Black and White
Exotic beverage: Naughty Girl Energy Drink
"Hi, I'm red."
This energy drink contains caffeine, carnitine, not much else. The more interesting of those two ingredients, carnitine, is a quarternary ammonium compound (whatever the hell that is) synthesised from amino acids. It's found in red meat and nuts, and is synthesised during pregnancy to aid in growth. It's listed on the can as a fat burning magical chemical of awesomeness, but I can't fathom the diagrams on Wikipedia well enough to explain whether this works or not. (It's in a sugar-laden aphrodisiac beverage. Methinks it does not.)
It's violently flourescent red. It's not just red, it's RED. Proper red. It's mildly carbonated. I'd expected it'd be pink, but at least it's not urine-coloured as I kinda suspected it would be.
It smells like window cleaner. The blue kind. (Not the red kind.) It's somewhat scary. One is tempted to include an appendix to this article detailing how well "Naughty Girl" polishes glassware.
The bubbles are trying to escape, bless them.
Once you stick it in your mouth, it's far from pleasant. It's basically a canful of the flavour that all energy drinks try to disguise, the reeking unpleasantness of vitamin-B. The can describes the flavour as "raspberry", but it's about as close to raspberry as a glass of aerated water saturated in b-vitamins.
The best feature of this beverage is its complete lack of an aftertaste, it's a shame there's no other good points, because inhaling air has the same effect.
On a whole, It's fairly disgusting. I couldn't manage a glass. It's unpalatable because there's no real taste to it, just the underwhelmingly vitamin-B like flavour of blurgh. There's no aftertaste to speak of, and it made my face twitch uncontrollably.
I suppose I should hesitantly address the other "property" of this drink: aphrodisia. I believe it's aimed at women. It didn't excite me any. This may be because I'm not a woman. Should I ever find a woman who's willing to drink vitamin-B and window cleaner, then tell me how her loins are feeling, I'll be sure to post the results.
Exotic beverage review: Red Devil Energy Drink
It's red, and one would imagine, devilish.
It's all Red Bull's fault. "Red" has apparently become a convenient catch-all buzzword for energy drinks. Between Red Eye, which is pleasant, and Red Bull, which is bile in a can, it's a shame the term cannot be safely used to distinguish the palatable from the impalatable.
Red Devil is alarmingly tomato coloured. It kinda looks like someone has bled into it. It's not a comforting colour. I had anticipated it'd look somewhat like Red Bull, based entirely on the contents being similar. I'm almost disappointed.
It smells exactly the same as every other energy drink that tries to disguise the patently disgusting flavour of b-group vitamins with some kind of uberberry fruit deluxe syrupy flavour. It smells very much like someone's vomited some berries and added Berocca.
Close-up of Red Devil in a glass.
At the risk of offering a cheap-arse description of the flavour that'll be of no help to anyone, it tastes virtually identical to Red Eye Gold. It's got a strong medicinal flavour, buried beneath an unpleasant taste of partially digested berries, all of which are swimming on top of the unpleasant vegetable flavour of b-group vitamins, which still manage to poke their hideous heads through the masking agents to make this a vaguely unpleasant beverage. As flavours go, this one isn't too bad. I was afraid it'd taste like Red Bull, but thankfully it does not.
The only noticable aftertaste is that of the berry-like puke flavour, which -- as an aftertaste, at least -- isn't totally unpleasant.
It's not entirely bad. For something with all the ingredients of Red Bull, a name that begins with "Red", and a colour that looks like someone's been punched in the kidneys and taken a nice long piss, it's decidedly palatable and probably earns itself a place on the short list of energy drinks that don't make your soul depressed.
Cold Creek Manor: An exercise in common sense
This is a brief study in logic. Occam’s Razor postulates that of all available possibilities, whichever is the least ridiculous is probably the right one. Sherlock Holmes postulates that when everything impossible is removed from the scene, whatever’s still hanging around has got to be the truth. Schroedinger postulates that a cat can be a zombie. Today’s film of choice is a “psychological thriller” under the guise of Cold Creek Manor. I’ve come to the conclusion that a “psychological thriller” is in fact a horror movie with everything good removed from it.
CCM is the story of a frustrated family of New Yorkers, who, upon their young son being ploughed by an SUV in the city, decide to move to the country. Where SUVs are less prevalent. Or something.
So, Irritating Video Journalist Daddy packs up Sleeping With Colleague Mummy, Overdeveloped Teenage Daughter and Annoying Young Son and heads off to purchase a piece of prize real estate in the form of Cold Creek Manor.
Having moved in to their new home, IVJ Daddy and AY Son start snooping about and find a bundle of curious evidence about the previous owners, including a scrapbook created by the previous owner’s child, laden with dodgy imagery and even worse poetry about demons, and a bunch of polaroid photos of what I assume to have been the previous owner’s wife with her wobbly bits awobble.
To cut a long, tedious and stultifyingly boring story short, previous owner shows up, hangs around, proves himself to be as dodgy as everyone suspects, becomes bad guy, tries to kill everyone.
Now. Leaps of logic.
1. Kid convinced Daddy hit horse with car.
Father, drunk from trying to butter up the locals at the saloon, drives home. Previous house owner gives chase, Daddy winds up colliding with a deer. Previous owner retreats. Next morning, kiddies wake up to find Daddy’s car is damaged, and their pet horse is dead in the swimming pool, which is in the back yard of the house, clearly flanked by the house on one side and trees and gardens on the other.
OCCAM, SHERLOCK AND SHROEDINGER AGREE: Daddy did not hit the horse, as there are clearly no skidmarks on the ground, nor is there enough room in the entire yard for Daddy to gain enough speed to collide with a horse and fling it into a swimming pool! Daddy probably hit the deer that Daddy says he hit.
MOVIEMAKERS AGREE: Daddy did not hit a deer. Daddy hit the horse. Somewhere else. Then dragged the horse’s dead carcass back to the pool and dumped it in. At night. Without making a sound. Oh, and Daddy killed the horse with an impact that was only strong enough to damage one headlight and bend his front quarterpanel a tiny bit.
ANYHOW. Second leap of logic ahoy!
Cold Creek Manor is essentially The Ring with The Ring removed. Brief synopsis:
Ring: Chick hires video journalist to discover the meaning of a videotape about a kid who was killed by her parents and dumped down a well.
Manor: Video journalist buys house then discovers previous owner killed his kids and dumped them down a well.
I digress. Second leap.
2. Thin nylon rope can lift anything!
Spoilers ahoy. Upon learning that the previous owner probably disposed of his children in a well on the property, IVJ Daddy sends his waterproof handycam down the well on a bit of bright yellow nylon shoelace. He reels in the camera and discovers their remains on the tape.
Daddy goes to the car, as far as I can tell for the sole purpose of seeing whether the tyres had been slashed (what astounding clairvoyance!) while Mummy inexplicably remains near the top of the unguarded well waving a lantern about. Previous house owner leaps from the bushes and pushes Mummy into the hole. Then, uh, disappears. For no reason I can fathom.
ANYHOW. Daddy comes to the rescue and flings the bit of nylon shoelace down the hole for Mummy to climb up on.
OCCAM, SHERLOCK AND SHROEDINGER AGREE: Nylon shoelace will not hold the weight of Sharon Stone at a length of, eh, thirty feet, probably.
MOVIEMAKERS AGREE: Sure it will. However, she’s going to mostly climb up the REALLY OBVIOUS TREE ROOTS (or “vines”, as Dennis Quaid calls them) which could have supported her without the aid of the amazingly yellow string.
Also of note is Christopher Plummer as a senile old man. Not a huge leap, there. Sorry.
The can. Click on any of these images for bigger, uglier ones.
Exotic, uh, beverage? Sour Spray
It's been a while since I've written an Exotic Beverage Review, so here's one in a slightly different direction.
I picked this stuff up at my local video store. Immediately, I got the urge to buy two cans, because this stuff clearly cannot last. This is another entry in the gargantuan line of sour sweeties, which seem to function entirely on the concept that the more disgusting a confection tastes, the more likely children are to want it. "Sour Spray" guarantees kiddies will love it by adding the bonus gimmick of being delivered to the taste buds in much the same way as Raid is delivered to insects -- by aerosol.
My immediate reaction to this was "Holy arsegiblets, Batman! This'll make small children think it's okay to eat bug spray!". My secondary reaction was "I'll take two!".
I had planned to make this a conventional Exotic Beverage Review, but the crap by nature defies the standard format of an EBR. It contains no truly exotic ingredients (apart from whatever the propellant in the aerosol is, evidently it's not hydrocarbon -- which cannot surely be a bad thing -- but the can divulges nothing as to what the gas actually is). The sugar content of the goo is not suprising, 10g in an 80ml serving.
The can is about the size of a handy deodorant can, the type women tend to carry in their purses. It's well sealed with a layer of shrink-wrapped cellophane plastic around the cap. The label on the can is also shrink-wrapped plastic, not enamelled painty crap like on most aerosol cans.
Click the jumpy jump to read more about this astounding aerosol --
The directions and precautions on the can are as follows, and I really wish I had made these up:
DIRECTIONS: open the can, spray candy directly into your mouth and SCREAM. Manufacturer assumes no responsibility for crazy outbursts, silliness and laughter you may experience. Do not mix with other whimpy candies. CAUTION: This candy does not cause boredom if used as directed.
So that's the joke warning panel. The real warning panel reads as follows:
WARNING: Contents under pressure. Do not puncture or incinerate. Exposure to high temperatures may cause bursting. Avoid spraying in eyes. Intentional disuse by deliberately concentrating and inhaling the contents can be harmful. Store below 120F.
Fair enough, says I.
But wait..
DIRECTIONS: open the can, spray candy directly into your mouth and SCREAM.
..and..
Intentional disuse by deliberately concentrating and inhaling the contents can be harmful.
I assume the screaming is due to the probably highly carcinogenic propellant you're not meant to inhale while the CAN IS SPRAYING INTO YOUR MOUTH HOLE speedily eroding your lungs and causing some kind of narcotic trip.
Or maybe I'm just too cynical.
The nozzle. Don't suck on it.
A poorly translated Chinese paragraph on the side of the can suggests the can contains 28 feet of foamy goodness. Upon reading this, I immediately realised the potential for an..
UNAUTHORISED "HOW MUCH IS INSIDE"!
So, without further ado, I hereby rip off pay homage to Cockeyed.com:
Realising I needed a method to measure the output of the can, I quickly comandeered my kitchen bench and set up a high-tech measuring apparatus:
Cling wrap + tape measure.
The plan was for the cling wrap to contain the overwhelming foamy madness, which would be distributed across its width in 12 inch sausages, as measured with pinpoint accuracy by my fluourescent green tape measure. It was a plan that could not fail!
Foam?
Unfortunately, I'd failed to anticipate that the word "foam" is apparently a bad Chinese translation for the Chinese word that means "slightly damp snotty goo that turns to rancid fluid within seconds". So my nice foamy sausages speedily mutated into streams of unpleasant pink sticky matter. But one soldiers on, in true How Much Is Inside? tradition!
Ten feet of pink!
Here's the first ten feet of pink goop, which by now has congealed to a kind of Klingon blood-like substance. Thankfully, the cling wrap is containing it quite nicely, as the top left corner indicates. As hard as it's trying to escape, the surface tension of the Klingon haemoglobin is too strong to break the bounds of the plastic.
oh god no
Here's a final photograph of the stuff as it begins to break through the gravitational boundaries of the cling wrap and starts to invade my kitchen bench. Ultimately, the final spray count got to 28 foot-long lines of pink crud, but the stuff was congealing and liquefacting and disintegrating and eating through my house so quickly I didn't have a chance to photograph it. I was too busy attempting to scoop up the plastic sheeting into a sort of bag-like formation before the stuff became a permanent part of my kitchen.
However, having proven the can did contain at least 28 feet of "foam", as per the label, I decided to get brave and sample a bit of the stuff.
I sampled the stuff. My tastebuds collapsed in upon themselves like a black hole, retreating from the seething pink goo I had so disdainfully thrust upon them. It felt like I'd sprayed rancid, carbonated vinegar onto my tongue. It's also worth mentioning that it's not at all possible to have any control over the direction and ferocity of the spray, so you might as well toss a handful of coins as to whether you want the "foam" to go into your mouth, down your throat or up your nose.
Curious as to how much crud remained in the can, I exhausted it into the makeshift cling-wrap bag:
Squirt.
It's a goddamn alien lifeform, I'm telling you.
I debated whether to drink the stuff, attempt to preserve it, or feed it to a homeless person and sit back and watch. After some deliberation, I decided the best fate for the red glowing bile was..
The ultimate fate of the rancid pink goo. Also, red + blue = purple.
Never again. Ever.
As an addendum, however, I returned to the kitchen to discover the cling wrap had at some point failed me, and the red crap had actually stained my bench:
It's still there, weeks later.
Never. Again.
Spectacular lightning at Lightning Ridge
This was a nice little storm that passed over Lightinng Ridge in February, 2006. Among other less impressive photos, I managed to capture "Newtown Touchdown" and "Money Shot", the latter of which was printed on the front page of the Ridge News, and in an article in the Daily Telegraph. Newspaper articles can be found here!
A few more photos from the same evening:
