joe randel's art dump

Merry Christmas (or what ever it is you’re celebrating this time of year) to everyone!  Who is this character?  Why she’s Elh Melizee from Sola to Robo.  That Fancy anthro DS game I mentioned a while back.  I thought draw up a new character for the season rather then a classic one.  I actually wasn’t sure I’d get this out.  I’ve been sick on an off like crazy the past few months, and if I’m not sick, I’m busy with holiday stuff.  Guh!  But here she is.  Yay!

Now I just have to do a super messy New Years pic.  Any suggestons?
Buy Solatorobo: Sore kara Coda e (Nintendo DSâ„¢)

Wow… I can’t tell you how happy I am to see so many people voice their opinion on the great “American candy sucks” debate (here, at DA and at FA).  It was great to read all the responses and I honestly wanted to reply to all of them, but I figured this was the best way to reach everyone. Thank you everyone, you’re all awesome! ^_^

Lots of people spoke up and stated that I should try M&M’s, Reese’s, Snickers and such because they’re quite good.  And they’re right, they are very good, plus they’re American made and internationally sold.  So my original, sweeping statement isn’t exactly true, and I quite enjoy a good Snickers Bar to be honest.  But not all candy gets to make the trip to strange lands.  There is so many snack treats that not only never make it to the border… never make it across the country.

Quite a few snack treats are regional and so people a few cities over might never know about them.  Like how you can buy Strawberry Crush in Quebec, but not in Ontario.  Which is really the whole point of the Snack Swap idea.  To try fun foods from other places.  Which is why sending me M&M’s in the mail won’t work, because I can already get all those here in Canada.

Now to all those who agreed with me that American candy sucks… I’m still on your side… US candy blows.  But I am willing to change my opinion.  I wanted to take people up on their offer to swap snacks, but I didn’t really know who to pick.  But then some one stepped up, sent me a note and offered me a list of American candy for me to choose from that would send.  In exchange, I offered up a list of things they could pick from.  Once the details are laid out, we’ll ship them off and I’ll jump back here and give my opinion of them (and probably post their thoughts of the Canadian candy I sent).

I think this is the best way do things at this point.  I can’t wait to be honest.  Getting crap candy or totally awesome candy if fun ether way.  I just love trying new things.  Maybe once a month or so I’ll put the call out for snack swaps and see who responds.  Oh, and if people are wondering what my Canadian list of treats is… here it is…

Smarties – Chocolate candy like M&M’s
Big Turk – chocolate bar
Aero – chocolate bar
Ketchup Chips – chocolate bar
All Dressed Chips
Caramilk – chocolate bar
Kinder Egg – chocolate egg with toy inside
Bounty – chocolate bar
Crispy Crunch – chocolate bar
Eat-More – chocolate bar
Miss Vickie’s brand chips
Hostess Hickory Sticks – chips

Joe ^_^

I’m sorry.. but it has to be said. Consider it tough love from your Canadian neighbour. How do I know this? Well… my wife has friends in the States and on rare occasions we do a snack swap. We got a bunch of Canadian snacks together (ketchup chips, Caramilk bars, Eat-more bars, Kinder eggs, etc…) and sent them off and in exchange we got a…

Zero Bar
Cherry Mash
Whatchamacallit Bar
100 Grand Bar
Heath Bar
Baby Ruth Bar
Pay Day Bar
and something called a “Chick O Stick” o_O

Well, we sampled everything and came to the same conclusion. They all tasted extremely cheap. I’m talking like they we bought a bunch of these from the dollar store. The Zero and Cherry Mash tasted like the chocolate you get at easter. You know… like you can taste the wax in it. The Whatchamacallit was… um… interesting. The 100 Grand actually wasn’t so bad and the Heath was quite similar to our Skor (but cheaper tasting). baby Ruth was like our Oh Henry! and Pay Day was… strange. No chocolate in that one… just nuts and caramel. It wasn’t bad… just different.

Then there was the Chick o Stick. Good grief, what can one say about this thing. It’s orange… it’s… um… a stick… it’s crumbles when you eat it and has toasted coconut rolled up in it. It looks sort of like a turd. Sort of… It tastes like peanut butter… sort of. And it’s currently the last piece left from what was sent to us because no one wants to eat it.

The next day I went to work and asked one of my US co-workers “How and Americans get so fat off candy that tastes like crap?” He laughed and asked what I had received from our friends, then proceeded to say some of those where pretty good. o_O He then gave a pretty good reason for why things taste the way they do South of our boarder. He said, as sad as it is, a lot of American’s don’t care about food quality. What they do care about it getting a lot of it for as little as possible. “How much of that can I get for a nickle” is how he put it. He also said that most don’t even realize that they’re eating crap, it’s so far to Canada or Mexico that they’re just stuck with what ever the companies make them. He also agreed that a lot of what we have up here does taste better.

After I heard that I felt sorry for central US people. Not ever really knowing there is better confections then what they get at the local store. I seriously tempted to do a snack swap with others out there that are willing to do so. I’ll send some tasty Canadian treats and you try and convince me that there are snacks out there that are of decent quality in the States.

Anyone up for the challenge?