Uncle Alex is going to spin a tale for you.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when your dear Uncle Alex was just a lad, he took a quest with his father, King Daddy Neuse. This quest ultimately took them to a pharmacy.  (Quests in Uncle Alex’s youth often seemed like what we now know as errands). But this was no ordinary Pharmacy, oh no.  This was Burch Pharmacy, on the corner of Franklin and Hennepin. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, where it gets soooooo cold that poor Uncle Alex’s toes would crystalize!  And so the story begins…

I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times.  At a charming little pharmacy, boy meets cheese puffs, boy falls in love, cheese puffs run out, boy falls into severe depression…  And so on.

Well, let me tell you the real deal.  Earl’s are, in all honesty, simultaneously the BEST and WORST cheese puffs I’ve ever eaten.  When I go home to visit my family, I do so via a trip to Burch Pharmacy where I stock up with fortifications of Earl’s both for my visit and for my return home where I rain Earl’s down upon my friends like a cheese-infused pied piper.  Only instead of running rats out of town, I’m bringing the rats back!  In cheese puff form!

Here is a drawing (since Earl’s cannot be photographed once the bag is open–they tend to disappear faster than they can be documented on film).

There are a few important things to note about this rendering of the typical Earl’s Cheese Puff.

1. First, the puff in the center is positively glistening with cheesey moistness, setting it apart from other (inferior) cheese puffs you may have eaten in the past.
2. Beneath this alluring moistness lies a subtle crunch that can only be described in sound effect form as it makes a distinctly “carmaaandge” sound.
3. Note the tiny flecks orbiting the puff.  These are flavor electrons.  In the bag, they seem to be magically drawn to each puff and as you roll the bag around in your hands, they appear to orbit each puff (especially those toward the bottom of the bag).
4. Now, the background of this image was actually transparent, but as I uploaded it, it must have turned orange knowing that Earl’s will make your world cheesetastic in every way.
5. But the grig bite–the best part…  The best part is my rendition of the cheesey light rays coming from the puff.  Believe it or not, you can actually taste the light reflected off of each and every Earl’s Cheese Puff WITH YOUR EYES!

And yeah, we’re giving a Party Size bag away in our facebook contest.  Future winner, consider yourself EXTREMELY lucky.

Oh, and what do Earl’s have to do with video games?  Well, my buddy Mike Roska (who works over at MGI Racing) and I ate a whole Party Size bag in one sitting while playing Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox.  I am convinced that it was the POWER OF EARL’S that made beating that insanely difficult game possible.  (I also believe that it was the POWER OF EARL’S that had me glued to the toilet for the better part of the next day).  Word to the wise, eat not an entire bag in one sitting, for in doing so, suffer the wrath of the angry ass you will.  Earl’s are best shared with friends.

Mike Roska (left), with Mike Roush's ear at the E3 '09 Nintendo Media Briefing. (He's been smiling like that since the fateful Earl's Ninja Gaiden triumph)

So, yeah, Earl’s.  They’re great.  You want them. I want them.  We all want them.

Continue rocking on.  Over and out.