Brandon Notices

At Fred Meyer last night, I walked by the bulk Jelly Belly dispensers. I was seriously considering getting a few dollars worth of Very Cherry beans, when I was distracted by the flavor menu pamphlet. (You can click the picture to see inside.)

Jelly Belly releases a new pamphlet every few years to keep consumers up to date with their ever-changing flavor lineup. I was excited to see the new flavors listed in the Official 50 Flavors section. I wrote about the new flavors back in July, but here's a summary of the changes:

In: Chili Mango, Pomegranate, Sunkist Lime, Mixed Berry Smoothie, Sour Cherry
Out: Grape Jelly, Jalapeño, Peanut Butter, Café Latte, Caramel Apple

Also, some of the citrus flavors have had "Sunkist" appended to their names. I don't think they taste any different.

I looked through the bulk flavors again to see if I could find any of the new flavors, but I didn't see any. In fact, I've occasionally been looking through candy aisles to see if the bags with the new flavors are in stores yet. I haven't seen any yet, though. When will the new flavors be in stores? This pamphlet indicates that it may be soon.

For months now, the new flavors have been available online at the Jelly Belly website. Shipping is a bit expensive, though, so I prefer to buy the candy in stores.

It's exciting that they have 73 distinct flavors in the menu, if you don't count the sugar-free flavors (they're just sugar-free duplicates). Well, it's 83 if you count the "weird & wild" Bean Boozled flavors, such as Pencil Shavings, Baby Wipes, Canned Dog Food, and Moldy Cheese. Hey, they changed the name of Vomit to Barf! I don't know why Jelly Belly decided that this is a good change, but I like it! (I like the name, not the flavor. I don't want a Bean Boozled box for Christmas.)

Jelly Belly regularly comes out with new flavors every now and then. Their newest flavor is Chili Mango! It is being added immediately into the Official 50 Flavors (no rookie stage!). I haven't had the chance to try it yet, but Jelly Belly describes it as "fresh mango with a sprinkling of spicy chili." Considering that Mango is one of my least favorite Jelly Belly flavors, as well as the fact that I don't really care for very spicy food, I don't expect myself to enjoy this bean very much. I'll reserve commentary until I've tried it myself, though. Jelly Belly has, however, posted a picture of the bean online. It looks to be a dirty orange color, which might be hard to tell it from some other orange beans, but it also seems to have some dark specks of color too.

Along with Chili Mango, Jelly Belly is adding four other established flavors to the Official 50 Flavors mix: Pomegranate, Sunkist Lime, Mixed Berry Smoothie, and Sour Cherry. Mixed Berry Smoothie, I recall, is very good, and very smooth, and happens to be my favorite of the Smoothie Blend mix. Sour Cherry is also pretty damn good, and it's my favorite of the Sours mix. When Pomegranate was first introduced as a rookie in 2007, I originally dismissed it as Jelly Belly jumping on the health-consciousness bandwagon, but when I tried it, I was pleased by its sweet flavor and slight tartness. (Açaí Berry, which is also based on one of the healthy fad fruits, won the recent flavor vote, and Jelly Belly will be making it a rookie flavor too before long. Sigh, I voted for Honey...) I'm unfamiliar with Sunkist Lime, since I haven't tried the Sunkist Citrus mix but I bet it has a strong, sweet flavor.

To make room in the Official 50 Flavors (Why stop at 50? Variety is the spice of life!), Jelly Belly is retiring five older flavors. Jalapeño is being hurled out, with the door slamming on its butt. Good riddance. Grape Jelly is also gone, which might sound like bad news for the grape crowd, but as long as Jelly Belly keeps making its Soda Pop Shoppe mix, Grape Crush will pass as an alternative. Peanut Butter is also being retired. This is fine by me. For some reason, it reminds me of the Bertie Bott's Ear Wax Bean. I wonder if the peanut-allergic community is celebrating this bean's retirement. Café Latte is gone too. It was hardly one of my favorite flavors, mainly because I'm not really a coffee person. For the coffee aficionados, Cappuccino is still in the mix. Lastly, Caramel Apple is gone, which isn't a huge hit, since Jelly Belly also already has Green Apple, Red Apple, Pineapple, Sour Apple, and Cold Stone Apple Pie. Uh, cross out Pineapple. But still, my Jelly Belly Carnival won't be the same with only Cotton Candy and Caramel Corn...

I am recalling some older flavors Jelly Belly experimented around with. Cinnamon Toast was the most delectable bean I'd ever had. It was sweet and sugary, and even tasted better than the real thing (trust me, I did a taste test—it wasn't a blinded test, though). C'mon, Jelly Belly, please bring this bean back!

We were at Grocery Outlet. Generally, there's nothing really in there that I can't find at Safeway, but we were in the area and had some time to kill. Mom wanted to look around. While we were in there, I was looking through the Easter stuff and they had some Jelly Belly Belly Flops there! I didn't know they were available here! So I got three bags—that's six pounds—for $3 each, which is the best deal I've ever seen for Jelly Belly's jelly beans. Most of the beans are normal, but some of them are weird—many of them look like two or more beans merged together! It's weird!

The school year is wrapping to a close (more literally than you would think!). In the fall I shall be attending The University of Washington. Yes! Ten out of ten for style, right?

I got angry because I wanted to get a vest to keep warm while camping but nobody has vests these days! Not even JCPenny or Sears or NOT EVEN ROSS has vests. I had to go to Value Village. My grandpa also had a vest he never wore so he gave it to me.

I have noticed lately a lack of desire to eat jelly beans. Could this be the end of my addiction? I doubt it... I've still been on the lookout for the smoothie-flavored beans. I don't think they'll be selling them in store; I'll have to order them online. I'll also need to order Jalapeño online because they don't sell them in stores. Unless... does the Sweet Factory (in the mall) sell Jalapeño in bulk? I don't know.

Sigh I am just typing to avoid having to pack to go camping tomorrow. We're going to Thousand Trails tomorrow morning and I was rather upset to learn that sites are distributed first come, first serve. That means that we'll have to get there nice and early (impossible!). We're doomed to have the rainiest campsite!

We were rather upset last month to learn that they're going to tear down the "greenbelt" on the other side of the street from our cul-de-sac to put in some apartments. That means there's going to be noise and other bric-a-brac all over.

I was also upset to learn that the Ninja Turtles show currently running is going to make a huge change to the show by thrusting the characters some billion years into the future. I think they're going to drop most of the main characters and give the Turtles stupid costume changes (I've seen the pictures on the official website; they're not pretty).

I've had a sore throat (due to allergies) for the past few days now and it's going to suck going camping because that'll probably only upset me more. Life sucks when you've got allergies (or sunburns...ouch).

I wish I had an anecdote to tell you, but I don't. (When I was typing "anecdote", my finger slipped and I typed "qawszc".)

This weekend, I'm thinking I might count the number of times I sneeze while camping. Sounds tedious, though. But only if I'm actually sneezing (and let's hope I'm not).

Mom and Stephanie went to Bellingham last Tuesday to paint ceramics, and brought Karen back with them. We have done a lot while Karen was here. We taught Karen how to play Mario Party 5. She liked to play it, even though she wasn't great at it. Dad didn't like to be her partner. Stephanie and I make a great team in MP5.

Some time last week, while Karen, Mom, one or two other people, and I were shopping at Value Village (there's some great old stuff there!), I found a Scrubbin' Bubbles. It's rubber and it barely squeaks. Jackson and I used to play with one of these at daycare. I was going to buy it, but Karen said that she really wanted it, so I reluctantly said that she could have it.

Tuesday was quite an eventful day. We went to Costco only to buy another large jar of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. That was it. The cashier was having a lot of fun making fun of us for only buying jelly beans. Then we went to Longs' Drugs to mail some stuff to Karen's house back in Kansas. While there, Karen and I each bought small boxes of JBz's. They're like M&M's, except the shell is flavored like a jelly bean. They're really good, but I don't think I could eat a whole box in one sitting. We had Pizza Hut pizza that night. Mmmm.

Remember when I talked about those Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans? Karen bought me a bag of them. (Here's a flavor guide, except it doesn't mention soap, earthworm, or spaghetti.) I took some normal beans from the 49-flavor jar, and put them in the bag, so now there really is every flavor! So exciting! Anyway, back to Tuesday...

We took Karen to the airport. Of course, I offered everybody jelly beans on the way there. It's about an hour-and-a-half drive up, so it was dull. Karen's luggage was heavy—Kevin actually hurt his hand picking it up—so I found a cart in the parking garage to cart her stuff around. Then we said bye to Karen. I was interested to hear about these new things the airport has. They're little mailing kiosks for things you can't carry onto a plane. Basically, if you have a pocket knife or something, you can zip it into a bag, stick a mailing label on it, and stick it into the slot. It costs money, though. Kevin drove home in the express lanes, so it was much quicker (and exciting!) to return home.

Today, I got oriented for volunteering at the Puget Sound Blood Center (from now on, I'll be referring to it as the PSBC, or PBSC if I don’t think about it). It doesn't sound too hard, but it requires a lot of attention (if someone is feeling woozy, I need to do something about it).

Our digital cable box was updated some time last week, but the special new On Demand feature isn't working. Some Comcast employee should come on Saturday, I think, to fix it. I don't know how exciting this On Demand thing is, but Kevin's been hyping me up for several months about it now.

Lots of birds have been flying by recently, stopping at our bird feeder. The birds have been driving Garth nuts. He'll meow, wanting to chew a wing or something.

Dad just brought home a pack of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans from Bartell Drugs. Here's the flavors: Black Pepper, Blueberry, Booger, Earthworm, Cherry, Cinnamon, Dirt, Ear Wax, Grape Jelly, Grass, Green Apple, Lemon Drop, Toasted Marshmallow, Buttered Popcorn, Sardine, Soup, Spaghetti, Spinach, Tutti-Frutti, and Vomit. The Dirt genuinely tastes like dirt! My favorite flavor is Soap. And you'll regret eating Earthworm. Eeyuck. Bleh! I though I was going to chase the retched flavor with a Soap jelly bean (how appropriate, eating soap after earthworm), but I was surprised to learn that it wasn't Soap. It was Sardine! Also bad tasting! Arrgh. Earthworm was worst, though.