HALLOWEEN 2007… “IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!!”
Welcome back to our little corner of Hell, boys and ghouls. That's right, Halloween time is here again, and we're kicking the month of October off with 480,000 pixels of unadulterated evil. Click the pic to come on in and get yourself the first treat of the year: The Sci-Fi Guys official Halloween 2007 desktop wallpaper.
Today's bonus Halloween candy review - Smarties!
Ok, so its pretty much the same as last year's. Whadda ya want for nothin', rubber biscuit? Seriously, that took a damn long time to put together, and although I don't plan on using it forever, I don't feel bad in the slightest about recycling it for a second go around this year. Click the pic to get your full-sized version, now with 108.33% more dripping, bloody letters and Re-Animator juice glow!
I'm doing something new this year. Every article this Halloween season will feature a bonus Halloween candy review. As you can see by the pic below, I've stocked up in advance in order to deliver the dirt on the most evil of all Halloween tricks. I'm talking, of course, about the horror… of tooth decay!
Today's subject:
A Canadian reader with the very Halloween appropriate name of Borris wrote me a while back asking about Smarties. I had mentioned in another article that they were hard little candy discs, but he told me that in Canada, Smarties were chocolate. Because I am a complete freak of nature, I did way too much research into this. Here's the deal:
Nestlé manufactures the chocolate candy our neighbors to the Great White North know as Smarties. They are very similar to M&M's candies here in the States, only Smarties have a thicker candy shell and are slightly larger.
Halloween Fact: 'M&M's' is not an abbreviation. That's the complete proper name of the candy.
The candy we Yanks call Smarties are called 'Rockets' in Canada. The manufacturer calls them Rockets outside of the US in order to to differentiate them from Nestlé's chocolate candies of the same name. That may also be the reason we don't have the chocolate version of Smarties here in the US.
Whether you call them Smarties or Rockets, they're a Halloween staple. No Halloween is complete without them. They are powdery, weird, funny shaped, delicious, and totally unique. They're such an important part of Halloween that I'm not even going to rate them. I'm just going to tell you flat out that if you don't eat some Smarties/Rockets this Halloween season, I'm going to come to your house and kill you. Seriously. I'll stab you to death. With my knife. Nothin' personal, that's just how I roll.
By the way, all of those cool Smarties vs. M&M's pics were stolen from Candy Blog's excellent article about the two candies. Check it out here.
Here's some interesting and gruesome trivia: in 2006 Nestlé removed all artificial colors from Smarties in the UK. Unable to find a supplier of natural blue dye, they replaced blue Smarties with white, and started using cochineal to dye their mauve Smarties.
Cochineal, which is sneakily listed in the ingredients as 'carminic acid,' comes from cochineal beetles. The insects are killed by immersion in hot water, prolonged exposure to sunlight, being steamed to death, or being baked alive in an oven; each method results in a different shade of dye.
The dye is made from the uncooked, dried, pulverized insect bodies, which are boiled in ammonia or a sodium carbonate solution. After all the big chunks that won't dissolve are strained out, alum and lime are added to the bug juice (well, technically speaking, its bug tea) to make the dye separate from the rest of the liquid.
A microscopic view of some of the 250 to 280 eggs contained within a pregnant female cochineal.
That's right; mauve Smarties are candy made from the bodies of pregnant and unborn insects which were killed horribly, then smashed and subjected to the depraved experiments of mad science. Happy Halloween!
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:08 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I don’t know what car they’ll use, but I hope its none of the 2007 or 2008 Pontiacs. They look like ass.
I’m starting a new feature on the site. Its called From The Archives, and its basically a way to give back to the world all the weird stuff that I’ve saved up on 15+ years worth of floppies, old hard drives, CD-ROMs and DVDs. I have a whole pile of From The Archives media full of stuff I always knew I wanted to do something with, but never knew exactly what or how. I was going to announce From The Archives with some fanfare, and I probably still will, but DanM’s post has provided me with an irresistible opportunity to unleash the very first From The Archives entry, and I can’t help myself. Enjoy the sneak peek. I found this gem on a very old, thoroughly scratch-damaged CD-ROM backup, date unknown. I have no idea how it came to be on one of my discs. It was labeled simply ‘best_picture_ever.jpg’, and I think that may be the truest filename I’ve ever seen. Check it out:
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Sci-Fi Guys music correspondent Mouser
Double review so be ready for another long one. For the weekend, Dave and I headed up to Boston to catch the Murphys play the last show at the Avalon (the venue for most of the St. Patty's Day shows). Not only were we up for that, but we lucked out and found out that Blackberry Smoke was opening for ZZ Top on the day we got there. After arriving in Boston we found that the blue line was down so we ended up on an interesting bus trip downtown. After having a few beers and watching the UK game we checked in and headed down to the Blackberry Smoke/ZZ Top show.
Got good seats, $10 below face so we were pretty happy. Pretty cool theatre set up on the water. The Smoke opened up and kicked ass. How this band is not huge is beyond me. Sound great every time, with killer songs. Played an 8 song set which we were happy as an opener they got to play that long as that is why we went to the show. Opened with Memphis Special, Like I Am, Good One Coming On, Restless, Sanctified Woman, Bottom Of This, Up in Smoke and closed with Freedom Song. I think that was the order as I didn't try to remember it that closely. Always love hearing Good One as that is my weekend song. Like I Am is getting pretty close to a favorite of theirs as well.
Got to talk to the guys afterwards and they seemed surprised to see us up there. Look like they gained some new fans so that was good to see. Especially a southern rock band playing up in Boston.
ZZ Top sounded great as well. They were playing a short set due to the venue having to close at 10, so we pretty much got the hits set. Dave got Rough Boy so he was happy, and I got Gimme All Your Lovin' which is my favorite ZZ song so we both felt we got our money's worth.
Sunday, we were able to hit the Red Sox game and see a game at Fenway Park which was cool. After the game we had a couple of beers and watched the Steelers' game (if you want to call it that), and then headed down to see the Murphys.
DKM shows in Boston are always great. You can tell the crowd is a lot more into it at their hometown shows. Nothing like cutting loose in the pit for an hour and a half and having a great time. Was surprised at the set they played. Played the same set as Columbus, and I had never seen them play a set twice. However, they did end up throwing in a couple of bonus tunes which was nice. Played Tessie, as I expected being in Boston on game day. Also, in the encore they threw in their cover of Dirty Water which is fun to hear while you are actually in Boston. To end their set after Skinhead (streak still alive as I made it on stage and got me another set list) they went into Pipebomb on Lansdowne which was perfect as the Avalon is on Lansdowne, plus it is one of my fav's I have only heard live a couple of times.
Only bad part about the weekend was the Murphys were playing the Red Sox rally on Monday, but it didn't start until out flight left so we had to miss it.
Hell of a weekend though, Blackberry Smoke, a Sox game, and the Dropkick Murphys!!!
Until next time…
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Excellent reviews, information and facts all the way around!
Kudos to all…to add my little trivia fact for the day…it’s technically a “cochineal INFUSION” versus a “cochineal TEA”. You only use the word tea when actual tea leaves are included. As this appears to only have unborn bug fetuses (fetusi? feti?) and crushed pregnant females the former is more accurate.
Over and out…Mark
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Wow. I’ve never been corrected in a weirder manner about a creepier subject.