Wednesday Night ONT - October 28, 2026 [TRex]

Good evening Horde! The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety. The bar is open and fully stocked. Step up and place your order. JQ has the bar keys, so be nice.

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of random overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and join the fun. Good will offerings of amusing puns are encouraged. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors.

If you're a troll, go away.

This is a Tucker, Candace, Megyn, and Bill Kristol free zone. Please.

[Top photo: Half price pumpkins before Halloween at Home Depot? Sign of the end times for sure.]

ONT Debate Society

I know what you're thinking: "It is almost Halloween and I have opinions on candy. Wouldn't it be great if there was somewhere on the interweb that I could defend the honor of my favorites and rain scorn on those with incorrect opinions on their favorites?" Yeah...anyway, I gathered all the names of all the candy I could think of or find on the interweb and put them into a virtual randomizer. The results are below.

1) Reese's Pieces - after Mars turned down the product placement opportunity for M&Ms, ET made Reece's Pieces famous in the 1982 film. They had only been introduced in 1978. The candy color mix is reportedly a mix of orange (50%), brown (25%), and yellow (25%).

2) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - these consistently rank at or near the top by sales volume and revenue. They are the top candy by ounces sold and the top seller in 40 of 51 states plus Washington, D.C. Pretty good for a candy that was created in 1928. Remember the famous commercial: "You got chocolate in my peanut butter!/ You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"

3) Baby Ruth - Snickers is the top selling candy bar in the US but Baby Ruth is the plucky underdog with a loyal following. The official company claim is that it was named after Ruth Cleveland, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. Others have plausibly claimed it was inspired by Babe Ruth, the baseball player.

Baby Ruth bars are similar to Goo Goo Clusters from Nashville. Baby Ruth comes in bar form and Goo Goo Clusters feature more marshmallow. If you like one, you'll likely enjoy the other.

4) Crunch (the bar formerly known as Nestle Crunch) - a Hershey's chocolate bar is good, but adding crisped rice makes the "crunch." The origin story dates to Nestle's factory in Fulton, New York in 1938 when an employee added Rice Crispies to a batch of chocolate at home. Nestle sold the business line in 2018 (including Crunch, Butterfinger, Nerds, Baby Ruth and others), so that is why it is currently known only as Crunch.

Honorable mention for the Nestle Alpine White Chocolate bar with almonds which (I think) was the first widely sold white chocolate candy bar. The interweb says it was discontinued in 1994.

5) Twizzlers - The National Licorice Company was based in Brooklyn, New York. It was formed in 1902 by the merger of Young & Smylie (itself founded in Brooklyn in 1845) with two other licorice makers. Twizzlers were originally introduced in 1929 as black licorice. Fruit-flavored versions (especially strawberry and cherry) were added in the 1960s and eventually overtook black licorice as the best-sellers. The classic red "Twists" most people picture today are strawberry-flavored and do not contain actual licorice extract. Hershey acquired ownership in 1977 which gave Twizzlers marketing and distribution muscle.

6) M&Ms - milk chocolate M&Ms were introduced in 1941 and still outsell peanut M&Ms which were introduced in 1954. M&Ms does not publish enough specifics to know the breakdown between them. M&M stands for Mars & Murrie. The name comes from the two men who created the candy: Forrest Mars Sr. (son of Mars company founder Frank C. Mars) and Bruce Murrie (son of Hershey Chocolate president William F.R. Murrie). Mars bought out Murrie's share around 1949 (war-time chocolate rationing ended and candy sales and distribution grew). The single printed "m" on each piece was added in 1950.

I asked the interweb for well known local candies in the US. Can anyone confirm these?

Arizona - Cactus Candy - Pink gummies made with prickly pear cactus juice by the long-running Cactus Candy Company.

California - Abba-Zaba - Thick vanilla taffy with peanut butter center (Annabelle Candy Co.)

Florida - Coconut Patties - Chocolate-covered shredded coconut (Anastasia Confections and others)

Idaho - Idaho Spud - Cocoa marshmallow center, chocolate coating, coconut; potato-shaped bar from Idaho Candy Co. (Boise, since 1918 ).

Iowa - Twin Bing - Cherry cream balls coated in peanut-chocolate "hash" (Palmer Candy Co.)

Kansas - Valomilk - Chocolate cups filled with runny marshmallow cream

Kentucky - Blue Monday - Thin chocolate-covered pulled cream (taffy-like) from Ruth Hunt Candies.

Louisiana - Pralines - Classic pecan-and-sugar confections

Mandatory Maiden

I recently heard someone the interweb suggest that "Caught Somewhere in Time" was a good introduction to Iron Maiden for a newbie. I can't find the video, so I can't validate the rationale but I think it was something along the lines that the song echoes a lot of signature Maiden tempo changes and galloping bass line. The subject matter is also less aggressive than other Maiden songs. Yes, it is a little more synth and a little less gritty than earlier work and it is a lengthy piece, but interesting suggestion. If I was asked, I probably would have gone with "Wasted Years."

What would you suggest? Remember - the question is not the best, most well-known or most typical but the best introduction for a beginner.

Niche YouTube Channel of the Week

Tonight's feature is a YouTube channel called bigstackD casting. A recurring theme of this feature is my endless fascination that a relatively niche interest - if done well - can find and sustain an audience. Tonight's channel is a great example. It is a YouTube channel dedicated to showing recovery and casting from scrap metal. That's it.

This is one guy in Australia that dumpster dives and visits the scrap yard for trash to melt. He melts almost anything and casts copper, brass, aluminium, silver, and more. Sometimes the end result is a coin or bar. Other times the end result is sculpture.

The intrigue each week is seeing scrap like a compressor or outboard motor or motorcycle and then seeing how much metal he can recover from it. Some lots are things like padlocks, aluminum cans, and bullet casings. He shows each project but keeps track over time as well.

Zero commentary or graphics. No music. All sounds - including the furnace - are natural. He has 1.56 million subscribers and video views in the hundreds of thousands and millions.

Pittsburgh Scanner

The Pittsburgh police scanner is an internet treasure. Thank you people of Pittsburgh and thank you Pittsburgh scanner!

Old school deep cut AC/DC for the big ONT finish:

Correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com where it will be sorted and processed and filed. Are you lurking ????

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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