I’m going to regret this. I just know it. After my abhorrent experience with the Relentless Energy Shot back in January — and Relentless is a brand I’ve grown to enjoy a great deal — I’m actually quite worried about trying the Monster version, especially given the angry warning labels and absurd concentration of stimulants. Similarly, my associate over at Transmundane had typically bad experience with the Lucozade Alert Plus, prompting me to believe that “energy shots” as a whole are simply the wretched concoction of the devil, a trade-off between horrid taste and an infusion of stimulants.

For those who care, we’re looking at 1000mg of taurine, 200mg of panax ginseng, 141mg of caffeine, 100mg of L-carnitine L-tartrate, 5mg of guarana, 5mg of inositol, and 5mg of glucuronolactone. This thing truly lives up to its name of being a monster, and I can see why they recommend not exceeding one per day.

On the other hand, my experience with Monster in the past has been unwaveringly positive — both the standard green can and the yellow variety combine the best aspects of soft and energy drinks, while the new (or, at least, new in the UK) Monster Kaos is what I could only describe as a Monster-ised version of Relentless Inferno, almost the sort of thing I’d expect if Fanta were to make their own brand of energy drinks. But enough hesitation, it’s time to crack this baby open and see what lies in store for our hapless hero.

Other than the disturbingly black-on-black bottle that lies beneath the protective outer layer, the initial odour is — dare I say it — pleasant, if tinged by a slight acrid edge that I’ve come to expect. It certainly has the distinctive Monster smell that I know and love, so all’s good so far. An experimental sip to ensure this isn’t going to be some substance that’ll cause me to retch violently, and– oh my. The sharp, harsh edge is still there as with the Relentless variety, but masked heavily by the kind of syrupy sweetness that one might find in the yellow and orange cans of Monster. The lingering aftertaste is fairly pleasant, and fades away to a relieving neutrality in a matter of seconds.

Time to chug.

Being a comparatively large vial, it takes a couple of gulps to get the whole lot down, but the overall pleasant flavour makes it go down with ease. At this point, I’d recommend leaving one in the fridge before trying it, which is what I did with mine — the chill blends wonderfully with the sweet, ever-so-slightly-acidic taste, and makes the whole experience surprisingly enjoyable.

Call me crazy, but I think this one stands head and shoulders above the last, and has changed my outlook on energy shots entirely; in fact, I’d be more than happy to buy in a dozen more of these little bottles, to live in the fridge for times when they’re needed. Once again, Monster comes through ahead of the pack, managing to perfect what others have clumsily attempted, and that’s why they remain my #1 favourite brand of energy drinks to this day.

No philosophical discussion is complete without stick-figure diagrams.

Yesterday, I had a discussion on theology/philosophy with a couple of Mormon missionaries, largely concerning the issue of omnipotence vs. the fallacy of free will. I don’t think they were really expecting me to whip out the whiteboard and dry-erase markers, but it seemed to go over pretty well. I was actually surprised by the outcome — they stumbled a little at first, clearly not expecting the question, but managed to formulate a fairly adequate response. The gist of the conversation ended with the conclusion that even though God knows what choice I’m going to make (the little stick-man in the box with the branching paths represents me), that doesn’t influence or affect the fact that I still had the choice in the first place.

Now, I could have gone more philsophical and argued that knowledge of the future does in fact invalidate any possible notion of free will, and even without the presence of some heavenly overlord, this concept troubles me from time to time purely from the perspective of science (we are, after all, composed of matter which acts in predictable and logical ways). But I’ll give them credit for trying, especially as I’m sure neither of them expected to have such a thing thrust upon them without warning.

Maybe next time.

The rest of the conversation pretty much went as could be expected, and I had time a-plenty to clarify a few things I’ve been hazy on. I’m not about to be “converted” or choose a religion any time soon, but I like to think I keep an open mind, and this is one angle I simply haven’t given much attention to in the past. I know plenty enough about Catholicism, I’ve read into Taoism and Buddhism, but those Mormons always just seem so damn happy, and I want to know what their secret is. And then I’ll ask one of those monks in orange robes who always hang out on streets and seem to constantly act like they just won the lottery last week and things could not be better.

Somewhere along the line, I just decided that I was tired of life being predictable, dull, and largely falling into the trap of same shit, different day. There’s something fundamentally satisfying about just breaking out of that routine and walking down a path you’d never normally take, just to see where it leads you.

Sometimes I wish it was possible to insert images into compiled C code, in a way that’d make them pop up on the screen — 90s hacker movie style — when anyone tried to tamper with my precious creation.

Mostly, I wish this was possible because then I’d have this pop up inside a large, angry, hazard-line box.

Oh, c’mon. You know that’d be awesome.

Just a little post to mention that I’ve added a new Articles & Features page to the site, for hosting what I could only describe as more static content than blog posts. There’s not much up there right now, but I plan on adding more in future, and possibly even digging out some old content from former iterations of the website.

Right now, I’ve just got some work-in-progress wargear lists for Dawn of War II’s Last Stand mode, and I’ve finally brought back my old article on Final Fantasy XI XP rings, since I still get search-engine hits on the subject remarkably frequently. (Also, apologies if the FFXI post clogged up your RSS reader, I mistakenly entered it as a post, at first, rather than a static page.)

So there I was, watching my DVD of The Matrix Revolutions, when I saw something that made me do a double take. Surely, that couldn’t be what I thought it was? But I rewound the DVD, and sure as can be, there it was. Call me crazy, but I’m fairly convinced that I saw the Honey Monster — the big furry yellow mascot of the Sugar Puffs breakfast cereal — in the movie. If you think I’m a filthy Photoshopping liar and want to check for yourself, it’s right at the start of the bit where Morpheus, Trinity and Seraph are busting into the Merovingian’s club, just after they killed the guards outside. Literally the first few frames as it cuts to the new scene.

Still not seeing it? Look again.

Now tell me I’m crazy.