individual policies for garden-variety off-the-rack insurance of the kind people (as opposed to businesses insuring factories, oil supertankers, and whatnot) get. We generally just calculate the expected loss or profit on policies, figure out how much money the company needs to save in the bank to break even on a policy, and so forth. Accountants and business people then do with that info what they will.

    67. Re:Pathetic by LF11 · · Score: 1

      "The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent -- and no American should ever support Union busting."

      (a) is debateable, but (b) is a LOAD OF HORSESHIT.

      The old Hostess officially went out of business because its union workers went on strike, with the specific goal to drive Hostess out of business. They did not wish to negotiate. Their goal was to drive the company into bankruptcy.

      So now the new Hostess doesn't recognize the union that broke the back of the old Hostess? Cry me a god damn river.

    68. Re:Pathetic by BancBoy · · Score: 1

      Mod AC up! Clearly not anti-union and responds directly to the topic. How is it free association if you are required to pay dues to an organization or lobby that you might not want to join or might not agree with?

      --
      [UID-HeinzIntel]
    69. Re:Pathetic by T.E.D. · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty pro union, but this union voted for unemployment, rather than a concession

      Yes they did. I saw an interview with one of the Union members asked about this. The well-paid TV talking heads clearly didn't understand how someone could vote themselves out of a job.

      The response was essentially, "Yes, I have a good job now that is worth saving. However, the job they are trying to get me to conceed down to is not that job. The new job they want me to have is a crappy job that I could go out and get anywhere."

      So in effect, their jobs were dead already. That was not their choice, it was management's. The only choice they had was to try to slow it down by fighting against it, which is what they did.

    70. Re:Pathetic by Jiro · · Score: 1

      Who says it's popular? They sold 36 million packages a year Since a box has 6 packages, that's 6 million boxes. The US population is over 300 million.

      Twinkies are the butt of jokes, so you hear about them a lot. Nobody eats them. Sometimes they're used in reference to geeks and nerds eating a lot of junk food, but even then, just because they eat junk food doesn't mean they eat Twinkies specifically.

    71. Re:Pathetic by jafiwam · · Score: 1

      X-rays provide a visual record of what the state of the teeth are during the visit.

      Keeps "you should have found this cavity!" lawsuits at bay when the person shows up with an abscess 4 months later.

    72. Re:Pathetic by sjames · · Score: 1

      Just a guess, but: Because although he is but a peon now, he drank the cool aid and thinks if he busts his ass long enough and hard enough, one day he will be massah and he doesn't want the slaves to be all uppity.

    73. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A union is an association of workers, and the right of free association is protected by the First Amendment. Why do you hate freedom?

      With the exception of a small number of "Right to Work" states, you don't have a choice- you MUST join the union or you're denied employment. That's the exact opposite of free association- it's forced association, and it's every bit as bad as being prevented from associating.

    74. Re:Pathetic by narcc · · Score: 1

      If you don't want pay union dues, which are essential for a union to function effectively, then don't join a union.

      My father was a union man. His dues more than paid for themselves.

    75. Re:Pathetic by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      As a people, Americans are now defined by and controlled by every kind of fear imaginable and more the kind of fear that is only imagined.

      So, what are you afraid of?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    76. Re:Pathetic by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      yeah, stupid unions wanting working wages. They weren't asking for a raise, they were asking that their salaries didn't get cut from $18/hour to $14/hour! and how much does management make to sit with their thumbs in their asses? If they wanted to save the company, they could have. The press decided to blame it on the unions.

      And yet, in this same article another comment says that they WERE asking for a raise, in fact a doubling of salary. So, which one is true...or more likely I guess is that BOTH sides are lying.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    77. Re:Pathetic by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 1

      A fair amount of stuff, unfortunately. I've had to work pretty hard to overcome much of the societal programming and public inundation of FEAR FEAR FEAR.

      Rationality has helped a tremendous amount though thankfully.

      --
      "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
    78. Re:Pathetic by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 1

      If they thought their concessions would have made it like any other job they could get, the least they could have done was for those that thought that way to quit. Leaving all those that still wanted their jobs, with their jobs. It was a close vote. Those who voted against it, were either naive, or jerks that just wanted to sink the company.

      --
      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
    79. Re:Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The old Hostess officially went out of business because its union workers went on strike, with the specific goal to drive Hostess out of business. They did not wish to negotiate. Their goal was to drive the company into bankruptcy.

      [citation needed] Indeed, the union wasn't willing to negotiate. The company had previously asked the workers to take a pay cut, supposedly to help the company, yet immediately afterwords the management got bonuses and the company had extra big profits that quarter. Seems like good cause to refuse negotiating pay cuts to me.

      Unions in the US have done some less than wonderful things, but they've had to due to what corporations have done. Alas, most people in the US apparently learns about the bad things the unions have done, but never learn of (or forget about) the bad things corporations have done. I just hope the US doesn't get any more screwed up.

    80. Re:Pathetic by _KiTA_ · · Score: 2

      I 100% support the right of unions to exist and collectively bargain. What I don't support are unions forcing the unwilling to pay dues. That is against the spirit of free association.

      So you support Right to Mooch States, where the Unions fight for benefits that apply to all the workers, but the workers don't have to support the union to get them?

      Or did you honestly think that a company would pay union members one wage and non-union another? The entire point of a union is to be collective.

    81. Re:Pathetic by _KiTA_ · · Score: 2

      The old Hostess officially went out of business because its union workers went on strike, with the specific goal to drive Hostess out of business. They did not wish to negotiate. Their goal was to drive the company into bankruptcy.

      [citation needed] Indeed, the union wasn't willing to negotiate. The company had previously asked the workers to take a pay cut, supposedly to help the company, yet immediately afterwords the management got bonuses and the company had extra big profits that quarter. Seems like good cause to refuse negotiating pay cuts to me.

      Unions in the US have done some less than wonderful things, but they've had to due to what corporations have done. Alas, most people in the US apparently learns about the bad things the unions have done, but never learn of (or forget about) the bad things corporations have done. I just hope the US doesn't get any more screwed up.

      Exactly. The management was quite willing to bargain with the union for a pay cut, then gave themselves YET ANOTHER pay increase and bonus. The pay cut was supposedly because the company was dying, the pay increase and bonus was because it sure as hell wasn't management's fault that the company was going bad, and heck, they were so innovative in conning the union members into working for less than they were worth -- again.

      That was the breaking point, that caused the Union to strike. And of course, Fox News and the crony capitalist crowd did their aggressive projecting crap to turn it around on the Unions. They do the same thing all the time, particularly in political debates, it's honestly a brilliant (but dishonest) tactic.

    82. Re:Pathetic by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I feel like you've got a lot of anger in you, too

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    83. Re:Pathetic by Sockatume · · Score: 1

      I like to exercise my first amendment right to set up humorous putdowns involving vending machine breakfasts.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    84. Re:Pathetic by CRCulver · · Score: 1

      So you support Right to Mooch States, where the Unions fight for benefits that apply to all the workers, but the workers don't have to support the union to get them?

      In fact, this is how things work in countries with the highest support for organized labour, not just your "Right to Mooch States" in the USA. In Finland, for example, if an employee chooses not to support a union, he loses out on the right to help determine the direction of collective bargaining, but he is covered by all the protections that such collection bargaining wins.

    85. Re:Pathetic by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1

      Actually the mess was a result of unions bureaucratizing the business, not capitalists. Under that system they had, if you had a freight truck only half full of bread and you also had several pallets of twinkies that needed to go to the same store, tough shit you had to put them on a different truck. One union had to do the breads, the other union did the sweets. Bread workers weren't allowed to handle sweets, which was a union rule.

      There were all kinds of rules like that which made hostess operate extremely inefficiently, all of them union imposed. It finally came to a head when the teamsters demanded more rules and money than they already had, and the management finally said "Look, we just can't afford this anymore. We're broke. If you keep asking for this our one and only option is to close shop." The union leadership called the bluff, and as a result all of the employees lost their jobs and an American icon was destroyed, which the union leadership hailed as a victory because they stood their ground, meanwhile they go home and eat their dinner paid for on the backs of the workers via union dues from other companies.

      Now without union involvement they can actually run a business.

      And what talent did it lose exactly? They're still the same ol' twinkies they've always been.

      Why would you support unions so vehemently by the way? They are the ones pricing Americans out of jobs in exactly the manner I described above.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    86. Re:Pathetic by aestrivex · · Score: 1
      It depends on the union.

      s others argue, the inherent right of workers to unionize is something that should be upheld, as should the inherent right of workers *not* to unionize.

      This doesn't mean that some unions don't *precisely* deserve to get busted, in the harshest way possible. These are the unions that cause more bureaucracy than the management that they work for. These are the unions that prevented my utterly incompetent 11th grade technology teacher from being fired, because he had a disability (he was blind). These are the unions that, when facing off against public transportation agencies bleeding money at the seams, refuse to accept even the slightest change in archaic work rules, colossal pension structures, and cause new rail construction projects to have billions of dollars in cost overruns (whereas other countries end up doing just fine).

      There are *plenty* of unions in this country that deserve to have their faces smashed in (a position that it sickens me that more liberals don't comprehend). The Hostess union, by all accounts, was not one of them.

  2. Slashvertising. by six025 · · Score: 1

    *n/m*

    1. Re:Slashvertising. by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Pronounced "*nom*"

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:Slashvertising. by dstyle5 · · Score: 1

      In all my years of University and working at tech companies after I have yet to see anyone eat a Twinkie. Can't say I've ever heard of them being called the "Breakfast of Programmers" before, but I guess they had to shoehorn a way to put it on /. Even the overlords at DICE gotta eat I guess.

  3. pittsburgh is spelled with an h by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    n/t

  4. Two Birds, One Stone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So they got rid of unionized workers and increased demand to unprecedented levels in one stroke?

    Watch for the "Hostess Model" to be the path that more companies to follow in the future.

    1. Re:Two Birds, One Stone by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Only in the near future ... median wages can only fall so far before the majority of the consumer market for luxury goods implodes.

  5. Fat Rage by tuppe666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What do they care?

    They all care. That is the point. You think anyone chooses to be fat, your less attractive, treated badly, can't fit normal clothes, you are generally slow, as well as a whole host of illnesses...yeah you die sooner as well, so I guess others will have to pay for your pension. Overall though its shitty being fat, and you care about it all the time.

    You get penalised for being fat.

    1. Re:Fat Rage by Azure+Flash · · Score: 1

      Fat people can fit normal clothes. Plain old, standard, totally normal 5XL t-shirts.

    2. Re:Fat Rage by davydagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Its called "stupid hipster syndrome", where they try and think of some cause, or something that will help the country/planet, but end up doing more harm than good, because they spend more time asserting their authority as "intellectuals", and "saviors", and can't seem to look at the people they would be helping as so much human beings.

      At the end of the day, they decide that money, power and fame, is what really matters, and the rest of the world is some mess of unwashed undeserving cretins, so they fudge numbers, make things up, pat themselves on the back and congradulate themselves for disrupting other peoples lives and accomplishing nothing.

    3. Re: Fat Rage by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      Yes, being fat is somewhat a choice for almost everyone. There are ways to keep almost everyone's weight moderate, through diet and exercise and proper sleep.

      The simple truth is that many fat people are insufficiently motivated to consistently work hard on all those areas for long periods.

      Tv or go for a walk? A choice.
      Eat carbs or protein to satisfy hunger? A choice.
      Regular or diet soda? Choice.

      And this is coming from someone who has struggled with this all my life, so I'm Npt being simply judgmental.

    4. Re:Fat Rage by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      The problem is that there are a hundred diet and exercise plans, and they are all different, and a lot of them will tell you that other popular diets are wrong and even dangerous. It is about as bad as picking a religion. It makes a lot of people just give up. Or worse, they will try diet A for awhile and then diet B and then diet C. Now, if there is something that is bad for you, going from one diet to another is definitely it.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    5. Re:Fat Rage by SBFCOblivion · · Score: 1

      Sure they care. But apparently not enough to do anything about it. I used to be fat. And I reached a point where I had had enough not being happy with the way I looked. So I made a lifestyle change and fixed it. It isn't easy. But if you want it bad enough, you can change it.

  6. Twinkies? Keep 'Em! by GTRacer · · Score: 1

    Keep your Twinkies. Zingers are the superior creme-filled cake. Because of the icing! Mmm, vanilla-flavored, artificially-colored sugar topping!

    --
    Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
    1. Re:Twinkies? Keep 'Em! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I was about to turn in my nerd card, but I see I'm not the only one. I never did like twinkies, not even as a kid. Too sweet and too little substance. And no chocolate!

      Ding Dongs, now, I like those. But I prefer bear claws and Danishes and all the traditional baked sweets (mmm... devil's food cake!) to any of the Hostess stuff.

      Come to think of it, there's little corporate food or snacks I really like. I only buy potato chips because I'm too lazy to make my own.

    2. Re:Twinkies? Keep 'Em! by fuzznutz · · Score: 1

      Zingers suck! They sucked when Dolly Madison made 'em and they suck coming from Little Debbie. The red coconut mystery flavor ones were the worse, but the chocolate ones were inedible too. What you call "icing" is a some kind of cocoa based plastic compound. As a kid, I would literally peel it off and drop it in the can. It always came off in one piece. Fresh from the store,they were always stale and dry. That's why Zingers were always cheaper than anything with a Hostess name on it.

      When I was a kid, and the parents brought home Zingers, you could always guarantee they would still be there when it was time to go shopping the next week. Twinkies never made it past a couple days before us kids wiped them out.

  7. Diabetic patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Odds are these are going to be cheap deaths.

    You'd think.

    Diabetic patients are just as expensive as those old people - maybe more so. And unlike the old people whose days are numbered, those Type-IIs will live a pretty long time due to the medical profession's ability to keep them going.

    Stroke, renal failure, amputations, etc ... are a very heavy burden on our medical system. And when you have it in a patient who is in their 40 or 50s, you have MANY years of extremely expensive care.

    1. Re:Diabetic patients by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Sure they might get some of that stuff, but I have seen plenty kick it from a stroke or simple mis-management of the disease; like drinking all night and going to bed without checking their blood sugar.

      One of the big issues here is folks care is socialized so the insurance companies don't care. Young people's diseases is what they care about.

  8. Breakfast of programmers? by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've seen a lot of developers eat breakfast over the decades and don't recall ever seeing anyone stuffing their face with a Twinkie. Tankards of coffee would be a far more accurate observation.

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
    1. Re:Breakfast of programmers? by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I really don't get where this stereotype of developers/geeks being unhealthy comes from. Of all the people I know, geeks seem to be more likely to engage in regular exercise. And most of them eat pretty well. Sure there's a few outliers, but for the most part, I find that developers are actually in pretty good shape compared to the average person.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:Breakfast of programmers? by asylumx · · Score: 1

      All I usually see are Monsters or Rockstars, coupled with boxes of candy. Come to think of it, that is lunch & dinner, too.

    3. Re:Breakfast of programmers? by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      Now middle management, on the other hand...

      Managing their middle does seem to be quite a challenge.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  9. And as usual, the blue collar worker is screwed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Because Twinkies are suddenly magically profitable again. Never mind that it is on the backs of the labor that produces and delivers them ( http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-272258/ ).

    The socially responsible programmer says, "BOYCOTT HOSTESS!" and finds a new breakfast of champions.

  10. This may be heresy, but... by barlevg · · Score: 1

    Are Twinkie addicts really that committed to "authentic" Twinkies? Plenty of companies make knock-offs, which, in my limited experience, are not significantly different from the real McCoy.

    1. Re:This may be heresy, but... by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Try arguing with a heroin addict that methadone is just as good...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  11. Body is a beautiful machine by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    If calories in < calories out, you will lose weight.

    Except that is an incredibly naive argument. One of the problems with *dieting* is that your body is a machine that has evolved over many centuries, and is simply not fit for today's modern world, which is built around driving to megastores, and sitting in cubicles. Food is chemicals the body can't cope with. Ironically if you eat less your body thinks its being starved...and starts turning food into fat. The bottom line is getting to be the right weight again is a constant struggle, and there is a lot of stupid advice (fad diet of the week). Its very different from an addiction.

    1. Re:Body is a beautiful machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "One of the problems with *dieting* is that your body is a machine that has evolved over many centuries, and is simply not fit for today's modern world, which is built around driving to megastores, and sitting in cubicles"

      You just reinforced the GP's point. If calories in calories out, you will lose weight.

      The problem, as you stated, is that people today do spend a lot of time sitting on ass in cars and cubicles. They do not burn calories like they should. They consume more calories than they can use. They choose this. The sadder part is that they often choose it for their kids too, and allow them to get fat and play games all day instead of running outside and playing.

      It is not the fault of "today's modern world." Plenty of people live in the 21st century without being obese.

      "Society made me fat." Right, I forgot. Personal responsibility is not a component of modern society.

      Unless you have a metabolic disorder, it is your fault if you are fat and you have the power to improve your situation by making good choices.

  12. sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I actually thought it was a good thing they shut their doors and stopped producing twinkies. How many years were added to lives of the general population and dollars on health problems not wasted in this country because they were gone? It's hard to say, but probably a lot. They did everyone a favor by failing at basic business sense. I for one think it's unfortunate they're back in production again.

    1. Re:sigh by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I actually thought it was a good thing they shut their doors and stopped producing twinkies. How many years were added to lives of the general population and dollars on health problems not wasted in this country because they were gone?

      Some of us are genetically predisposed to being thin. The only time I ever got too heavy was when I was on Paxil; I have to fight to keep the weight up.

      I wonder how much SSRIs have contributed to the obesity problem? Everyone I've known that was on them gained a lot of weight, and it seems like I started noticing more fat people after Prozak came on the market.

      I don't see how a couple of twinkies can kill you. Couple hundred empty calories, no worse than a half litre soda and certainly no more than my favorite breakfast, a Denver Omelette, toast, and coffee. More calories plus tons of cholesterol. At 61 I'll bet my doctor starts nagging me to cut it down, my grandmother outlived five doctors who all said it was going to kill her. She died at age 99 after falling down in the nursing home and breaking her hip.

      You have to die from something, it might as well be tasty food. And I never want to live in a nursing home.

  13. Then you have never been fat. by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    Fat people can fit normal clothes. Plain old, standard, totally normal 5XL t-shirts.

    You can wear *anything* as long as its a sack. If you are a man you essentially lose your waist, and as for your post you can wear a extra large tshirt...but it has to be black, oversized to look even a little reasonable. A surprising amount of companies do not even make large clothes, or only have limited range.

  14. awful by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You know what else is hard to get? Heroin.

    "Champion programmers" don't eat Twinkies. Fat programmers eat Twinkies.

    Don't fuck up your body, please. You only get one and it's already out of warranty.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:awful by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      That's what you get when going for the lowest bidder.

      No, really. Evolution is by definition the lowest bidder. Think about it.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:awful by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      "Champion programmers" don't eat Twinkies. Fat programmers eat Twinkies.

      In my entire life, I've never seen a programmer eat a Twinkie. Even the fat ones. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it sure doesn't happen around here.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:awful by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I can eat whatever I want, and the rest of the country pays the financial consequences.

      Then you must not be much of a programmer. The "rest of the country" only pays for your health care if you can't afford it yourself. But it was like that before Obamacare, too. The only difference was that it was done via the expensive emergency room.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:awful by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      In point of fact, the only long-term negative side effect from continued heroin use is chronic constipation, hardly a major medical issue.

      That's assuming you can get pharmaceutically pure heroin. Otherwise, the impurities in the heroin can cause endocarditis and other circulatory issues.

      Other unsafe elements of heroin use is that if you take a little too much you stop breathing and your heart stops.

      I know it's like a thing that heroin is absolutely safe (except for the constipation, which can cause cancer of the lower GI tract), but in the real world, it's actually very unsafe.

      And by the way, heroin isn't really all that hard to get, either. Just sayin'.

      It's harder to get than Twinkies. Even post-Hostess.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  15. People are still eating the one from last year! by BetaDays · · Score: 1

    They may not be ramped up in making them yet with getting the supply chain going and such but the run on the stores when they were going out of business I wonder how many people are not worried now that they are back.

    --
    Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
  16. Twinkies vs. Dreamies by Psion · · Score: 4, Funny

    I noticed Twinkies back on the shelf a couple weeks ago. I ran up to the stack, hefted a box lovingly and said, "I knew you couldn't resist me for long!" A stockboy standing nearby laughed, but what does a mere lad know of true love?

    Now I know, however, a shadow has fallen upon this romance. In Twinkies' absence, I tried Tastykake's Dreamies. Her smooth, flavorful cream enrobed in fresh, rich-tasting sponge cake was more than simple comfort when Twinkies left. Dreamies shared sensations with me that were unfulfilled fantasies when Twinkies were my sole companion. Every night after dinner with Dreamies was an exquisite exploration of forbidden flavor. Sometimes, I even had two!

    When Twinkies came back, my heart and stomach pounded; lovers reunited! We left the grocery store and I buckled my box safely into the passenger seat and started the engine. At the first traffic light, I reached over and deftly parted her cardboard folds and reached for the treasures within. Cellophane yielded willingly at the next red light and soon familiar flavors and textures burst in my mouth!

    Something was wrong.

    My tastebuds now expected the fresher, richer flavors of Dreamies. Twinkies had a familiar, hydrogenized aftertaste, but Dreamies didn't. I don't think my companion noticed at the time, but when we got home, I put her on the shelf and have only reached for her twice since then. I've even ... shared her with my wife and little boy. "Yes, please! Help yourselves!"

    There's no way Twinkies doesn't know now. Something has changed between us. I think I hear sobbing in the kitchen when she doesn't know I'm near. I feel bad, but I know she feels worse because she was the one who left. I want to make it work, but Twinkies just can't bring me the sensations for which I yearn. I've ... moved on.

    1. Re:Twinkies vs. Dreamies by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Tonight, on "Cheaters"...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Twinkies vs. Dreamies by asylumx · · Score: 2

      Similar story here, though I won't put it as eloquently. I bought a box of Twinkies just because I hadn't had them in a while and I wanted to 'remember' what the big deal was. Got them home, had one... ya, they taste more like plastic than they do like a confectionary treat. My wife had one yesterday around lunch time, and all afternoon she was complaining about the aftertaste and if she burped it was awful for both of us. Moral of the story: I don't know if Twinkies were always this bad, or if there's a new recipe that's this bad, but this is the last time they'll be getting my money, union or no union. That is, until next time I forget what they are like....

    3. Re:Twinkies vs. Dreamies by asylumx · · Score: 1

      I think you're right. I can't remember the last time I had a twinkie prior to this recent purchase.

  17. Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitting by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... there is NO food exported by the US to anywhere else that did not come from somewhere else to begin with. Real American foods such as American Cheese, American Beer, Grits and .... well that is about it, are not export. American bakery products are amongst them. And for good reason.

    Twinkies are famous for being one of two things to outlast the nuclear holocaust. And you got to pity the cockroaches if that is the only food left. The maker claims their long life is a myth but I tested this by keeping them on a hot PC for over 2 years and the taste at the end had not changed. Can't say if they spoiled, just that the taste has not changed.

    So what is the taste. Imagine a cake.... now imagine cake without butter. Ah, like Chiffon cake you might say... NO. In order to have a long shelf life, the hostess company does not put butter in its cakes. This might confuse those of you who think ordinary cake with butter has a long shelf life if properly wrapped but you know, Americans. They have however NOT simply made a Chiffon cake (also does not contain butter) but added something else. Don't know what but it is chemical You could lick an oil refinery and not encounter such a chemical taste. Why you might want to lick a oil refinery? Possibly because you just ate a Twinky.

    The cake is truly horrible in every regard, taste (chemical), texture(dry), color(frightingly yellow pale). Inside the Twinky the ugliest caterpillar ever made a cocoon and died just as its entire body had degraded into a white mass. There are various candy interiors you better not think about to closely, this is they their queen. I think it actually serves as a coating for you taste pupils to guard you against the true horror of the cake.

    So why do American love it so much?

    THEY DON'T!

    When I went to the US a few years ago, I went on the hunt for them because I heard so much about them and had to taste them. Most Americans I asked had no idea what I was talking about. I finally found them at Redneck central Walmart. Everything you ever heard about the USA and don't really believe is happening right now at Walmart. I now understand the compulsive need American feels to own a dozen machine guns.

    To recap:

    If you EVER hear about a regional delicacy that hasn't made it past its region. Take a GODDAMN HINT. Chocolate, Beer (except American), Wine, Cheese, Appels etc etc ARE NOT regional delicacies because they taste damned good and everyone loves them. Rotten fish, maggot cheese, American cheese are ONLY available in select locations because everyone will sooner declare war then import them. This includes ANYTHING from the hostess company.

    They went bankrupt for a reason. Americans are fond of them because their mothers (who hated them) gave them a cake from a big box to shut them up and of such things the memories of childhood are made. But nobody in the US actually eats them. You shouldn't either, I did so you don't have to.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  18. Breakfast... really? by Kozz · · Score: 1

    I guess I've long since ignored the polls on slashdot's front page, but I'd like to see the a poll like this.
    What's your average time interval between twinkie consumption?
    * 1 day
    * 1 week
    * 1 year
    * 5 years
    * 10 years
    * closer to infinity

    --
    I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
    1. Re:Breakfast... really? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I had one. My stomach returned it with as much as an "Ey, you nuts or something? What the fuck do you think you're throwing down here?"

      I think the next I'll have will be somewhere "closer to infinity".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  19. lets cut the BS about twinkies by nimbius · · Score: 2

    seriously, as i look around the office and recall from offices past, ours is a field rife with obesity, diabetes, stroke, heart disese and various other maladies caused by eating nothing but twinkies washed down with sugary soda. we can all recount a person in our office who was so fat they required special seating thanks to the nerd diet. We all know who the guy with the smell is in the office and chances are hes obese. Someone so overweight that to reach the parking lot to the door was to them a 5k to anyone else. If we we're to consider Diet and Exercise programming languages, then our laughable grasp of them would send us all scrambling to the O'Reilly store so fast youd think it was black friday.

    Put down the fucking twinkies. let them go, slow down on the soda (I can attest, its hard to quit) and try meatless monday. consider the wellness program at your office this year. If you dont have one, push for it, because as long as we continue to hold this dreck upon high as some golden calf from which its ambrose we spin our code, then we can all look forward to bigger chairs higher insurance premiums and shorter lives.

    and to the offices that have snack bars, please stop. I mean just stop. if you have to offer a snack as a perk, look at getting something healthier than packets of crisps and candy bars because while the HR team might not eat the junk food, the HR team takes a real lunch. nerds at their desks routinely plow through breakfast and lunch without so much as a thought and when offered, will eat anything freely given. We miss meals so you dont miss deadlines. stop poisoning us.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:lets cut the BS about twinkies by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      You ... you want to take away my snacks?

      Here's my two weeks notice, the last reason to work here is gone!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:lets cut the BS about twinkies by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      You ... you want to take away my snacks?

      Here's my two weeks notice, the last reason to work here is gone!

      They could offer healthier snacks - fruits and vegetables, for instance, rather than oversalted and oversugared treats.

      They could offer healthier drinks as well.

      Of course, the real reason they don't is that salty and sugary treats and soda are much cheaper, last forever, and everyone gets addicted to them because those treats were engineered to be liked by our lizard-brains.

  20. Masterful marketing strategy? by alwynschoeman · · Score: 1

    I'm convinced that this whole hostess economic death and magical comeback was just a masterful marketing exercise with the following goals: 1) renew interest in their product which everybody was taking for granted. 2) hide the fact that they (guessing here) added nasty stuff to their ingredients to increase shelf life. Maybe 2) required an assembly line modification and they creatively found a way to use the downtime.

    1. Re:Masterful marketing strategy? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      There is absolutely nothing you can possibly do to increase the shelf life of twinkies. They are already non-perishable.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  21. Chapter 7 versus Chapter 11 by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've never had a twinkie. I want to try

    You really don't. They are pretty gross and really bad for you.

    what I find pathetic is that they ceased production for a product in such high demand. whoever handled the bankruptcy fucked up.

    The company didn't go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy where you keep operating and restructure the company. The company did a Chapter 7 where you liquidate the company. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy occurs when you no longer expect the company to have a reasonable expectation of remaining a going concern. When you do that you stop production because the company no longer exists and is being sold for the residual value of its assets. Someone bought the assets and started production again which is exactly what you might expect in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

  22. But ... how? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    How the heck can a company that makes products where demand outstrips supply by "some margin" go bankrupt? Isn't that kinda anathema for capitalism?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:But ... how? by schnell · · Score: 1

      How the heck can a company that makes products where demand outstrips supply by "some margin" go bankrupt?

      1. This is the new, post-bankruptcy company.
      2. It's pretty easy, actually. Just charge less for your product than it costs you to make, market and deliver it (including your pension, healthcare and other overhead costs), and demand will actually make you go bankrupt faster. That's kinda what happened to the last company.
      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    2. Re:But ... how? by cellocgw · · Score: 1

      It's pretty easy, actually. Just charge less for your product than it costs you to make, market and deliver it (including your pension, healthcare and other overhead costs), and demand will actually make you go bankrupt faster.

      Milo Minderbinder would like a word with you concerning his prior art in this IP area.

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  23. Obviously confused by stox · · Score: 1

    As John Belushi showed us, the true breakfast of champions is little chocolate donuts.

    http://www.hulu.com/watch/2345

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  24. Grammar vs Programming by tuppe666 · · Score: 1

    You should sue whoever "educated" you. ...
    </unwanted education>

    your “non-empty” markup tags are meant to come in pairs. :)

  25. Re:Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... there is NO food exported by the US to anywhere else that did not come from somewhere else to begin with.

    Baked beans are a long tradition in England, dating back to... hmmm... let's see.

    The beans presently used to make baked beans are all native to North America.

    Well... that doesn't bode well for your theory. Let's continue anyway.

    In the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore the term baked beans refers almost exclusively to canned beans in a tomato sauce. Many people regard baked beans as an integral part of the modern full English breakfast, including beans on toast. Every day 2.3 million British people eat Heinz Baked Beans;

    H.J Heinz must be a British institution with so many people enjoying their products on a daily basis. Why just look at their history!

    The H. J. Heinz Company, also known as the Heinz Company and commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is a United States food processing company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

    Well damn. You're looking more foolish by the minute.

    The problem is that the foods from the USA that you take for granted as being UK foods actually came from the USA before you were born. You've simply never questioned the source of your own cultural traditions.

    As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... because you're an idiot who doesn't know where the things he's eating came from

    FTFY

    And for bonus laughs, the captcha for this was "schooled"

  26. Re:There was never a shortage in Canada... by aristotle-dude · · Score: 1

    Maybe they should have a contract with the bakery in Canada that makes them. As they don't seem to have problems with production.

    The Canadian licensee never went bankrupt so the production never ended here.

    --
    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
  27. Re:Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As a EU citizen you are probably aware not a single food from the US comes from the US... there is NO food exported by the US to anywhere else that did not come from somewhere else to begin with. Real American foods such as American Cheese, American Beer, Grits and .... well that is about it, are not export. American bakery products are amongst them. And for good reason.

    This is simply untrue. There are a significant number of American culinary products which are considered to be of high quality and are consumed the world over. Since you specifically mention cheese, I'll provide a counter example: Maytag blue cheese. It is an American blue cheese that is rated as comparable in quality to Stilton, Roquefort and Gorgonzola by professional cheese tasters.

  28. I Got an Image for That by carrier+lost · · Score: 1

    Heh. Did this a couple weeks ago.

    I knew it would come in handy.

  29. Re:Well I bought them as a EU citizen when visitti by tompaulco · · Score: 1

    Twinkies are famous for being one of two things to outlast the nuclear holocaust.

    Fascinating, is this the one in Hiroshima, or the one in Nagasaki? Also, did we export enough Twinkies to Japan in 1945 to adequately test their resilience?

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.