Late Night - Broken New Year's Resolutions (1999)

 

Apropos of nothing, Conan and Andy (and Max) regret their broken New Year's resolutions from 1999.

A Better Now and Then Video

 

Much, MUCH better.

That AI program is very impressive. The "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" tracks had the exact same problem with Lennon's voice quality, I wonder if they'll revisit those. Doesn't sound like it but seems like they should.

Swiss Chocolate Tier List

 A while back when I was reviewing chocolate, I heard someone say that the Swiss make the best chocolate in the world. So I undertook to review it. I was immediately helped by finding a post by u/Effective_Caregiver on Reddit who had made his own Swiss chocolate tier list.

A word of warning: this post isn't going to be great. But it did cost me a large amount of money and took several months to complete - most of these had to be shipped from Switzerland and that takes some time. Plus, chocolate is the closest thing I have to Halloween content, so let's enter the mediocrity...

Keep in mind that I'm doing my own reviews but I'm following the Tiers given to me from Reddit.

S Tier - Läderach

Getting Läderach chocolate required ordering on a Swiss website and cost all of $45 for one box. It turns out the high price is for good reason. The chocolate came packed with dry ice that was still frozen by the time it made it to my doorstep. It is/was the summer and you can't have that chocolate melt in delivery so you deliver it with its own refrigeration. That's impressive.

Not only was it refrigerated, it came in a reusable shopping bag that I've been using ever since. And further, it came with some extra "free" chocolate thrown in. They did it up real classy.

As for the chocolate itself, it was a chocolate assortment like you would get on Valentine's Day. I very quickly determined nothing. You get your chocolate with nuts, you get your chocolate filled with weird stuff, you get the really good ones. It was very good and I was not complaining but it wasn't amazing. You can see in the picture above, some pieces were dusted with baker's chocolate on the outside. I like that.

I would like to try some more, if I can get the funds, but overall, like I said, not much to say in either direction, just "normal chocolate." So you can see how this is going to go...

A Tier - Camille Bloch

Camille Bloch - "Torino"

The particular Camille Bloch I got was Torino - "fine swiss milk chocolate with truffle filling." As you can see in the picture, the top is arced and the middle has a different flavor and texture. 

The milk chocolate is very milky - you might say it's very buttery - and the filling is an interesting contrast (different flavor/texture). But the filling has the taste of hazelnut, which is a detraction. I'm very much a purist, I want my chocolate to be of the purest form, no nuts. Others will of course disagree.

In short, not bad but not my thing.

B Tier - Cailler

Cailler is the first one on the list that didn't require shipment from Switzerland, I think... At least I'm sure it's the first one I was able to buy on Amazon. And so I was able to snag 3 varieties.

Cailler Milk - "Chocolat au lait des Alpes Suisses"

The bucket of milk on the wrapper tells the story. This is very milky milk chocolate. In fact, I don't mean to offend anyone but I am going to say something shocking. This chocolate tastes very good but it isn't far off from Hershey's.

Cailler - "Lait Frigor"

I don't know the translation but this is the same general idea as the previous one but it's more chocolatey and less milky.  As of this point in the list, this is my favorite. My favorite, but there's not much to say, it's that pure chocolate feeling with nothing to complain about. It also has something in the middle that's slightly different but I believe it's just a different type of chocolate. Like, they contrast chocolate with chocolate. Thumbs up.

Cailler Cremant - "Chocolat Noir"

I know enough about language to know they're indicating dark chocolate and I would know anyway by tasting it. Being a chocolate purist, this should be my favorite but it just falls flat. The chocolate bitterness is there but it lacks the smoothness of the other two. Of the three, the Lait Frigor is the sweet spot where everything is just right.

B Tier - Ovomaltine

Not a typo. "Ovomaltine." Does Ovomaltine have anything to do with Ovaltine? Why yes, Ovomaltine was invented by a Swiss chemist, was exported as Ovaltine to Britain and subsequently also exported to the U.S. as Ovaltine.

This is straight milk chocolate but with a "gritty" filling. One could either say "gritty" or "crunchy." I'll tell you what this is like, and I'm going to upset some people again, but this is not far off from a Nestle's Crunch Bar but maybe a step fancier and probably not made with rice. And it's one of my favorites.

B Tier - Frey

Frey - "Giandor"

Frey Giandor is similar to some of the other ones - normal squares of chocolate but a little something different in the center. The center flavor is almond but that means that it tastes like artificial cherry to me. Not bad at all, I quite like an artificial cherry flavor but it can't be great because, once again, I'm a purist who prefers unadulterated chocolate.

Frey - "Giandor Noir"

If you're as handy with the language as I am, you'll predict that these are the same as above but just with dark chocolate. They are. Not only does the dark chocolate taste better, it mutes the almond even more. These are superior to the previous.

Frey - "Truffles Noir"

Chocolate balls around a liquid center. What is the liquid? I couldn't really tell but guessed alcohol and I was right. What type of alcohol? I have no clue. These are excellent, the chocolate is dark (obviously) and smooth and melt in your mouth.

These may be the top item on this list but I'd need to revisit some of them to be sure. It's hard to rate things consistently over many months. But definitely recommended.

The Rest of the Tier List

I cut it off at B Tier. For the sake of completeness, C Tier is Lindt and Toblerone. Lindt is the most widely available Swiss chocolate in America, and I do enjoy it but haven't had it lately. Toblerone, I have also tried and isn't for me. I see no reason to go to D Tier and below who knows what the future holds?

Conclusion

For better accuracy, it would have been great to try more variety of chocolate and more times. My ratings compared to the Reddit user's are somewhat random.

I do not conclude that Swiss chocolate is the best in the world, but neither do I claim to know. My favorite is still a particular type of French chocolate. And I definitely have nothing against Swiss chocolate, they were all very good.

One thing that this has made clear to me is: I love truffles. If I could do it all again, I would get every type of truffle and compare those apple-to-apple. If there's ever a reason to rate chocolates again, that's what I'll do.

Um, Happy Halloween?

Film Flam - Spider in the Attic

Another classic from Jagged Edge Productions.

Popcorn in Bed - The 'Burbs

 What an amazing scary-but-not-too-scary October. First "Clue,"then "Arachnophobia" and now "The 'Burbs." 3 of my favorite underrated classic movies.

I can't imagine any October will top this. So many great lines cut out though...

New Beatles Single to be Released November 2

 Travel back with me to the mid-nineties. The (remaining) Beatles announced that they would release 3 double albums of outtakes and demos/unreleased songs. In addition to that, each double album would contain one "new Beatles" song - using vocals from John Lennon's private collection of unreleased songs, the other 3 Beatles would go into the studio together and make them into proper tracks.

The first Anthology had the new song "Free as a Bird." The second Anthology had "Real Love." And then the third Anthology didn't have a song.

Word on the street, back then, was that George Harrison was unhappy with the quality of the entire project and nixed it so as to stop the bleeding.

But now 27 years after the release of Anthology 3 (which was 26 years after their last album) the third song "Now and Then" will be released November 2.

Nothing to do with the fact that George has died, the clarified (or revised) history is that George wasn't unhappy with the quality of the songs but with the quality of the production. That is, the band was using old, low-quality tapes from Lennon and there was no technology to separate the original recording into tracks or get rid of hissing or noise. Now that AI is available that can clean these things up, the track can be properly engineered and released.