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All about Enviga

Well, I didn’t get a chance to complete my testing of Enviga over the weekend because our trip home from NYC took six hours instead of four because of traffic in New Jersey and Delaware. But the wife and I did taste two of the three flavors.

Berry:

It’s okay. I didn’t notice the aspartame right away, but it definitely hits you in the aftertaste. Some people may be okay with this, but I’m not. I know there’s a lot of controversy surrounding aspartame, and they haven’t proven convincingly that it’s bad for you, but I still try to avoid it. The wife said, “It tastes like those carbonated juices that we drank instead of champagne when we were kids” after she tried it. That doesn’t sound like a glowing endorsement to me, but you can draw your own conclusions.

**Peach: **

Wife’s reaction was, “I would drink these. But, I like carbonation.” She will occasionally drink carbonated water (Without mixing it with gin or vodka!), so I’m not sure how much stock we can put in her mild approval. I don’t think the peach is much different from the berry.

Overall, I’m disappointed that they weren’t awful. I was hoping to be able to spew fire and brimstone here as my heart raced from the caffeine and concentrated tea extract. Enviga contains “seven times as much EGCG as the leading sweetened green tea”. By the way, Enviga is the top paid Google result when you search for EGCG. Coke is really marketing this pretty hard. Anyway, EGCG actually seems to be good for you – it’s an antioxidant, and because it occurs naturally in green tea, we’ve had plenty of time to study the effects. Whether it’s really good for you to have that much of it in a 12 ounce can of tea, I don’t know. I have to say that I don’t think that cramming more of it into the same volume of tea is really a good idea, but that’s totally a guess, with no scientific support. It could be really good for you to inject concentrated green tea right into your veins. Coke has this to say about Enviga:

Engiva is not designed for rapid weight loss. Enviga is a choice – like taking the stairs – that can contribute to consumers’ overall goals for a healthier lifestyle.

In response to that, I say that actually taking the stairs is a much, much better choice.

Oh, have I got a treat for you

On October 13, I posted about a new soft drink called Enviga, and how I didn’t believe the marketing hype. On October 18th, I posted again about Enviga and how it sucks. On October 19th, I got an email from a guy who works for Manning Selvage & Lee, an advertising firm representing Coca Cola.

Hello, My name is Craig Eldon and I’m assisting in the launch of Coke’s new sparkling green tea – Enviga.

I’ve read your blog and thought detailed news about this new product might be a fit for your readers. I have pre-sale samples available for you and would like to provide detailed information about this new drink category.

What do you think? I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Best, Craig

Today, I received three cans of not-yet-released-to-the-public “sparkling green tea”, Enviga. Coke calls it “The Calorie Burner”. Later tonight, the wife and I are going to try it. On Monday (Because no one reads blogs on the weekend), you’ll have a full report on the aspartame-filled beverage.

It’s interesting – I exchanged a few emails with Craig, and every subsequent email had a note at the bottom threatening all that I hold dear if I shared any information. I’m actually not going to share any of it with you. The reason for this is that they obviously thought about what communication they could and couldn’t keep privilaged. That is, they knew an unsolicited marketing email could hardly be called private, but once I responded, they had some reasonable expectation for my discretion. The fact that they made this distinction suggests that they are on firm legal ground in restricting what I can and can’t share, so I’m going to listen to them.

I will have you know that I have received only a few emails, some marketing documents, and three cans of Enviga from Craig. There is no money, nor promise of money, nor any other sort of compensation. The review of Enviga you read here on Monday will be honest, and it will be my opinion, whatever that turns out to be.

I hope you’re excited. I know I sure am.

Yeah, whatever

Hell.com is being sold at Web domain name auction – Oct. 27, 2006

The online address is the latest to be put up for sale in a growing market for domain names, consisting of Internet addresses people type in for Web sites, which has been fueled by the surge in Internet advertising, the newspaper said.

I don’t really care about hell.com – as search engines get better and better, the necessity for a good, memorable domain name goes down. But the sentence quoted above is really awesome. It’s like saying, “a growing market for houses, consisting of buildings that people live in”. Whoever wrote that sentence doesn’t seem to have any understanding at all of what they’re talking about. I mean, if the market for domain names consisted of cuddly little puppies and Elvis memorabilia, would it still be the market for domain names?

Ubuntu 6.1 released

Welcome – Ubuntu: Linux for human beings

Just saw on Lifehacker that Ubuntu has released a new version, which contains, among other things, Firefox 2.0. Sweet. Can’t wait to get home and upgrade my Ubuntu box.

Edit: Ooh, maybe I should have waited. Upgrade crapped out, now I’m not sure whether it’s going to boot back up. We’ll see how long it takes me to get a good install again. Ubuntu forum users report some problems, which I guess is to be expected. But I was so close to getting my Complaint Hub enhancements working, and now my development box is hosed. . .

Angry letters update

New update to the Angry Letters section. I got a response from Senator George Allen telling me it’s not his f’ing problem. He said it more politely than that. And he actually has a point – stupid traffic patterns are not really a federal matter. So I wrote to Delegate James “Jim” Scott and Senator Richard “Dick” Saslaw, my state representatives. I eagerly await their responses.

Stop with the negative ads

The Year Of Playing Dirtier – washingtonpost.com

It is harder for Republicans to blame out-of-power Democrats for the current state of Washington, but they are equally eager to depress Democratic turnout and fire up their conservative base.

It may be that, after a conversation about ‘the liberal media’ yesterday with a definitely conservative coworker, I’m just looking for the Post’s liberal bias, but this line jumped out at me. The article, up to then, had been close enough to balanced (It said that both parties are stooping to new lows in negative political ads, and the Republicans are worse about it. That’s sort of unbiased) that I could live with it. But if the Post honestly believes that the Democrats are completely blameless for the state of the country, I don’t even know what to say.

Back to the point of the article, though. I’m pretty sick of smear ads. Being near DC, we get both Virginia and Maryland ads. George Allen and Jim Webb, running for Senate from VA, have been sniping at each other for a while. Allen doesn’t seem to be trying that hard – he’s still focusing on some comments Webb made in 1979-80. Allen also responded to my angry letter, which is nice. I’m still voting for Webb, though.

I wish we’d get to hear why I should vote for one guy rather than why I shouldn’t vote for the other guy. I’m tired of voting against the unacceptable canidate. I’d really like to vote for someone because I think he or she is going to do a good job. Is that too much to ask?

Slim with the tilted brim

‘Snoop Dogg’ faces gun, drug accusation – CNN.com

“An investigation revealed Calvin Broadus to be in possession of marijuana and a firearm,” a police statement said. . . . “There was no basis for this arrest,” said the rapper’s lawyer, Donald Etra. “We believe that once this is cleared up, all charges will be dismissed.”

Numerous things here.

First, if I were Snoop, I would legally change my name to Snoop Dogg so the media would have to stop putting it in quotes.

Second, taped to the monitor on my old PC at home is a picture of Snoop from the Wall Street Journal about eight or nine years ago when he publicily made a big deal out of quitting marijuana. It appears he’s started again. Anyway, I was taking Public Finance in college, and we had to have a subscription to the WSJ for class, so I would usually read it during lunch. As an aside, that was just after one of my roommates taught me how to make grilled cheese, and to this day I associate reading the WSJ with eating grilled cheese. As for Snoop, I couldn’t resist the little picture of him – it seems so out of place next to big time politicians and important people. So it’s been taped to that monitor for all that time. I don’t know what I’ll do when I replace the monitor.

Third, Snoop needs to remember that a 2:1 arrests-to-albums ratio is safe, but if you get much higher than that, they stop calling you “rap artist ‘Snoop Dogg'” and start calling you “convicted felon Calvin Broadus, who rapped under the name ‘Snoop Dogg’ before his arrest”.

Fourth, as far as I’m concerned, rap doesn’t get much better than “Doggystyle”.

No substantial relationship

John Scalzi on gay marriage in NJ

Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose.

John Scalzi has a nice bit on the NJ Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage. The above is my favorite line from the quote from the decision. It looks like the Jersey Supreme Court has sent a nice not-so-subtle message that the government is not in the business of spreading homophobia and discrimination. I think “no substantial relationship to legitimate governmental purpose” is a lovely turn of phrase, and I applaud the court.

I’m not so sure I’m happy with their failure to rule on whether you can call it marriage – this is an important issue for many, and not calling it marriage leaves them open to “separate but equal” challenges. But I suppose that leaving some of the decision to legislators is what the whole system is about. Hopefully New Jersey’s legislature will work something out that most people can live with.

Everyone else is posting it

outside.in

outside.in is designed to change all that, as a bridge between information space and real-world space — a place to see in a single glance all the interesting things that are happening around you.

I’ve read about this on at least three blogs already, so I figured I might as well check it out. It’s user-based content, so there’s not much there yet, although with all the pimping it’s getting from big shots like John Battelle and David Pescovitz at BoingBoing, it shouldn’t be long before they have a good user community.

The idea is that you will go and provide local information about where you live, and be able to find similar information about other places. Or you might find that little hole in the wall restaurant around the corner that you’ve never noticed.

Nice idea. Execution looks pretty good, although I didn’t poke around too much. It’s certainly designed better than HotSoup.

Im very dusty

When I moved in to my condo, the seller swore that we could easily paint over the ugly venetian plaster he’d had put up. “But, of course, you’d never want to”, he said. I beg to differ. Brown bamboo floors and brown walls just don’t do it for me. So the wife and I painted over the walls, and it just peels right off. Now that we’re trying to sell, we’re sanding the stupid walls so we can paint them. We tested a little spot, and sanding actually makes the primer stick.

Unfortunately, sanding also makes a horrific mess. I’m at work now, and my hands still feel like they have plaster dust on them. And I haven’t sanded anything since last night. I’ve taken TWO showers since I touched a sander.

Oh, well. I think we can finish sanding tonight or tomorrow, then we’ll paint, and forget this horrible dusty mess. The cat will no doubt appreciate that, as well, so she can go back to being black again.