Captain Pike's Ship Log II

Okay, so I tried one of these "energy drinks", a Red Bull to be precise. It tasted strongly citrus but of an unknown puckery fruit and was somewhat carbonated, I think. I've built up quite an immunity to caffeine over the years, being an avid coffee drinker. The green, heavily flavored with je ne sais quoi, refreshing and satisfying libation was gone before I knew it. The stuff is pricey, I paid almost three dollars for a strangely thin, tall can containing 250 ml. It is an interesting marketing ploy that Red Bull has used: the can stands out because it is thin, a case where you clearly get less than the other guy, but, what? "You're worth it"? Or, are they saying "we're the best!"? That's almost as bad as "you've come a long way, baby". Anyway, it caught my eye.

I suppose it perked me up some, tasted fresh and cut away the yicky, dry mouth I woke up with -- that's right, I started my day the Red Bull way. I figure, the only way to really taste test any beverage is to have it as an eye opener! You can see why I was absent for most of my 20s and 30s -- there are a lot of adult beverages to sample. But it wasn't too long before I was thinking, "mmm... where can I get another one of these?" That's usually a bad sign for me. A normal person, relaxing with a nice cup great tasting coffee, will think whatever he pleases. For the person with addictive tendencies, however, it is a different story altogether. Having recovered from a seemingly hopeless condition, I've learned to heed that little voice that was silent for so long in me. My little voice kicks in whenever the other little voice, the dark little voice suggests something like: "... we need to lay our hands on a whole bunch of this stuff... Oh, and, don't tell anyone...". It's a yearning of a different sort than your typical nonalcoholic person has. Times like this, as long as I am, more or less spiritually fit, my little voice says: "DANGER DANGER... THE BRIDGE AHEAD IS OUT...".

The name Red Bull, may be aptly coined from an ingredient called taurine, something like an amino acid, found in bull semen and urine; don't worry, the taurine contained in energy drinks is not derived from either of these sources! It is fairly easily synthesized some other way. It's funny to me though, how this stuff shows up in all these energy drinks, yet, I've never heard of it, until just lately. And what's more, there is at least a gram (1000 mg) of this in any of these drinks, some of them have 4 g or more! So, is it a harmless, new quasi-stimulant, or is it the new, 21st-century absinthe? It seems to be the preferred drink of many of the new counter-culturalists; you'll see it around the skate parks and places where heavy video gaming is going on.

I guess these energy drinks feel like they belong in a strange new category of mine I've noticed. This category includes stuff like: my having a MySpace page, or calling my buddies "dude". I'm 50 years old, or will be in a couple of years, and my teenage boy, to me, is my son, he's not a dude. I think guys my age who have a MySpace page remind me of, have you ever seen the movie "American Beauty"? I hate the idea of being like that guy who was played by Kevin Spacey. The gnarly-old-goat-dude-whore-dogger type, you know who you are. Anyway, I think I'll try out one of those Green Scratched Monsters, then I'll quit; I've got no problem; it's just a weekend thing; I can quit anytime!