So I never finished Candymania. Shocking, we can all agree. I just couldn’t come up with anything poignant about that Zagnut bar, other than the obvious Beetlejuice reference. I’ve already made Zagnut/Beetlejuice references so many times.

Then, in a fit of trying to find motivation through clean sheets, I started messing around with my Tumblr theme. Ended up buying one of the premium versions, thinking it was customizable and easy on the eyes. It was neither. When I tried to switch back to the original, I came to the fun realization that I’d neglected to save it anywhere. So, for the moment, I’ve cobbled it back together as best I could. Just need to relocate that image of me looking sad, in clown makeup.

My work schedule has relaxed, finally, and most of what’s on the immediate horizon is “homework.” So I’m trying to get my head back in the game. This Tumblr is a side toy; the main site is the bigger issue. I’ve been purposely neglecting it because it badly needs a revised design. My main issues:

1) That whole top header area is obsolete. Like, way obsolete. I’ve had it since 2005 and while it still looks okay, it just feels old. Plus, nothing in the navbar links to anything useful. Mostly dead pages. I don’t need a “links” page. I’m a hermit. I don’t need a “downloads” page for a bunch of ‘80s commercials in WMV format when they’re all on YouTube now, anyway.

2) The UGO button. I’m no longer part of the UGO network. (If one still exists? I see the site is still up, but know they merged with IGN. Don’t know if they’re continuing as separate entities permanently or what.) I don’t necessarily care that I’m sending the site’s former ad supplier four hits every six months, but it still shouldn’t be there.

3) The main content table width. It’s wide enough to work, but not as wide as I want it to be. The annoying thing is that I’d be fine with a content table even an inch or so wider, but with the way the design was built, that’s impossible to do without a complete and total gutting.

4) …and to that end, the way the whole thing is coded is unbelievably, uh, antique. My pal Brian did an amazing job with the core design (especially for those who remember the site’s main page), but it certainly wasn’t intended for what I want out of X-E now. Even so, the core code was built like seven years ago. It’s a miracle that I can still do anything with it at all, but it’s unforgivingly uncustomizable.

That and so much more. I’ve gotta hire someone to help me with this. In theory, I could choose a theme that better suits what I want and slug it in temporarily, but the fact that anyone could grab the same theme and make the same hacks would drive me batty. I’d rather have the ugly thing if it’s unique. It’s why I always picked the nastiest hamsters with the bluest fur.

I’ll probably throw in the towel and just work with the current design for a while longer. What I want to do won’t happen overnight, anyway.

There really wasn’t much need to post this. Here’s a pink monster with issues:

More candy. I’m already tired of this, but a deal’s a deal.

Candy Pipe: And there she is. The one and only.

For a while, a cherry candy pipe was my favorite candy on the planet. Don’t write it off as mere “red licorice,” because the flavor was so much richer, spicier and awesomenier. Best of all, you had to eat it slow, because no kid could get a candy pipe and not spend an hour pretending it was real.

Not to be gross, but the phony smoking only improved the flavor. With the tip between your lips, the pipe grew mushier, and by the time you finally started biting, it was like a radiator-heated slice of cherry pie. So, so good. (If you’ve ever turned a Twizzler into a soda straw, you know how good those Twizzlers were when you eventually ate them. This was sort of the same deal.)

The candy pipes also come in black, but black licorice is an affront to us all.

Two things, one photo. It’s time management, see.

Rock Candy: Spotting rock candy again reminds me of the one local ice cream parlor we had during my youth. I still remember the first time I saw it there. Being totally unfamiliar with the concept of rock candy, I just assumed that the parlor’s owners invented the stuff themselves.

So began my brief but passionate affair with rock candy. I thought it was so freakin’ cool. The most common rock candy is “clear” colored, looking much like mutant quartz. That’s the best kind, but this sparkling blue version is also capable of making the world a brighter place.

As for the flavor, it’s sugar on a stick. Nobody buys rock candy just for the taste, though. You buy it because petrophysics is much more fun when you can eat your specimens.

I’ve wanted to use the word “petrophysics” for like, eight months now.

Wax Lips: As a child, I did not understand wax lips. Actually, I’m not sure if I understand wax lips today, either. I know that the wax is pleasantly flavored and nontoxic, but I’ve never been clear on if we’re really supposed to eat it.

Can someone explain wax lips to me? What I usually do is wear them for a second, chew them for twenty minutes, and then spit the gloppy wax into a secret crevice where nobody will ever find it. Is this the proper stratagem? I’d be crushed to learn that I’ve spent decades incorrectly wax lipping.

There’s still MORE CANDY to come. I would’ve given up sooner, but someone from a foreign land PM’d me to say thanks, because he doesn’t get such cool candy where he lives. So now I feel all humbled and responsible. I must continue candying.

I believe we must continue candy-ing.

Giant Gobstopper: Yeah, disregard the pack of Beemans gum. It’s only there for scale purposes. I do NOT wish to write about Beemans gum. Not now, not ever.

You’ve likely had a giant Gobstopper/Jawbreaker before. They’re the candies nobody finishes. It’s impossible. Either you get full, or you just throw in the towel from plain mouth fatigue.

Then you sit the half-eaten candy on the table beside you, and stare. It no longer rolls, but it isn’t exactly still. It’s almost as if there’s a small creature inside, haplessly attempting to claw its way out. You’ll never know for sure, because nobody finishes a giant Gobstopper.

PS: They charged me three bucks for this stupid thing. I have to say, for candy that was produced during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, their prices were a little insane. But where else can you find giant Gobstoppers and the Body of Christ at the same time?

Big League Chew: People like to pretend that Big League Chew is some rare artifact, but it really isn’t. It’s still sold pretty much everywhere.

We pretend it’s rare so we have an excuse to celebrate every time we see it.

Because let’s face it, we do.

We point and stare and marvel. We tell everyone to gather around, like it’s the score of the century. Then we do the same thing the following week, in a different store, surrounded by different people.

It’s time to drop the charade. It’s okay to be excited about Big League Chew. We don’t have to pretend that it’s some near-mythological treasure to cover ourselves. Everyone loves and appreciates grapey gum, shredded to mimic chewing tabackee.  We don’t need the fake extra reason. Stop it.

ICEE Spray Candy: The store had an unusually high number of ICEE-themed candies, but this was the only true keeper.

Binaca that tastes like a cherry Slurpee is the kind of invention that surely made someone a billionaire. Every blast is an invigorating sting of artificial fruit and sorbium petroliate maximus.

I also imagine that you could use it like mace on featherweight assailants who don’t warrant a stronger defense.

More candy to come.

Let’s start eating candy. First finds:

UFOs: Okay, these have several names, and you probably know them as something else. In fact, I’m not even sure that anyone outside me calls them “UFOs.”

Basically, they’re bland saucers with tiny handfuls of candy sprinkles inside. As a once-practicing Catholic, what always struck most me about UFOs is how similar in taste and texture they are to the Body of Christ.

(You know, those circular bready things people eat in church. I think that’s what they’re called.)

Every time I eat a UFO, I feel closer to God. Sometimes I feel like an enormous space monster devouring alien spacecraft, too.

El Bubble Gum Cigars: Wow, I can’t remember the last time I saw the El Bubble trio. I don’t know why cigar-themed gum was so exciting, but it was. After that last sentence, it’s hard to believe that I write for a living.

I always picked the “Pink Owl” type, even if “Gold Dragon” had the better name and label.

See, Pink Owl was fruit-flavored. I can get down with “fruit” gum. It’s neutral. It works. Gold Dragon, on the other hand, was an all-out banana offense. The only thing worse than banana gum is being attacked by bears with katanas.

Freshen-Up Gum: To me, Freshen-Up will always be known as “Mom gum.” Growing up, it’s the only brand my mother ever chewed, and while she never seemed to have a full pack in her purse, there were always stray pieces, half-wrapped, hiding amid the coins and tobacco. It still feels weird to chew it without the tinge of tinny pennies and broken cigarettes.

Freshen-Up was one of the first brands to make use of the “goo in the middle” gimmick. In this case, the gum’s hollowed out center is filled with a minty slime that is in no way as blue as the package illustrates.

More obscure candy, coming later.

So, as at least one of you guessed, that random hot sauce store was in Peddler’s Village, in Pennsylvania.

I don’t know how to describe Peddler’s Village, exactly. It’s like an outdoor mall, but with enough rustic charm to make you feel like a not-asshole for spending the night there.

But you know, for a while, I did feel like an asshole. After eighteen stores full of homemade soap and Moroccan wind chimes, our “Plan B” of Atlantic City was starting to seem like a better “Plan A.”

Turns out, I just wasn’t looking hard enough. Aside from the weird hot sauce, I found a gourmet candy shop with an enchanted back room, stuffed to the brim with sweets that were ancient, rare or both:

This place was AMAZING. It wasn’t so much the volume of candy, but the brands.

They had all of the hard-to-find stuff most people assume went out of production twenty years ago.

…and maybe it did, because everything I purchased was rock hard and dusty. I didn’t care. When you see a red licorice candy pipe, you buy it, no matter how old it is.

I spent $30 in that stupid store, and I did it for you. I walked around Peddler’s Village with a giant, see-through bag of candy, looking like a complete moron, for you.

Throughout the day, I’ll be posting the highlights of my sickly sweet shopping spree. Stay tuned for various adventures in gum and marshmallows.

This past weekend, I visited a quaint little shop that – at least for storytelling purposes – sold nothing but hot sauce. Lots and lots of hot sauce.

I like hot sauce. Really do. Tabasco is my table salt. But until I stepped foot in this dusty shop, I never truly understood how utterly capable hot sauce is of changing a person’s life.

That’s the stupid way of saying, “I think I’m going to get into collecting hot sauce.”

It has absolutely nothing to do with the eating part, mind you. I already have my trusted brands, and there’s little need to experiment. I smoke; it’s not like I can tell the difference between a ghost vanilla pepper and a Scotch Fuck jalapeno, anyway.

No, my new hot sauce fascination is due to the absolutely wicked bottles they come in. Wicked enough to make me type like Ron Weasley. Who I hate.

See, this weird store’s supply seemed to grossly undervalue any expiration dates normally associated with hot sauce. As I shuffled from shelf to shelf, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d stumbled upon a reserve from 1976.

Incidentally, that’s the year the Seattle Seahawks played their first game. I’m just unclear on which sport.

So, more accurately, “I think I’m going to get into collecting really old hot sauce.” You’re about to find out why.

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I’ve been scarce as fuck lately, I know. Been busy with work, but barring a few script projects over the next few weeks, I’m about to get freed up. This is good, as I really miss taking pictures of nonsense and writing about it.

EPIX’s “Big Bloody Valentine” marathon is on tonight, and that promo we built is all over it. (A few versions of it, actually, plus bumpers.) I almost never get the chance to see my stuff on air, so even after all these years, it’s still so goofily magical.

I’m watching Slumber Party Massacre as we speak:

I only tell you guys about a fraction of the “real work” I do, because most of it is uninteresting, or because the clients involved might not be keen on a behind-the-curtain view. With Big Bloody Valentine, I had to, and not just because we did a nice job on the promo. I’m so thrilled to have some loose tie to this awesome concept of a Valentine’s Day slasher marathon. I’m misty at the thought of even a few dozen horror geeks surviving the “holiday” with this.

I used to love these weirdo all-night marathons. I still do, but they were especially great back when my social life was limited to exchanging pissy faces with the freak in the mirror. There was some detached form of camaraderie to ‘em. The thought that someone out there with similarly odd interests was watching the same stuff at the same ungodly hour just felt so strangely great.

In other news: Yes, the photo above is of my newly renovated office, which looks…surprisingly similar to my old office. Just with a television, and less dust. I’ll give you the full tour when I finish organizing everything, but suffice to say, it’s evolving into an inspiring little box that would double nicely as a psychopathic fifteen-year-old’s bedroom.