the buzz log
A Craving for (Cheap) Chocolate
Life is like a box of chocolates. A low-cost, no-frills box.
Consumer cut-backs have finally hit the gut. The food of the gods has always been a go-to sweet treat, especially during times of woe. But chocoholics, don't get too worked up about the box you may be getting from your beloved this Valentine's Day: This year, your truffles may come in the shape of a Kit Kat bar.
Hershey's, the convenience-store candy bar standby, had a very good quarter, with sales unexpectedly up. The mega-chocolate brand noticed that frugalistas are fleeing fancy boutique labels for the humble Hershey's name, giving their stock a boost. While connoisseurs are loath to give up the ultimate comfort food, they don't want to pay a lot for their chocolate.
The candy company also announced cost-cutting measures that will result in relocating production of its adored specialty brands Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt from the California Bay Area to its plant in Illinois.
Clearly, the era of the high-end chocolate purveyors looks grim, especially in time for that romantic February holiday.
On the other hand, unless you like your chocolate indulgences dipped in gold, they're still cheaper than diamonds. So consider the small, sweet luxury getting off easy.
Buzz Week in Review
Bail or no bail? Debate or no debate? In a suspenseful news week, the Buzz took some time to seek out true beauty, true courage, and true happy endings ... at least for a cat. Here are some stories you may have missed this past week.
Makeup Stunts Your Growth?
From the same people who stirred up a tizzy over sunscreens comes a study about how cosmetics and puberty don't mix. The Environmental Working Group poked needles and took urine samples from 20 teenage girls and found what blog Ecoplay called "13 different hormone-altering chemicals in their bodies." To help girls avoid paying the price for beauty, EWG offers a shopper's guide to safe cosmetics. For ladies past puberty, Glam blogs about products that have earned Beauty with a Conscience awards.
A CEO Who Says No?
Bailout or not, many CEOs who helmed financially troubled companies have already collected their millions in severance packages. Several news outlets, including Philly.com, have singled out Robert Willumstad not for his three months as primo honcho for the failed AIG, but for rejecting a $22 million payout. His predecessor, who left in June, got $15 million plus a $4 million bonus.
A Hemingway Tale with a Happy Ending?
Ernest Hemingway wasn't what you'd call the cheeriest novelist, so who knows what kind of ending he would've planned for a colony of six-toed cats in his Florida home. However, a five-year legal catfight between the USDA and the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum ended peaceably this week. The USDA had demanded that the Home obtain an animal exhibition license for the descendants of the writer's pet
Snowball, but the agency allowed the felines to remain after a fence was installed. The literary darlings can be seen here.
Also buzzing this week ...
• As "fall foliage" Web interest intensifies (+688%), scientists will be among the leaf peepers to study whether global warming puts a damper on pigment changes. For people who think less kindly of the mess autumn leaves can make, RedPlum blog scopes out power tools that sweep up after Mother Nature.
• If this week's economic news prompts comfort-food cravings, see Forbes Traveler's daring declaration of where the nation's best chocolate chip cookies are.
• Don't share chocolates with airport security dogs. NaturalNews has taken up the legal cause of chocolatiers accused of drug smuggling, after Toronto pups mistook two pounds of cacao as hashish. The blog reveals how cacao registers false positives for NIK field kit drug tests. And you thought poppy seed muffins were bad.
Filed under: Literature, Finance, Animals, Cosmetics, Autumn, Chocolate
Death by Chocolate
We all know the ruinous allure of chocolate. It's so lovely to contemplate. So smolderingly luscious to imagine. But one bite leads to another—and before you know it, you're left with nothing but a crinkly foil wrapper and a mouthful of semisweet memories. Damn you, Hershey.
Though chocolate works its seductions 365 days a year, it becomes especially persuasive in the week before Valentine's Day. Searches for the sweet, brown confection spiked 250% yesterday, marking a vertical trajectory that we expect to continue until midnight, February 13. Even procrastinators love making fudgey gestures and giving large heart-shaped boxes from Godiva. But there's no need to wait to find your Valentine's flourish. Instead, browse our top food searches for "chocolate," and find the molten confection of your dreams. Just remember to give it to your sweetie, not eat it yourself...
The Chocolate Buzz
The piles of Halloween candy crowding grocery store shelves always give a little jolt to our sweet tooth. Of all the sugar-coated possibilities, we prefer the chocolate stuff. Whether gooey, crisp, solid, hollow, créme filled, sugarless, nutty, or just plain dark, our cocoa friend seems to be on the minds of searchers as well. Does the desire to perfect our chocolate-chip-cookie recipe send us running to the Search box? Is it the onset of cool weather that makes us dream of curling up with some hot chocolate and a good book? Is the love we get from chocolate Labs the sweetest? Let's stick our fingers in the top 20 chocolate searches and see what's inside...
Filed under: Chocolate
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.