So I Won a Halloween Hamper... for Children

There I was, at a pub quiz raffle table with only seconds to pick a prize. With the obvious big-ticket items gone, this hampery thing I'd spotted earlier on looked like a safe bet, looked like it had a bunch of candy and stuff in it. I grab it,  get back to my table, and looking over my haul I notice a crappy mask, fake blood, tattoos. It becomes immediately clear that I've just made a horrendous mistake. And I'm not a big enough asshole to try and exchange it for something else. So, after being freakin' robbed at the final quiz results (Seriously, I don't think our team ever in such good form. I suspect shenanigans.), I headed home sadly, hamper in hand, though still with the faint hope of finding something cool in amongst all the tat.

Let's see what we've got in there:



Yeah, what am I going to do with a kid size Halloween mask?



Well, this obviously. Though I feel there's still something missing.



Perfect.

What's this mask supposed to be of anyway? Looks like the guy from Devil World crossed with Eddie Munster. And why does he have tusks?



Balloons? Sure, I could probably use those.

A glow stick: eh, not so much. (And while we're on the subject of the glow stick, I wonder where that bit of a feather came from?)

The Blow & Glow thing sounded interesting though. Well, troubling name aside.



Here's what you get in the pack. It's basically just a plastic pipe with an LED light on the end. You switch on the LED, put the balloon over it and inflate it by taking the black thing off of the other end. I know I'm being a spoilsport here, but I really don't want to bust this out until Halloween. With the switch being where it is, you'd need to deflate the balloon to turn it off, and leaving it on, I can't imagine it'd last more than a few hours.

Oh, okay then.

So, I'm guessing these are just straws with skeleton things dangling off them, but I think I'm going to have to carry out some further investigations to confirm. Glitter blood? Great, all my Twilight costume needs taken care of in one. The tattoos do look pretty rad though, even if I can't really pull off wearing those anymore.



Well, usually. Aaaaaahhhhh! They last a while too. I've had this dumb thing on for a day now (can't really bring myself to scrub it off) and it still looks good.

Halloween Candy 2013: Just in Time Edition

More American candy, a bunch of local stuff and almost a year late. Oh yeah!



Brach's Candy Corn

I'm ordering a box of American candy and it's almost Halloween. How could I not throw in a bag of candy corn? Still pretty damn good.

Brach's S'mores Candy Corn

I'm not exactly clear on what a s'more is, but I don't think I need that foreknowledge to know this wasn't great. Though that's only partially true: bite off the the orange and white sections only and you've got a nice rich vanilla flavour going. A flavour that's almost completely spoiled by the nasty, artificial chocolate-flavoured end.

2/5



Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops

Candy apples seemed like a pretty Halloween thing so I bunged two of these in too. This is a pretty odd one. I'm not sure if it comes across in the photo, but these are actually apple-flavoured lollipops covered in a semi-soft toffee. The apple pop is quite good: nice and tangy. And I really liked the toffee. It has a kind of creamy, almost home made flavour to it. Unfortunately, I just didn't think they worked well together at all. The apple is just too tangy and sharp to gel well with the toffee.

3/5





Cadbury Crunchy Spider

The first of the non-American stuff, which I was actually able to unearth a fair bit of this year. First of all, I've got to say I really like the packaging here. Just look at that guy! I was a little disappointed at first to not find some kind of soft filling inside. What you do get though is nice, big hunk of Cadbury's chocolate dotted with rice balls for a little crispiness, and there's not much wrong with that.

4/5





Murder Motel Bone Mallow

Also found in a local supermarket, these are pretty neat. They're marshmallow bits with a gummy strawberry-flavoured "marrow" in the middle. To be honest, the strawberry-flavour isn't much to write home about, but they're pretty fun to eat. I've gone through three quarters of the bag now, and stripping the marshmallow from the marrow core has yet to get old.

3/5



Murder Motel Coffin Chaos

And the prize for most packaging definitely goes to this. Candy-wise, what you get here is a bit of a selection box. There's a couple of red lollipops of indeterminate flavour, though it tasted a bit of cinnamoney to me. I quite liked it actually, though both were a bit soft (even though this box was still well in date). There's a few bits of marshmallow rope, which I was a bit tougher than I'd like; a couple of bubblegum-flavoured gumballs and a few of bags of candy shapes made from some kind of sherbet-type stuff. Didn't really care for those, but otherwise not a bad little selection.

3/5





Murder Motel Body Parts

These were great. As candy body parts go, they don't look that amazing, but as gummy candies I thought they struck just the right balance of chewy and soft, and they had a real satisfying chunkiness to them. Flavour-wise, I'd say they're kind of orangey; nothing spectacular, but not bad either. Though that's not really what I come to gummy body parts for anyway.

4/5