Nerds

I was perusing a candy wrapper museum the other day ( http://www.candywrappermuseum.com ), and it got me thinking about some of the favored candies of my youth.  There was one particular favorite I had for years... the Nerd.  I first came across them sometime in the mid-80's, probably when I was 8 or 9, while I was in a convenience store with a friend's family.  I was immediately drawn to the funny, colorful little nerd characters on the box, as well as the gimmick of two different flavors poured from opposite sides of the box.  The most common flavor then (and now) was grape/strawberry.  Later on I found other flavors such as watermelon, lemon, lime, blueberry, raspberry, and citrus.  I became a nerds junkie.  I kept a ziplock bag full of them, all the flavors mixed up.. and not one of the little sandwich bags, but the sturdy, large size.  The nerd mixture was predominantly purple-pink, since grape/strawberry were the most common.  I'd sit in front of the tv with my nerds bag, dipping my fingers into the little pebbly candies and eating them by the handful, letting the hard shells dissolve into a mouthful of pure sugar... with a bag of tropical CapriSun to wash em down.  Probably not the healthiest snack, but there you go. 

I even saved up proofs of purchase and ordered a special promotional toy.  Eight weeks later (after daily mail-checking) it arrived: a purple plush Nerd doll!  That was a great doll.  Those were the days.  Nerds, Ewoks, Legos, CapriSun and ColecoVision.

A whole new year

Yep.  A new year.  Another year older.  I've been a little sad lately, because I'm still searching.  Each year I try to assure myself that this will be the one.. that by this time next year I'll have someone of my very own.  But each year passes and that hasn't changed.  I dunno.  I'll get by.

Looks like I haven't posted since before xmas.  Well, it was a fine xmas as xmasses go.  I got some nice presents, and I even got the lights down in a timely fashion.  And I've had a birthday since then, upon which I was pleasantly surprised to receive a candy-colored knitted security blanket and a cat-shaped cake.

On a whim, I set up a small 10 gallon fishtank next to my computer.  It's mainly for small crabs, but I have a couple guppies in there right now, and some live plants.  It's still cycling, as new tanks must, and it'll be a wonder if any survive til next month.  But for now it's soothing to look at.

Right now I'm just getting over a rather unpleasant bout of food poisoning or stomach flu.  Not sure which it was, but it was unpleasant either way.  And yesterday morning I stepped out for groceries to find that my car had been hit-and-runned in the night.. right headlight assembly totally smashed in and some frame damage.  I don't know how bad the damage is yet, will have to wait for the insurance adjuster to come give me an adjustment.

Also in the last week I've been looking around at deviant art pages.  People who like art of any type should take a peek through there.. there's tons of user pages with subjects traditionally, kinky, and just plain strange.  I must have 50 pages bookmarked, and still lots to go through.