So the moment of truth has arrived?.… (It has)
The quest began with a chocolate biscuit that reminded me of a
biscuit from my childhood. A year later, having memorized the name and
look of the packaging, I went to buy this biscuit and quickly realised
that in fact, I had not memorized the name and look of the
packaging.
There is a strategy in the programming world called brute force, where you try every single possibility. This is typically the slowest option and thus generally avoided if pretty much any other way is available. However we are talking about a chocolate biscuit. It could be any of them, riiiiight? So I bought every type of chocolate biscuit that was in the supermarket. This event marked the beginning of the quest. However the quest would be likely to end badly if I ate all of those chocolate biscuits by my self. So this in-tern led to the "Exercise in the wrong biscuit" where I'd bring in a few packets to work a maxiumum of once a week. Of course, my co-workers were terribly upset at this prospect, but participated just to help out. ;-)
The biscuit of my childhood is the squiggle
top
(not this
type of squiggle top). I think it was in the early 90s when TV ads
really started to get creative and colourful. *Every* kid wanted to try
the squiggle top biscuit and for me this became a reality at my next
birthday party when someone (mum?) put these biscuits with the other
party food. I think their life span was around about 2.5 minutes. [Edit:
The biscuits, not the person!... Though these biscuits really were
that good.]
So looking at the biscuits I have brought out over the last few
weeks, it would be easy to assume that the biscuit I was looking for is
the Chrunchie biscuit. It certainly tastes similar. But it's not the one
that I was looking for.
But before I tell you which biscuit it is, let's digress:
The brute force strategy can be optimised. As soon as you find the
result you're looking for, you can stop looking. It would be kind of
silly to continue, wouldn't it? So when I planned the whole thing, I
kept this in mind and ranked the biscuits based on the packaging and
name. The least likely ones came first, therefore we'd have the highest
chance of hitting the one at the end. Trouble is... It actually turned
out to be one of the packets in the second week!
This concludes the quest for the one true biscuit. It's been a good
exercise in testing out various bits, like "Is the phone camera good
enough for this type of stuff." In the next coupe of weeks or so, this
blog will come alive again. Until then, I hope you've enjoyed this
somewhat pointless, but fun exercise in finding a biscuit that reminded
me of a biscuit I tried in my childhood.
(If you have a moment, watch the related video. You can really see why people loved that presenter.)
Good day to you, good sir! :)
PS There were 8 packs this week.… but I already ate some. ;)
Above:
Imported image from the old system
Above:
Imported image from the old system