I got invited back on “Daily Flash” this week for my recurring segment, “What Did I Just Eat?” Mitch, Andrea, and Matt are my willing test subjects – letting me me try out new supermarket products on them. This time, the theme was Thanksgiving. We had the new Holiday Nog-flavored whipped dairy topping in a can from Target, the limited-time 7UP Shirley Temple in both Zero Sugar and “Full-on Sugar” varieties, the holiday sandwich from 7-Eleven with a stuffing-herbed hoagie roll, “Brie My Guest” ice cream from Baskin-Robbins, and both the chocolate and cheese advent calendars from Aldi.

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I was a weekend Smooth Jazz DJ for about three years in the early 2000s, right as the number of stations that could make the format work on commercial radio was getting smaller. I was never one of the main on-air talent at Orlando’s WLOQ, 103.1 FM, but you might hear me Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings. I’d be playing – still on CDs – Euge Groove or Mindi Abair or Acoustic Alchemy. Smooth Jazz was never my personal favorite, but it can be nice while reading or studying – not a lot of lyrics to distract you.

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I’ve worked behind the camera a lot in the last few years, but this week, I combed my hair and appeared on the national show Daily Flash as an expert in new foods on the market. Thanks to Mitch and Andrea and the crew for letting me broadcast my very specific knowledge to the world. Please check out the link below.

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About a week ago, just before Halloween, I talked about new foods for the nighttime radio show “A Corporate Time with Tom and Dan” (WTKS 104.1) as well as the video live stream that goes out when they record the show (www.tomanddan.com). We talked about the new Carmella Creeper breakfast cereal, a mystery Fanta flavor that dyes your tongue black, Mambo Sauce and Sweet and Spicy Jam from McDonald’s, a Salt & Straw ice cream made with chocolate-covered crickets and grubworm brittle, and the reject Jelly Bellys called Belly Flops. I’d been wanting to try one of these “expert” segments for a while, something you can definitely have fun with while also sharing some real information about what’s new and unusual at the supermarket.

YouTube is acting up for me, so jump to 48:55 for my segment and to see Dan almost cough up a cricket.

Between working in TV news and working in non-news video, I paid the bills (mostly) for a year by working at Brookstone. Remember Brookstone? The memory foam mattress you could lie down on (ew) and weird flashlights and a massage chair anyone could hop into? The company now seems to just live in airports, but once, it was a magical place where shoppers could kill ten minutes until Mom came out of Burdine’s.

That’s “my” store in the photo – Mall at Millenia in Orlando, FL. It’s a Lily Pulitzer now.

My Brookstone year started as a Christmas gig, shuffling boxes in the tiny back room. Eventually, I got to put on the denim apron and work the floor. It was a very hands-on store, so just about anything a customer could pick up would end up in the opposite corner from where it started. I remember these tiny sealed glass bubble aquariums that were in equilibrium until a sticky-fingered kid would shake it like a snowglobe and rattle all the brine shrimp (aka generic Sea Monkeys) inside.

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