Gwenda Bond

NaDruWriNi No. 5, or Night Night

Yeah, so I'm entirely too tired to persevere. Instead, I think I'll read The Queen of Cool (yay!). One minor mystery solved though. In rewatching the third ep of Veronica Mars from this season, the one with the bizarre "Love Hurts" interlude, I realized the answer to exactly who the singer was would no doubt be on the interweb. The Mars Investigations glossary yielded the following answer:

Karaoke singer who bears an uncanny resemblance to the lead singer of the Dandy Warhols. He rains on Lars's parade and alludes to Veronica's romantic woes by reminding the patrons of the Hut that "LoVe Love Hurts." His appearance is not short and sweet to the soul in 2.03 Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang. Played by Courtney Taylor.

So, there you go. Night, night.

NaDruWriNi No. 4, or Ballads

In my possession is a book I love, plucked from the Discard Pile (in fact, DISCARD is written in bold black along the edge of the pages and in the front and back covers): Ballads of Old New York by Arthur Guiterman (also author of The Mirthful Lyre). It's full of all sorts of good stuff, but I offer you something from the Revolutionary War period. Behind the cut.

NaDruWriNi No. 3, or Accuracy

Not that the spirit of this night is precision, but Justine offers up anyways as the correct spelling of anyway. I submit as evidence these Amazon search inside the book results for Andrea Seigel's Like the Red Panda. I think it's just a preference thing and both are equally valid.

Anyway, up next, a ballad of old New York.

NuDruWriNi No. 2, or I'm Not That Lame

Growing up in the middle of nowheresville, dark chocolate was a nonexistent entity -- except for Halloween. My grandmother always bought at least one bag of the mini Hershey's bars to pass out and those, of course, included the Special Dark. I'm pretty sure that most people thought there was something wrong with them. I certainly never had any competition  for them. Even with no point of reference, I knew that the bitter, (slightly) more complex taste was somehow better than that milky stuff. I never ever saw a Special Dark bar not in the mini-size and kind of hope not to.

Candy is so important when you're a kid. The best reward, the unfailing sugar high, part of its own complex bartering system for good behavior and favors from siblings.

Anyway, this year for Halloween, we picked up a bag of the Hershey's. I've been successfully picking out most of the Special Darks (Christopher has the same taste for them, it seems)  -- and, no, they aren't great as chocolate, but they are wonderful as nostalgia. They completely live up to the memory. The taste is still complicated, but not very. If this were a secret agent, it'd be a standard Mr. Grey, not a glamorous Valerie Plame.

Consider this an ode.

See also: Everything you always wanted to know about Special Dark.

NaDruWriNi No. 1, or Where Am I?

So, we had some early dinner guests and figured out how to hook up one of those Atari joysticks with seven or eight games from the 2600 era. That's right: I've been playing Adventure. (Which contains the first ever Easter Egg. Not to mention the Bat. And the best duck-like dragons ever.)

NaDruWriNi will officially begin just as soon as we're sick of playing. Luckily, Ed, Pinky and apparently many other participants are on the West Coast. But I'm having a glass of wine in preparation.

UPDATE:

I must confess that I may actually end up laming up the place this year. I'm tired, have a little bit of a head cold and had planned to just work on the revision. I suppose I could stick up the first chapter of the novel, but instead I may just malaize (it's my word!) on the couch commenting on the efforts of others and such. We'll see. Adventure!