6594 Happy Easter, folks.. Many Chocolate Yolks!

Sunrise was lovely this morning… The beach was well-populated, but not super-mobbed for Easter.

I want to go on an egg-hunt. My father, brother and I would search all over the inside of the house, looking for tiny chocolate eggs left out by the Easter Bunny… Dad would sniff around, “trying to pick up the scent” and bro and I would scan around for hidden stores of two or four of them. (We’d divide them equally…I suspect there were only three in one location when Mr. Bunny wanted a quick little sugar-snack.)

Later on, I took on the role of Egg-bloodhound, sniffing out goodies with the twins and other munchkins on different years. I rather miss that…I’d love to help a few little ones find foil-wrapped sweets today sometime, but I don’t think that it’ll happen.


Peep article that Danny pointed out to me yesterday –

Peeps gone wild!

They are loved, hated, vilified, celebrated, parodied, decapitated, smooshed, frozen, fricasseed, microwaved and subjected to bizarre experimentation. Can an American icon get a little respect?

To some, they are the essence of Easter, born in a place called Bethlehem no less, and celebrated in art, craft, song and ode. To others, they are the Rodney Dangerfields of food, suitable grist for Internet parodies, macabre recipes and mad science experiments.

They are Peeps, the chick-and-bunny-shaped marshmallow treats that have become, like it or not, one of America’s best-loved harbingers of the season. (True believers like to call it Peep Season, which starts about Feb. 25, when the chicks first appear in stores.) Fifty years after the first ones were squeezed out of pastry tubes in a 26-hour-long process, 1.2 billion of them are now consumed worldwide annually.

“They’re an American icon,” says Washington artist David Ottogalli, whose principal media are Peeps and other vibrantly colored food products. “When blazing yellow Peeps appear on your grocer’s shelves, you know it’s springtime.”

For more than a decade, Peeps have been the country’s favorite nonchocolate Easter treat, according to Milena DeLuca, a spokeswoman for the company that makes them. In the past three years, Peeps consumption has surged by more than 100 million a year; Americans eat an average of 2.3 Peeps apiece each spring.

Just Born Inc., which marked its 50th anniversary of making Peeps last year, produces 4.1 million a day at its plant in Bethlehem, Pa. The company has expanded to other holidays, creating Peeps-like marshmallow hearts for Valentine’s Day, pumpkins and ghosts for Halloween, and Christmas trees and snowmen for Christmas.

What is it about Peeps? Why do they inspire such passion, both negative and positive?

Ottogalli believes their popularity stems from their protean simplicity. They are so basic, so blank, so formless — even their wings were removed in 1991 as the manufacturing process was streamlined — that people adapt them to all sort of uses, he says.

“Peeps are popular because of their form, color, texture and tastiness,” says Ottogalli. “Not to mention their versatility; you can eat them, smoosh them, melt them, freeze them … even spray-paint them.”

Certainly Peeps are eaten in a variety of ways: fresh, stale, warm, microwaved, frozen, fricasseed, roasted and sometimes even as a pizza topping, says DeLuca. Many fans say Peeps are tastiest after they’ve hardened for two to three weeks.

Peeps have long since transcended their status as food product with a national fan club and more than 90 Web sites. The official Peeps site, www.marshmallowpeeps.com, offers Peeps souvenirs, history, recipes and craft ideas.

Ottogalli’s Web site, www.peepsshow.com, includes an extensive gallery of his multimedia Peep art and sculpture, the most impressive of which has to be an 8-foot-tall shrine constructed of 5,053 chicks.

Other sites feature a Lord of the Rings parody, “Lord of the Peeps”; Peeps lyrics set to the music of the Monkees; a “Peeps from hell” photo gallery; entrees for the Peeps Challenge, in which participants write stories that feature Peeps interacting with X-Files characters; Peeps karaoke; and even parody Peeps pornography.

The newest craze is Peeps jousting, according to DeLuca. To see two Peeps joust, insert a toothpick into the chest of each, place them 11/2 toothpicks apart in a microwave, and nuke them for no more than 10 seconds.

Sacramento hosts the Peep Off, a Peeps-eating contest, a week after Easter for the sole reason that, by then, $30 will buy about 2,000 Peeps. Last year’s champion, the aptly named Dennis Gross, downed 103 Peeps in 30 minutes.

Oddest of all, perhaps, is the PeepResearch.org Web site, which chronicles in-depth and unofficial experiments performed on Peeps at Emory University. Scientists James Zimring and Gary Falcon have tested Peeps’ tolerance for a range of temperatures. They and other researchers also examined what happens to Peeps in a vacuum, in a hot tub, in liquid nitrogen, when electrocuted, when dunked in toxic liquids, and after being subjected to the Coyote Treatment.

The last, named for the Looney Tunes character Wile E. Coyote, involves tying a Peep to a heavy object such as a rock and hurtling it off a high place, such as a canyon ledge. Conclusion: Contrary to popular lore, Peeps eventually can be destroyed, even those stale ones. (Peep eyes, however, which are made of the same kind of wax used on cars, were found to be indestructible in every test.)

The Emory scientists’ experiments spawned a movement to ban Peeps research. “How can we sit by when thousands of Peeps are injured and killed each year for research?” pleads one activist on his Web site, www.marcpedersen.com/humor/peeps.

Made mostly of sugar, with corn syrup, gelatin, potassium sorbate and a lot of air mixed in, marshmallow chicks as a concept originated with the Rodda Candy Co. of Lancaster, Pa., which employed 80 women to squeeze them out of pastry bags. In 1953, the Born family bought Rodda. Bob Born streamlined the manufacturing and the shape of Peeps so that it takes only about six minutes to create one. The originals were all yellow, but today they come in lavender, pink, electric blue and white (also known as albinos).

With just 32 calories each and no fat, Peeps come conjoined in fives — an acute sugar-rush headache in a box.

The debate over Peeps as an icon boils down to whether a miasma of marshmallow has drowned the spiritual message of the Resurrection. Some argue that the Peep is to Easter what the mall Santa Claus is to Christmas: the triumph of materialism over meaning.

Others see something more beneficent, and nostalgic.

“It’s a magical brand,” said Matt Petronio, vice president for research, development and marketing at Just Born. “Peeps are a must-have for Easter baskets. They bring back fond memories of childhood, Easter egg hunts, spring and families.”

American University communications professor Leonard Steinhorn, who is writing a book about the Baby Boom generation, thinks Peeps mania speaks to the diversity of American culture.

“Fifty years ago, people who did experiments on Peeps would have been shunned,” he said. “We’ve opened up society so much that now there are a lot more people just doing their own thing, however unique, unusual or eccentric it is. We’re a lot less conformist than we used to be.”

Says Petronio, “The great thing about Peeps is, at the end of the day, when you’re done playing with them, you can eat them.”


Saw Janet Jackson on SNL last night. Whatever she used to have, I think that she’s lost it. Voice is still as good as it ever was, but there’s no vibe there, just a woman past her prime musically trying to use sex to keep folks interested. She looks sort of used up physically and emotionally… I’d like to think that she could go off somewhere for a year or so, and just start over again…. ignore 2003/2004.


Nosy man special –

LJ Image Collage and Webcollage

Due to the nature of the Internet, some images may be inappropriate for some viewers. Highly likely, in fact. This being LiveJournal, you never know what you might get…. consider yourself warned. Now that I’ve said that, of course, people looking for lurid stuff will complain about the overabundance of kitten pictures. To that, I say, see below.

Based on info from this resource: http://www.livejournal.com/stats/latest-img.bml – Tracks all off and on-site image linking. (It tracks all image references in IMG tags, or any URL stand-alone that looks like it is probably an image (ends in .gif/.jpe?g/.png)


Whee… Orisinal’s Pelican game!


The New Spider-Man 2 Trailer looks spiffy! I like the choices for Kurt Connors and Doc Ock… both villains I really like, even moreso than the Green Goblin (especially the power-rangers movie-version.) Looks like Col. Jameson will be there too… I wonder if the werewolf will show up?


Three Years ago – pork taco brain worm, Power-puff Scotto, grove meeting, An open letter to browser sniffers, agog

Two Years ago – Programmer / Engineer gag, lovely private entries, including Blackstone’s Reading.

One Year ago – first 4 children in the vampire game, got my offer from JKG

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