Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel

That can looks very small for some reason.

Mountain Dew Gamer Fuel

It's hard to improve on Mountain Dew. The stuff is heaven, sweet and bitey with a caffeine zing that few other sodas manage. It rocks. The long parade of non-Mountain Dew flavored Mountain Dews was nothing but a string of failures, beginning with "Red Alert" or whatever it was up to present.

"Gamer Fuel" might be an exception, however.

I laughed when I first clapped eyes onto a can of Gamer Fuel. It's a ludicrous cross promotion, almost offensive in its stereotyping - Gamer Fuel pairs Mountain Dew up with World of Warcraft. There's a somewhat angry looking orc on the can front, looking like a cranky, green Down's Syndrome child dressed up by an older brother with a Tolkien fetish. Or a Warhammer fetish, actually. I was sort of surprised how much Warcraft bit off of Warhammer, especially with the tremenous shoulder pads. Orcs armor up like it's the 80s.

There is a long standing problem with orcs: They are either
faceless mooks getting endlessly mowed down by
Dungeons and Dragons characters, or they are over
the top cartoon bad-asses like this here. My favorite orcs
are the Rankin and Bass guys from Return of the King,
truly horrific. The live action remake orcs were
kind of lame, suffering from the "guys in masks" problem.

As long as I'm picking on the can art orc, I'll draw attention to his ludicrous neck chain. It's a large linked, metal chain, and it sits on the orc in an incredibly unrealistic fashion. It's not so much that the bad-ass orc has draped a metal chain around his neck but rather that he took one of those redneck welded-metal-chain-steering-wheels and hung it over his head. It's hilariously poorly done, floating.

The chain is also confusing. It looks like it starts as a link of earring and connects to one of the awful Bloodbowlesque shoulder pads. The whole illustration is full of little awkward bits where lines fall into visual holes, looking like things they are not. The big goofy spike earring in the orcs left ear looks like it folds down over his left shoulder, blah blah blah.

Which leads me to my next point: Warcraft characters sure are vain. Look at this orc, looks like a tough character, eh? He's wearing at least six earrings, a necklace, a metal band to hold his purple dyed topknot in place, a nose ring, a TOOTH piercing, and that snappy necklace. Maybe the nose ring and the chain around the neck are practical tools used to enforce his servitude by his evil orcy masters, but the rest is just fancy pants and battle scars.

I bet he gets his fashions out of "Pretty Orc Monthly".

At least when a sailor wore a gold hoop earring it had a purpose, to pay for his burial if his body washed up on some foreign shore. The orc "bling" is just... visual busyness. An attempt to lend personality and authenticity through a glut of meaningless details.

Bonus: This orc is about fifteen feet wide. The layout people cut the orcs left arm off and moved it to the other side of the Mtn Dew logo, tripling the orcs size. Hilariously awful. I only wish this could come through on the photos.

Okay, okay, enough about the Bloodbowl wannabee orc. Yeah yeah yeah, it's silly, it's indicative of the kid-ification of games like this, it's a knock-off of Warhammer stuff which suffers from the same cartoon affliction. The rest of the can art is pretty neat, black and red is a kick-ass color palette. The black bands at the top and bottom ends of the can are edged in gold fancy work, and the metal parts of the orcy armor are all naked can metal.

All in all, it's a serious can, orc doofus aside.

And the drink itself isn't awful, either. Like I said earlier, Mountain Dew has an awful track record with it's flavor additives. They all taste cheap and chemically, totally dissipating the carefully cultivated air of class which Mountain Dew has spent generations acquiring. This stuff isn't as bad as the other Mountain Dew mutants, I mostly blame that on their choosing to go with "citrus cherry" instead of "double dingle berry" or "triple jungle lingonberry". Simple tastes are the best, and adding cherry to any soda makes it better.

The cherry isn't quite cherry, of course. They had to qualify it by adding "citrus" ahead of the "cherry" on the can itself. It's a little sour, and little mediciney, a little off-putting. It reminds me of nothing so much as these terrible cherry chew candy strips I had been given as a child, they were covered in crystallized sugar and sour stuff. Not very good at all, but those didn't have the blessing of Mountain Dew.

So yeah, I could actually see myself drinking this more than once. Shame they discontinued it. Seriously Mountain Dew people, this is the only non-straight Mountain Dew flavor you people ever got right.

I swilled this stuff down while playing twenty minutes of "Call of Duty: World at War". It's a game I'm not especially good at, but am lucky enough to have friends who are almost all worse at it than me. For this test, I played on-line against against unknown people, and didn't do exceptionally better than my typical game. No super-powered moments, no godlike omniscience and speed. No nuthin'.

Now the embarrassing part:

I didn't drink this stuff because I was anxious to do another review. Nay, I dread writing these reviews now. Rather, I wanted a caffeine dose to keep me awake as I went to a pseudo-rave party thing. Yeah, I'm embarrassed, but I had reasons. I shall enumerate them:

1. The party had a theme close to my heart, the Galapagos Islands, Darwin and the HMS Beagle. The title of the party was "Stranded", which also had a touch of nice to it. There was an interesting list of events, including some artsy stuff which I was interested in seeing. I also was under the impression that some puppeteers I wanted to see were going to be there, but they weren't. Alas.

2. The party was being held in a part of Brooklyn where I hope to get a work space. Actually, it's not that I want a studio there so much as it's my only possible hope of ever having an art studio. To be an artist nowadays takes a lot of dough, something which I ain't got, fat Google advertising checks aside. It turns out that the event was held in a building run by a somewhat overpriced studio rental company, not in their studios but on a floor below. I'll admit that not much was learned.

3. I was curious.

So I went and the event was a raging bore, a failure on all three counts. Of course, everyone else seemed to be having a good time, so I'm pretty sure the fault was mine. I hate people who have fun.

Top Pop Cola, Found!

Top Pop Cola, Found at Last

Top Pop Cola reminds me of an incredibly beautiful woman I've long admired from afar, yet only got around to seducing last night. The delayed gratification heightened my interest in the consumation of my desire, but the act itself turned out be a disappointment.

As loyal readers will know, I first spotted Top Pop empty on a sidewalk a few months ago. I cased the local shops but didn't turn up a bottle and had to decide that the litterbug had ported it in from some far off locale. Fortunately I was proven wrong when I saw some in a deli about four blocks from my initial encounter. A whole range of generic flavors was lined up for the eager customer, so generic I can't remember what was actually there.

Fearing my wife's rage, I only picked up the cola. I'm sure that those same bottles will be lingering on the shelves when I return in a year or two.

First off, the cost to flavor ratio is tops. I believe the bottle was sixty five cents, and it contains twenty four "fl" ounces of drink. That's pretty good, considering it tastes like medium class generic bar cola. It ain't bad at all, certainly not as awful as what I'd braced myself for.

Which brings me to an aside: The sodas I've been drinking for the past several months are all pretty not-awful. I mean, I haven't had a Skeleteens level of awful since the Skeleteens drinks, and I haven't had "sweet corn drink" awful since I woke up while sleep-eating out of the cat litter box. Damn you Ambien! The danger and excitement is sorely lacking from my reviewing, it's now sort of like hanging dry wall as I work through my umpteenth orange drink which is only differentiated from all the rest because it was mixed up in Oregon.

Bah.

Drinking Top Pop is like drinking dry wall, review-wise.

Anyways, it's a better tasting cola drink. Not as thick as Coke or Pepsi, none of the chemical nasty found in those drinks. No after taste, no slime on the teeth. It's still made with corn syrup, but I couldn't tell. It's main impression is that it's a diet soda that wasn't made with diet sweetener, as silly as that sounds.

In fact, that's what it is. It has all the qualities of Diet Coke but it's not aspartame sweetened or whatever that crap is.

Reviewing this soda makes me feel like Clement Greenberg.

As a failing artist, I appreciate the label in particular. It's a combination of Jackson Pollock with a Roy Lichtenstein drawing of a paint brush stroke worked through in a 60s slasher film color palette. The yellow band across the top reads "20% MORE THAN 20 OZ." then there's a circle with a U in it. What the hell does that mean? I know the "circle K" for kosher, maybe circe U means it was packed by an undine. Or it's safe for consumption with brains for the undead. Or the liquid is less than twelve percent umber hulk.

Anyways, there you go. Not great, not bad, just middling blah. But a good blah for the price.

President Lincoln Hated Fast Food...

...and they've banned it at the Lincoln Memorial. He'd written that in as a requirement in his will, or his estate wouldn't have payed to have it built. Considering his book proceeds alone, that estate is worth a fortune. And with the money he gets from letting his likeness by used on the five dollar bill...

New 7-11 Gimmick

New 7-11 Gimmick

I don't know what they're selling me, but I doubt that they'd've done this if they'd realized how tacky it is to make something so similar to the "missing children" milk cartons.

Speaking of which, do they still have missing children pictures on milk cartons? When did milk companies stop caring about missing children?

I wrote them a letter that goes a little like this:

I love Slurpees and drink them all the time. However, I was a little uncomfortable with a recent promotion I saw on a Slurpee cup. It shows the profile of a Slurpee cup and says "I lost my Slurpee".

I'm not an old fogey, but man... Do you folks realize how similar this is to the old missing children on the milk cartons? It's sort of tacky.

I'll be writing about this on my soft drink review blog, and would love to hear your side of the story.

http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=7117116885333133555&searchType=ALL&txtKeywords=&label=Slurpee

I do love Slurpees, though.

Best,
tim h

Stealing Stuff at McDonalds

I commend whoever was able to get their act together enough to keep a McDonalds cup intact long enough to try and use it over two separate visits. I'll also salute whoever was cheeky enough to bring in their own cups to fill them at the station, and then tried to justify it by saying "But I was in here last week and bough at a soda, I thought it was all you can drink?"

I myself could never manage any of these things. Try as I might I could not keep a Taco Bell cup in sanitary shape long enough to use it twice. I'd stash it in my car in a safe place and by the same time the next day it was so full of dirt you could use it as a plant pot.

I wonder if I could score a free McDonalds meal by offering to fix the capitalization on their sign? Mind you, I don't eat at McDonalds very often, just when there aren't any other options. Or I'm in a foreign country, few things more awesome than a McDonalds full of funny talk and crazy items that should be in a Jack in the Box.

Ralph and Charlie's Green Apple and Kiwi Pineapple Juice

My hand isn't to scale.

Ralph and Charlie's Green Apple and Kiwi Pineapple Juice

This is a drink fraught with contradictions - it tastes watery and thick, all at once. It's a little bit sour like a green apple, but in a way they isn't very convincing, as if pineapple was wearing a cheap green apple costume it rented from a discount masquerade shop.

The juice matches my teeth.

I just realized why this stuff strikes me as gross, even though it really isn't... It's the consistency of milk. It has the thickness and viscousity of 2%, and the mouthy aftercoat of fat free. I shit you not, it's identical.

With all my willpower I will push that horrid realization aside and focus on the taste. It really is pretty good, few manufactured flavors go out of the bounds of decency faster than green apple. It's like some guy in a fancy suit says "Make me an X that tastes like green apple" and the flavor chemist says "Oh, you want something that tastes like green apple Jolly Ranchers". In a just universe the chemist would be beaten and have his taste buds shaved off with a planer. Sadly, in our universe the suit guy would nod just dumbly as he dreams about his new sports car-

"Of course".

This stuff doesn't taste like Jolly Rancher's.

The label says it's "naturally turbid", a word my iPhone insists should be turbo. iPhones show an uncanny wisdom at times. The label also calls it an "everyday beverage", I am a little uncertain what that means. Maybe it's like writing "Consumer Loyalty" right on the box.

Oh no! Corn syrup! C'mon Ralph, charlie! I am ashamed of you both. It says "sugar (A) and/or glucose - fructose syrup (B)". That means corn syrup, right? Right? I'll cheat and look it up... Yep, generally means corn syrup in disguise.

Bummer.

Anyways, I drank it, hated it at first, got over it, sort of liked it, then didn't finish it. That's the big measure, if I finish the drink or not. And I didn't, so there.

Snake in the Grass, Coca Cola Slurpee

It's important to grip the adder firmly behind the head,
so it cannot twist and bite you. Be strong.

Snake in the Grass, A Coca Cola Slurpee Betrayal

In an effort to offset the crushing sadness inherent in my being a guy who gets up for work before six and seldom gets home before ten, I bought an xbox. This was to ensure that the twelve free minutes I enjoyed at home each day weren't frittered away on my wife, or my cats, or my robot or my novelization of this blog. None of those things hold up to being cursed at by the effeminate voices of the next-next generation, a rather high strung people thick with racism and innumerable other incarnations of ignorance.

I mean, really, I have yet to meet a twelve year old who actually knows what "hull down" means. What do kids learn in school nowadays?

So in this "xbox" there is a game called World at War. One of a myriad of World War II games where we get to take the role of soldiers who never lived to be our grandfathers. While playing these men doomed to never don the mantle of "confused giver of unwanted and uncool Christmas gifts to ungrateful children", you can earn "achievements".

At least I think that's what they are called. An achievement is acquired when you've done something deemed noteworthy by the game designers like killed three enemies with one bullet, or having team killed your fiftieth crying eight year old.

Achievements, by the way, are pretty arbitrary. I've done things I thought were pretty remarkable but went unrewarded by the happy little pop up bubble announcing my accomplishment. In World at War, for example, I managed to roll a tank all the way over and back onto it's treads. Pretty cool, and I've only ever managed it once, no matter how much effort I've devoted to repeating the feat. But, roll a tank - no accomplishment. Neither do you get an accomplishment for making your friends sputter with anger, or for choking on a grape during "Headquarters". Fall off a building roof, however, and the game congratulates you.

I've fallen off roofs before, and nowhere in my swimming vision was a pop up commending me for it. Blood, gravel, stars - but no pop ups.

A charming characteristic of achievements are their often clever names. "Hammer Time" and "Soul-Survivor" are two examples. Maybe not so charming. "Saved Private Ryan" is another that quotes popular media, kids love that.

One particularly not charmingly named achievement is called "Snake in the Grass". You get it for shooting a Japanese soldier in a gilly suit while he is hiding in the grass. In the campaign versions of the game, there are numerous places where enemy soldiers hide in the underbrush, then leap up and rush you with bayonets. After playing once or twice you learn where they hide and can gun them down before they act.

Not very sporting - after all, it's basically cheating to use knowledge of the ambush to forestall an otherwise unforeseeable event. But that's sort of the point of any xbox game, to break the unfolding of the game so as to play it out with the least possible enjoyment.

But, "Snake in the Grass": an incredibly easy achievement to collect. I have it, got the way I described above. I'm not proud of it and certainly didn't learn from it. I wish the achievement conditions had been refined a little - that you only had the chance to earn it the very first time you passed through a level, before you learn where all the enemies are hidden.

But that just means that someone would release a cheat guide, detailing enemy locations so you would enter prepared. It's my honest belief that xbox players hate a challenge more than anything else, except possibly being surprised by something.

As someone who has a bronze medal in shooting threats before they manifest themselves, you might think I wouldn't have been surprise-bayoneted by a slurpee. But like I said, my qualifications weren't honestly earned.

Here's the story:

I was craving a Coca Cola slurpee, but the dispenser at the local 7-11 was broken. Two weeks went by without satisfaction, even the Burger King slurpee dopplegangers were consistently unavailable. During that time I even pressured my workmates to buy me a slurpee from a nearby town when they drove over on business. They merely laughed in a sinister manner and consistently "forgot".

I started calling the 7-11 and asking if the machine was online, to save myself the six block walk. Eventually the machine was fixed, I was informed via telephone and scudded over to fill my void.

I was immediately suspicious, the machine which dispensed Coca Cola slurpees wasn't repaired, they had merely changed one spigot on the sister slurpee machine over to Coke. This wasn't a well reasoned suspicion, but more of the feeling a cat seems to get when it enters a room and discovers something has been fundamentally changed about it's universe, maybe that someone dropped a sinister envelope on the living room floor or left a frightening umbrella leaning in the corner. Alert!

So I filled my cup, tasted and a screaming Japanese soldier rushed out of the weeds and stabbed me in the mouth with artificial banana flavoring. Alas, the worst of all artificial fruit flavors - and in my mouth no less! The slurpee machine had not been cleaned out properly, and a horrible flavor lingered from before. Awful.

Having committed myself (those cups are inventory!), and still burning with slurpee lust, I resigned myself to my imperfect drink, cut it with extra fountain Coke, paid and left.

Bah.

[Note: This was written on my iPhone during my daily commute. Please excuse the ad hoc nature of the writing, and any totally bizarre words. I would assure you non sequiturs are the result of the auto-spell build into my treacherous phone.]