Letters: Dear Music-snob

I’m tired of dealing people like you. I understand that being a fan of an obscure band makes the music slightly more personal and all that, but it doesn’t make them good. I’m fed up of people like you, trawling through the internet to find some obscure band that they think should be famout. Oh but wait! If they become famous, their sound will inevitably become commercialised and they will lose their indie charm and therefore you won’t ever be allowed listen to them again. Why? BECAUSE YOU’RE INDIE! I don’t care if one band is “commercial” or not, if I like the song, I’m going to listen to it, I may even go wild and buy their album! I’m just that crazy.

Nothing makes me angrier than having to endure a conversation where someone like you says that my taste in music is shite because people know the name of the band I like. I’ve even started playing a game because for some reason I’m coming across more of these annoying excuses for human beings every day! It goes like this:

Step 1: When the music snob mentions a band that you haven’t heard of, say that you have.

Step 2: Next they’ll inevitably ask where you heard them, and just say that one of your other friends showed you the cd

(extra points if said friend isn’t into that kind of music and the music snob believes you).

Step 3: The next bit is what they always do when they discover their favourite band isn’t as “special” as they thought. They will panic and mention another obscure band usually in the following way:
“Oh…. Well, they still have a long way to go before they can be anything like [band]“
or
“Yeah, but they’re not as good as [band]“
or
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be into them, have you heard of [band] as well?”

Then go back to step 1 and repeat as necessary, eventually the music snob gets frustrated and will go home to search the entire internet for a band that will never make it just so they can wear a tshirt that says this.

Why did you say a band that will never make it?

Well, lets face it. If a band has a set of followers just like you they aren’t going to make it big. In fact, as musicians they’ll be hardly respected. Why? Their entire career will be based around what bar will hire them and if they can’t fill the floor, they’re not going to be taken on again. If they fill the floor, the indie folk won’t like them and therefore they lose what little fanbase they have. Also, even these bands with a whole load of friends eventually give up and get a very beige job in an office. Why? They failed, every one of their gigs was a flop because the only people who supported them where their friends. After a while, it becomes dull and boring playing to the same people over and over again. If you know your fans on a first name basis, then you’ll have to face facts, your band sucks and only indie folk will mourn you because they only like you because no one else does.

Anyway, back to verbally attacking indie-folk. I understand the point of supporting a decent band, but the problem is, the bands you support are usually the kind of band that no one has heard of. If no one has heard of a particular band there’s one of two reasons they are entitled to have for this occurance:

1. It has been more than 20 years since their last album.
2. They’re crap and have a long way to go before people will consider them good.

If you’re band isn’t number 1, it’s number 2. Don’t get on your high horse and tell me that we need to support new bands. Of course we do, but they need to give us a reason to want them to succeed. It’s like watching a rapper go on stage shouting “MAKE SOME NOISE!” unless this rapper has done something to earn the audience’s respect e.g. played some music first that made people want to dance and such like, then they’re just going to laugh at him/her. If your band is obscure and has been for quite some time, it’s not because they were waiting to be discovered, it’s because they weren’t good enough to make an impression on the general population.

Anyway, go away indie people. Your taste in music sucks. Bands are obscure and unheard of for a reason. Why not spend some time finding some decent tunes instead of wasting your time finding a band that’s not “commercial”. If the only way you can hear about a particular band is by trawling the internet for hours or specially ordering it in from abroad because it’s not on sale in your country, then your band is a big steaming heap of crap.

If the only way you can enjoy music is by making someone’s eyes glaze over talking about it, then you need to just put down the headphones and step away from the music, you’ve no right to be near it. Music is entertainment, it’s not meant to replace a sleeping tablet.

Felix

Anti-sobriety Review: Carlsberg

So we’re starting off the new series with a fairly neutral beer. This is the beer with the famous slogan:

“Probably the best lager in the world”

Lets begin:

Cost:

This beer is one of the standard drinks available in any bar in Ireland. As such it has the same price as most other beers. In the pub you can get a pint (500ml approx) for between €4.50 and €6. Now this is in pubs, in off licenses you can get 6 500ml cans (aka tallboys if you’re from America) for between €10 and €12 depending on what offer is on at the time or where you go. All in all the cost for this beer isn’t that surprising at all, it costs the same amount as the majority of the mainstream beers.

Score for Cost: 3 out of 5

It doesn’t cost too much, but it ain’t cheap either, so this beer gets a nice average mark.

Taste:

Now, I’m not sure if years of smoking has ruined my taste-buds, but this honestly didn’t taste too amazing. I will admit, it didn’t taste horrible either, it was a nice middle of the road taste. This meant that I could drink it without feeling the need to scrunch my face up into a ball whenever I take a sip (which has happened on occasion depending on how cheap the beer is). To be honest, the more and more I drank it, the more and more I lost my sense of taste. Is that an effect of the alcohol, or does it genuinely lack any distinguishing taste?

Score for taste 2 out of 5

Why? It’s not un-drinkable, but at the same time it doesn’t present me with a situation where I want to shout out,

“GET ME ANOTHER CARLSBERG! THIS IS AMAZING!”.

Effect:

Here’s the beautiful thing, a friend of mine managed to source a proper police-grade breathiliser. So from now on effect will be judged on how many of a particular product it takes before I’m legally over the limit. It’s a pretty simple system. It’s currently set to measure with a limit of the currently blood alcohol level of 80 mg of alcohol to 100 ml of blood (apparently). That being said, I expected that after 2 beers I’d be over the limit. But now, we had all green lights going. 4 beers went down the hatch and I was still just under the limit. By this point in time, I was tipsy, I couldn’t understand it, why wasn’t I legally drunk? I’ll tell you, time was the factor. Each pint would take me on average between 30 and 40 minutes to drink fully. This meant that I wasn’t so much getting drunk as just having a few beers. This basically means that the only way you’re going to get drunk on Carlsberg is if you’re knocking them back within 5 minutes and refilling as necessary.  Which leads on to side-effects.

Score for Effect: 3 out of 5

Unless you were pouring these down you’re throat like there was a forest fire in your stomach and only beer could extinguish it, then this product isn’t worth wasting your time on. Especially if your goal is to remain as far from sobriety as possible.

Side-effect:

Oh now here’s the kicker. While you look manly and butch drinking beer all night, it comes with a hefty cost. In fact, several. The first is the biggest inconvenience of all. After 1 pint you need to pee. So you go and come back, and before you’re halfway through the next one you’re back in the toilet.  This doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone at all, so I won’t dwell on it. The second side-effect was that it made me irratible, I got tired and sluggish and started acting like a kid just short of a tantrum. This is bad, really bad, because it explains why so many lads start fights on a night out. It’s because what they’re drinking has literally made them be 4 years old again, and when you’re four, you’ll fight with anyone just for fun. The third main side-effect was a sudden onset of cravings for anything made using copius amounts of grease. I went to the local chipshop and ordered all kinds of greasey crap. I ate it like it was my first meal in 20 years and was constantly plagued with the thought that the next morning my stomach was going to suffer. Why do drunk people flock to places of extreme greasiness after a night out? Why does alcohol make us do the exactly what’s required to make a hangover worse?

Score for Side-effect: 1 out of 5

Why 1? Never in my entire drinking days have I understood why I had such a horrible hangover if I drank beer all night. Then last night I had an epiphany, beer makes you want to have a horrible hangover. Beer makes you want to turn your stomach to ribbons, to get a black eye and to wake up face down on the kitchen floor with no trousers on. Carlsberg provided possibly my worst hangover to date.

The Look:

The original intention of this section of the entry was to highlight how drinking a particular product affects your image. Afterall, even those who claim to not judge on first impressions, subconsciously do. The thing I’ve noticed is that beer doesn’t get you noticed until you’ve had too many and start acting the idiot. So I’m not going to be providing a score rating for this section. Now that being said, there are certain advantages to drinking beer, especially in Ireland. Why? Well everything gets served in the same kind of glass. This means that an awful lot of people will ask about what you’re drinking, thus starting off a conversation. Either way, this really didn’t do much to set off people’s radar at all. That being said, there are nights when you just want to go out and have a drink and not get bothered by a load of idiots going,

“What are you doing drinking that?”.

Overall:

It wasn’t the worst tasting drink that I’ve had the pleasure of consuming. I will say that the fact that you’re spending the majority of your time in transit between your seats and the toilet, you get plenty of exercise and that has to be chalked up as a good thing! That being said, there are a number of things you need to remember if you’re going to go on a night of beer. Always try to avoid getting a take-away anything after a night of beer. Whatever it is about beer, for some reason you just want to get battered lard deepfried and served with a side of grease. I don’t see the logic, it doesn’t work, you wind up feeling worse the next day. Overall, I would highly recommend it for those of you who want a quiet night, but for those of you planning on getting slightly polluted, I’d recommend going towards something that won’t make you pee every 30 seconds.

Score for Carlsberg: 2 out of 5

I’m sorry Carlsberg, you may think you’re probably the best lager in the world, but you didn’t set off any alarm bells with me.

Tune in next time for an Anti-sobriety review for: Heineken

Enjoy!

Felix

PS. As always, please read the disclaimer if you’re new to the blog. Leave a comment, and flick through the previous posts to see if there’s something you like. Please be sure to respect your local laws surrounding the consumption of alcohol (legal ages and whatnot), and most importantly, even if you are of age, try to be a little bit responsible (or at least pretend to be responsible)….

Announcement! Anti-sobriety Review

This website shall be taking a completely new direction. Well not really, it’ll still involve various chemicals to make you do what you wouldn’t normally do. So in the case of the stupidly caffeinated drinks, they made you stay awake all night. What’s this new direction? Well I should explain my situation firstly:

I’m back in college again, and with this comes a lot of parties! With parties comes booze… So this blog shall be covering something new:

ALCOHOL! ^_^

These new reviews will be structured much along the same lines as the previous ones but with a slight twist. So here they are:

1) Cost

Like previous occasions, I’ll be telling you of the cost of whatever product I’m consuming that particular night. This will include both the off-license price as well as the price at the bar.

Scores will be between 0 and 5. 0 being it’s so damned expensive that the only way you’re going to afford this is if you mortgage your house, car or yourself in order to get drunk on it. 5 means that it’s such good value that I’m amazed more people don’t drink it.

2) Taste

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not going to be acting like a connoiseur and talking about how the drink tastes of strawberry hews, hints of tar with a slight dash of a small man dancing on the side of the moon eating a ham sandwich. On the contrary, this will be covering the respective drinks ability to be consumed. If it tastes good it means that you’ll be able to drink more quickly, if it tastes bad, you’d more than likely not want to go near it. Either way, you’ll see how this goes in further posts.

Scores for this again go from 0 to 5. 0 means that the drink is so unbelievably disgusting that you really shouldn’t go near it unless you’ve got a steel-lined stomach. 5 means that (to quote Coors Light) it goes down easy.

Look

The big question with this is, how does it make you look. What people hardly ever consider is how what you drink often feeds in to how people form an opinion of you. This means that if you spend your time drinking a particular drink, some might see you as a raving douche etc. Anyway, this will be based on how people react to what I’m drinking.

If I give a product 0 for look, it means that you look like a complete twat drinking it. 5 means either one of two possibilities:

1. It’s a drink that people admire you for drinking
2. It’s something that no one notices

Effect

Do I really need to go over this? Basically, how well will it get you drunk? Will it take just one serving or 20 bazillion before you get the actual alcoholic effect of the beverage in question.

Much like Anti-somniac Review, 0 means that it does absolutely nothing and only those with an extremely (laughably) low tollerance will get drunk on this. 5 on the other hand means that you should only drink if you’ve got someone to carry you home nearby.

Side-effect

This will be going along the lines of “What kind of drunk will you be?”. This basically means that if I wind up slightly less sober than usual, I’ll be commenting on how the drink in question affected my mood and whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing. It could also encompass any weird things like how it affects one’s appetite in comparison to when one is sober.

0 means that the effects were completely negative, that drinking this particular product will cause you to be violent in some way. 5 means that all of the side-effects are positive, meaning that you’ll be a very happy drunk indeed!

Hangover:

This is by far the most important one of all. If you over indulge on the product in question, how will it affect you the next day.

A score of 0 means that drinking this product will result in you suffering so much the next day that it’s not worth drinking unless you’ve got a strange head-ache fettish. 5 means that the next day, you feel grand.

____________________________

Now for the reference material:

• Age: 23
• Height: 5′ 10” (Yes I know I’m short)
• Weight: 11 stone (or 154lbs or 70kg)

For future reference, my opinion (and you can quote me) is that alcohol was invented with the sole purpose of getting you completely drunk. I am completely certain that when wine, beer, vodka etc. was invented, people drank it until they got extremely wobbly if not worse. So in my mind, I savour alcohol by enjoying its effects rather than sitting down commenting on how it was a good year for [crop used to make product] or that it tasted of something that the product itself shouldn’t taste of. If you don’t like it, go to another blog. This is a blog for people who believe alcohol is a chemical designed to get you drunk, not designed to make you a moany little pissant who sits there sipping their drink for 3 hours. Either get drunk or stay on the soft drinks!

Anyway,

These reviews will be based on a night of drinking one particular product for the entire evening and nothing but! The first series of reviews will cover beers. Here’s what’s on the way:

1. Carlsberg
2. Heineken
3. Guinness
4. Erdinger
5. Bavaria
6. Pratsky
7. Dutch Gold (A particular favourite among the Irish)
8. Tuborg
9. Miller
10. Coors Light

Hope you all enjoy these blogs. As always, feel free to comment on all of my blogs, make suggestions as to what direction you think I should go in. Oh and if you’re new here, please read the disclaimer, for no other reason than to know what I’m blogging here.

Anyway, enjoy!

Felix

Anti-somniac Review: Jeger-bombs

The jeger-bomb is strictly considered a cocktail. Why? It involves mixing various ingredients that wouldn’t normally be mixed to create an alcoholic beverage (non-alcoholic cocktails are just glorified juice drinks). Anyway, as a lot of you are probably aware, a Jeger-bomb involves 2 ingredients:

1. 1 shot of Jegermeister (alcohol)
2. 1 glass of your favourite energy drink (mixer)

The process of mixing these isn’t the traditional pour the mixer over the alcohol, it’s slightly more interesting. You have one shot of Jegermeister in a shot glass, and in another glass you pour your favourite energy drink. You then drop the shot (glass included) into the drink and chug it down as quickly as you can.

For this my energy drink of choice was Boost! which was one of the more pleasant energy drinks to consume. So lets begin:

As always we will be looking at this product covering four headings:

1. Cost
2. Taste
3. Effect
4. Side-effect

Cost:

In a bar? Very expensive, you’d get 2 of these for about €10. At a party? Surprisingly cheap! The bottle of Jegermeister comes to a grand total of about €25, and that contains enough shots for about 3 people to get pretty hammered. The Boost was still going for 2 for €2 so you got 2 litres of energy drink for nothing. All in all our entire alcoholic arsenal went for about €30. So it was about €10 each and each drink wound up costing us about €1.50 (Quite the saving eh?). So depending on where you buy this concoction the scores for cost are as follows:

Bar: 1 out of 5

Party: 5 out of 5

Average score: 3 out of 5

Taste:

A famous character once said that alcohol is the cause and solution to all of life’s problems. He wasn’t far wrong, the jegermeister complimented the Boost very well resulting in a much more tollerable flavour. It wasn’t too sweet, there was a hint of spice to it and my god was it easy to drink.

Taste: 4 out of 5

I know it would seem like I gave it one point short, but in all honesty, while it is a great tasting drink for a night on the razzle, it wouldn’t be something that you could spend a whole night drinking without adverse side-effects (read on to find out)

Effect:

To put it simply, this gets you drunk surprisingly quickly, or it at least seemed that way. After my second one of these, the Boost kicked in and I was bopping about the place and in general I was a hyper little b… darling. This was a very nice little effect I must say, although it made you thirsty. Due to your thirst you have another drink, then you have another, then you have another etc.

Score for effect: 5 out of 5

As far as giving you energy is concerned, this does the job and does it well. As far as getting you drunk is concerned. It does a pretty good job of it!

Side-effect:

Oh god! The worst part of an entire night of nothing but Jeger-bombs means that eventually after all of that sugar, you’re going to crash. You crash, and then you get hungover…. The worst part about all of this was the hangover, not only do you suffer from a sugar-crash but you’ve got the hangover to deal with and that’s seriously awful!

Score for side-effect: 0 out of 5

Drunkeness will occur after enough of these. You’ll make a fool of yourself from being both hyper and drunk meaning that while you have a load of energy, you’ll have no coordination worth speaking of so you wind up running around like you’re made of jelly. You should also be forewarned that you will wind up with a hangover that’d make a brain tumor look like a birthday present. for this reason, bad score for side-effect.

Overall:

This is a good drink to have on a night out. However you should drink it responsibly. Too many of these and you’ll be full of energy but your brain will be melted so doing anything cool is out of the question. Drink too many of these and you’ll be well on your way to making a fool of yourself.

Score overall:

Bar: 1 out of 5

Party: 3 out of 5

Average: 2 out of 5

While it tastes great, I can’t honestly give it a great score without considering the side-effect. It is ultimately lethal, it’ll get you drunk, this is good on one hand a bad on the other. The little voice in the back of my head told me that being full of caffeine and alcohol is never a good thing. The problem with this is that no matter what you do, you’re going to make a complete idiot of yourself. Why? Well you’ll be full of energy, but won’t have the necessary levels of coordination to allow you a proper outlet for this extra energy. I personally took the party option, along with 2 of my mates. The most prominent of these reactions was a great irritability between drinks. The effect of the caffeine (making you hyper) and the alcohol (slowing you down) meant that you were never quite sure if you were hyper or drunk. This frustrated all three of us, that being said, a good night was had by all. The next morning was a completely different story. When you wake up face-down on the couch, and your brain feels like it just beat up your skull for being so stupid last night, you kind of second guess the whole alcohol situation. That being said, as far as drinks go you could do a lot worse than a jeger-bomb. I very much recommend it, but as with all alcoholic things, drink responsibly and obey your local customs regarding alcohol.

Next time: Coca-Cola

Apologies:

Due to starting back in College, low funding, somewhat of a social life and work, I’ve wound up with a lot less time to work on this blog as I would have liked.

That being said, you’ll now be getting an Anti-somniac review every 2 weeks. Whenever I can I’ll include something less review-ish into the mix….

Anti-somniac Review: BURN!

I went to my local newsagent and found a few cans of Burn. This stuff seems to be difficult enough to find in Ireland, or perhaps it’s just me. Anyway, this product is definitely something worth reviewing because several bars, pubs and clubs over the last year or so have been doing promotions and burn has been very much in the foreground over the past year.

Lets start the review, as always we’ll be looking at this product considering 4 main headings:

1. Cost
2. Taste
3. Effect
4. Side-effect

Cost:

This product is heralded as being the one and only product that could properly rival red bull. At first glance, you’ve got a product that is in a slightly smaller can but sells for in or around the same price as Red Bull. This means that on average you’ll be paying between €2 and €3 depending on where you get it from. This means that cost is a definite downside for this product.

Score for cost: 2 out of 5

Surely the whole point of making a rival product is to make it somewhat cheaper in some way. In the case of Burn, it’s the same price. BAD MARKETING CONSULTANTS! BAD!

Taste:

Now here’s the interesting thing, it tastes almost exactly like the bovine equivalent. Which is good and bad at the same time. I don’t know why, but I was expecting to get something that either tasted better or gave you a bit more pep and Burn did neither. Drinking it was like trying to wolf down a bag of sugar. Sure it seems great when you start, but after a couple of mouthfulls you feel ill. This is what happens with this drink.

Score for taste: 2 out of 5

Effect:

Again I was disappointed with this product. It presented nothing different to me. In comparison to Red Bull, there were not discernable differences. I was hyper for a little while and then crashed. That being said, the effect did last for a sufficient amount of time for me to remain alert and productive in work. This of course is a good thing. So for this reason, it scores well:

Score for effect: 4 out of 5

While the taste and effect where no different to Red Bull, it can be noted that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Basically if you’re looking for an alternative to Red Bull when it’s not in stock, get Burn. Same overall cost for the same taste and effect.

Side-effect:

Like all caffeinated beverages, you are going to have to make regular trips to the bathroom. This drink was no exception, in 10 hours I had to make the trip too and from the bathroom about 20 times so be sure to wear comfortable shoes because you’ll be doing a lot of walking. Aside from that unsurprising side-effect there wasn’t much else to comment on. The side-effects are average, and nothing you can’t handle or would be surprised by.

Score for side-effect: 3 out of 5

Why? It’s average, there’s nothing else to say on the subject really.

Overall:

Overall score: 3 out of 5

This is an unsurprising drink that lives up to its name. It is a direct equivalent to Red Bull in almost every way and as such didn’t ring any bells with me. Get this product if the shop you’re in has run out of red bull. Aside from that, there’s no reason to bother with it.

Next time: JEGER-BOMBS!

Yes, I have a few days off and my next entry will be about the famous Jeger-bomb cocktail.

Until then, have fun

Felix.

As always, please read the disclaimer.

If you have any suggestions or comments to make, please be sure to either submit a comment or send an email to:

felixbarry@rocketmail.com

Anti-somniac Review: Boost!

This review starts with an apology. I know I said that I was going to review a product by the name of Burn. Due to a lack of stock in the shop, I shall be reviewing something completely different. So this week I shall be reviewing a drink by the name of Boost! Their website tells you all about the product range available, but what I will be reviewing is the regular Boost.

Again this is one of the many competitors to Red Bull and to be honest, it’s an awful lot more pleasant than the others reviewed before it.

As always, these reviews cover the four most important elements when making a decision on what product to use:

1. Cost
2. Taste
3. Effect
4. Side-effect

So lets begin:

Cost:

In Ireland, the most readily available form of this product is the one litre bottle. Yes, 1 litre of this stuff is quite a lot when you consider it’s mainstream bovinesque rival. This hefty quantity of additive infused carbonated liquid is going for around €1.50 per litre. This is extremely good value, and plus if you have a Dunnes Stores near you then you can get 2 of these 1 litre monstrosities for €2. Not bad at all, for this reason I really have to give it a high mark for value.

Score for cost: 5 out of 5

I really can’t see a problem with this product with regard to cost. Even without the special offer, it’s still great value for the quantity that you’re getting. Kick, is a close second at approximately €1.80 (I checked earlier today). This stuff is definitely at a price that even the most modest budget can afford.

Taste:

Unlike its bovine counterpart, it doesn’t have a very strong taste. That being said, the smell will get to you first and this stuff stinks! Open up a bottle of this, and for about a 6 foot radius by my nasal calculations you’ll get a strong enough stench to tell everyone around you that you’re drinking some form of toxic sludge. This nasally offended my work colleague and made him ask me why I’m allowing myself to drink this. That being said, it tastes fine, it’s a very subdued taste in comparison to products previously reviewed. It also doesn’t have that viscous, syrup-like feeling when you drink it, which is a definite plus.

Score for taste: 4 out of 5

So far, this product is doing well. It isn’t too expensive, but at the same time has a pleasant enough taste. It definitely shows promise, but what of the effect and side-effects.

Effect:

Just when I thought my search was over! Just when I thought I had found a product that was worth it! Just when I thought I finally found the potion of choice to keep you awake all night, Boost came along… AND DISAPPOINTED ME! To paraphrase Radioactive-man:

“This bottle does nothing! NOTHING!”. Yes my friends, this product is cheap for a reason, it’s like someone in the marketing department of Boost said, we’ll make this product and it’ll be just like Red Bull, but with a difference. I’m sorry, but after 22 years of existance, you can’t simply say that because something walks like a duck and has feathers means that it is a duck. NO! It could be any number of possible species of poultry! This product when poured into a glass, looks, smells and tastes like it’s an energy drink, but it’s missing the most vital characteristic to actually make it an energy drink! IT HAS TO GIVE YOU ENERGY! What I thought was the effect was actually just a sugar buzz from all the various additives, it did nothing! This is a major issue as I may as well have spent my money on something like a pan of bread and some milk instead of this stuff.

Score for effect: 0 out of 5

Yes, I gave it the lowest possible score for effect because it lies to you. The “boost” its name promises doesn’t exist, or doesn’t exist long enough to actually be considered a boost. I feel like someone offered me a cigarette and I wound up with a straw instead. Sure it’s the same general shape, but it’s not a cigarette! This product is the same, you’re being offered bottled energy and what you get can only be described as a disappointment.

Side-effect:

Oh I’m not done yet. This product also comes with one of the most annoying side-effects. After drinking just one glass of this I needed to use the bathroom so often you’d swear my bladder was on the fritz! I swear, every time I sat down I had to get back up again to go to the toilet. The other thing is that because of the high sugar content of this drink, you crash if you don’t keep drinking it. Yes, you read correctly, instead of giving you energy, this product seems to keep you at the energy level you were at when you started drinking with the added bonus of crashing if you don’t keep a steady supply of sugar in your veins.

This is a bad thing. Why? Well you can’t keep drinking this stuff every few minutes when you’re driving and keep your already strained eyes on the road. This basically means that you will crash on your way home from work or the library or wherever. This is a bad thing and needs to be considered.

Score for side-effect: 0 out of 5

Yes, this is something that is very serious. By promising your consumer that they are buying an energy drink you are leading them to believe that there will be a little bit of pep in their step having drunk this product. Instead you just barely have enough energy to remain at the same level of consciousness you had when you opened the bottle. This is not good, if you have to maintain a certain level of alertness, then this isn’t for you.

Overall:

Score overall: 2 out of 5

This gets a very modest 2 out of five. It’s only saving graces are the cost and the taste. I wouldn’t recommend this to ANYONE who needs to be awake all night. Why? It doesn’t help you stay awake from what I can see, I would have been better off hitting myself on the head with the bottle instead of drinking its contents to stay awake. Don’t drink this if you need to stay awake, it does nothing.

Next week: BURN! (I promise)

Have fun,

Felix

Disclaimer

Anti-somniac Review: Kick!

Yes, it’s that time again where I review yet another product designed to keep you awake for extended periods of time. Up until now I have looked at main brands and how they fair against the sleep deprived. This time we will be looking at the first of many generic versions of these products and see how they fair. This week we will be looking at a product offered by Tesco called Kick. This drink is said to be Tesco’s answer to Red Bull.

As always, this product will be reviewed under 4 headings:

1. Cost
2. Taste
3. Effect
4. Side-effect

With an overall review at the end. Lets begin:

Cost:

Like all generic products, the price difference between them and the “real” brand is quite large. In fact, where a single can of Red Bull costs about €2.50 per can, you can get this product for around 70c per can. So Kick is about 75% cheaper than it’s name-brand rival. Now along with the 250ml can, you can also get a 1 litre bottle for just under €2. This makes it possibly the best so far when it comes to value.

Score for cost: 4 out of 5

Now this is a very well priced product and it is perfect if you are a student or just plain strapped for cash and in need of a pick me up.

Taste:

The problem with this is that it really is a generic version of Red Bull. It tastes almost exactly the same, and here’s where it falls to pieces. Yet again I’m drinking something that was tapped from a nuclear reactor. It tastes like there are a million and one additives and that’s just not good at all. It tastes unbelievably sweet, to the point that you just feel ill after just one can. It’s like drinking fizzy syrup! To be honest, the more time I spend drinking this, the more I’m noticing that it’s got a stronger taste of nothing but additives than Red Bull.

Score for taste: 2 out of 5

It tastes god awful, but to be honest, at this stage it should be taken as a given that almost ALL energy drinks taste like liquid uranium. This isn’t the worst tasting energy drink that I’ve come across. That being said, don’t drink this if you’re like this and hate stuff that’s too sweet because this drink makes the term “too sweet” and blows it out of proportion.

Effect:

Ok, so it tastes vile, you’ll probably get diabetes after a couple of cans and you’ll get radiation poisoning if the colour and general texture are anything to go by. Yes I said texture! This thing is like a fizzy syrup like I’ve said already. However, with all of that complaining behind me, I have to say that it was as effective as it was disgusting. This stuff works, it it works well. Each can gives the same amount of pep as a Red Bull, but for some reason, the effect lasted a good bit longer.

Score for effect: 4 out of 5

I’m surprised at how well this works. When you think about a generic brand anything, you expect shoddy, half-assed products that are a mere shadow of the name-brand product. In this case, I would consider Kick to be a proper competitor to the name-brand products with regards to effect.

Side-Effect:

There is one major thing that this drink causes that to me is unpleasant. You know when you wake up in the morning, and your teeth feel like someone laminated them? Well, that’s the feeling you get after you drink a can of Kick. This is something that can easily be gotten over, but in reality, it’s something that’s quite unpleasant to deal with and you’re not going to be carrying a toothbrush around with you wherever you go. There was one very strange effect, for some reason I got really hungry while drinking this. I mentioned it to a friend of mine and he thought I was smoking some funky-jazz-cigarettes during my shift, but when I told him that I was just drinking Kick he laughed at the possibility that a drink could give you the munchies. So my advice is if you’re drinking this, have some food handy because you’re gonna get hungry.

Score for side-effect: 3 out of 5

Two points were taken away for the laminated teeth and the munchies. You have been warned, if you drink this, be sure to at least have some food with you. I wouldn’t expect someone to carry a toothbrush with them at all times, but then again, I have certain female friends who would (along with half the house).

Overall:

This is definitely for the generically minded. By that I mean students and those on a really tight budget. It’s got all the effect with just 2 minor side-effects that you could get over by acquiring a taste for it (god help you if you do). There’s not much else to say really.

Overall score: 3 out of 5

Even with the cost considered and everything, this drink boils down to being very average. While it is cheap, it tastes awful and comes with 2 side-effects I’d rather not deal with. I would recommend it to those who have a deadline but don’t have too much cash on them. Aside from that, I can’t really say much else.

On the next Anti-somniac Review: BURN!

That’s it for this time,

Felix

Disclaimer

Anti-somniac Review: SURPRISE! [Nothing]

Yes, due to budgetary constraints I’ve decided to do a review to act as a control. By budgetary constraints, I mean I have no money to spend on fancy energy drinks which means I’m sitting here without caffeine trying to remain sane as the nightly hours pass me by. Rather than just leave you with nothing, I’m going to do something about nothing and do an entry entirely on the effects of using nothing at all to help you through a nightshift.

The only things that I have allowed myself access to are the following:

• Water
• Cigarettes
• Internet

Everything else has been left in the car and I will not be going anywhere near the coffee.

This review will take on a different format to the usual, I shall be documenting my physical and mental state as time progresses. This night shift started at 10pm and to be honest, I’ve still got a lot of energy remaining from when I had dinner (which was a roast chicken dinner, thank you very much) so I will begin this review from 11pm. So lets begin:

On this week’s Anti-somniac Review: [Nothing]

11pm: Signs are showing.

As is to be expected, my energy levels are quickly dropping. It started around 20 minutes ago when I spent about 10 minutes trying to convince a caller that they had dialled the wrong number and that I wasn’t playing a practical joke on behalf of someone named “Gerry”. Mark my words, if I find this Gerry person I shall kill him! After I have a nap of course.

Midnight: Yawn….

After 2 hours with no caffeine I’m starting to show the signs. In the time it’s taken me to write this section thus far I’ve yawned at least 4 times and had to correct my spelling as many times. It’s starting to show in my work as well, I’m not able to remember what people are saying to me when I take a phone call.

I’m also looking up the effects of excessive tiredness on the interwebs. Apparently, if I’m at this stage of tiredness where concentration starts to go then I shouldn’t operate heavy machinery e.g. a JCB. That doesn’t seem so bad, I never knew how to operate a JCB in the first place, so there’s no real change then.

1am: Is that a second wind or just gas?

Yes, it’s 1am and at this time of night I feel like I’m about to fall over and die. However, I do have a little bit of extra energy. I feel awake physically, but my brain seems to be backfiring. I’ve mixed up words in sentences and everything. I’ll give you an example,

What I thought I said, “Could I get a contact name and number please?”

What I actually said, “Could I contact your name and get its number?”

*sings* Oh seven hours to go and I think I’m gonna die!

2am: Gravy! ¬_¬

I can’t get that god damned Bisto gravy song out of my head,

“Gimme gravy, on my mashed potato. Gimme gravy, come on and treat me right. Gimme gravy, baby your the gravy so gimme gimme gimme gimme gravy tonight!”

While I love gravy, I hate this song! Gah! I can’t make my brain shut up! Stop singing that stupid song!

3am: WHAT WAS THAT!?!

That song is out of my head for now. I’ve noticed that I’m quite paranoid and jumpy. There are foxes outside that are barking at one another intermittently and I’m getting freaked out. I don’t know why, they’re just foxes, little small dog-like creatures that attack chickens and rummage in bins. I’m neither a chicken or a bin, so there’s quite a low risk that the fox will decide to rummage or attack me. I’m not worried about the attacking as much as I am about the rummaging to be honest.

4am: FOUR O’CLOCK AND ALL’S WELL!

Those foxes have gone off to do foxy things elsewhere. That sounds dirty… Look at you reading this, thinking dirty thoughts about the foxy foxes. GAH! ENOUGH FURRY STUFF! It’s 4am and I feel fine again. I seem to be getting used to being awake unassisted. I can’t help but shake this somewhat drunk feeling. I’m beginning to see why they told me to stay away from JCB’s earlier… Probably not a bad idea… Either way, we’re on the home stretch now.

5am: Oh I’m beginning to go…

Yup, 3 hours to go and I’m ready for my bed. I’m so tired right now that if I stare at the screen for longer than a few seconds my vision gets unfocused and all the letters on the screen start to make lovely little pictures, then I suddenly realise that I’m falling asleep and snap back into reality. If I was in bed, I’d love this stage of tiredness, that point where you’re not quite asleep, but you’re not quite awake either. Right now it’s hell, I’m sitting on a swivel chair (which I have spun around on for the last hour to stay awake), it’s getting really uncomfortable and I want to go home. Yes, I want to go home to my nice warm bed, my lovely (new I might add) pillows and a strange duvet I got last year that I keep getting tangled in with no evidence as to how it could have happened. Eitherway, I’m getting seriously tired, my concentration is nil, in fact, my brain has officially clocked out and I’m running on complete backup power at this stage.

6am: Trying to get serious… Trying…

After about 8 hours of doing next to nothing I have decided to get serious! I am NOT going to let this tiredness get the better of me. I am NOT going to fall asleep. I’m tempted, but I won’t. I tried to do some filing, that didn’t go well at all. I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out where the letter S came in the alphabet, then spent a few minutes giggling at the word “came”. I feel stoned, in fact I highly recommend that if there is no good weed around that you just stay awake for inhuman amounts of time until you wind up in a quasi-conscious state where you can’t make sense of everything. I also have a strange craving for a fried egg and cheese sandwich, I’ve never had one before so I’ll make one when I get home and let you all know how tasty it was.

7am: Give me bed! Give me all the bed!

It’s official, I’m really tired. Things are getting really annoying now. I can’t make sense of what people ringing in are saying anymore. I’m asking the same question over and over again. Callers are getting more and more frustrated as I try to get a hold of what’s going on. I stand by what I said an hour ago, I feel stoned, the bad kind of stoned. The kind where you just want to sleep it off.

8am: It’s all over!

I’m going home….

Overall score for nothing: 0 out of 5

I’m writing this section at 7pm after about 9 hours sleep and a whole load of coffee. Pulling an all-nighter with nothing to aid you sucks. I’ve spent the majority of my time correcting as much of the spelling and grammar as I could. It’s like getting drunk by yourself, it’s just depressing. If you want my advice, get some coffee or something if you wish to last an entire night! I barely managed it. I don’t recommend this to anyone at all. Your general state of mind winds up similar to that of being stoned or drunk, but without the fun of spending a few hours giggling with your mates. You’re just there, your thoughts are like random sparks from a fire, they seem like they’ll do something but then they fizzle out into nothingness. If you’re spending your time trying to get an essay done or meet a deadline in work, get some coffee, get some red bull, get something! I was so tired after all of this that I couldn’t sleep, I had to drink 2 cups of coffee to perk myself up a bit in order to get asleep. I’m never doing this EVER again!

On the next Anti-somniac Review: Kick!

___________________________

Disclaimer:

As always, these reviews are being done to show you the effectiveness (and the effects) of using various commercially available products (or lack thereof in this case) as an aid to staying up all night. I can not and will not accept any responsibility for any physical, medical or psychological problems that may occur as a result of using any of these products reviewed on this blog. In other words, if you decide to do what I do, it’s your responsibility.

Deep Thoughts: “Pics, or it didn’t happen”

I’ve spent the last while floating around the place, and I was thinking about that famous phrase of the interwebs,

“Pics, or it didn’t happen”. So that’s going to be my theme for this little post here. I’d like to think that I don’t spend much time on the internet, but I tend to spend too much time here, looking at wikipedia articles about nothing I really care about and other such exciting thing. Then I realised that the internet is invading my life!

Yes, my friends, the internet has invaded my life. Recently I went into the City Centre (Dublin) to get me a book. I couldn’t find any, so I went to a nearby coffee shop. I ordered a black coffee like I always do, then went outside to the tables in the smoking area. I took out a smoke, and went to light it only to realise that my lighter was empty. I turned to the guy sitting behind me and guess who it was? Dylan Moran, one of my favourite comedians EVER! I played it cool (or at least tried to) and just asked for the lighter, and sure enough he handed me his lighter and when I had lit my smoke, I gave it back. Very ordinary, nothing absolutely amazing really. However when I mentioned to my friends that I borrowed Dylan Moran’s lighter, they said,

“Did you take any photos?”

I of course said no. They then assumed that my story was fake all because I didn’t have a picture. The only thing out of the ordinary about my story is the inclusion of Dylan Moran. Would they ask me for photos if I said that some guy with a beard let me borrow his lighter? NO! The big difference is that there’s someone that both sides recognise who they wouldn’t normally come across in everyday life. The result is, you must get star-struck and take a photo.

So let me just get this together now. I was supposed to go to Dylan and say,

“Hey, my friends aren’t going to believe me that you let me borrow your lighter. Can I get a picture with you to prove you were here?”. He’d look at me like I just farted really loudly and tell me to go away (and not in a polite way). It’s different if the conversation actually started off with asking permission for a photo, but to be honest I wasn’t exactly looking around for Dylan Moran at all. I was just looking for a god damned lighter.

So tell me peoples, what am I missing here? Is the ultimate lesson here to take a camera with me at all times, taking photos everywhere I go in case something mundane, but slightly cooler than normal, happens so that I can prove it to people who are sceptical because a single piece of information is a little out of the ordinary?

I sit through people’s stories about how they met some celebrity here and there and about how they did this and that and some of the other. In one case, a mate of mine claimed that he shagged Christina Aguilera. I’m supposed to believe or at least say that I believe these stories about how someone did something completely bizarre with someone really famous, and yet I can’t borrow a lighter off someone without being expected to take pictures.

Brilliant!

So what do you think? Should I have taken pictures? Or should I have told the friend in question to get a life?

Have fun,

Felix.