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.  

Tom Selleck at Bat (1991)

 

Presented without comment.

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop Commentary Track

 

"Conan O'Brien Can't Stop" with commentary from Conan, Andy, Sona Movsesian, the Director of the movie, Mike Sweeney.

This upload has been up for 2 years so I'm assuming it's legal.

To read my full review of the movie see here.

Happy Feast of St. Crispin!

 

You know, St. Crispin's Day is also referred to as The Feast of St. Crispin. I've never considered the feast aspect. Probably won't do it. My heart isn't in it.

A Youtube Channel of WOTW Movies

 There is a youtube channel devoted to full videos featured on the Wheel of the Worst.

Link.

Matthew McConaughey as Larry on Unsolved Mysteries

 [Youtube doesn't allow embedding, Link]

As an actor, how do I communicate that the weather is hot?

Late Night - Making Pizza with Martin Scorcese's Mom

 

Martin Scorsese, David Letterman and Bill Murray... you know, this is a show.

What other show has Martin Scorcese's mom baking a pizza? I ask you.

I really like Scorsese on a personal level. He's enthusiastic, he's passionate about films, he has funny anecdotes, he seems like a great guy... I don't like his movies though. There's nothing I can do about that. He's considered one of the greatest directors of all-time and his movies do absolutely nothing for me.

"Did you ever see Nick Nolte sneakin' around like a monkey?"

"...I've been banned from the hobo potluck for goin' on a decade now for fixin' the bum fights. I don't know how they could prove I took a dive - the chimp referee I tried to pay off in Camel Cash must have squealed." - The Naked Clone, A Nick Nolte Mystery

The Stuttering John Roundtable Discussion

 

I still mourn the loss of Tim Russert, I still miss tuning into "The McLaughlin Group" on Sundays, there is a persistent sense of loss when it comes to hard-hitting, serious discussion shows.

But now there is a weekly point/counterpoint show dedicated specifically to discussing "Stuttering" John to fill that void. The first episode was a waste of time, the second episode I think I didn't watch but I'm not sure, but now we're up to the third episode and this is something. This episode has #drama.

2 hours for a possibly niche topic is a big ask. Let's say I'm mostly posting this just in case and to celebrate that it exists. I love the concept.

Late Show - Mike McIntee's Favorite Moments

 

It's wild that we get an explanation as to what happened during the "Mistaken Ribs" debacle. I never imagined we would get that.

I really like Mike, he seems like a great guy.

And now a personal note and a question.

When the Late Show was still on the air they had a section of their website known as The Wahoo Gazette. The Wahoo Gazette was kind of a blog (or maybe a newsletter?) which was basically a synopsis of every episode of the Late Show with some behind the scenes stuff plus anything else the writer wanted to talk about. As it happens, the writer of The Wahoo Gazette was Mike McIntee and I communicated with him (through email) a few times. Once or twice, I was even mentioned in the feature, which was nice.

So that begs the question: is communicating with Mike McIntee a more tenuous brush with fame than my Bloodhound Gang Connection? You make the call.

The Charismatic Voice - On My Own

 

Is this my favorite Les Miserables song? I don't know, stop bothering me. I'm not crying, you're crying!

40 Minutes of Oddly Satisfying

 

The title of the video is specifically "Satisfying Videos Of Workers Doing Their Job Perfectly."

The Dumbest Plot in Baywatch Nights

 

I know what you're thinking: "'Baywatch Nights' is a famously bad show and the second season dealt with mummies, time travel, ghosts werewolves.. how do you determine a dumbest plot?" Well, regardless of what anyone may think of Sci-Fi/Horror tropes, they have their own internal logic, what I'm going to talk about now is a Baywatchian plot that defies all logic.

The dumbest "plot," is actually a B-Story and is found in Season 1, Episode 22 "Heat Rays." The first time we see her, Donna Marco (Donna D'Errico) is driving over a bridge at night in her sports car and comes across ruffians, seemingly in distress. Being a Good S'Maritan, she stops to help.

"I need to use your carphone before they go out of style!"

They say a woman's boyfriend has just jumped off the bride and is in the water. They need to use the carphone to call the emergency services. Donna, being a former lifeguard (or becoming a lifeguard in the future, I forget) jumps in the water to help.

Once she's in the water, they inform her that there was no boyfriend and they steal her car. It's a confusing plan, to say the least. They make it clear that they didn't expect her to jump in the water herself and yet that's the only way it works. If the plan was to simply get her out of her car and take the keys, they could have done that moments earlier. Instead there was all this fake tv drama where they were faking a phone call while trying to "show" her where the drowning boyfriend was. And after that, they'd still have to physically overpower her and she could have a gun. If that was the plan, they simply need her out of her car and then the pretense stops. 

On the other hand, if her jumping into the water was the plan (and they seem to make it clear that it was not) then she could have jumped off with her keys on her and they'd come away with nothing.

Donna is left in the water kicking herself for being a good person.

Here's where it gets worse. She says, "Oh that tide is strong!" and we as the viewer can tell that the strong tide is a Hollywood soundstage. Then she adds, "What do they say, go with the flow?" and starts floating with the "flow" of water (pretty still in that Hollywood soundstage). After about two seconds of "floating" (standing in the soundstage tank), a luxury cruise ship is going to hit her(?) and she has to swim out of the way(?!)

Look both ways: those Carnival Cruise Ships jump out of thin air.

She presumably must swim out of the way of the oncoming cruise ship - the visual storytelling is not very good - and the cruise ship is presumably about to crash into the bridge because that's where she was... spatially nothing about this makes sense. Nothing makes sense but it's all, I think, obfuscation for what's about to happen. And this is the worst part. 

Here is Donna the next time we see her:

It's now daytime and she's still swimming in the water/soundstage. Not content to merely be swimming, she's actually in the middle of the ocean and her best bet is to try to flag down a boat.

I don't know if you know much about how bridges work or if you remember that there was a bridge (it feels like an eternity ago) but they generally have a piece of land they connect to on each side. In other words, bridges are usually fairly close to land. I mean, when you think about it, it's fairly rare that a Nation or business tycoon will choose to build a bridge in the middle of an ocean.

Let's recap, because I know this is a lot to take in. Donna jumped off a bridge at night, floated for 2 seconds, swam for two seconds and it's now daytime and she's in the middle of the ocean with little hope of rescue. This is the nail-biting drama we are presented with.

Kudos to her for being able to tread water for 8 hours but does any of that make sense? If you jump off a bridge, you just swim to shore. If you float for a few seconds and then are attacked by a Disney Cruise gone rogue, you still just swim to shore. If we map out the whiteboard of possibilities and decisions, all possibilities point back to one of the two ends of the bridge or maybe the pile (one of the legs). And if she swam to one of the piles, she could rest a bit, maybe take a nap and then swim to land at her leisure.

At this point in the episode even I'm saying "this is insanely stupid" and bear in mind that I'm a person choosing to use my life to watch "Baywatch Nights."

The next time we see Donna, she's still treading water and not struggling at all but she is worried about sharks. I think it's the treading water that's the danger. What's the world's record for treading water? According to Brave Search, the World Record for treading water while balancing a football on their head is 18 minutes and 2 seconds. Have you noticed that search engines are becoming less helpful?

Fortunately a fishing boat spots her and brings her in. Or is it a fishing boat?

"Wow, Donna D'Errico is hot!"

Yes, she's saved but hold on... The more she learns about the guys she's with, the more suspicious their story sounds. It just so happens they're actually drug smugglers on their way to a deal. The deal goes bad and a large black man with sunglasses mows them down with an uzi. Donna dives back into the water - first to dodge the bullets and secondly to rescue the shooting victims. It seems a big ask - to rescue people in the water after treading water for several hours but she does it all easily and then  radios for help.

The next time we see her, she's coming out of a taxi. She's safe and sound. She needs someone to pay the taxi fare because she "lost her wallet." One of the other characters is taken aback but obliges. Making conversation, he asks, "So, how was your day?" She flashes back to the carjacking, the jumping off the bridge, the imaginary sharks, the druglord battles and then replies, "Interesting."

Get it? Because she survived multiple felonies and almost died from not knowing how bridges work! It's the classic action movie one-liner. Oh, we do have fun, don't we?

And that's the dumbest "Baywatch Nights" plot. 

Quick Side Note: I started writing this article in January. How has my year gone? Not at all interesting.

Popcorn in Bed - Arachnophobia

 

Scary-but-not-too scary October continues with "Arachnophobia" from 1990.

A personal note.

I don't like horror movies, I don't understand horror movies; I'm not scared by them and, when I've tried to get into them on a "camp" or comedy level, haven't found them to be fun. I just cannot be scared by a movie it seems, though with the following exceptions: creepy documentaries and obviously movies I saw when I was a kid.

In the latter category is "Arachnophobia" which I saw in the theater when it came out. It was intense and it's probably the scariest movie (to me) that I've ever seen. I don't recall the experience of watching it so much as the experience for days afterward where I would constantly be afraid there was a spider on me. Sudden itches or various fabrics meant a sudden feeling of a phantom spider under my shirt on in a sock, etc. Trying to sleep at night, sitting in the dark, wrapped in covers was a nightmare.

As Cassie mentions, she also watches The Thing, you can see that reaction here.

A Little More Tom Myers!

 

What I like about Tom Myers' comedy is: it makes you laugh but you get the news at the same time. It's entertaining AND informative.

Late Show - Dave Rakes Leaves

 

It's a classic... it's a semi-classic.

The Last Waltz to be Re-Released in Theaters

Martin Scorcese's "The Last Waltz" will be re-released to theaters in November for its 45th anniversary.

Article.

Conan's Version of Rocktober

 I know I've posted this before but I recently went on youtube and searched for these videos and found they're completely buried by the algorithm. In fact, they're so buried, even when I do an exact search from knowing the titles, there are hundreds of results that come first.

So I'm getting the word out here. A look back at the time Conan celebrated his own version of Rocktober for Late Night.

Happy Spocktober, Kelly LeBrocktober or Jaques Chiractober to all who celebrate!

WATP - Tom Myers, The World's Worst Comedian

 

And not only is Tom Myers the World's Worst Comedian, this video purports to relay the worst joke ever. It's a bold claim, Cotton.

Popcorn in Bed - Clue

 

It's Scary-But-Not-Too-Scary October and ironically, I've never seen "Clue" taken as such a horror/suspense before. I mean, I'm scared of it but I generally assume that's because I remember seeing it as a kid. And almost all the jokes are edited out, perhaps to match the reaction? Oh well, art is subjective.

"There wasn't a Mr. Boddy in the game, was there?"
"I don't think so."

Heh.

Happy Golden Ticket Day!

 

Today is Golden Ticket Day - the prop used in the movie and the dialogue in the movie both agree that the day of the tour of Willy Wonka's factory takes place on the first of October.

Unfortunately, we live in an era where we can't celebrate any day without some sort of controversy and Golden Ticket Day is no exception, so let's address it.

Firstly, the book has the aforementioned events taking place on February 1st. But since "Willy Wonka" is one of the only cases where the movie is better than the book, I go with the movie.

Secondly, while the tour of the factory is October 1st, it's made clear that the day Charlie finds the golden ticket is September 30. Perhaps that's the better object of commemoration. 

Celebrating on September 30 would also make sense because of the ways you could celebrate that day. Golden Ticket Day could be a day for looking into sewers for coins and eating bars of chocolate. Celebrating the next day, what can you do? It would be difficult to schedule a tour of a chocolate factory for that day.

I could be convinced for either one and wouldn't mind celebrating both, but I think the weight of the printed object with the specific date means October 1st makes much more sense. So Happy Golden Ticket Day!

Re:View - Pee-wee's Big Adventure

 

I may re-visit "Big Top Pee-wee." It was always my favorite of the two but this seems to imply it's not very good. I really liked the Rube Goldberg device in "Big Top" and remember really liking the 80s babe love interest. Those two things were the only things that mattered so maybe that's throwing me off.

My favorite joke in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" is this one:

It's clever, it's goofy, it's perfectly setup but still a surprise. So good.