Mmm... Tasty...

Redline or Redline RTD is the name of a thermogenic energy drink manufactured by VPX (Vital Pharmaceuticals, Inc.).

Marketed towards the fitness industry, it is sold as an energy drink in gyms or health food stores. The beverage includes anhydrous caffeine, evodiamine, tyrosine, yerba mate extract, green tea extract, 5-HTP, vinpocetine, and Yohimbine.

Redline, unlike most energy drinks, has no calories or sugar. Redline is sweetened with Sucralose and is sold in five flavors (grape, green apple, berry, peach mango, and mandarin orange). Sounds good eh? Maybe not...

Redline is not for the consumption of persons under 18. In fact, a fellow student in one of my classes was actually IDed for the drink in a gas station this week! I don't know about you, but that's definitely the first time I've heard of someone being asked for identification over a drink...

There are however, several warnings on the container, including "Do not drink while pregnant," "Keep out of reach of children," and "Do not drink on an empty stomach", amongst other things. Some users have reported that they have experienced trembling, increased body temperature, sweating, headaches, and nausea when consumed on an empty stomach. The product also carries labels warning consumers not to use it if they are under the age of 18, and the item tends to be age-restricted in many retail outlets, including Wal-Mart.

The Navy Exchange has imposed a limit of one Redline per customer due to concerns of sailors potentially overdosing! Due to its higher caffeine content, it is not recommended for those who are very sensitive to caffeine. Redline recommends that first time consumers drink just half the bottle. Just half? But I'm tired and thirsty!

Anyway, I'm gonna try drink two of these before class one time and see if my contributions toward the discussion are nothing short of genius...

Jonty x

Cosmicomics

On Monday night I sat for two hours in what turned out to be one of the more interesting lectures I've ever attended. What are the ideological implications of the ways in which particular social classes are staged and narrated cinematically? I've got a sneaky suspicion that this will be the question on my mid-term in a couple of weeks in which case I should probably look up what a social class is. Lolz.

Regardless of what the class is actually about we actually got onto talking about some quite interesting subjects. For instance, why is it that I love mainstream cinema? I go to the cinema every week and am never disappointed by films with a good narrative and explosions and cool stuff like that. I guess I know what to expect and don't ever ask questions...

But here's what my professor thinks. We think we can go into a film completely oblivious to what we're going to be shown. We as spectators are completely subjective to film and it is us who ultimately structure them... Right? Wrong. We're never made to feel uncomfortable in films - in fact, we as spectators watch from a visual ideological calm. We're never made to question anything. But what is there to question?

What even is ideology? You might say it is an unwritten law that we have no control over whatsoever. How do we question the invisible? Is this narrative I love in films not just ideology? Think of it this way ... It's Valentine's Day. Why are we conditioned into buying flowers etc for our significant others by a holiday that was effectively coined by a greetings card company? All those choices and the need to buy something - this is the Valentine's Day narrative. How do we look beyond this?

I'll prob fail the mid-term. All this stuff is so subjective and I find it hard to actually agree with any of it, hence all the questions.

Anyway, Cosmicomics is a collection of short stories by an Italian writer named Italo Calvino with each story taking a scientific "fact" (though sometimes a falsehood by today's understanding), and builds an imaginative story around it. An always extant being called Qfwfq narrates all of the stories save two, each of which is a memory of an event in the history of the universe. The first story, The Distance of the Moon, takes the fact that the moon used to be much closer to the earth, and builds it into a romantic story about two men and one woman in a tribe of people who used to jump up onto the moon when it passed overhead.

Awesome.

Jonty x

I wish

I could play guitar as well as this guy. In fact I wish I could play every instrument as well as this guy. His name is Mike Kinsella although he is probably more recognisable through musical vehicles such as Owen, American Football and Cap'n Jazz. I'm weird with music though. I'd like to think that I have pretty eclectic taste in that I will happily listen to everything from Steely Dan to math metal... it's the stuff in between these polar opposites I'm not too sure about...

I urge you, in fact, I insist that you check out some of this guy's musical endeavours. The fact that he writes, plays and records everything is only cooler and I think I'm going to maybe get him tattooed on me now. That's another thing I seem to have a habit of doing; becoming obsessed with things. Star Wars, Pokemon, 18th Century art whatever this week's trend is I guess. But seriously, expect a blog entry on any one of those items listed above in the next few days.

For now CLICK HERE and listen to Owen. You won't regret it.

Jonty x

An experiment with what in what??

Sometime last year I told myself that before I died, I had to see in it's flesh, this painting. I guess I'm lucky living where I do that the painting itself is actually only hung about an hour or so from my house at the National Gallery in London. So, I knew before embarking on the ten hour plane journey to San Fransico that the plane was going to crash and I would never see this painting and thus took the liberty the week before setting off to pay it a visit.

Strangely enough, I actually have no inherent interest in art. It's fun to look at and as with any artistic medium, I can always appreciate the effort that goes into it, I just, don't know, find it exasperatingly frustrating when people look into things like poems and artwork in order to see whatever farfetched meaning they can possibly deduce.

So why this painting? I actually got in super, super late one evening a while back and for whatever reason, the BBC were airing a documentary that looked at both the painting, its artist, and the historical and cultural background surrounding it. Awesome. Well, not really but there is something intrinsically alluring about the painting. I don't think I've ever seen something created by hand that so closely resembles reality... It's funny to think that when I did eventually get to see the painting in it's flesh and blood, that I could get close enough to see each brush stroke that was made eight years before the country I am sat writing this in, even existed.

I suggest that if you ever want to feel culturally enriched, pay the National Gallery a visit...

Jonty x

Breathtaking!

So, in class today we yet again began discussing Pepsi's latest advertising campaign and their subsequent 'new logo' to go along with it . Following on from this, my professor loaded onto the display, the Arnell Group's 'Breathtaking' pdf file of all thing wonderful and weird.

'Breathtaking' theorises consumers will feel a gravitational pull elicited by the new logo, one that will lead such individuals to fill its shopping carts with Pepsi. At its most extreme, the document compares the reimagined Pepsi globe logo to the Earth's magnetic fields and the sun's radiation. "Emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity," are just some examples of the language choices in this document...

Whether this whole thing is a hoax or not is another question. Personally, I had a lot of fun reading this thing and find it quite hard to believe that an account worth $1.2bn would conjure up something like this but then again, what has Burger King got its ad agency doing here?!

At the end of the day, whether it's a hoax or not, I actually quite like the new Pepsi logo. I even thought their Superbowl ads this year were pretty sweet but I seem to be alone on that one...


Anyway, you check the actual pdf document out for yourself here.

Jonty x

Really?

So for the past few months I've woken up everyday and after either a, thinking 7:30am is way too early for class or b, weighing up my options over what to eat for breakfast, I ask myself the same question: do I still want that comic book guy from The Simpsons tattoo?

It's either that or Bruce Campbell. At the same time I think to myself, 'yeah that will be really sweet, no one has anything like that' and I'll probably get it on the back of my thigh as who ever looks there? In fact, I don't even think I can twist my neck that far to see round there.

I guess every one's tattoos mean something to them; they have some sort of sentimental or inherent value and that's fair enough. But seriously, who would get a tertiary character from a steadily declining cartoon show inscribed to their body for the remainder of their life? Me.

I guess said character embodies most of the principles and standards I follow in my own life. Living here in California for the next few months is also reason enough for me to invest in something I see as a somewhat glorified souvenir...

For now, until I think of something even cooler than an overweight cartoon character I guess I'm all set...

Jonty x