The Ramblings of Guise Dugal

I thought it would be interesting to look at the things I learnt and how things developed during my multitude of Easter posts, mainly in explanation, apology and to avoid having to write about chocolate again. Hopefully, this may be of insight in to how my mind works and might be a slight muse to someone in the future.

I wear the ears, the ears do not wear me.

The rabbit ears, I decided early on – even before I started the Easter 2008 entries – would be a constant throughout the Easter entries. I wanted something to show that there was an ongoing theme to make the entries special, also I hoped that they might distract people to focusing on that par of my photographs.

I bought the ears (which are actually Donkey from Shrek ears, but are more hare like to me) before Christmas, thanks to inspiration from Matt at X-Entertainment, his character of Hssxxlllo Ussall and the likes of Dio and Kittymao who fed me with inspiration and art about the character and others.

I like to think having the rabbit ears adds to the photographs, so instead of just boring photographs of someone eating and showing chocolate, there is a little bit of humour involved.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually have giant ears sticking from the top of my head, nor do I need glasses constantly. Unfortunately, as I’d taken the first photographs with my glasses on, it became necessary in my editorial continuity mindset to keep that trend.

Arrgh! The horror! The ungodly horror!Making chocolate say “Cheese!”I really hadn’t intended to cover so much chocolate and candy in such a short space of time, in fact, I hadn’t really intended to cover that much candy period. The problem I had was that if I identified only a few products, I’d feel let down that I didn’t do the rest. I’m fairly satisfied now that I did such a large cross-section.

I knew that if I wrote about them, I’d have difficulty actually making a review. I’m fairly concise about whether I like or loathe something, so I reckoned that at most I’d probably squeeze two paragraphs out of each product, and most of that would be description. With that in mind, I decided to make each entry about multiple candies and place against each other in terms of taste, nausea inducement and/or value.

These scales are completely arbitary and don’t even work against each other, the value of small mini eggs against larger eggs just doesn’t scale the same. However, it did help me to get across concisely the level of my enjoyment or disgust, while being able to post within my reviewing ability level.

Taking photographs of candy is hard, especially trying to show a fair scale for size comparison. I tried to keep in the same position and distances for photographs, but it wasn’t always possible. Details and decals on white chocolate is also a huge imbuggerance to try to take photographs of, the surface being highly reflective when using flash and highly blurred when not. 

It is only wafer thin

The problem with reviewing chocolate is that you have to purchase and eat the chocolate. I’m lucky on two fronts there, family will still buy me candy if I look pathetic enough and athough I don’t have a social circle, I do have a brother that I can share my candy with to prevent me from exploding. Quite a lot of the additional items, for example the small Creme Eggs from the multi-bag, were passed over after I’d had my test victim.

The few eggs I’ve had were quite enough.

History and Myths

To me, things from my childhood amuse and interest me as much these days as back then. I still dislike scarecrows, love the concept of Halloween and think as highly of the notion of cosplay as I did of play-acting in my back garden. As such, I wanted to share them and hopefully amuse others in the process, and one of the things I’ve learnt is that you can always find something from childhood to talk about that either someone else will recognise themselves or will appreciate the thought.

I knew from the outset that I wanted to cover the mythology that my mind had crafted for the Easter Bunny over the years. Stories of the bunnies sacrifice had gotten me told off in school and received stern looks or rolled eyes from the parents of my friends during my youth. I’d always tried to place how Easter Bunnies grew up, could be small rabbits or giant Furries, and how different types of Easter Eggs came about, and later in my life had begun to appreciate bunnygirls and cosplayers.

This all harks back to thematic linking, I wanted to establish that I wasn’t just blogging about chocolate, but about Easter chocolate. This is why I tried to ensure a reference to the Easter Bunny in entries and kept the ears.

A bridge too far

Of course, in addition to the standard mythology, somewhere along the way I lost the plot.. To be more accurate, I found a different, seedier plot. Although it had been my intention to infer that breeding causing the egg flavouring, I had no intention from the outset to write such indepth tales of bunny love, and I didn’t expect them to be as easy to write as they were.

I don’t usually talk freely about that sort of thing, unless directly to someone I trust and value highly. Although I tend to be a terrible flirt and have twisted humour, I’m actually fairly bashful about the subject. I do believe though that there are three me’s, and one of them is a hyperactive monkey with poorly controlled lust issues, that Guise tends to write things that I then feel extremely embarrassed and guilty about. Luckily, I don’t think I offended anyone too badly, and I’m quite happy that I reached the compromise of protecting entries rather than running an edit of them. 

Communication

One of the most valuable things that I’ve had over this period, which I think anyone who writes should cherish, is communication. People who have chatted here have been major sources of inspiration and motivation, and had it not been for that support I probably would have lost the will to continue writing these things up. Ideas can often spring up from comments and you can learn a lot from others. The key here, appreciate those around you, engage with them and you’ll find yourself rewarded and stimulated.

The entry you didn’t see

Yes, there was a deleted scene. I hoped to do a Cooking with Guise episode again, which if you’ve seen the archives you’ll know is usually me attempting to cook and the majority of the time succeeding to some extent.

I had intended to make Baked Eggs for Easter Sunday, unfortunately what I created was solid milky egg with a burnt top, burnt sides and burnt bottom. Only the yolk was really edible, and photographs just showed blackness.

As I couldn’t really describe it for a review or recommend the recipe, I decided to skip the entry entirely.

Hope you all had a great Easter and thank you for your support!

Tags: Easter 2008