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Cadbury "Creme Egg" review!

So Easter '07 has come and gone, and I find myself the lucky owner of 20-odd cadbury Creme eggs that survived the orgy of chocolate consumption that took place over the last few days. Creme eggs have always been my favourite easter-themed snack, and I thought I'd write a post reviewing each of the five flavours that are currently sitting in my hot little hands. Lauren will also be throwing down her two cents for each egg.



The "Original" Cadbury Creme egg:
What could I possibly say about this egg that nobody knows? It has a dairy milk chocolate shell and a gooey 'yellow-and-white' fondant centre. The consistency of the middle is much thicker than that of a real hens egg, and far, far tastier. Very sweet. 9/10
Lauren's take:
The original and the best. Egg-cellent! 9/10

The "Caramello" Creme egg:
This particular egg has been around for a wee while now, and can still be purchased (much like it's 'original' brother) outside the traditional Easter period. The egg tastes identical to the afformentioned egg, but is filled with a thick, soft caramel, which fills most of Cadbury's line of "Caramello" products. This is a very tasty egg, and is a good alternative when you overdose on the Original. 8.5/10
Lauren's take:
Sweet, sticky, nothing exciting. 7/10


The "Peppermint" Creme egg:
This is a new one for me. I must say I was a bit nonplussed when I gathered these babies at the annual Jones family easter egg hunt. I've always looked upon peppermint fondant as being the "Volvo" of candy filling; They make nice cars, but everyone knows you're going to pick the sexier, more-expensive BMW when it comes to the crunch.... How pleasantly surprised I was when I discovered that those geniuses at Cadbury had infused this delightful egg with an new and exciting twist! A dark chocolate shell..... The result is a delicious combination of flavours, reminiscent of those thin, after dinner mint chocolates that are always so popular at family gatherings. 8.5/10
Lauren's take:
The dark (chocolate) horse! 8/10

The "Double Chocolate" Creme egg:
I've tried this one before, and have to say that it tastes exactly like the name says. A chocolate shell with chocolate fondant, although the fondant in this one is a thicker, richer fondant than the previous eggs, and for this alone I'm going to bump it's score from a "competent" 6.5 out of ten to a "pretty good" 7.0. It's better that a solid chocolate egg, but not that much better. 7.0/10
Lauren's take:
Easter bunny only supplied one egg. Rating unavailable.

The "Dream" Egg:
Oh dear lord in heaven. This was the rotten egg that inspired me to write this series of micro-reviews. I felt it was my duty to warn as many people as I could about the atrocity which Cadbury has committed by making this. Cadbury have used their "Dream" chocolate for the shell of this egg. Dream is Cadbury's ill-conceived reply to Nestle's wildly popular "Milky Bar" white chocolate. Unlike "Milky Bar", Cadbury's Dream is total shite that tastes like lard. To soften this assault on our tastebuds, some genius at Cadbury thought it would be a good idea to throw in a strawberry Fondant filling, much like (if not identical to) the filling in Cadbury "Strawberry Freddo" chocolate frogs. The result is a cacophonous taste explosion, the likes of which haven't been experienced since the last time I tasted something really, really bad. 2/10
Lauren's take:
Simply delicious Elaine! Filled with that articifical strawberry goop that we all know and love. Smoother than Victor on the inside... Browner on the outside. 8.5/10

Life back in New Zealand...

Hi Peeps (and Peepettes),

I think and adequate amount of time has passed for me to be able to deliver an adequate summation of life in NZ so far. I've been at Auckland uni for five weeks so far, and so am in the midst of hard study. Lauren and I have finally moved into a beautiful little studio apartment which lies a mere stones throw (literally - 50 metres) from my Law lecture theatre, and I have new Gainful employment as a part-time underwriter for IAG New Zealand.


So, without further ado, here's the good and bad...

THE GOOD:

• Being back at uni rocks -seriously, being a full-time student is one of the cushiest things one can do without feeling too guilty
• This country is gorgeous. Even the crappy beach next to my parents house is stunning at dawn and dusk. The city is so green and feels so fresh that it just makes you want to get up at sparrowfart and go for a jog! (But I'd rather lie in bed)
• The food and the shopping. Not as bad as I was expecting it to be. We have a 'Foodtown' down the street from our new apartment that really puts the SUPER in Supermarket. Makes Piedemontes look like an old roadside street-merchant cart selling bags of fried dogshit. Apart from the lack of JB-Hifi and Ikea (Which will both be coming here soon!) New Zealand seems quite a reasonable place to live. Stuff is cheap,and the wages are fairly good in comparison

THE BAD:

• Mobile phone services. Bloody Vodafone and Telecom! Why the hell do I have to pay 89c a minute for mobile to mobile calls? Why is there no such thing as a cap plan? Why do I have to pay $30 for 200 off peak minutes. Honestly, what a piece of ass.
  
• The price of the Internet. GOD. It would be cheaper to string a phone extension cable from Melbourne than it would be to pay for net usage here. you see a trend? Right now I'm using Woosh wireless internet, which is pretty cheap, but as slow as a pig in super glue.
  
• Public Transport. I do not think it is acceptable to wait 45 minutes for a bus at midday! And all the bus services operate radially (ie. straight in and out from the suburbs to the city) so it's really hard to get from suburb to the city without a lengthy stopover in Auckland central.
• The Uni brats. Oh the short shorts, the tight little tops, the huge ambitions... I'm definitely out of step with the youth of today.... I mean I like the short shorts, but they can take their high school cliques and gossip..
• The humidity. Oh the humidity! It feels like I am in a sauna ALL the time! A short walk up a hill becomes a task of gargantuan proportions

THE LAME:

• Missing all my mates from Melbourne!

COMPSCI 111 REPRAZENT!!

Hey.

It's been a while since I've thrown down on this Blog, but as it turns out it's now part of an assignment for my computer Science 111 course! (Effectively giving me marks for something I've already done!) Awesome.

P.S: For all you people who have been checking my blog since I've left Melbourne, I'm working on a nice new post to round-up everything that's been happening at Uni and in Auckland since I've arrived. Just hold tight!

New Screen!

Wow. 32 inches of widescreen goodness. More info to come soon.

Scary Kookaaburra adventure

Hey,
So Sam's wedding went off without a hitch , and was very enjoyable indeed! (Pics to come. maybe) What was not so enjoyable were the fearsome Kookaburra's that inhabited the forest immediately outside the "Sherbrooke retreat" that Lauren and I stayed at! They may look like Fuzzy-wuzzy baby birds, but they're 100% meat-eating, killing machines.


I came out of the lodge in the morning to leave some bird seed out for the normal birds to eat, and a squadron of these bush harpies came out to molest me! We ended up overstaying by 40 minutes because we couldn't stop feeding them...


Kookaburra's - 1, Victor - 0.

If a picture can say 1000 words....

Then here is a 4000-word story about what I did today in the 40 degree heat:

1pm.

2pm.

3pm.

4pm.

I'm actually quite proud of my handiwork. Normally I would have stopped cleaning after an hour and retreated into the cool comfort of my room!

Nathan's new missus.

Salmon: bacon of the sea?

So the other day Lauren and I were invited round to her friend Hannah's place to have a quiet Sunday brunch with her boyfriend, Neil. The Morning started uneventfully enough with a quiet stroll down my street in North Fitzroy.


Fortunately, Hannah is a mere stones throw from my house, and it was only a 5 minute walk before we were sitting in her lounge and playing with her cat while She and Neil prepared a delicious breakfast... Just enough exercise to get the appetite up.


Distracted as I was by the fun with the cat, I failed to notice what new treat Hannah had in store for me. I eat a fair amount of food, and have a varied diet to boot. But for some reason I'd never had Salmon for breakfast.... Oh what an epiphany! To make things easier I have decided to extol the virtues of salmon as a breakfast ingredient in point form:

1. It's cool. Non-hippie types will really appreciate the fact that you eat raw meat that's been harvested fresh from the sea.
2. It's good for you. Apparently it is low in Saturated fat, while being high in Protein and Omega-3. I'm not too sure what omega-3 does.... presumably as much as omega-2 and Omega-1 combined.
3. It won't leave bacon fat splattered on your pans, walls, mouth or bib.
4. It won't leave the aforementioned fat clogging your arteries like a bunch of nerds trying to squeeze into EBgames on the night of a console launch.
5. It tastes pretty damn good with scrambled eggs.

After the delicious salmon meal we drank tea played with Hannah's cat 'veronica' for a bit:

Then we had a leisurely walk back to my place, content in the knowledge that we hadn't abused our bodies with the usual cocktail of meat pies, bacon, fried potato, sauce, cider and fudge that has become all too common for Lauren and I to eat on a lazy Sunday morning.

My salmon experience had such a profound effect on me that I decided to throw it down, 'net stylez' for everyone else to read about. Next time I'm at the supermarket ordering my usual 500g of bacon, I'll be sure to consider adding it's aquatic cousin to my basket instead.

My "Gears" Part I

I'm at home from work today, and I thought I'd start up a new entry . Since I have a dearth of interesting subjects on which to write I thought I'd talk about the gadgets that I can't live without, and the poor gadget-related choices I've made on the way here (Which have, incidentally, left me with a stack of credit card debt). I always seem to gravitate back to certain types of gadgets after all the flashy hype has died down, and I've sold my new toys on Ebay.


My Nokia 6230i
What makes it so good?


This is my fifth phone in two years, and by far the best. (Nokia 6610 > NEC 313 > Sony Z800i > Nokia 7610 > Nokia 6230i) There is nothing particularly amazing about this phone, but the fact that it can make calls and send messages with a minimum of fuss is an advantage. The operating system moves at light-speed. The bright (But tiny) screen is a joy to behold.Before I purchased this beauty I was struggling with one of those symbian 'smart-phones' from Nokia, which could run cool games, and applications, but always felt as slow as a pig in mud for more pedestrian tasks like navigating the contacts folder, or opening a new text message.


I've always had a theory that products targeted towards the business market are by far the best choice for any tech-savvy consumer;Although these products do not offer the best features, nor the lowest price, they very rarely fall short when it comes to reliability or performance. Style wise, business-orientated products don't really stand out from the crowd, but they aren't designed to! (This can be a bonus when your friends lime-green laptop starts looking awfully 20th century)
My phone also has the stock-standard business features, that many consumer phones (Even in 2006!) lack. Bluetooth, a camera, MP3 player. Basically stuff that I hardly ever use, but am glad to have when I need it.




My Original Ipod Shuffle 1G
What makes it so good?


This is my fourth Ipod in two years (3rd Gen Ipod > Ipod Shuffle 512mb > Ipod with Video > Ipod Shuffle 1gig) And was actually given to me for free by a workmate who purchased an aluminium-encased Ipod Nano. This is my second Ipod Shuffle, and I find myself falling in love with the small form factor, screen-less control and apparent disposability of the unit all over again. I can carry ten albums around in my hip pocket, on an Mp3 player that weighs nothing, can be controlled through the material of my jeans, and costs dollars to replace if the unthinkable happens! Neat design features include:

• The color changing LED that represents the remaining battery charge.
• The USB plug built in to the unit.
• The 12-hour battery life.
• The ability to use as a plug and play USB drive.
• The ridiculously low price that you can pick these up for.

If you're one of those people that thinks they don't need a portable audio player, just go and get one of these to try it out, the worst case scenario would involve you reselling it on Ebay. (Actually, the worst case scenario would involve you being approached by a mugger, having been noticed because of your shiny white headphones during a nigh time jog, only to receive the bashing of your life when the aforementioned mugger realises you're only toting around a AU $90 Mp3 player.)