State of the Freezer Address

Has it only been 9 months? It feels like I've been blogging about ice cream forever. Well, I've been eating it forever, so now the two are kind of blurring together.

As you can tell, the state of the freezer is kinda pathetic, it looks so empty. You can spy 6 containers of ice cream (there's a wrapped container of Edy's next to the homemade container with the green lid there). The box of treats is pretty empty too. I'm just not real excited by what's in the freezer right now. I really want a nice B&J fudge brownie, or maybe some Breyers Rocky Road. I should have taken the picture last Saturday when there was -11- containers of ice cream in the fridge.

Actually, the freezer looks empty because usually there are a lot more breakfast foods in the fridge. The ice cream containers are also always wrapped in plastic bags, but I unwrapped them so you can see what's up.

Ok, so that's the state of the freezer, what's the state of my blogging? It's been an interesting three months, that's for sure. I finally got myself a new job, but the workload has increased so I've been kind of burnt out by the time I get home, and so I don't blog as much as I should. Plus there is the ebb and flow of what's in the freezer. I may have a week where I'm dieing to blog, but the freezer will be packed tight with things I've already reviewed. I feel bad because there are times where I'm tempted to throw out half a container of ice cream just so I can get something new in the freezer. The point of the blog is to enjoy ice cream though, not take a bowl and move on, but hey, it's a learning experience. oh fantastic...now I want to go to the store and fill that empty space in the freezer. As I'm typing this, I'm trying to think of what I wish was in the freezer...I gotta go with Turkey Hill's Box of Chocolates. By far one of the best new flavors I've tried in the last 3 months.

So goals before I hit my year anniversary? Well, I should definitely be able to hit post #250 before May 8th. I've been going back through the blog a piece at a time and updating any images I may have posted a little too quickly, plus I'm trying to post more pics as I move forward. my ultimate goal? Well, if you type in ice cream reviews in a search engine. You either get twodips.com or adailyscoop.com, both of which are no longer updated. So, my goal is to be up there, bringing quality reviews to everybody. Hey, we all gotta dream right?

May the scoop be with you, always ...sorry, couldn't resist.


Below are the results of our last poll - time to come up with another.

How many flavors are in your fridge?

1 (or less)	11 (37%)
2	1 (3%)
3	7 (24%)
4	5 (17%)
5+	5 (17%)

Votes so far: 29

State of the Freezers Address The leaky 14th anniversary edition

 Man, I should have wrote this last week on the official anniversary date because it was cooler and less humid.... and also Mother's day, so that kind of took precedence.

State of the upstairs freezer: leaky! ok, not so much leaky as overflowing. The drain line apparently froze over and there was a frozen puddle in the freezer yesterday. I've never had this happen before. After yesterday's mid-day ice cleanup, I opened the freezer around 8pm to find a fresh new puddle (still liquid). I soaked that up. I'll probably have to pop off the back cover of the freezer at some point and try to clear the line. Fun times!

The State of the Freezer Address

Wow, has it been 3 months already? 64 posts about loving ice cream (well, this one makes 65), not to shabby if I do say so myself. This all started because even know so many people love ice cream, very few seem to write about it. These last 3 months have been an interesting experience, and the state of the freezer? It ain't pretty, but we'll get to that in a moment. Blogging isn't necessarily hard, but it does take some real dedication. And then there is blogging to review things, which adds in both more time and money, but hey, I was going to buy ice cream anyway, now I just spend a bit more time in the freezer section trying to broaden my horizons, that's all.

So, the state of the freezer? It's full, very full. There are currently *6* containers of brand name ice cream in our freezer. On top of that, I still have a bit of homemade ice cream from the weekend, and for some strange reason, I still have the first flavor I made well over a month ago (yeah, I probably not eatin' it at this point). There's also the big box of disappointing skinny cow ice cream sandwiches. To top it off, for some reason, I have managed to collect 6 different kinds of popsicles, all with just one left of each brand, not sure how I pulled that off. Of course, this is on top of all the veggies and frozen breakfast foods that are normally in our freezer.

So, now that I've hit the 3 month mark, where do I want to go from here? First, I need a real domain name for this blog. Second, I hope traffic picks up, I'd love to get peoples comments on various flavors (meaningful comments, not "I hate that flavor"). Third, I need to work on how I acquire and keep flavors because freezer burn is not my friend. Fourth, gotta keep the drive alive! I post an average of 5 times a week. If I do a treat of the week, and one trip to a local place (usually Uhlman's), that still leaves 3 flavors a week to review. Sometimes one of those flavors will be homemade, but that all depends on how busy our weekends are. There are only 3 of us to polish off all this ice cream, so maybe I need to have a few more kids to help cycle through the ice cream faster, or maybe have an ice cream party to clear out the freezer.

Lastly, I hope I don't run out of flavors. I mean, a daily scoop was a great idea, but the creator has long burned out on writing a blog since starting grad school at the end of 2006. Maybe I just need to slow down, but I've been having too much fun. Not only does ice cream taste great, but I really thing it's a great way to relax and "chill out" ...sorry, had to say it. Nowadays, we could all stand to relax a bit. Hopefully the additions of treat of the week, topping of the week, etc will keep things exciting and diverse enough for all to enjoy. Audience participation is a beautiful thing, so feel free to send me any suggestions you might have.

State of the Freezer Address The 4 Year Anniversary Edition

Wow, I can't believe today marks the 4th anniversary of my first blog post! I was feeling so sentimental that we almost went out to eat tonight.... but then I just would have filled up on dinner and had no room for some crazy tasty dessert. Going out on a weekday isn't exactly easy, so I had a nice blizzard for lunch. The monthly flavor was sold out, so I went with the best-est blizzard of all time, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard. So tasty and so easy to make perfect.

Like most blog posts, I've written this one in my head a half dozen times. I've thought about telling grand stories of how things have changed so much. I mean, I was getting like 11 hits a day for the first state of the freezer address, now many days we are over 1100, and I want to thank each and every one of you for checking back and following me as I navigate the 25 billion dollar U.S. ice cream industry with the help of my family, friends and all of your wonderful comments.

This is the upstairs freezer and it doesn't have anything too secretive in it. In fact, half of these items are just our attempts to get my son to enjoy frozen treats. We've got two kinds of coconut milk ice cream, rice dreams, tofutti cuties, edy's fruit bars, and popsicles just for him. On top of that we've got a half dozen containers of previously reviewed flavors plus there is always some B&J froyo around for my wife.

This is the basement freezer where I hide all the stuff that has yet to be reviewed like cool dogs (ice cream hot dogs), the five remaining Wonka flavors, the awesome looking TH pretzel flavor, the new full size Milky Way bars, an ice cream roll, HD spiced biscuit and even a strawberry greek froyo. Oh, and yes, those are those frozen cinnamon soft pretzels in the middle of the photo (hope they are good!)

If you look closely, there are a few more things buried on the other side of the basement freezer. A container of Edy's, more TCBY that I've tried but not reviewed (sorry), some slim-a-bear sandwiches, and a very hidden (green) box of Jamba yogurt & sorbet bars (man I bought those awhile ago, freezer burn might be an issue). Actually I think there are even a few more things buried at the very bottom of the freezer. Oh man, that makes a total of 36 different flavors and treats.... ummm, yeah, I may need to slow down a bit.

As you can see, I am as backlogged as ever. I really wish companies would spread their new products out a bit more. Don't get me wrong, I love the spring 2012 ice cream product line up, it's just so hard to keep up... but man, it sure is fun trying!

Oh geez, it's late and I still need to watch the Castle finale and also see who wins the Voice (hey, I love music, what can I say)... man, I forgot all my stories. I guess I just want to say stick with me. This looks like an awesome season for ice cream and the blog. My short term goal is recovering from long term sleep deprivation, and after that we'll finally see.... well, I hope to see a lot less grammar errors actually. Hehehehe, ok, good night!

State of the Freezer? Empty, yet still in Total Chaos

Greetings from my reclining chair... in the middle of the afternoon! "Lucky" for me I am home today. UNLUCKY for me it's a sick day. I've already been watching tv for six hours which is pretty much something I only get to do on sick days. Sure I could probably sneak in a TV day now and then, but after about two hours I think about everything that needs to get done and I wander off. So, I feel I should take a typing break, and since I can't seem to spit out the state of the freezer address, well, what better time to do it then when I'm stuck in somewhat comfortable chair. (and yes, the tv is off, otherwise I'll watch yet another movie --- Pitch Black is on AMC at the moment).

So why am I having trouble with the state of the freezer? Or the better question is, why am I having so much trouble blogging right now. Well, I don't know what happened exactly. Well life happened really. Life has gotten pretty hectic nowadays but I was trying to keep it from damaging my blogging. See, this blog was always meant to be a hobby. I needed something new to do some two and a half years ago and I decided to try this whole blogging thing. Now I was stumbling a bit when I got several ideas of how to make the blog better, but rather than sorting them all out, they all just kind of crashed into each other and blocked the roadway of progression here for me. That's when I let open the previous poll question.


Selfish Poll Question..........
Why WONT you come back to the blog? 59 total votes

bad opinions : 4 (6%)

bad writing : 12 (20%)

limited topic : 19 (32%)

reviews not robust : 12 (20%)

need 2nd opinion : 7 (11%)

i hate ice cream : 5 (8%)


I expected the "bad writing" and "reviews not robust" from anyone who landed on an older review. "I hate ice cream" was meant to be a joke ofcourse. I even expected some votes for "bad opinions" (though I appreciate this only getting four votes). I guess what "shocked" me most was the limited topic coming in as the biggest response. I understand my topics are limited, and I know I've been slacking with toppings and extras, but it was poignant none the less. I know the blog is limited, but iunno, the poll just made me realize how much i've been slacking on keeping the blog diverse.

No one ever said generating traffic is easy. The problem is it's keywords like "Ben & Jerry's" that bring people in, but it's the diversity (like my awful ice cream making ability) that spices things up. You know, I do tend to try new products from time to time, but when I do, I just cant seem to get them posted. Sure I got the Snyder's chocolate covered pretzels up, but then I tried the Trader Joe's dark chocolate version and I never mentioned those (they were fattier, saltier, and kept giving me heartburn). Sorry, it's not like you can free up my schedule for me.

So for now, you may notice a slower pace to posting, 2-3 a week instead of 4-5. I really need to step back and analyze my current tastes. I'm definitely worried that I've become spoiled. This blog has encouraged a crazy eating pattern -- one that has caught up with me ever since my trip to Ben & Jerry's.

Ok, my mind is wandering off and the tv is back on...   hmmm, i should do something productive, well, as productive as one can be at the moment. So what does everyone think about setting up a facebook account for the site? Would that make it a little easier to interact? I tried messing with twitter but I will admit that I've been slacking on that too.

Alright, I'm off. Hopefully we can  do the Edy's Holiday Extravaganza this weekend (that's three holiday limited flavors plus some coupons to share with everyone). Stay Tuned!


DOH!!! I forgot to actually talk about the freezer. Well, I've tossed a bunch of stuff out that had expired. It's weird to see the deep freezer so clean. In fact I'm actually tempted to shut it down and save a few bucks on electricity. I also tossed my "snack box". Iunno, it was empty, over two years old, and it seemed like a good time to do it. To reiterate, I'm going to try to keep things a little simpler here. I buy an ice cream, I finish it, and then I move on. No more half dozen pints in the freezer. No 3-4 "half gallons" in the freezer. So, a little more calculating, a bit more focused and a lot less wasteful..

State of the New Freezer

I know I usually do these things at a minimum on May 8th (and sometimes on 8/8, 11/8, and 2/8), but well something happened last week that I mentioned on facebook and twitter but not on the blog yet because I was too busy cleaning up the mess of it all. See, sometime Thursday morning, the compressor stopped running on our fridge. I remember thinking something sounded funny as I grabbed my breakfast, but I'm not exactly the most awake person in the morning, so I went about my day like I always do. Oh if only I had been paying attention.

Just a sample of what was waiting for an official review....

Year End Cleanup aka State of the Freezer

Did everyone have a good Christmas? Hope so. I usually throw out some holiday wishes Christmas Eve night or Christmas day, but things are crazy here (stupid cold), and I'm sure they are crazy there, so I decided just to hang back and let the day roll by. As much as it's great to see everyone, I kind of like the day after Christmas because it's a "home day" as my son would say. Sleep in, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, turn on that one radio station that's still playing Christmas songs and just play with toys all day. Ok, ok, technically I'm not that good at "relaxing" and that's probably why I started wandering through the freezers in preparation for the 2016 holiday season.

Farmrich Chocolate Cream Brownie Bites
with a cookie crumb crust

State of the Freezer Address - 15th Anniversary Edition

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posting. I've been holding off on posting until I do an anniversary post, but then I've just been so extremely tired since the anniversary (the 8th) that I have not posted. Oh well! Let's see if we can get back in to the swing of things.

The state of the freezers? Well, when it comes to the basement freezer, it was out with the old and in with the new two weeks ago. Three bags worth went out on trash day. Yes I hate wasting, but I also hate staring at things that I know I will never eat. I had a smattering of really old stuff including Klondike Donuts (circa 2020) and three old pints of magnum (circa 2019). Those Magnum pints never got reviewed which is a shame, but at least I have the containers.

It was just a random mix of stuff that got tossed. For example, there was also a pint Haagen-Dazs Rum Tres Leches. I never like alcohol flavors, but it was cheap and I wanted to add the lid to my collection. It was passed the best buy date, and I only took a tiny taste, but I still found the flavoring strong and very much not my style. 

The upstairs freezer is decent and may or may not surprise you. I think I'm finally getting in to Tillamook after discovering their white chocolate raspberry flavor (reviews to come). I wound up buying several containers of Graham Slam despite it being a frozen dairy dessert, plus I keep Turkey Hill all natural vanilla handy for making shakes. 

Wait, have I complained about all natural Turkey Hill retreating from the freezer aisle yet? Most stores around me carry just a few of their all natural flavors now, and those flavors tend to revolve around vanilla. Man, I hope they don't disappear completely (though it's part of the reason that I am digging in to Tillamook).

Lastly we have a bit of Talenti. The dairy-free dark chocolate actually belongs to my son. I also bought him a pint of coconut milk vanilla yesterday which I then forgot to put in the freezer.... so yeah, I'm still pretty tired.

So why did I clean the basement freezer? Yes it was due, but more importantly, a case of Cold Case ice cream samples arrived and then a week later, a case of Jeni's samples arrived. I know that some people think that it's really easy to get free samples, but the reality is that it is not, so to get back to back offers of some top notch ice cream? Yeah, that was a pretty cool way to ring in the blog's 15th birthday. Those reviews should be coming up soon, but go follow me on instagram if you don't want to wait. 

That's all I got for now. I'll try to get the first two cold case reviews posted by tomorrow.

State of the Freezer Address The First Decade Edition

That's right folks, it's the 10th anniversary of my very first blog post. Ten years! That's nuts.... no, apparently I'm nuts for hanging around this long. I don't think I planned on still being here ten years later... in part because I thought I'd be some famous flavor guru consultant by now. As you can tell, I am not, but we all need to have dreams. That was mine. It's long gone now. Wow, that went downhill fast. I just mean that I've accepted my fate that while I may be the world's longest running ice cream archiver, there won't be any fame or fortune going with it. I wouldn't know how to handle fame anyway, though I guess I did work up the courage to be on an awesome podcast for four and a half years, so that's gotta be something for someone with social anxiety right? Ok, enough of this, on to the positives, but first, a little freezer talk.

This is the boring upstairs freezer. Not super boring mind you, but this houses our regular ice creams and whatever is currently being reviewed on the blog like chocolate churro (bleck) and some new gelato fiasco. The Trio and Blue Bunny mini swirls will be up next probably. This picture is accurate except for the Friendly's ice cream cake ice cream that my daughter brought up from the basement freezer afterwards (yup, it's back for another year)

And now happy stuff: so what have I accomplished in ten years? Well, blogging says I'm approaching ten million page views, that's something right? Ofcourse, I think that factors in web browsers pre-fetching webpages. Google Analytics has the blog pegged at just 5.1 million actual page views. The top review of that time? Possibly my favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor, the mighty Milk & Cookies with 24,000 page views. That's not the coolest part about that though. I've met John the flavor guru who created M&C and he told me that he had read the review. I was honored to say the least. He's pretty great and meeting him and the rest of the Ben & Jerry's crew was definitely one of the high points of this blog in the last ten years.

You might remember that one of my main goals for starting this blog (besides eating more ice cream) was to become a better writer. As you may have noticed, that never happened. You might even argue that I've gotten worse. I meant well, I swear. What has improved are my pictures skills. Just look at my instagram account or my old breakfast sundaes tumblr project and I like to think I can take a decently appetizing photo. Not every shot is a winner mind you because I can get impatient (or nervous), but yeah, I love taking pictures. No urge to be in front of the camera, but you'd probably be surprised about how much time I spend thinking about how wonderous something looks. Uggg, I'm getting tired and losing my ability to make points. I guess I should apologize that a lot of the photos on the blog have been a bit off recently. While cell phone cameras have gotten so much better over the years, they can't completely take the place of  my primary camera whose lens died awhile ago. I did pick up a cheap telephoto lens to verify that the camera still works (and can still be fun from a distance aka outside basically), but it has limited abilities in the world of ice cream pictures. If anyone wants to sponsor a new E-PL9 for the blog, let me know (sorry, couldn't resist, and like I said earlier, everyone needs dreams).

We should probably dive in to the basement freezer where all the good stuff is right? The problem is that it's chock full of stuff and I am feeling lazy (it's now 10pm). Oh, that's another thing to point out, or maybe, something I don't want to point out. Who knows how many countless hours I've spent cataloging the freezer aisle. It's a fun hobby that not a whole lot of people understand (present company excluded ofcourse). I can't believe I've written 1454 reviews. If you did one review a day, it would take you four years to hit that number. Wait, does that make my ten years seem less impressive? hehehehe. Ok, hold on, let me spend a few minutes getting the basement freezer ready. I do need to sleep at some point (I am a decade older than when I started).

Ok, that didn't actually take as long as expected, probably in part because it's more Eggo boxes and frozen corn than I expected. You'll hear about it in the next review, but Blue Bunny likes me again! (those are all free samples you see). I've also got a new banana based ice cream for my son to try as well as the return of Steve's ice cream (Dean Foods rescued them last summer). Actually this picture technically makes me feel bad because I still havent reviewed the mini a la mode cups they sent over to sample awhile ago (my apologies to them).

To recap, I still love ice cream, I love taking pictures, and I am very grateful for all of you for hanging out here at the blog. I know the way people interface with the internet (and each other) is always changing, but I will do my best to keep this giant archive going. Be well and I'll see you later!


P.S. I forgot to add a thanks to all the companies that have sent samples over the last year. Perry's and Gelato Fiasco continue to be good to the blog. I'm happy that Blue Bunny is back to sending stuff. I actually got Haagen-Dazs samples for the first time which was cool. Who else? Cool Haus, Isaly's and Revele all hooked me up with samples. A La Mode sent a ton of stuff after I bought a store damaged box of their bars. I also got a stack of coupons for Solero and Slim Twin (which I might giveaway) as well as a pair of coupons from Graeters. There were a couple other companies offering stuff like Breyers Delights (I politely declined due to my troubles with sugar replacements). I'm not bragging here, just very glad that some companies see the value of keeping this blog in the loop. --- Disclaimer: Nick got a big box of High Road Creamery stuff but I can't guarantee any timely reviews on it.

State of the Freezer Address ...delayed a few days

Greetings! For those of you that are new to the blog, I like to look back at the last 3 months and see what's happened (almost 4 dozen new reviews), where I am, and where I'd like to head. It's also a chance to review the polls and set up some new ones.

So, what have we learned these last 3 months? I learned that I'm not as young as I once was. You may have noticed I'm not posting as much and it's because it's been hard to keep my eyes open with the new baby in the house. It's kind of a catch 22. If I go to bed earlier, then I don't post a review. If I post a review, then I stay up too late, and I'm too tired to post a review the next day. It is what it is, and I will do my best to slowly ramp production back up. Heck, I've got a half dozen reviews stuck in my head as it is (ok, just 4 really). I still love blogging and spreading the word about new treats, it's just going to be a while til I'm back at 4-5 reviews a week.

Speaking of motivation, I want to thank everyone for contributing comments the last week or so. The blog had fallen into a comment lull for a few months and then all of a sudden I find myself publishing a few comments every time I check on the blog. (I do go through the comments before they are released just to make sure we don't get spam or other junk floating around, everything else gets the green light). Ok, let's recap the polls now.

First poll: How often do you eat low fat ice cream?
now and then - 28% - 35 votes
all the time - 23% - 28 votes
never! - 22% - 27 votes
a lot of the time - 21% - 26 votes

half the time - 4% - 5 votes

If you look closely, the votes even themselves out quite a bit. For the 28 votes of "all the time", we have 27 of "never"!! For 26 votes for "a lot of the time", we have 35 for "now and then" (these two we're pretty close til just the last few weeks of voting). I guess my point is we have a fairly balanced crowd/view of low fat ice cream, so do what I do, keep both regular and low fat in the freezer.

Second poll: How can I make the blog better?
more national reviews - 35% - 16 votes
add more images - 24% - 11 votes
opinion poll on every flavor - 15% - 7 votes
add ingredient list - 6% - 3 votes
leave out the rambling - 6% - 3 votes
more specialty reviews - 4% - 2 votes
more background info - 4% - 2 votes
describe things better - 2% - 1 vote

First, I'd like to thank 94% of you for saying that my rambling is not your primary complaint with the blog, hehehehehe. I know the blog is about ice cream, but I like to throw in a little color here and there. I like the reviews to be as robust as possible and sometimes that includes a little background of why we're eating or trying a particular flavor.

The obvious answer for the poll was more reviews because really, how can you argue with that? Well, my wallet can, but maybe some more free ice cream will roll in. Hopefully you've noticed that I've been trying to add more images to my more recent posts, but it's hard to do on older reviews. At some point I may re-review some things, but for now, I'll try to keep things fresh and new. I would also love to add an opinion poll to every flavor, I just have to figure out the best way to do it with blogger (it would be easier if I was running something like wordpress). There are free poll services, but you usually wind up with too many advertisements.

Maybe I should mention my actual freezer before I go. The kitchen freezer is doing fine, it's been enjoying its new found freedom now that we have a deep freezer in the basement. The basement freezer is also doing well, though I probably could have gone with the smaller one, but at least I don't have to worry about freezer burn from the auto-defroster anymore. There's nothing worse than getting excited about a new flavor and then being unable to give it a respectable review because it's been freezer burned into oblivion.

As always, any and all comments are welcome here at the blog. You can leave them on a specific post or email me at onsecondscoop at gmail dot com. Even if I don't post, I usually check in to see if anybody needs anything. I'll see if I can't sneak in a few holiday themed reviews during this upcoming holiday season - feel free to let me know if there is a particular product I should showcase on the blog.

One more thing--look for new reviews from the ice cream of the month club! Our friends over at amazing clubs are huge cream fans and I'm more than happy to talk about the free samples they send me.

Oh geez, one more thing, I'm so scatter brained right now -- Hey, guess what? The blog has a proofreader now! I've known for a long time that my mastery of the English language leaves much to be desired and when she offered to double check my work I was more than happy to accept. Now, I wouldn't trust this mighty blog to just anyone, but considering she's a huge ice cream fan who's married to a buddy I've known for over 20 years, well, if I can't trust her then I don't know who to trust. So a big thanks goes out to her for all her current and future work!

State of the Freezer Address - 17th Anniversary Edition

How in the world am I still hanging around the internet blogosphere after all these years? OCD? Not knowing when to let things go? Nerdy love of cataloging things? All of the above?!

The current state of the freezers is: upstairs boring, downstairs chaotic/full. Despite my best efforts, I continue to buy more ice cream than I can consume (at my age anyway). I think I still love ice cream, and I was excited at how the year started, but I'm losing momentum again already.

The upstairs freezer (aka the fridge in the kitchen, circa May 2025)

State of the Freezer

I know, I know, over two weeks late for my quarterly state of the freezer address. I've been  a big ball of who knows what lately, but I just read something totally shocking.... and then I just realized I didn't read closely enough. I got scared when I saw that Gifford's ice cream was having trouble with it's handful of retail stores. Thing is, the trouble is for Gifford's of Maryland, not my local Gifford's of Maine. Weird coincidence... no no, wait, not a total coincidence. Hey, if you've got ten minutes, check out this lengthy Washington Post article about Gifford's (of Maryland) which happens to mention a trademark battle with Gifford's (of Maine) among other things. It's a shocking read really because this guy that stuck it to Gifford's is also the guy who bought a bunch of Brigham's ice cream shops in Boston, and then drove them all into the ground. The saddest part is Gifford's knew this guy was trouble, but went through with the deal anyway. Man, what ever happened to common sense? ...ok, if you want to get really ironic, how's this: The bad guy in our story, the man who broke Brigham's stores, well, he was selling Hood ice cream instead of Gifford's. Hood bought Brigham's ice cream lines almost 3 years ago. Wait, I don't think I said that with enough irony.

Ok, enough about that, what else do we have? Well, I've been trying hard not to overload the freezer with too many choices, but now we have another problem. You see, when I go to the grocery store, I pace back and forth several times and I have the worst trouble trying to pick something new. Now spring is approaching so we should have some new products on the market soon. I also have some ideas in my heads about how to kind of fill in the missing review holes 'til then. I won't get into it too much detail incase my vague plans don't go well and I change my mind.

I made a rubber ball band today....

Oh, I'd like to take a minute to apologize to my fellow bloggers. Blogging is very much an interactive activity and I've spent way too much time off in la la land to keep track of my fellow foodies. Watching other sites also helps fill in the gaps of all the places I can't (or won't) visit. With that said, that young whipper snapper Rodzilla has bested me to the latest Ben & Jerry's flavor yet again!! Make sure you go check out the first shots of Clusterfluff, Late Night Snack, and Red Velvet Cake, plus a review of Red Velvet cake. Hmmm, I wonder if he knows that soon there will be pints of Bonaroo Buzz? You do realize all this Ben & Jerry's talk makes me like I need to stop for ice cream on the way home now right? What else do we have out there? Well, GrubGrade has a review slamming of the new "triple thick" strawberry shake and the Impulsive Buy just posted a review of new Häagen-Dazs Limited Edition Blueberry Crumble.

Ben & Jerry's 2011 new pints (so far)

Red Velvet Cake: red velvet cake batter ice cream with red velvet cake pieces cream cheese frosting swirl
Late Night Snack: Vanilla bean ice cream with a salt caramel swirl & fudge covered potato chip clusters
Clusterfluff: Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Caramel Cluster Pieces, Peanut Butter & Marshmallow Swirls
Bonaroo Buzz: Coffee & Malt Ice Creams with Toffee Chunks & a Whiskey Caramel Swirl

What else? Oh yeah, if you go into draft.blogger.com, you can turn on a mobile theme! I was flipping through food junk and grubgrade with my blackberry at lunch when I discovered they had installed mobile themes, so I went digging and sure enough I found the option in blogger. It works pretty well on my wife's iPod, but not so much on my blackberry. I'll have to have someone with an android phone test it too. I don't get a ton of mobile traffic, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

Oh, I can't forget to talk about the Poll results (and get a new poll up there). The question I asked was "What's the best seasonal flavor?" and quickly a heated battle started up between Peppermint and Pumpkin! With 346 votes total, and a neck and neck race for well over half the race, I now declare Pumpkin the surprising winner here!

Pumpkin 127 (36%)
Peppermint 98 (28%)
Egg Nog 51 (14%)
Ginger (Snap - Bread) 38 (10%)
Bring on Spring! 22 (6%)
Other 10 (2%)

Ok, geez, I hope that's it for the moment. Be well all, and go have a scoop of ice cream!

State of the Freezer Address - 9 Years Edition

Hey everyone! I had every intention of writing a nice long post about my anniversary but unfortunately the fates aligned and it's now past my bedtime and I need to get going. I could blame my poison ivy or the increased workload from my boss being out of town, but that's just the tip of the ice cream berg. (I'm so tired, I literally wrote cream instead of berg).

This is the chest freezer as best I could arrange it and if the choices look lopsided, well, price chopper was having a good sale on both Turkey Hill and Ben & Jerry's. The upstairs freezer isn't much to look at right now.

Just know that I appreciate all of you who have stuck with me all of these years and hopefully I'll add some more words to this in the morning. Good night!

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Hello! I'm back! For those wondering what else is in the freezer (aka the review queue): More Gelato Fiasco samples! More Perry's samples! also Friendly's reviews (one of which will be nice and negative), and at least two Blue Bunny reviews though hopefully more if I can find a good place to get their new flavors.

Keeping an eye on my instagram account will hopefully give you a heads up about what's coming down the review pipe though technically you can follow on twitter or tumblr if you prefer those platforms (Facebook is just used for when reviews go live but sometimes uses my instagram photos for the links). My anniversary post on instagram pushed me over 3000 followers so that was a pretty cool anniversary present.

As for an update on the 2017 ice cream season, well, it's looking kind of over from this side of the aisle. If you check the product guide, you'll see that I've already covered most of what I wanted to cover at this point. I think I've mentioned before that I'm not spending money on stuff I know I will most likely hate, so anything with booze, coconut, or coffee basically. In the past I may have tried to cover them anyway but what's the point really?

That said, I don't know what the rest of the year has in store for OSS. Website traffic is down over 20% for the second year in a row which means that the site is now running below 2012 traffic levels. I don't do this for the traffic, I do it for the love of the industry, but that hurts. An old fashion blog about ice cream, no matter how long lived, just doesn't fit as well in our modern picture-based smartphone society. I kind of think that the website needs to have an accompanying app but who knows if I can pull that off (though I do have a rough idea in my mind of what I would like it to do).

Oh, one more thing, always remember to be awesome to each other, this includes being nice to the ice cream companies. I worry very much that we live in a world where we think every flavor from a company should be designed to suit our specific needs but we are all very different people. Going forward (and for the last several months), I've been trying to reinforce the difference between a good product and a product that clicks with me. I don't know if I'm doing a very good job with this mission, but I will keep working on it. I've learned a lot in the last nine years but that doesn't mean the battle to be a better reviewer will ever end. (hey, no snide remarks about my writing not improving in 9 years).

Ok, be well and scoop on!

State of the Freezer - 18th Anniversary Edition

I know I'm a few days behind on this post but I did do a quick anniversary instagram post on Friday for the blog hitting it's 18th birthday.... wait, can it vote in the November elections then? HA!! Sorry, you all know that this blog is meant to be a safe space away from all the other nonsense out there. No matter how you may feel about this or that, we're all here to just celebrate our love of frozen treats.

Now we probably don't really need to cover the upstairs freezer since it's basically full of leftovers and breakfast stuff, so let's take a peak at the downstairs freezer.

State of the Freezer Address 8th Anniversary Edition

Hello everyone, hope you had a good Mother's Day. While the following post will probably involve a lot of rambling, I just want to start off by saying that I appreciate all of you that follow me. Whether this is your first season here or your 8th, do know that I am glad you are here and am grateful that you stick with me as my style and process has changed over the years. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes for worse, but it's a process that never ends apparently. Let's do a quick freezer check and then we will get to the rambling.

Upstairs freezer is housing stuff that you will see on the blog soon. Tasty Red Velvet Cake, more Perry's, and a young company called Yeti Frozen Custard. (usual selection of veggies and breakfast treats are in stock as well). Tempted to do a new review of Blue Bunny cookie dough because they have upgraded the swirl from super sweet to epic. Good times!

State of the Freezer Address Seventh Anniversary Edition

Hello everyone! It's May 8th, 2015... the 7th anniversary of my first blog post. Oh man, I can't believe I'm still here. I can't believe you are still here. At this point, we've kind of grown from an ice cream blog to the world's largest ice cream archive really. Over 1300 products reviewed, gigs and gigs of overly technical pictures, millions of words of me talking in circles. In just the last few days, this "little" project has finally crossed the 100,000 page views per month mark. That's just crazy for some random guy with a spoon and a sidekick. (speaking of sidekicks, he gets to do his own anniversary post in a few days, so stay tuned for that). We've couldnt have grown with out all of you visiting and commenting and being part of the freezer aisle, so thank you very much for that. Now, do you want freezer shots first or me babbling first? Ahhh, pictures first...

This is the upstairs freezer where all the current flavors live (stuff that has been reviewed). Nothing you havent seen on the blog except maybe my affinity for frozen breakfast treats. It's a little light on the veggies at the moment, but that's because they are all buried in the....

State of the Freezer Address - 16 Years!

It's hard to believe, but the blog is now old enough to apply for a learner's permit! Alright, let's talk about what's in the freezers and then we'll go from there.

State of the Freezer address

Every three months, I try to reflect back on where we've been, where we are, and where I'd like to go. It's been a hectic 3 months with the arrival of a very special package, the kind that needs burping, diaper changes, and lots of hugs. That's right, I am the proud papa of a baby boy, and while he has greatly changed our sleeping schedule, I've been doing my best to keep the blog going strong (though I apologize for typos and any strange sounding posts, sometimes I try to squeeze in a post when I should be going to bed....kinda like right now).

As you can see the freezer is kinda full, though technically it has been worse. Actually, we have decided to give in and buy ourselves a freezer for the basement. It will only have manual defrost, so there will be no more cycling of our poor ice cream stash. Plus, every now and then I will buy something and it gets lost in the freezer ...like a container of Sherbetter and a pint of Starbucks Hot Chocolate Ice cream ...and a pint of Limeilicious from the ice cream club. It will also be nice to put some dinner items in the freezer again (without having to shove them in). I love this blog, but it does take more time (and space) then you might think.

The blog has grown a bit more, but to be honest, it seems like every day that I ask myself what I need to do to keep it growing. There are literally hundreds of hits between people leaving comments and sharing their opinion with us. So the question is: How do I make my postings compelling enough that you want to chime in and share your opinion. Yes, this blog is all about my opinion I hope we grow to the point we're people see a great new flavor, go out, try it, then come back and comment. That is and will continue to be my primary goal, the way I benchmark the success of the site. My secondary goal is ofcourse: free ice cream. I want to be in the loop, I want to know when new stuff is coming out, and best of all, I want to try it so I can tell you about it. Hopefully it will be a great new product (and so far, they usually are). I've been having a blast reviewing the new ice cream dessert from Culinary Circle. I hope you've enjoyed reading about them, seeing the pictures, and then being inspired to go try them.

What else? well, I got excited when a couple of people signed up for the forum shortly after I released it. I thought "wow, just a couple people a day signing up and in no time we'll get a community started". well, i knew it wouldn't be that easy, but I still think everyone should sign up. I was hoping it would make it easier to have a back and forth discussion about various frozen treats.

Ok, I should go to bed, it's been a long day (that included bending the blade on the lawnmower). Besides lost flavors in the freezer, I have lost posts in my head (including ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cupcakes, and an interesting ice cream flavor I made several weeks ago). As always, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions at onsecondscoop at gmail dot com. I could greatly use everyone's feedback on which way the blog should go: do I need more or better pictures? more in depth reviews? more comparisons? more data? Let me know and I'll do my best to take things up a notch.

thanks everybody, have a great night!

State of the Freezer Address The Empty Edition

Man oh man am I tired.... I mean like really, super, duper, "am I still awake?" tired. 36 hours without power means one chilly night of sleeping and then a second night that turned into a sleepover at the in-laws (big thanks to them and everyone else that offered us assistance).

Thankfully the power came back on in the middle of last night, but after 36 hours, I am uncomfortable eating anything left in the upstairs fridge. Ohhhh man, time to fill up the trash can. I should have taken a picture before I started.

Poor spongebob, you took quite the beating, didn't you?

New to Me! Pierre's Probiotic Yovation Cookie Fudge Crunch

2012 Update: 3 of the 4 flavors below have been discontinued

Geez, I can't decide how to start this post. Ok, try this: During the State of the Freezer address, I talked about wanting to expand the blog (via frozen treat samples). It's not easy trying to have national appeal when you are stuck in just one state. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of traveling, and the ice cream of the month club has done a good job of bringing us treats from places like the upper midwest, but I think it's time to start reaching out to try and bring the great treats of other states to the blog for all to enjoy. I should have know that Pierre's, the fine folks who brought us Hola Fruta!, would be cool enough to hook me up with their latest creation.

Behold Yovation! Pierre's released Yovation in 2008, but since I just found out about it last week, and since distribution isn't quite national yet, I'm going to call it new to me! They have six tasty looking flavors, and of the four before you, can you guess which one I tried first? Oh wait, I already said which one I opened in the post title.