Computer Sweeties

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Computer Sweeties; Those that can be eaten at the Computer
Topic Started: Nov 6 2009, 06:41 PM (343 Views)
MrD	Nov 6 2009, 06:41 PM Post #1
Tony "Numbers" Morrenzo Posts: 5,281 Group: Subscribers Member #733 Joined: December 23, 2005 A good name for a band would be: Baelheit's Machina Vanguard	Hello! Like so many famous detectives, I have found that I develop a dastardly sweet tooth while I work. As a result, I find myself spending quite a lot of time staring at the sweets, biscuits and cakes in the supermarket trying to find the most appropriate carbohydrate-rich accompaniment to the thought process. Let us ask the question: What is the best computer snack or sweetie? I'll specify some criteria, in order of importance: * My foremost criteria is that they mustn't be 'messy'. Specifically, this means three things: they mustn't mess up your hands while handing them, they mustn't mess up your keyboard or workspace while you eat them and they mustn't require effort to clean up after you've eaten. I don't use my computer unless I've washed my hands, and I can't stand using somebody elses mucky keyboard. This rules out most complete meals or their small imitations. It also rules out doughnuts (especially jam doughnuts) unless you're very careful. Cleaning a keyboard is a taxing enough task without having to worry about sugary gunk from Heaven knows what. Individually wrapped sweets and cakes rock in this category. Mints and things are also encouraged. My ideal sweetie has a classic style toffee wrapper with the twists at either end. Loosen one of the twists, hold the the other end and bite the toffee into your mouth. The sealed packet with the notch cut in the seam as used by Celebrations and Miniature Heroes is seriously lame by comparison. This criterion has the side effect of promoting crisps (and MacDonalds fries) to some extent: predictable crisps like Squares and small Monster Munch can be tipped into your mouth without getting your hands dirty. Everything else can be mushed up and poured into your mouth, like so much fatty, flavoured grit. Yeah! Of course, if you're not super careful, your shoulders are going to be covered in salt. If you eat crisps with your fingers and then get to typing, I will kill you for keyboard abuse. Chocolate biscuits are better than their plain counterparts, they being less likely to shatter into a million carpet-infesting pieces the moment you retrieve them from the packet. I still sometimes use a tissue to eat 'em, as if they were a bakery bagel or something. * No artificial sweeteners. Duh. * They must be relatively inexpensive. This rules out individually wrapped Lindt chocolates and their ilkl, together with Celebrations and Miniature Heroes. Though Celebrations and Miniature Heroes are mostly crap. Can you buy the Maltesers Celebration in isolation yet? Maltesers themselves are a bit lame. I remember them being more awesome as a kid, but these days they seem to be really low quality: the honeycomb centre is either simply dust, rubbery (it's supposed to be brittle, damn it), or completely missing altogether. Its Celebration counterpart on the other hand is always perfect: it's has a slightly more dense honeycomb centre and a thicker chocolate layer and each one is IDENTICAL. * They must be widely available. There's no point getting used to things that you're not going to be able to find quickly. * They must go well with tea. I like to work in a caffinated trance courtesy of ridiculously strong and sweet tea that's more akin to blancmange than any Earth-borne beverage. This discourages certain types of mints, encouraging anything that's caramel or chocolate based. These last two aren't that important. (You could flip the following to be 'must be squishy' if you wanted.) * They must have some flexibility to their substance. This rules out things like Werther's Originals, as they're completely inflexible. Biting them will send shards of Original through your gums and INTO YOUR BRAIN, killing you instantly. * Similarly, they must have some adaptability. Sometimes you want to enjoy a Mint Imperial slowly, and sometimes you want to munch through Jelly Babies like a rabid child. If the snack has the capability to be eaten either way, it wins. Jelly Babies and beans are great either way, but you're gonna end up feeling sickly and dehydrated if you keep up eating them. Anything that has to be eaten quickly while it's still hot is no good, unless it also tastes great cold, of course. -- I conclude that the ultimate computer sweetie is the Cadbury's Chocolate Eclair. They're individually wrapped. You can find them almost anywhere. They have caramel and chocolate. You can eat them slowly or quickly. They're almost all sugar. Runners up: Gold Bar, Club, Cadbury's Mini Roll. They're too expensive, and you're gonna end up a fat bastard if you eat several boxes of them a day. What would be nice: I really like well-made cream line toffees with the jagged spiral of cream running through them. I have no idea where to buy them, or even if they exist any more. The most frustrating obstacle in my quest is that most shops have a hopelessly narrow range. Half of everything that any given shop stocks is going to be hideous, tasteless own-brand crap. (With the bizarre exception of Custard Creams, which are always faultless no matter where I look.) My local Asda no longer stocks the Cadbury Chocolate Digestive, Chocolate Rich Tea or Chocolate Shortcake for example. WHAT THE HELL. What obvious things have I overlooked? I kinda stopped at the Eclairs since they're just that good.



RevStu	Nov 6 2009, 06:49 PM Post #2
Laird/Beast Of Glencairn Posts: 18,573 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: May 6, 2003 Football bias: Aberdeen, Scotland, Man Utd The best videogame ever is: Super Mario Galaxy A good name for a band would be: Most Things Are Awesome If You Think About It	I have a glass bowl of Skittles, which has the additional benefit of looking pretty.



MrD	Nov 6 2009, 06:54 PM Post #3
Tony "Numbers" Morrenzo Posts: 5,281 Group: Subscribers Member #733 Joined: December 23, 2005 A good name for a band would be: Baelheit's Machina Vanguard	How about that... I honestly thought they had stopped making them. I only see them very rarely when I'm in Home Bargain. I reasoned that WKD Blue was the new bag of sweets for Merseyside kids. Edited by MrD, Nov 6 2009, 06:56 PM.



Targaff	Nov 6 2009, 07:10 PM Post #4
Posts: 1,158 Group: Subscribers Member #496 Joined: March 21, 2005 Football bias: ACF Fiorentina/Seattle Sounders	Saltwater taffy is fabulous in this domain, but I suspect it's nowhere near as widely available in your vicinity as it is in mine...



VinylPusher	Nov 6 2009, 10:28 PM Post #5
Posts: 1,016 Group: Members Member #573 Joined: July 27, 2005	I'd recommend rich tea finger biscuits, but only if you have attained Adept level (or higher) in dunkery. These biscuits have been known to drop into the mug of neophytes and many unlucky journeyman level dunkers have received a mushy mess to the lap. They do serve two purposes: The initial highly focussed concentration of the dunk followed by the sugar rush (they do have a lot of sugar in them) . Good exercise for your brain.



Matt Smith	Nov 6 2009, 11:19 PM Post #6
So very tired Posts: 151 Group: Members Member #47 Joined: May 12, 2003	Stu's beaten me to it, except! I was going to suggest Sour Skittles, because they include the gorgeous raspberry and pineapple flavours. Yes, the cherry ones taste of tangy marzipan, but by a curious coincidence that's a flavour that goes surprisingly well with tea. No, really.



MrD	Nov 7 2009, 12:23 AM Post #7
Tony "Numbers" Morrenzo Posts: 5,281 Group: Subscribers Member #733 Joined: December 23, 2005 A good name for a band would be: Baelheit's Machina Vanguard	VinylPusher Nov 6 2009, 10:28 PM I'd recommend rich tea finger biscuits, but only if you have attained Adept level (or higher) in dunkery. These biscuits have been known to drop into the mug of neophytes and many unlucky journeyman level dunkers have received a mushy mess to the lap. MacVities Ginger Nuts are an excellent tea dunking biscuit. They're smaller and stronger than most other biscuits, making them very easy to dunk (though not as easy as rich tea fingers). They may be too nice, so I like to save them for when I'm done.



VinylPusher	Nov 7 2009, 08:04 AM Post #8
Posts: 1,016 Group: Members Member #573 Joined: July 27, 2005	Mmmm. I can get through a whole pack of ginger nuts with one cup of tea. Debauchery!



Mark X	Nov 10 2009, 12:50 AM Post #9
Embittered Comedy Blogger Posts: 1,526 Group: Subscribers Member #45 Joined: May 12, 2003 Football bias: Wales, Liverpool, Wrexham The best videogame ever is: Perfect Dark A good name for a band would be: There Must And Shall Be	If you're in the right part of the country, I'd suggest visiting a branch of B&M armed with about four quid. They always have a smattering of different biscuits, crisps and sweets on offer, many of them either discontinued elsewhere, or imported (or, more likely, made in the UK for export only). It's the only supermarket I can still find fudge brownie flavour Maryland Cookies (at 39p per pack), sells double packs of "Black & White Chips Ahoy" cookies for under 50p, is a good source of various Tayto snacks, and from a visit today, worryingly addictive organic lemon flavour wafers. The main downside with B&M is that 88% of the shop space is taken up by worthless crap, so I generally arrive at the till with nothing but biscuits and crisps. It makes me look like I've got some sort of biscuit fetish. Which I haven't, no matter what anyone might say.



Mark X	Nov 10 2009, 12:50 AM Post #10
Embittered Comedy Blogger Posts: 1,526 Group: Subscribers Member #45 Joined: May 12, 2003 Football bias: Wales, Liverpool, Wrexham The best videogame ever is: Perfect Dark A good name for a band would be: There Must And Shall Be	Aw, man. I missed an easy joke about B&M being the biscuit-fetish version of S&M. Gah.



mark	Nov 10 2009, 08:13 AM Post #11
I wouldn't advise you to try. Posts: 969 Group: Star Members Member #430 Joined: November 28, 2004 Football bias: Chinny Hill is a flagpole. The best videogame ever is: Dead Rising. What of it? A good name for a band would be: The Ballad Of Halo James	Targaff Nov 6 2009, 07:10 PM Saltwater taffy is fabulous in this domain, but I suspect it's nowhere near as widely available in your vicinity as it is in mine... I second this. I have however only eaten SwT on two occasions, but both times I was using a computer and had no problems whatsoever. (Someone brought some back from a holiday, and I persuaded a 'Merkin pal to send me some with a t-shirt I'd ordered through her as a proxy) It is a crime that those massively overpriced imported sweet shops (Cyber Candy &c.) do not stock it as I would totally pay over the odds for it. Otherwise the only taffy you can get in places like Selfridges is this awful stretched brittle stuff that's more like a misshapen Refresher chew bar without the sherbet. For �2.50 a pop.



MrD	Nov 10 2009, 04:16 PM Post #12
Tony "Numbers" Morrenzo Posts: 5,281 Group: Subscribers Member #733 Joined: December 23, 2005 A good name for a band would be: Baelheit's Machina Vanguard	Minstrels and Vice Versas! Is it just me, or are Smarties and M&Ms simply not as good?



RevStu	Nov 10 2009, 04:41 PM Post #13
Laird/Beast Of Glencairn Posts: 18,573 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: May 6, 2003 Football bias: Aberdeen, Scotland, Man Utd The best videogame ever is: Super Mario Galaxy A good name for a band would be: Most Things Are Awesome If You Think About It	Minstrels are far better, because they have Galaxy chocolate inside, not nasty cheap American shit.



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