Transmundane

Target Energy Shot

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

Look at the bottle, not at the Steam list.

I thought after my last experience I’d just stop buying these damn things. But no, curiosity gets the better of me again while I trawl through the local corner shop for foods, and I pick up the £1.99 shot of TARGET ENERGY SHOT. This thing could not get more boastful and obnoxious if it tried. This is the “original” flavour of energy shot, which gives no indication of its actual taste. Not even a generic “INTENSE FRUIT FLAVOUR” on the description on the back. It’s worth noting that the packaging was a pain in the ass to open, requiring the closest object to hand to stab through the plastic wrap. That, incidentally, was a lockpick. Not just for locks!

Less-than-fond memories of dentists.

So, I crack it open and peer inside. My eyeballs are practically seared by how pink it is. I mean, seriously, look at this stuff, it looks like mouthwash. And the smell? I can’t even begin to describe what this is. It’s…it’s actually kind of like mouthwash, but with the sour, bitter scent of sorel, and that bizarre, generic candy scent. There’s something else undiscernible in there, something sinister, waiting to grab me by the throat and maim me. This does not bode well for our heroine, this much can be said. So, with a brave breath, time to sip and see what happens.

A sip from the cap, and a semi-pleasant, if cloying taste washes over my tongue. Much like its scent, it is quite like a child’s toothpaste or mouthwash. Not exactly ideal, but-AUGH!

Cloying sweetness gives way to one of the most undeniably bitter flavours in the world, and my mouth turns salty with the desperate desire to throw up immediately. Swallowing bile and this disgusting concoction down. I’m kind of just shaking with how quickly an “alright” experience turned into something horrific, far outstripping Quick Energy and even the dreaded Lucozade. Prickling, hateful bitterness, much like chewing paracetamol, slips down my throat, coated and sticking to every tastebud with napalm-like artificial sweeteners, I’m left in wonder of just exactly what they were thinking when this was made. It’s not even like all energy shots are bad, there’s some pretty good ones out there!

I want my £1.99 back. And my stomach.

Tea Review: Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime

I’ve been meaning to start doing this for a while, as my tea collection has got, quite frankly, out of hand. I’m only mildly annoyed that my partner in crime beat me to the punch, as this was totally more up my alley than his. I probably would have got there first had I not had a million deadlines come down on me with the weight of ten elephants at the same time, but I digress, hastily.

Coming in a rather adorable box that both in name and appearance reminds me of the kind of shops I frequent in Glastonbury (it’s full of hippies, if that clues you in), with a sleepy little bear on the front sat in front a fire. It’s a little bit quaint and sweet, if I do say so myself.

As for how it is? Well, I have nothing but positive remarks for this wonderful tea. The bags themselves don’t smell of much else but mild spearmint, which is contained in this rather elaborate concoction of *deep breath* “Chamomile, Spearmint, Lemongrass, Tilia Flowers, Blackberry Leaves Orange Blossoms, Hawthorn Berries and Rosebuds“. The only other real scents are more earthy, with the light sweet scent of camomile, which in regards to tea is one of my oldest friends. So, in the cup the bag goes and about half a teaspoon of agave nectar, as it’s a rare day when I don’t sweeten my tea just a tiny, tiny bit.

In goes the water, and now, to wait. The water turns from a sort of pale yellow to a deep amber-yellow colour over a few minutes, and the smell changes for the better. The spearmint is still there, but now accompanied by the warm sweetness of camomile, the bright zestiness of lemongrass, and the wonderful floral qualities of orange blossom and rose. The flavour is just brilliant, and no part outshines the other, creating a warming, soothing flavour that reminds me, quite oddly, of my childhood. Yes, it is a tea intended for helping you to sleep, but as I’m a horrendously high-strung person by nature, the calming effect just makes me a bit more level.

So, at the end of this mug, and an oddly positive review from me, I would honestly tell anybody to go out and get a box of this right now. Like, at this very moment.

GO!

Awful Crossovers: Devil May Cry

This is something I’ve done for a while now to amuse myself. I frequently find myself on ye olde FanFiction.net, deliberately searching for horrific stories. Most of these can be found in the crossovers section of the website, where every combination -both sensible and ridiculous- imaginable can be found. So today, I’m bringing you the worst of the worst from the Devil May Cry category.

Evil Dead - I honestly expected the singular story in this section to be better. The two series seem like an unlikely, yet entirely compatible combination if played right. Freddy vs Jason vs Ash was an excellent example of how the Evil Dead series can quite happily nest itself within something more serious. However, plagued by both Dante and Ash being hugely out of character, and the entire setting to be disjointed and bizarre, this falls flat on its face before it ever got going. Of course, these flaws are barely assisted by the writer’s rudimentary writing, and inability to spell the simplest of words.

House M.D. - Oh…oh dear. You would probably have to be god himself to get this combination to work well, and while I would like to see the result of mixing Dante’s inflammatory personality with House’s bitter and acerbic nature, I couldn’t even make it past the second chapter of what I can only describe as drivel. The story opens with some bland and oversexed -yet totally an independent feminist!- Mary-Sue saving the titular white-haired hero from some unknown illness. Vagueness in location seems to be a staple of these stories, and events such as Devil Triggering in the middle of a public place with no reaction just seal that the writer is somebody who either has little more than a passing interest in these things, or their adoration has blinded their common sense.

Pokemon - Everything has a Pokemon crossover. Everything. Some of these crossovers work, be it through well-matched franchises or an act of god and good writing. This is not one of those. Single-line writing with no flow and a new paragraph between every line of speech shows the markings of somebody with no experience in the field of writing anything beyond a basic high school essay. The story itself is a nothing. The crossover tries to do something quite frankly ridiculous, and winds up only being related to either by names alone, as if the writer had even less of an interest in Pokemon and DMC than the writer of the nauseating House M.D. fiction.

Twilight – …..Augh. My stomach churns every time I start thinking about that wretched book series, and the millions it’s earned a talentless hack. Worse yet, I get migranes whenever I think about the fans. I am a firm believer in Twilight fans being the worst kind of fans to ever walk this planet, and this section proves it all the more, each day. Did you know? There are Warhammer 40K/Twilight crossovers. Ones where Avitus turns into a vampire. But that’s for another time. This time is for Devil May Cry, and good god is it a treasure trove of baloney. You heard me. Baloney. I mean, honestly? Bella being the sister of Dante and Vergil? And being a half-demon? As if she wasn’t too special a snowflake already. The awfulness of that story, which in my opinion is the worst, is again compounded by horrifically short one-line paragraphs, tense switches, comma abuse, terrible grammar, bad spelling and -you guessed it- characters being tremendously out of character. I hate Twilight. Just a little more each day.

Naruto - Much like Pokemon, everything seems to have a Naruto crossover. What I wasn’t expecting was the sheer volume of the crossovers. Fifty-five of them. Fifty-five! I’m staring at this number and just trying to fathom how that many people all thought it would be a simply marvellous idea to cross over Devil May Cry with Naruto. I’m not even going to point out any story in particular, there’s that many. The synopses are enough to spell out exactly what kind of dross we’re dealing with here, and quite frankly, I’m stunned. This takes the cake. Not just from how poorly matched up these two franchises are, but from how many people wrote stories for it!

Sonic the Hedgehog – I love Sonic. I really do. He’s getting on a bit and he’s rough around the edges, and his new games aren’t great. But I love him. This crossover is unlikely, incompatible, and hilarious. It transcends the other varieties of terrible I’ve given examples of and just devolves into hilarity. While the writer can spell, which they earn +1 point for, their grasp upon grammar and pacing is what makes this story funny to me. Things happen instantly, disjointed writing leads to confusion, and horrendously out of character interactions make this story great. Better yet, like the Energizer bunny, it just keeps going and going and going.

So that’s it for now, I guess. There’s a lot more in the crossover categories, some which are entirely sensible, and some that are quite frankly….ridiculous. Either way, there’s a 99% guarantee that whatever you click there -no matter how suitable it seems- will be the most awful writing in the world.

Bonus Story! - I TOLD you everything had a Naruto crossover! Even when it seems completely, totally and utterly impossible, they still manage to do it!

I think I need a stiff drink and a smoke now.

Quick Energy – Lime Flavour and Fruit Punch Flavour

Again, really? Is it really that time again? Well, according to my sick, twisted curiosity it is. After my neutral-bordering-on-positive experience with the allegedly ”orange” flavour of this brand, I find my curiosity piqued by unfamiliar “lime” and “fruit punch” flavours. While cohort Gravecat had a decidedly unpleasant experience first time around, my student nature proves itself here, in that I will infact eat and drink just about anything.

Except gin. But that explanation’s for another day.

The bright colours just make the evil look pretty.

Moving onto the subject at hand, it’s pretty hard to tell these two bottles aside. The only difference is in the little infographic at the cap, and the worryingly inaccurate slogan crossing the bottom of these phials. The photo pretty much shows the differences and how horrendously tiny my hands are. The music I was listening to was Never Wanted To Dance by Mindless Self Indulgence, for the curious. Back to the subject, if you can notice, the infographics are two differing sizes and qualities, bringing home and reminding my churning stomach just how disturbingly questionable these little phials of evil are. “Quick. Healthy. Energy.” indeed. Curiously, the lime flavour claims that the energy is “lasting” over healthy, and my mind just has to think: Why did it change…?

Swallowing the last vestiges of pride and sanity, I start the night’s torture with the acid-green accented bottle of lime. Cracking it open and tearing off the plastic wrap, a peer inside makes me grimace. A slightly clouded yellow liquid meets my eyes, and my nose is assaulted with the precise smell of Dettol. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Dettol, difference being one does you a hell of a lot less harm.

Ah.

Yeah, that’s fake lime alright. I have a fairly positive relationship with the fake fruit flavour group of additives, and the primary taste of faux-lime in this proves no different. It the other tastes that make me want to unload the scant contents of my stomach. Yes, it tastes in part like Dettol, that is infact the main flavour after fake lime. But that’s honestly the least bilious of these things. Other flavours that wash over my poor, abused tastebuds are the bitter tangs of my old friends sucralose and acesulsufame K and….oh. I thought I tasted that vile neurotoxin in there somewhere. Welcome back, aspartame. Your prickling diabetes-inducing sweetness was not missed.

As I’m unable to take further sips for the sake of my poor genetics, I’ll move straight on to the fruit punch. I apologise for making this agonisingly short. Had I checked the ingredients prior, I would save you the trouble of being cheated out of your precious vitriol.

Actually, that’s a good way to describe the scent of the alleged ”fruit punch” flavour. Murky slight-yellow, like the other, it smells like Dettol and vitriol. That disturbingly acidic scent that follows “fake cherry” around everywhere.

Oh, it is fake cherry. I believe I’m owed at least 4 more fruits to make a punch, here. Don’t skimp on me, Viva Beverages.

The taste is horrible. Prickling acidity followed by sickeningly bitter and cloying flavours of artificial sweeteners, my mouth is salivating like I’m about to throw up and my stomach is offering sharp stabs of agony as its input. At this point I could honestly curl up in my bed as a ball of pain. This is how awful this is to me. Beyond the woefully fleeting flavour of fake cherry is nothing but agony and sickening nausea. I have taken one tiny sip of this disgusting concoction, and I can drink no more. I’m sorry, I could just about manage the dreaded Lucozade Alert, but now it has been bested by this monstrosity, Quick Energy Fruit Punch. I can’t continue, I daren’t consume another sip for fear of my angrily growling stomach and my swelling, dry throat.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to die.

Boost Stimulation Shot

I have to ask myself, really…Why do I keep doing this? I’ve so far sampled the sub-par Relentless Energy Shot, the Red Bull Energy Shot, the bilious Lucozade Alert, the Best-In brand of nameless energy shot, and the oddly nostalgia-inducing flavour of Quick Energy.

So here I am, sitting with a can of Monster Ripper, arguably the most cloying of all the Monster line of energy drinks. I can feel the recently filled cavities in the back of my mouth aching sharply in protest as I start hitting the energy drinks like an alcoholic falling off the wagon. I’ll probably need it, if my last experience is anything to go by. Success in these things is less than 1 in 5. I think my cohort would agree with this statistic.

Boost Stimulation Shot and Monster Ripper

One for review, one for comfort.

In bolded impact-font at the reverse of the respectably large bottle are the words “INTENSE MIXED FRUIT FLAVOUR STIMULATION DRINK WITH SWEETENER”….this bodes badly already. So, on a curious sniff, I’m assaulted with, yes, the gag-worthy scent of sucralose. I don’t say this enough, but 387.44 million miles of hate just about covers the amount of loathing I have for this sweetener. It is the bane of my life. But that aside, the other scents are of that nondescript tutti frutti flavour from my childhood. You know the kind, the one you’d always have with ice pops, including the ubiquitous blue raspberry, which I’m still quite fond of.

Overriding that vague “fruit” flavour is what I can only describe as “fake watermelon”. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s consumed something with fake watermelon flavour in it, but I have a very love-hate relationship with it. This…isn’t looking to be one of those “love” situations. I don’t even want to dare to take a sip of this potential monstrosity. I felt ill 24 hours later after my last escapade. I guess I’ll have to man up…as much as a woman can.

First word in 3 hours: “Waugh!” I think that sums it up fairly well, but allow me to go into more detail. There is no fruit flavour, considering its boastful claim and overwhelming scent. It’s just the bitterness of B-vitamins and sucralose, and the acrid aftertaste of indistinct, enamel-melting acids. There is a vague sweetness, and something that doesn’t even pass for that generic fruit flavour that most energy drinks have adopted with little variation (nods to Rockstar and Monster for being unique in that respect.) It’s…it’s just awful. A needy chug from the can of Monster quells my rebellious tastebuds while aggravating my teeth and sending another sharp ache of pain through my jaw and down my neck.

It’s not as bad as Lucozade, but it’s damn close. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be eating Pringle Xtreme Chilli with extra chilli sauce to get rid of the flavour.

Because they lied about how “Xtreme” the chilli flavour was.

Liars.

Maak vrede met jou innerlike kind

It is the nineties, and there is time for Kl-

Let me try again.

It is the nineties, and one of the biggest sensations of my generation has landed. It was known as Pokémon, and every kid in every town just had to have anything and everything to do it. The game wasn’t the only sensation, the anime fuelled the ravenous appetites of the young, and the card games become a vast money sink in a micropayment disguise.

I don’t actually remember something causing so many petty arguments, so much violence and so much contemptuous jealousy. Among the poor single parents and the elderly at boot sales, children would scream and slap each other over a piece of paper. Something of so little monetary cost had unfathomable worth to these children. Why did it carry such a weighty price, though? Simple. Because they were told it was.

These cards had no more value than the average page 3 of The Sun, though the images on those cards are of undoubted better taste. But the rules said they were valuable. The numbers on the card said they were valuable. The wafer-thin layer of holographic plastic made them special. These cards were worth fighting and screaming over because they were told to.

The games were no different. Whatever pocket monster featured in the anime that week was sure to be the most coveted and wanted out of all the others. Kids had their favourite Pokémon, though that often resorted to the 25th of the species, Pikachu. Of course, there were the egotistical bullies who chose the legendary Pokémon as their favourites. Elements to suit how they felt about themselves, appearances that they believed to match theirs.

And me? Of course I was part of it. I was the small, shy kid who slowly edged towards the table, clutching their meagre deck of cards tight to themselves, hoping that there would be something left after the carnage. My favourite Pokémon? Raichu, as evidenced by the battered, dog-eared and scratched card I carried everywhere I went. I never traded it, not for anything. Not for the ever-coveted Charizard card of the first series.

I never actually got to play the card game, and my only experience of playing the games was through emulators. I was in Pokémon, as I am in all things, an outcast. And for a while, after the initial rush had died down, I forgot all about it. My cards were sold, right down to my beloved Raichu, ROMs deleted and anime off-air. My friends who had avidly played in the past moved away, and it was gone. Two, maybe three years of maddening craze and suddenly, silence.

And then, like all nostalgias do, they come back. Not with the same fanfare and rabid loyalty, but certainly with a sense of giddy excitement.

I think that for most 20-somethings right now, Pokémon is something they couldn’t let go of if they wanted to.

Footnote: The title of the post is “Make peace with your inner child” in Afrikaans, a language I have connections to. I figure that everybody my age has an inner child that just wants to play Pokémon. So let it.

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy

Humanity is disgusting. So greedy, so petty and focussed on itself. I’m not trying to say I’m the odd one out. I’ll happily say “people are idiots”, and add “and I’m one of them” to it. I don’t have false pretenses of being the special snowflake, the most prettiest and unique. I’m part of the same compost heap, so to speak.

But what really vexes me, what really gets my goat time and time again is the pathetic desperation of gamblers.

Imagine yourself. It’s 2am, you’re fighting off a sleep that seems more insistent to fall on you this time. You’re sitting in a gaudily decorated casino that has the floor size of an average home with the walls removed. There are mirrors all around you, tacky ‘glass’ chandeliers and a false marble floor. Your rear is perched on a lightweight, tacky chair with cream short-pile upholstery, and flaking gold paint that reveals the plastic underneath. Behind you, a group of men in their late twenties, possibly early thirties are stood wearing freshly-pressed tuxedos clutch at glasses of cheap Carling, and listening in, their slurred, uncultured voices loudly proclaim about “that well fit chick i banged last night”.

It’s all a pretense. The plastic chairs, the resin chandelier, the chav staple of Carling…everything here is so awful it’s practically become a mockery of itself. Outside the bar, the playing tables are quiet, and the occasional chirps of the slot machines over the clattering of the hoarded chips. I think those machines made me cringe more than the men in their hired suits, and their women -of questionable origin, at that- hovering at their shoulders as they listened to the men-folk drink to their sexual conquests. They’re still drilled into my brain. I half hoped the lack of sleep would have erased the memory from my mind. Kitty Glitter, Enchanted Unicorn, Wolf Run and Lucky Larry’s Lobster Mania were the four I remember. Their sickening names and promises of money make me shudder every time I think about them.

But the part that shocked me and turned me just a shade more misanthropic? The roulette. Sure, play poker, play blackjack. There’s a vague element of strategy in these things. But roulette? A mug’s game, at best.

I witnessed over the course of four hours so much money trade hands or be completely lost to the moloch machine that is the gambling industry I felt just a little bit ill. Distinct memories of watching one man with a tacky tribal tattoo, who must have been no more than 25 lose £60 in just half an hour. And that was the money I personally witnessed being put down as chips. When he wandered off, I can only dread to imagine how much more he sank.

Here’s the thing. I watched him and many others for hours, and I never saw him get one single chip back. It all disappeared. His pockets didn’t rattle like the businessmen’s. But then, the businessmen had been putting down £80 of chips at a time. They were bound to get a few back, at least.

But the last thing I saw before I left was perplexing and frustrating at best. A group of Asian men in their 30s, trading £40 for a huge stack of colour chips, then proceeding to put them all down on one number. Repeatedly. If they lost their chips, which happened time and time again, they bought another £40 and put them down. Eventually one of them did win while doing one of these ridiculous moves, and pocketed £500 in chips. I didn’t know how much he’d already spent to get there.

I left feeling perplexed, shocked, and hateful. Greed drives every good man to ruin, desperation only assists it. The pretenses that the people I saw held, like they were superior, more grown up for wasting their money at a casino, and the ones who thought that they would be the one to beat the system. Casinos are a business, they’re not there to help you. They are the great moloch machine that has destroyed thousands across the globe.

Of course, what would a person barely in their twenties know about the big world of men? How they are the one who cheats the system, becomes a millionaire and lives the dream. They are the one who cheats the system, gets kicked out of the casino with not a penny to show for it. They will squander their fortune on hopes of becoming something more. Something more real.

But all the suits, bowties and riches in the world couldn’t stop these people from being bottom-feeding scum.

Target Energy Shot

Tea Review: Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime

Awful Crossovers: Devil May Cry

Quick Energy – Lime Flavour and Fruit Punch Flavour

Boost Stimulation Shot

Maak vrede met jou innerlike kind

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy

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