Junk Food Nation, tonight is my fantasy basketball draft.  Those of you who know me (or have read this blog) know that I have a ton of problems with basketball.  The game itself. The players who play it. That it never calls me back, and leaves the milk carton open. But I digress.  My friend Lynette from LA came knocking with a place in her league, and I am stoked for it. Because I am a fantasy sports degenerate.

I haven’t played fantasy basketball since high school.  That’s (my god) over 10 years ago. The first time I played fantasy sports was not fantasy baseball or football, but fantasy basketball. This was *gulp* in the days before the internet.  (SHUT UP.) For the draft, my buddy Dan would invite us over to a local church, and we’d set up tables in the basement like we were GMs in New York City. We had name placards made of notebook paper, golf balls with our names on them in a shoebox to pick the draft order, and the big perk was free soda.

After the draft, scores were calculated by taking daily newspapers and crunching numbers with a calculator.  There was no other way to do it. Whenever I was in the grocery store, I’d be grabbing newspapers to look at prior night stats.  I’ve never bought so many USA Today’s in my life. Drop/adds were conducted by phone or in person. Entry fee was, at the time, a staggering $10.

Looking back, it was a really great time in my life, because it was my first real HARD look into sports and the stats behind it all. Managing a team was like managing a business – my first business – at age 14.  If it weren’t for Dan and his golf balls, I wouldn’t be where I am today, preparing for my first fantasy basketball auction draft in over a decade.  Game on.

Since this post is all memory-laced, I figured I’d review a classic junk food, a favorite of mine (and like half the world): Thin Mints Girl Scout Cookies!

The Money Shot

Girl Scout Cookies Thin Mints are a popular favorite for many people when Girl Scout Cookies are sold. In fact, Wiki reports (and we all know how accurate Wiki is), that Thin Mints account for 25% of all Girl Scout Cookie sales. At about $4 a box, with an estimated 200+ million boxes sold a year, that’s over $800 million dollars, with $200 million coming solely from Thin Mints.  Yowza. They won’t be changing this recipe anytime soon.

When I think Girl Scouts..I think Ziplining

The only thing I can say is where the hell is this girl ziplining that uses an actual old school straw-looking rope as the thing attached to the harness??? Isn’t it all nylon cords, bungy cords, and the such these days?? Someone check out the safety regs in whatever state this ropes course is in…

Wonderful cookie pictures

Ah, Thin Mints. Your glistening chocolate sheen beckons from outside the box.  *drool*

Peppermint Oil

The best part of Girl Scout Cookies Thin Mints is, of course, the flavor, and I’m amazed to see that oil of peppermint is the LAST ingredient in the mix, meaning its the lowest quantity ingredient in the whole box.  Weird.  According to Wiki, peppermint oil can reduce irritable bowel symdrome. So…there’s that.

It's a racket!

Girl Scouts cranks out the future business leaders of tomorrow, I’m convinced of it.  Have you ever been accosted by a hoard of little girls outside of a Target with these cookies? They just keep shouting at you until you buy, then they give you a sweet “thank you.” One time, I walked past these three girls who were just yelling, “BUY THEM! BUY THEM! BUY THEM!” at every passer-by.  Talk about never losing confidence in your brand and making sure you nail the pitch.

Log of cookies

Light and chocolatey

Each box of Girl Scout Cookies Thin Mints comes with two logs of cookies.  Serving size rules go out the window with Thin Mints.  Each row is one serving. So this box has two servings in it. I’m sorry, it just does. IT JUST. DOES.

sadad

Each cookie is covered with a standard chocolate, and inside is a crunchy chocolate wafer cookie. Do I have to keep describing these? Has anyone NOT had a Thin Mint before??? If not, go try some, right after you discover the internet and gas-propelled vehicles.

Crispy wafer nom noms

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM now that’s the stuff.  The reasons that Thin Mints are so popular are clear: great tasting chocolate coating. The chocolate wafer inside – extremely light and crispy.  Good peppermint flavor that mixes well with the chocolate. Overall light chocolate mint experience, leading you to believe that you can eat thirty cookies in a row. And with its pervasiveness in our culture, definitely the cookie that most people compare every other chocolate peppermint cookie with.

Well, I’ve enjoyed going down memory lane.  Any thoughts? Tell me in the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy