Sorry about this, but I don’t have a post today. I started one, but was too tired to finish it, since I got back from a roadtrip rather late. Check back on Friday

A good friend of mine writes a blog called “For the Love of Candy” which focuses on reviewing different types of candy. From classic, everyday favourites, to local delicacies, she has an impressive talent for taste-testing sweet treats. Her site is currently on hiatus for a short while, but she’ll be back. In the meantime, I wrote a review of my own, inspired by her site, that I felt like sharing.

Starbucks Vanilla Truffles are probably the most difficult to locate candies I’ve ever encountered. I bought a box from Wal-Mart in December that had expired in August, which wasn’t a good first impression. I kept looking for them wherever I went, though, and was surprised to find that no one else carried them. I couldn’t even find them in any Starbucks stores, so I figured they were discontinued. But, I stumbled across them at Wal-Mart on a recent shopping trip, and they were from a fresh shipment!

The overall composition is fairly simple: Dark chocolate for the outer shell, with a natural vanilla truffle filling. Being a fan of dark chocolate and vanilla, I couldn’t resist.

The packaging is kinda over-the-top, as with most things Starbucks does. They come in a highly figured folded box that stays closed the same way a McDonald’s french fry sleeve holds its shape, I’m not really sure how to describe it better. There are about a dozen truffles inside, individually wrapped in gold foil with a twisted top, and the make beautiful additions to a decorative candy bowl.

The dark chocolate shell is pretty underwhelming. It looks generic, like something you’d find in a Russel-Stover assortment, and doesn’t have a very strong flavour. It’s about on-par with Hershey’s Special Dark. The vanilla filling is a bit more noteworthy. It’s not tooth-achingly sweet, with a texture similar Oreo filling, and it has a spectacular vanilla flavour that really stands out. There’s no chemical overtones, just pure vanilla goodness. It even has vanilla beans inside.

As with most candies of this type, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. When the shell and filling are combined, it creates an amazing flavour that I’ve never come close to tasting before. The chocolate and vanilla compliment each other almost perfectly, and the texture is smoother than the silkiest fine chocolates I’ve ever had. It’s truly an experience to be savoured.

Since these are so surprisingly rich, it’s difficult to eat more than one at a time (at least, for me it is). But, one is all you’ll need. It’s like a fine gourmet meal; if you eat it all the time, it’ll become mainstream, but if you eat it only once in awhile, it’ll be quite memorable.

I highly recommend these to anyone who appreciates fine chocolates (not that cheap Hershey’s stuff), you will not be disappointed. Good luck finding them, though; I searched for them at Starbucks locations in six states (plus a couple in DC) and couldn’t find any, but your local Wal-Mart apparently has a chance of carrying them.

A quick reminder, I’m currently en route to Pittsburgh for the weekend. I don’t use any IM systems much while I’m travelling, but you can reach me via email, as well as by phone. I’ll be back toward the middle of next week.

This is mostly for those who aren’t local; a couple pictures of the snowstorm we had recently, which I forgot to post earlier.

Also, I’ll be out of town this weekend and part of next week. I’ll try to queue up some posts so I don’t skip any, but don’t kill me if I miss a day

Just an FYI, I’ll be out of town from Thursday through Monday, but I’ll be responding to emails and phone calls.

So, remember how I bought a bike the other day? I haven’t even been able to take it for a test ride yet.

On Friday night, when I actually bought the thing, I neglected to buy an air pump for the tires. So, after spending all that time fiddling with the shifter adjustments, I couldn’t even take it for a real ride to see if I got it right. No big deal, though, I figured I’d just get one the next day.

So, on Saturday night, I went to Wal-Mart and bought what I thought was the best pump they had. I brought it home, and immediately had a very difficult time getting the nozzle seated properly on the valve. It took about ten minutes to even get it on there in a way that allowed air to go into the tire. So, I started pumping up the front tire, and it seemed to take a very long time. Oh well, it must just be a smaller-capacity pump than I thought. I inflated the tire to about 60psi (max on these tires is 70, and I’m heavy), and when I gave it the last pump, the innertube exploded. Quite loudly. I have a hard time believing that it could do that at a relatively low pressure like that, and my pump was a royal pain anyway, so I decided to take it back and get another one.

I returned to Wal-Mart to exchange my pump, and brought the valve stem from the dead innertube with me to make sure that my next one would be a proper fit. While in the bicycle section, I noticed that they have a much bigger selection of innertubes than I thought, so I figured I’d go ahead and get one. I didn’t know the exact size, because I hadn’t planned on getting one at Wal-Mart, but they seemed to be pretty universal, so I grabbed a 26×1.75-2.15″ (biggest they had, since they’re big tires) as well as a nice mini-pump that included a frame mount.

Upon returning home, I started to replace the tube on my front wheel, only to find that the old one was 26×2.3″. Now, I don’t know a whole lot about bikes, or innertubes, but I really didn’t want to find out the hard way that .15″ makes a difference. So, I didn’t even bother unboxing it. I turned my attention to my rear wheel, and noticed that the valve stem had gone sideways somehow. Despite my best efforts to re-align it, it wouldn’t budge, so I took the tire off of the wheel, rotated the tube, and re-seated the tire. Yay. I started inflating it, everything was going peachy, except that, as the tire became more firm, the gauge on the pump continued to read 0. Great. I inflated the tire to a point where it didn’t collapse when I sat on it (no clue what that point is), and decided not to bother returning the pump. I want to get a real compressor here at the house at some point anyway, and if it acts properly inflated, what do I care about the number?

So, I went to Wal-Mart for the third time that night, returned the innertube, and called it a night. I want to hit a bike shop soon anyway, I’ll just get it then.

I was going to do it today, I even got up bright and early for a change, only to find that over the few hours of sleep I got, the rear tire had completely deflated. Apparently, I punctured the tube in the process of trying to fix it. And now I have to deal with the god-awful process of removing and re-installing the rear wheel in addition to replacing two innertubes. That kinda killed my motivation to actually do anything with it, so I went back to bed and slept through the day. Screw it.

Oh, and the pump I got, with its handy-dandy frame mount? It requires built-in water bottle holder mounts, it’s not the clamp-on style, and my bike doesn’t have those mounts (yay for weird frames). So I can’t even mount the thing.

I know it’s been way too cold to ride anywhere lately, but I wanted to at least take the thing around the block a couple times, ya know? I didn’t buy it to decorate my living room, and since I haven’t actually ridden a bicycle in over nine years, I wanted to get a feel for it again before it gets warm and I get the urge to go on a long ride.

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This is officially the coldest it’s been here in well over a year. Possibly in over two years, I’m not sure.

On the plus side, at least I now have confirmation that the wireless thermometer sensor on that clock works in extreme cold. Got it at Wal-Mart for $20; it’s an atomic clock with indoor and outdoor temperatures (with support for up to three sensors that you can cycle through), alarm clock with two different times, easy timezone cycling (instead of using a tiny switch on the back like some of them), and it displays 24-hour time format as well as the standard 12-hour format (the biggest selling point for me).

Oh, and mine only says it’s 75 degrees because it’s four inches from a passive vent on my computer. I’m leaving it on the coffee table overnight to find out exactly how far off it is in the location where it typically sits on my desk, but considering how frigid my toes are, I’d guess it’s off by about ten degrees. Not a fault of the clock, just a fault of my desk arrangement

UPDATE: After 20 minutes of it living on my coffee table, at knee-height in the middle of the room, it now reads 67 degrees in my office. No wonder my toes are freezing.

Posting from lilkitt’s house, heading to the hotel tomorrow. More people should visit him, he and Ellen are very awesome hosts :-). I’m feeling kinda random, so this post is a bit disjointed.

I’m watching Voyager right now, and it’s a pretty decent episode, but it feels very surreal to watch Star Trek in a house (and a room) filled with more Star Trek autographs than I thought one person/couple could acquire in a lifetime. Earlier, Kitt showed me their collection, and told me tales of his experiences at Star Trek cons, which was really awesome. Now, I’m working, and Voyager’s on TV. I look across the room, and there’s an autographed picture of Captain Janeway on the wall. Trippy, yet cool.

Speaking of TV, there’s a banner on this channel (Spike) that scrolls across the bottom of the screen, with a dire warning to Time Warner and Brighthouse customers that they’re about to lose this channel (with 18 others), and to call some number. Two things are weird about this. Number one, why is this message being played on Verizon FIOS? And number two, what psychotic cable network would drop channels like Spike, VH1, MTV, and Comedy Central? Oh, and why must this stupid banner play constantly during the show, but not during the commercials?

On a completely unrelated note, I’m really having fun with SL lately, and looking at it with a new perspective. Before, though I wouldn’t admit it at the time, it was pretty much a substitute for real life. After the things that have changed in my life since then, SL still appeals to me, but not in the same way. It’s no longer an escape in the same sense, for me. Instead, I’m using it as true game; something recreational for my spare time, as well as an artistic medium. I’ve been working on a new building that I’m really having fun with, and I look forward to unveiling it, and posting pictures of it to my website. I’ve always enjoyed 3D modelling, but I’ve never done a whole lot with it, because it’s hard to really show off 3D creations to others. But, SL provides a venue for others to really explore my work, instead of just looking at 2D pictures of it.

Anyway, I should sleep now, or something. Kitt’s heater makes really freaky noises, though

Now that Christmas is over, I’m down in Blacksburg, VA, attending a the wedding of an old friend. Everyone send her congratulations!

Just a quick post, I wanted to wish everyone who celebrates it a merry Christmas!