darkoshi | Entries tagged with candy

I just remembered what a bag of Halloween candy obtained by trick-or-treating when I was a kid used to smell like. The candy I've given out as an adult doesn't have those scents. It was probably a combination of scents, but maybe mostly from one kind... chewy and shaped like tootsie rolls with twisted-end wrappers, with several flavors...

I found it, Brach's Royals. The wrappers have changed a lot over time, but this is how I remember them looking:
Brach’s – bulk candy salesman display – 1970’s
The Royals are in the upper left section of the tray, 2nd from the top.
Maybe I'm also thinking of the "Toffee" ones in the lower right, 3rd column from the right.

Ahh, nostalgia. I wouldn't eat those anymore as they are not vegan, and I don't like it anymore when candy sticks to my teeth. But remembering them is nice.

This reddit thread is interesting in regards to children nowadays prefering different candy (not the chocolate ones!) & treats compared to adults/parents:
Are kids these days getting much better Halloween candy than decades ago, or is it just me?

When the bar of soap slips to the floor of the shower, it's like a pinball game with my feet as the flippers, keeping it from sliding towards the drain.

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I bought Red Vines licorice for possibly the first time. It doesn't taste at all like Twizzlers as I thought it would, nor like strawberry or any other red fruit flavor. But it's tasty and reminds me of childhood and movie theaters, even though I don't remember ever eating licorice in movie theaters as a child. Maybe I had it at Halloween or a birthday party, and only smelled it in movie theaters.

Dictionary.com's word of the year is "existential". But the runner-up was "nonbinary". Woo!

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It was pointed out to me that when political pollsters call, they may show up as an unrecognized number. So if I want my voice to be counted in those polls, I'd need to start answering unrecognized numbers again, for the very slim chance that they'd call me. I'm not even sure what I'd answer about who I'm planning to vote for in the primary.

Based on this page about the debate qualifications, the candidates need to get at least 4% in 4 polls to qualify. Yang has 3 qualifying polls so far, so would I answer Yang, hoping to help him get the 4th necessary poll numbers? Or should I answer Castro or Booker, both of whom haven't even reached 4% in a single poll yet?

I was surprised and disappointed to hear that Kamala Harris dropped out of the race, when she had been doing better than my favorites, number-wise. Should I finally admit to myself that there's no feasible chance at all for Yang, Booker, or Castro to win?

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My left wrist has been aching a lot this week; I'm wearing a wrist brace again to reduce strain while on the computer.

My lower back started aching a lot yesterday while I was out shopping. So much that I considered sitting down on the floor right there in the store, before I remembered the benches in the shoe section.

Before this, it's been quite a while since my wrists or back bothered me. These problems seem to keep coming for a while and then going away for a while, and I can't figure out what the triggers are.

My last two periods were 16 days apart, and now it's been almost 5 weeks without signs of the next one. Yay, peri-menopause.

I wonder if it is all related.

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Before my back started aching, I took a look in a store named Five Below. They had a section of bulk loose candy for 10 cents each. These included both Zotz fizzy candies and Goldenberg's dark chocolate mini Peanut Chews! I was glad to find those because Qiao, who only rarely eats sweets, surprised me by eating up ALL the peanut chews that had been leftover from Halloween without me noticing until after they were all gone. I didn't take THOSE to work because I like them too much to give away.

So I got myself some candy for St. Nikolaus' Day.

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Aww... This is a rather impressive Christmas ad from the German store Edeka. The robot is cute enough to be from Star Wars.

Watch on YouTube

The newspaper headline shown is "Humans flee from artificial intelligence!"
The text at the end says "Without love, it is only a fest / party".

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I was really searching for the song, "Lasst uns froh und munter sein" (Bald ist Nikolaus Abend da). Nikolaus Abend (St Nikolaus' eve) is when kids in Germany would put a boot out by the front door for St Nikolaus to fill with sweets and treats overnight.

Mainly for myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT1dNkDW9i4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcDAR71W0xg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auwgXNMwIMI

There are various versions of the song lyrics. Some sing it as "Weihnachtsabend" (Christmas Eve) instead of St. Nikolaus' Eve, and with "Christkind" (Christ child) instead of St.Nikolaus, etc.

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/lasst-uns-froh-und-munter-sein-let-us-be-happy-and-cheerful.html

https://www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/german-language/german-christmas-carols/lasst-uns-froh-und-munter-sein/

I never had those Zotz fizzy candies before this Halloween, and had never seen them in stores. I found them on Amazon while ordering the Peanut Chews. They seemed vegan based on their ingredient list, so I decided to give them a try. I'm not fond of hard candy, but they taste ok, and the fizziness is nifty.

As I always have so much candy left over after Halloween, I take it to work and leave it on the counter in the coffee area, over a period of 2 or 3 days. Last year and this year, it surprised me each time, at how fast the candy would disappear. I'd put it on the counter, and then when I'd walk by a few hours later, all sign of it was gone. Not only the candies, but even the bag it had been in. I can't figure out if many people are eating it until it's gone, or if someone takes the whole bag.

This morning, I saw that someone else had already put a big ziplock bag of candy on the counter. It was full of Zotz candies! I wonder if they ordered it from Amazon too, or where they got it from. I put my bag next to theirs. 3 or 4 hours later I walked by, and both were gone.

Watch on YouTube

Video title: 2019 Halloween porch decorations
Posted by: Darkoshi
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZdhCecTLQc
Date posted: Nov 3, 2019

A storm blew through at 6:30pm, just as it was getting dark outside. But the rain lasted under 10 minutes.

9 kids come by trick-or-treating, in 3 groups, plus my mom, niece and grand-niece.

I gave out the following candy:
Candy bracelets, Goldenberg's dark chocolate Peanut Chews, ZotZ fizzy candies, Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, mini Bottlecaps and SweetTarts, Nerds (grape and strawberry), Laffy Taffy (banana & strawberry).
Also a sticker of a festive llama for each kid, and some My Little Pony stickers for those who wanted them.

...is "Scattered Thunderstorms" with an icon of cloud, lightning, and rain, all the way from 11am thru midnight.

But the "Precipitation" is listed only as 41% to 51% for each hour, and each hour's amount as 0.01 inch, which sounds like at most a few sprinkles to me.

If it actually rains, I doubt we'll get any trick-or-treaters at all, as in good weather we only get a dozen or two.

Tuesday and Wednesday have a heavier rain forecast. So I won't hang the ghosties up in the yard on the trees like last year; don't want them to get soaked. Maybe I'll find a place for them under the porch. Maybe I'll put up a few more hooks.

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A few stores around here used to sell Goldenberg's Peanut Chews, which are dark-chocolate covered chewy peanut candy bars. They even came in mini bite-sized versions, good for giving out on Halloween. They didn't contain milk, but I was never sure if they were truly vegan as they listed "glycerine" as an ingredient. I haven't seen them for sale in a long time, so I checked online.
According to this forum post, they are actually vegan.
So I ordered some this year, to give out.

You mean to tell me that sugar plums aren't really sugared plums, nor even prunes, and they never were?!

Current Mood: shocked

I changed my browser homepage (which is a self-coded HTML file) to have this background color: #ff0080. I'd describe it as fluorescent reddish pink. It's so beautiful, especially with my links in contrasting yellow, and a browser theme in a complementary color. Having nearly the whole screen be that color has much more of a visual impact, compared to this small paragraph.

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I discovered that it is much easier to pull out small tree saplings using a pair of pliers, rather than only my gloved hands. But my hands got the same achy, because instead of pulling out all the easy ones like last time, I was pulling out harder ones.

With bigger pliers, maybe I could even pull out some of the ones with bigger trunks/roots... say up to nickel-sized? Maybe there's even a special tool for that.

I spend so much of my free time doing yard work, and it feels very pointless. Other than the work it requires, it's nice to have a yard and trees and flowers, etc. But if I didn't have dogs, I'd seriously reconsider living in a place where I have to take care of a yard.

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Little Secrets : dark chocolate candies with a sugar-shell coating. Yummy like M&M's, which I haven't had since becoming vegan. I hadn't remembered how nice it is to feel the crispy crunch of a thin sugar shell between my teeth. The packaging doesn't mention it, but the sea salted peanut, classic dark, and raspberry flavors seem to be vegan based on the ingredients. Some of the others include milk. Ahh.. their FAQ says they don't label them as vegan because the sugar was produced with a non-vegan refining process (ie., bone char filtered).

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Gummi Cola Bottles (still seeking)

As a child, I was fond of Haribo gummi cola bottles. But I haven't had them since becoming vegan, since most gummi candy has gelatin in it. Yesterday I found Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe Gummi Bottles for sale at TJMaxx. It pleased me a great deal to see that the ingredient list included potato starch instead of gelatin. The Jelly Belly bottles include 5 flavors, and while "cherry cola" is included (which tastes suspiciously like Dr. Pepper), unfortunately, "cola" is not. The 5 flavors taste quite good, but I shall still be in search of good vegan cola gummi bottles.

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Marshmallows (intermittently available)

Most marshmallows, like gummi candy, also contains gelatin. After a long time of not being able to find vegan marshmallows other than by mail order, this year my local EarthFare store had some yummy ones from Chicago Soy Dairy available. But EarthFare has now discontinued them. I may have seen them recently in another local store, but I'm not sure.

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Kiss My Face Shower Gels (vegan)

A query I sent to Kiss My Face:
Most of your products that I've seen indicate on the label that they don't contain any animal-derived ingredients. However, I've noticed that your bath & shower gels (anti-stress, peaceful patchouli, active athletic) do not have this statement. Does this mean that these products do contain an ingredient which is most likely animal-derived? Or do they contain an ingredient whose source you cannot be sure of?

Their reply:
Our Shower Gels do not contain any ingredients that are animal derived. We do have a few products that do contain honey and/or beeswax that would not be appropriate for Vegans.

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Durex Avanti Bare condoms (apparently vegan)

A query I sent to Durex:
Hello, I would like to know whether or not your Avanti Bare polyisoprene condoms are manufactured with casein, as most latex condoms are.

Their reply:
All Durex® Avanti Bare condoms are made of polyisoprene which does not contain casein, and the lubricant does not contain animal derivatives.

My review:
Durex Avanti Bare condoms look and feel exactly the same to me as latex condoms. The lubricant has a faint lemony/spicy scent (in my opinion), and tastes ok for oral sex.

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Pasante Unique non-latex condoms

My review:
I tried one of these condoms a few years ago, from here. The material was crinkly and not at all stretchy like rubber. Even worse, it had an extremely unpleasant petroleum-like smell. And even worse (if I recall correctly), it came off during sex. Perhaps they've been improved since then, as they are now marketed as "odor-less", and other reviews indicate no bad smell.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/437549.html

It seems downright odd nowadays, if I do a websearch on a product and get absolutely no results found. I mean, how unlikely is it that a professionally-packaged product available in the United States would have no mention on the internet?

Someone gave Q a curious Halloween novelty candy. It is a clear plastic test tube filled with orange goo and candy gummy eyeballs. Another odd thing is that the label says that for Nutritional info, write to such and such address. It's a U.S. address. But no ingredients list nor web address is on the label. I was curious about the ingredients - it probably contains gelatin and is therefore non-vegan, but you never know. So I did a search on the product name and company - "gummy eye balls" + "imaginings". No results found! I did find out that Imaginings 3 is another name for Flix Candy. Flixcandy has a website showing their candy products, but these gummy eye balls are not included. A search on "flixcandy" + "gummy eye balls" also yields no results. The fact that I didn't find what I was looking for is no big deal. But the fact that no results were found is an oddity!

Addendum:
Now that I've posted this entry, if Google indexes it, there will no longer be no results found. Heheh.

When I was looking at the Valentine's cards at the pharmacy, there was one which was worded "To My Partner"... I liked that part of it (and there was only a single card worded like that), but the rest of the text wasn't quite right. There was another card, where almost all the text sounded appropriate... but then I saw that the card had a narrow side-flap which said "To the Woman I Love". I thought, I could cross out the "Wo"... I mean, who cares if the card was intended for a woman or man - the message is the same. I thought, I could cross out the "Love" part too, because I'm not comfortable with that word... no, crossing that out would be bad. I could have just cut the whole flap off... Then I looked at the text of the main card again, and the very last part said something about me feeling "truly happy", and I realized, that part wasn't right either. I can't honestly say that I feel truly happy. I'm happier with Q than without him, but "truly happy"? No, I don't feel that way. There were a couple of cute cards which I didn't find any fault with, but which didn't say much at all. I was thinking, maybe I should get Q all of these cards which came somewhat close, and tell him, these are the ones which come closest to what I feel, even though none of them are quite right. That didn't seem like the greatest idea though, either.

I thought of perhaps getting Q's mother a birthday card, but then I thought that she has so many family-members, and she must get so many cards... And the cards I was considering seemed humorous to me, but she might not be as amused by them.

It's too bad that all the little heart-shaped candy with the little messages on them has gelatin in it. I used to like them as a kid. But I guess I wouldn't want a whole bag of them anyway. I'm not as fond of eating sugary candy as I used to be. Sometimes my teeth are even sensitive to the sugar.