Halloween Candy Oscars 2012

Halloween is creeping up on us again (pun intended) which means it's time for the Halloween Candy Oscars yet again. One of you is probably saying "It's about damn time!" And my other reader is likely closing my blog right now. Go suck a banana, Jody.

Disappointment is in the air for 2012. As I've said, Halloween's popularity cycles and so does the candy. This year it was nearly impossible to find good Halloween-themed treats.

Spooky Eyes gumballs and Frankford's Gummy Body Parts, as great as they are, have not changed one bit from last year. And many things I've awarded prizes to in the past are long dead and gone, buried in the candy graveyard.

This year I chose three products I'd never seen before to do battle for the best Halloween candy of 2012.

The first is certainly brand new - Cadbury's Screme Egg. A sick twist on the Easter Creme egg gives us a creepy new Halloween treat. I purchased a box of 50 mini Screme Eggs for about $9. the box claims 50 eggs but I counted 51. Green goo and an amazing marketing campaign really boost the Screme Egg. But it's difficult to separate the marketing from the product. In the end, the egg is virtually identical to the regular egg.

Next is Betty Crocker's Halloween Fruit Flavored Snacks which I picked up in the good ol' USA for less than $4. Betty Crocker? Making Halloween shit? You better believe it jackasses! These may well have been available in previous years. I have not seen them before, however. At first I nearly passed on them, thinking they'd just "Halloweened" the packaging with nice traditional costume silhouettes: Ghost, Fairy, Devil, Witch and uh... dude in a top hat. Note to candy companies: you CANNOT simply change your packaging for Halloween! It is NOT acceptable! It's a cop out, and frankly a bit embarrassing.

Betty, on the other hand, offers wicked "spooky shapes" such as a spider, a jack-o-lantern, a witch's hat, a ghost, a bat, and scaredy cat. Nicely done. The box suggests 28 pouches are inside and that is precisely what I counted. The packet I opened didn't have the cat or the spider. But what I tasted was delicious grape & orange flavours.

Finally, a chocolate product. Kudos to Mars Foods for their Snickers Pumpkins. Again, this is something I picked up in the USA and haven't seen before. At 62.4 grams, each pair of 'kins is the equivalent of a chocolate bar. Each cost me a dollar whopping 50 at a gas station. I didn't care. I was excited to find a new Halloween treat!

And the Snickers Pumpkin did not disappoint. It's a smooth molded jack-o-lantern with spooky Snickery caramel & peanuts condensed inside. I think I actually prefer this to a regular Snickers! Even the package is spooked up with two great looking Jack-o-lanterns and a really nice font on the "Pumpkins." Unfortunately, it's not ideal for handing out to trick-or-treaters. I truly hope there are plans for singles in a big box next year.

Yes, I always make a big deal about awesome packaging, and Cadbury has it with their retail displays and three awesome new foil wrappers (in Canada). The green goo couldn't be more perfect for Halloween. Green automatically implies scary: Aliens, tentacles, and snot! AAAUGH! That, combined with the amazing packaging and store displays earn Cadbury two rotting zombie thumbs up for the best Halloween Candy of 2012.

Halloween Candy Oscars 2011
Halloween Candy Oscars 2009

My Missing Taillight

My angle drive broke suddenly on the weekend reminding me that I had done quite a lot of work on my car all summer and forgotten to blog about it. It's been pretty dead at dmc&me all summer so I thought I'd update... just as soon as that tumbleweed blows by.

Okay good.

So, why is my DeLorean tail light missing? Because I had to replace the light in my engine bay of course!

Almost ten years ago, when my mechanic was fabricating me some fuel lines (before I even knew there was a DeLorean Motor Company in Texas, and before our local club existed) he left the engine cover open for a number of hours.

During this time the incandescent work light bulb heated up to over 200 degrees, melted the plastic case and then burned out. If you had to do any engine work in the dark, it's a relatively useless light so there was no urgency in replacing it. But I had the parts, and was hoping to perhaps win an award at one of our local shows this summer, so I got to work fixing small things like this.

In order to replace the light case/fixture ($26 from DMCH), I removed the tail light to gain access to the back of the nut/bolt combo. I slid the wires through the hole in and into the white case, seen here. While I was at it, I used the LED bulb kit ($20 from DMCH) to prevent this from happening again. View the bulb here.

Another benefit of the LED light is that it allows me to leave my engine compartment open during a show without draining the battery. That way nobody will miss out on my sexy coolant hoses.

You can see the melted light next to the new light here. It's a definite visual improvement. The only downside to the LED bulb is that it is a cold, harsh blue rather than the warm yellow glow of a standard incandescent. But if you install one and it really bothers you, there are websites where you can custom order a warmer, more natural LED colour.