Outrageous.

I got an award!!!
Thanks Cora (or should I say Mrs. Scope)!!! You are a lovely lady and I am so glad you fell headlong into love and that you share about it on your blog!



Of course nothing in this world comes for free so here are the strings that were attached to this one:

•Express gratitude to the blogger who bestowed the award unto you. Done.
•Display the picture on your blog proudly. Done.
•Be nice and provide a link to the person who gave it to you. See above.
•Tell up to 6 outrageous lies about yourself, and at least 1 outrageous truth, or switch it around and tell 6 outrageous truths and 1 outrageous lie. See below.
•Nominate 7 creative writers who might be into doing this. You're not the boss of me! Plus, I like having blogger friends, and most of them have either already been tagged for this or hate doing it, so nuts to that.
•Post links to the seven blogs you nominate and let the owners of those blogs know. See above.


Oh God, where to begin? Here is something (non-outrageous) that is true about me: I lead a rather unexciting life. Here is another fact about me: although I am a dreadful comment whore, I don't always give my fellow bloggers as much comment love as I should. So in light of these facts, I have decided to make my list all about other bloggers.
So here are outrageous truths about some of* my fellow bloggers. Can you guess who they are? If not, click on the links and you will be magically transported to their blogs!

1. I met my husband when he left a comment on my blog (okay, this one was kind of a gimme).

2. I was once given a hat by Samuel L Jackson.

3. We are a group of girls with our religion in common. We talk about it extensively on our blog... and it's funny and charming and interesting!

4. I used my grandmother as an antenna. And that's not the most outrageous thing about me, just the cleanest.

5. I'm an accomplished artist well versed in classical art and history... from the same state as George W. Bush.


Gah! I only came up with five! Oh well, don't feel bad if you didn't make this list, just let me know your reason why you should be on it in the comments! (Or do a post about it, but don't forget to let me know about it!) I may even update my post if I think you're outrageous enough.



*"Some of", in this case, being the ones about whom I could recall something that I legitimately regard as outrageous.

Over to You: Hump Day Positivity

First off, get your minds out of the gutter - Wednesday is called Hump Day because it's the middle of the week. It has nothing to do with when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much*.
In the interest of putting some positivity** into the blogosphere, I want you to tell me what you think is good about you as a blogger.

The rules: It has to be 100% positive. I don't want to hear any qualifiers, like "I'm funny, but not as funny as..." or "I'm so crappy it has to be entertaining". I want to know what you think is good about your blogging. If it's a particular post, please provide a link in your comment.

Everyone who participates will win this awesome award of awesomeness:



Maybe you use your bloggerly influence to try to save a sweet little pup like Miss Yvonne. Maybe you can guess all my Original Drafts without checking the hovertext like BeckEye. Maybe if I do too many more of those there won't be anything left for y'all to comment.


*Whereas Friday is called POETS Day (Piss Off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday).***

**I will not call it "positive energy". Hippies.

***Yes, I accidentally posted this Tuesday night instead of scheduling it for Wednesday. But guess what, it's probably Wednesday already in Australia, so shut up.

The Blogisferia Chronicles: Chapter the Seventh

Please note - all Chronicles are stand-alones, you don't have to read any previous chapters to know what's going on.

Indulge me on this one, it's long but heartfelt.

Previous Chapters:
Chapter the First
Chapter the Second
Chapter the Third
Chapter the Fourth
Chapter the Fifth
Chapter the Sixth
*************************************

The Candysoda Tavern was cool & dark, even in the middle of the day. Princess Soda was sitting at the bar, grimly chugging drink after pink frothy drink and demanding more with a small fist slammed into the scarred wood of the bar-top. She glared belligerently around her and muttered foul imprecations under her breath.

A few stools down, Tennyson ee Hemingway the philosopher, in a battered leather hat with a band made of crocodile teeth, was nibbling thoughtfully on a huge slice of pavlova. He turned to the man next to him and said "Strewth Mo, what is the Princess doing in here? I didn't think she was a drinker!"

Mo was a dapper English fellow with a small sticky person in an orange & pink striped onesie clambering about his person. He replied "I only come in on Mo-days, but I heard she's been in here constantly the past few days and has to be carried out at closing time... The odd thing is, those are Shirley Temples she's shotgunning." Having imparted this wisdom, Mo sagely sipped his pint and returned to his favorite task of observing the colorful parade of people passing by the tavern.

Suddenly, down at the end of the bar, there was a puff of smoke and a loud bang. Mjenks the alchemist sat behind the now charred and smoking bar, a maniacal grin on his face. As the smoke cleared, he turned to the curvaceous redhead at his side and murmured "Vix a te videor posse tenere manus!"

Everyone politely averted their eyes from what occurred next.

As a lucky distraction, a commotion occurred that very minute. Outside the tavern, an oddly charming three-wheeled vehicle staggered to a halt in a sputtering cloud of fumes. An elderly gentleman with an impressive beard alighted and shuffled in to sit at the bar.

"You!" shouted the Princess, looking daggers at the old man. "She is lost to us because of you, Simon! Princess Teacup is gone because of your carelessness!" Princess Soda jumped down from the bar-stool, clenching her fists and stamping a tiny foot against the dark hardwood floor.

"I know," sobbed Simon. "And she was the most profitable, er, I mean sweetest, of my myriad illegitimate daughters as well."

Upon seeing his genuine grief, Princess Soda's rage evaporated. She and Simon embraced, and toasted to their dear lost Princess Teacup with huge foamy steins of Byron Bay lemonade.

And to make up for her ill humor, the Princess ordered a giant platter of Tim Tams for everyone in the bar.

*************************************
Tennyson, mo.stoneskin, INdefatigable mjenks & Simon: please accept this fine shield as proof of your Chroniclage.
Teacup my dear, I know you've quit blogging, but please continue to drop in here whenever you want.

Seven Sweets

Someone thinks I'm awesome!


I felt pretty bad about neglecting to follow up on this award meme until I realized that the wonderful Cora, who gave it to me, had admitted to neglecting it for some time herself!

And how could I resist when Cora redesigned the award to have conspicuous sweet-toothed overconsumption, but also it has PINK in it?!

So in honor of Cora's redesign (and the writer's trick of sticking to what you know), my list of seven is all about sweet things from various corners of the globe that I could gorge myself on all day.

The hard part was narrowing it down to seven.

From Australia
Tim Tams
I know I've written about them before, but I can't leave them out of this list!!! Tim Tams are the quintessential Australian cookie, although Aussies call cookies biscuits* (we don't have the savory, scone-like things Americans call biscuits).
A Tim Tam is 2 rectangular chocolate biscuits with chocolate-flavored cream sandwiched in the middle, then the whole thing is covered in chocolate.
I like to eat them by themselves (in large numbers) but there is also a popular technique whereby the Tim Tam is used as a straw by biting off each end and sucking hot chocolate or coffee through it. Shamefully I haven't actually tried this, so if any Aussies out there want to elaborate on this procedure please do!!!

Jaffas
I'm not even sure Jaffas are being made any more. They're little spheres of orangey-flavored chocolate, coated with a thin layer of orange candy (like an M&M). The main use for Jaffas is not eating but rolling them down the aisles at the movie theatre - due to their spherical shape and smooth coating they roll quite well.

Fantales
Another movie theatre candy. Fantales are delicious individually-wrapped rectangular lozenges of milk-chocolate-coated chewy caramel. Your dentist will berate you if you eat too many of these sticky, chewy delights. It's sort of like getting a whole bag of my one favorite chocolate from an assorted box. The unique thing about Fantales is that on the wrapper there are (usually hilariously outdated) movie-related facts such as movie-star biographies or plot synopses of classic films.

Chupa Chups
Chupa Chups aren't really Australian, but as that's where I first ate them and I have yet to personally see them on sale in the US they're going in my Australian list.
Chupa Chups are a brand of lollipop, or sucker, which come in a huge variety of flavors. There's cola flavor, classic fruit flavors such as orange, lemon & strawberry, the expanded fruit range including delicious green apple and transcendent cherry, and a disturbing and unpleasant cream-based flavor range.
Chupa Chups originated in Spain; the name comes from the verb "chupar" which means to suck or lick**. The second-best thing about Chupa Chups, after their deliciousness, is that the logo was designed by one of my favorite artists, Salvador Dali. The third best thing is that the stick is made of plastic instead of paper so it doesn't get all mank and soggy while you're eating.


From America
Milk Duds
Milk Duds, like Fantales, are milk-chocolate-coated chewy caramel but they are not individually wrapped, they are smaller and sort of round pebble shaped. They are completely addictive and it is quite easy to eat a whole box very quickly.
There are of course many more wonderful American candies but this is the one I'm most in love with that is not available in Australia.

From England / Europe
Kinder Surprise Eggs
Kinder Surprise is made by Ferrero, an Italian company. It is a hollow egg (approximately the size of a regular chicken egg) made of a very mild milk chocolate with a thin layer of white chocolate on the inside. Inside the hollow egg is a capsule containing a toy.
They are supposedly designed for children (kinder being the German word for children) but are beloved by most people who like chocolate and awesomeness.
The best Kinder Surprise toys require some construction; they come in parts and have wonderfully simple wordless instructions included in the capsule. Sometimes you'll get a crappy one like a small plastic figurine or a little cardboard jigsaw puzzle, upon which event you throw a tantrum and demand to be bought a new one until a satisfactory surprise is received.

Terry's Chocolate Orange
Terry's Chocolate Orange is from England originally but sold in quite a lot of countries now. It is available in both milk and dark chocolate. It is a ball the size of a small orange, wrapped in orange foil. Before you unwrap the Orange, you bash it against a hard surface like a countertop to break each end, because this releases the segments - it is actually segmented somewhat like a real orange. This is adorable, but also makes it very easy to eat a solid tennis-ball sized amount of chocolate in a very short time.


And that concludes my thesis on interesting, tasty and wonderful things from around the world. Now it's time for that dreaded part of the meme where I infect other people with it. In honor of the Awesummm award's new non-girly-specific design, I am nominating only boy bloggers to pass this onto (but even if you're not on the list or not even a boy, please feel free to take this meme and run with it).
Please write a list of seven things from any topic you like, although I would be delighted if it was related to food and particularly sweet things.

I nominate:
the INdefatigable mjenks
mjenks, I'm so stupid, Cora already nominated you along with me, so you don't have to do it twice if you don't want to!!!

mo.stoneskin
Andy
Words... words... words...
Cooper Green
G Henry
Tennyson ee Hemingway
The Jules - I'm adding you in as a ringer for mjenks since you're my newest male blogroll member!



*Or bickies for short.
**Which you may recognize from the Mexican monster El Chupacabra, the goatsucker.

My blog is illin', yo.

The lovely Gwen recently held a competition to design her an award based on this picture:


And guess who won?

That's right, me!!! You should go look at all of the other entries too - they were freaking hilarious.

This was my winning entry:
And Gwen was kind enough to bestow the award upon me for designing it for her!!!! See, there it is in my sidebar! I shall treasure it forevs.

Something fishy and fun

You guys, you have to go to Goldfish Broth right now! and play the word verification definition game.

I know it's been done before, but it's always so much fun!!! Plus, read his own post of w/v definitions before you go and you will realize just how high a standard you will be held to in G. Henry's arena. Anyone who uses the word paucity correctly in a blog post deserves as many readers as can be shepherded his way.

...Again with the pimping?

Yes. Because even though there's a high likelihood that pointing my readers towards blogs which are infinitely funnier than mine will only result in an even sadder comment count for me, I must share this with you.

That's how much of a saint I am.

UPDATE: It's official, I'm going to be designing an award for the winner!!!

Entry into Heaven = guaranteed *dusts hands off smugly*.

I win! I win!

So y'all remember that I won a prize from my blog homeboy Joshlos.

Well he made an awesome post about sending it, and it has arrived at Candysoda Castle, so I thought I'd post about it too just to make y'all jealous!

Here is a photo of my delicious bounty along with a note from Jam Master Josh himself (click to embiggen):

3x king size Snickers Almond bars, which were 2 piece at the start of their journey but as you can see having encountered what must be at least 150º Fahrenheit* on arrival in the dirty dirty** arrived in pulpy, almost-liquid form.
Thankfully they reconstituted quite well - although it takes 20 minutes to unwrap one - and taste like heaven.

2x 14 ounce bags of Skittles, which due to my unfamiliarity with your crazy imperial system I keep referring to as 14 pound bags. I took a bag to the office and now everyone keeps coming to visit me and my bowl of Skittles.
Lesson? Sugar = popularity.

AND Josh made me an award. Which I heart bigtime (and only adjusted the colors a little to fit my bloggy decor):




*As far as I know I'm not exaggerating... am still getting the hang of Fahrenheit, but it is bloody boiling here.

**I'm pretty much a hardcore gangsta. For those of you who aren't, the dirty dirty = Southern states of the USA.

News from Candysoda Castle...

Having been accused of completely hallucinating the first chapter of The Blogisferia Chronicles, I've made an adjustment: from now on, references to posts by the featured bloggers have been linked where possible. I hope this helps you to understand how much of a genius I am.

In addition, I have also designed the freaking awesome Candysoda coat of arms, which ought to be proudly displayed by those featured in The Blogisferia Chronicles.

Wordsx3 and Me, Amplified, please take yours now!



Everyone else who is in my sidebar can expect to be featured one day, (unless you explicitly state to me in the comments of this post that you do not wish to be involved, party-pooper).