2/1/2005: M&Ms sorter
 

http://cellar.org/2004/msorter.jpg

Farked today, and making the rounds, is this M&Ms sorter built from a kit. Yes, for only $168 you can sort your M&Ms by color using automation.

I would say I want one, but I don't; this place will sell you specific colors and even custom messages. But a better option is to get a round-trip to Vegas and visit the M&Ms World store where they sell even more single colors... by the pound.

It's an ingenious mechanism. Plus, it's vertatile - you can use it for Skittles and SweetTarts, too!

Somebody PM Wolf! Quick!

Awwww, somebody remembered about my little "problem".

Cool idea, although I find that I like the zen like experience of hand-counting. When it comes time to sort the big bucket o' change into rolls to take to the bank, I do that by hand also, despite having more than one clever coin sorting and counting devices at my disposal.

I'm going to send this to my friend who is also an M&M sorter, although she does it for obsessive compulsive reasons and then eats them in order from largest to smallest in number, including the blue ones.

Does she wash her hands before and after handling each one?

Good question, but no. She's just a sorter.

Most of her obsessive-compulsive tendencies are put to good use because she is a quilter.

LOL - wolf i misread your statement. i thought you said most of her tendencies are put to good use because she is a "quitter".

i was going to say, that doesn't sound very OCD to me.

I have a friend who won't eat blue M&Ms because she thinks they taste "funny"--she says it has something to do with an ingredient in the blue food coloring. I haven't had M&M's in a while, is there any truth to this? Or is she just as wacky as I've always suspected?

I shun them not because they are blue, but because they are actually tan and have gone bad.

Sordid details here.

Quite entertaining--I had no idea this problem was so far-reaching. I will advise my friend to save her uneaten blue M&Ms and return them in exchange for the aforementioned coupons. :thumbsup:

But blue cheese used to be tan, and the blue is actually an indication that it's gone *good*. Microorganisms do a lot of great things for food, don't shun them needlessly.

Wolf - You might also want to avoid the red ones. The red coloring is made from squished bugs.

Ah yes... the carmine dilemma. I remember getting freaked out in eighth grade when some guy told this to us... hence why I tend to avoid many yogurts now.

Lac beetle juice maybe not in M&Ms, but definitely in Junior Mints:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_118.html

Not lac beetle (at least I don't think so) but cochineal from which carmine is made.

Oh, that's even worse! :dead:

Just a question, Wolf. At the hospital where you 'work', which side of the door do you stay on, the one with the lock or without. :crazy:


Kidding.


P.S. Info on the Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus)

Couldn't you just peel them? :3eye:

That's fucked up. Couldn't they at least come up with some sort of chemical to do the job? :greenface

More about lac beetles and shellac here:
http://www.woodworking.com/articles/...fa=show&id=914

Fascinating. Probably healthier than an artifical ingredient anyway. :biggrin:

Lac beetle juice :yum: !!!!!!

But then they would melt in your hand, not in your mouth. :biggrin:

M&M Evolution
 

Unfortunately not by me:

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.

Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes."

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.

When the red ones were out of the mix because of the red dye #2 scare (which was never in M&Ms to begin with) I stopped eating them altogether.

And I haven't bought a box of Crayolas since the color deletion scandal.