Today's Review: Coca Cola's "Share A Coke" Campaign

Well, apparently it's almost summer, so it's time for Coca Cola to inform people that their drink is the best damn feel good summer drink they can imbibe, because people have probably forgotten after being told but a few months ago that Coca Cola is the best damn Christmas drink they can imbibe. So Coca Cola are encouraging you to get outside, and then go inside somewhere, and buy one of their newly branded Cokes, which encourages you to... share it?

Okay, this campaign hasn't come out of the blue. It's already been implemented in Australia with some success (although I doubt the validity of someone who sounds like the offspring of a kid's movie voiceover and a motivational speaker). But I can't help but feel slightly baffled by the whole thing. Basically, Coca Cola have taken the top 150 names in the country, and emblazoned them on random bottles, coupled with a message suggesting you share your Coke with someone of said name. Perhaps I'm not a particularly generous person, but I didn't think sharing Coke bottles between people was that big of a thing. Sure, the share size bottles can be measured out, and in this case those encourage you to share with a more general "friends" and "family". But these names are written on 500ml bottles, even the tiny 375ml bottles. I don't want to share that with anyone else, there's barely enough for me in there.

Besides, having looked through a few of these bottles, I hardly know anyone with the names that are scrawled all over them. What am I supposed to do if I glance at my randomly picked bottle and see that I have to share it with Ross? Do I have to run around the streets asking people's names in order to comply with its wishes? What if my friends have strange names that aren't included in this elitist 150? I'll have to say "sorry, no Coke for you and your weird stupid name".

Okay, I'm being silly here. I understand you're probably not meant to share your single Coke with a person. The real idea is that you grab one with your name, one with your friend's name, and give Coca Cola the double profits that they really deserve, all in the name of summer fun and sharing. But I don't buy it. The thought of having my name on the bottle of Coke I'm drinking doesn't really excite me. Sure, there will probably be people out there grabbing frantically at bottles until they find themselves (physically, but perhaps existentially eventually), but that would mess up a lot of Coke displays and that makes me sad.

But, having read a few articles concerning the success of the campaign in Australia, apparently it is effective. So while I may not understand, there's a lot of marketing force behind this thing that integrates personalised physical objects, TV, social media and the like, and most people eat that shit up nowadays. So here's to a summer of people giving us Cokes with our names on. Unless you have a weird, stupid name. I'm lucky, mine's right up there.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Typing With One Hand

With minutes left to write this review and a screaming baby to feed, it seemed somewhat impossible to type anything out. But after manoeuvring myself in order to get one hand free I can finally give it a go.

Really, if you're going to type, you should probably do it with two hands. Typing with one hand is slower, and it's clearly hard to reach some keys while pushing the Shift key. For some reason I've been more prone to making mistakes while writing this too, perhaps because my left hand isn't used to all these fancy foreign letters on the right hand side.

But flaws aside, fear not, one handed people, for it is entirely possible to type on a regular keyboard with just one hand. It may have taken me over five minutes, but I still managed to churn this out. I wouldn't recommend typing with one hand when you could use two though.

My rating: 2/5

Today's Review: Finding A Cut You Didn't Know You Had

We've all cut ourselves at some point in our lives. Cuts happen, because our flesh is weak and other things are sharp and unforgiving. But when an object slices through our skin, the pain is normally pretty immediate, allowing us to quickly stem any bleeding and get it covered up to avoid further pain. Unless it's a particularly bad cut, in which case your body might see passing out as the only option.

Cuts suck, but the ones that suck the most are the ones you don't notice. Sometimes I'll find a spit of blood somewhere, and after a quick reassurance from my brain that it doesn't remember anyone bleeding on me lately, I will search my own body and discover that my flesh has been carved in twain (bit of a dramatic description of a small cut, but there you go). Sometimes there is no blood, I mght find a piece of skin hanging off somewhere, or discover I can open my finger in new and interesting ways. But no matter what, the result is always the same. While the cut never hurt before, as soon as you notice it the pain begins. It's like a stealth cut, sneaking up on you and then bludgeoning you as soon as you turn around. So while these kind of cuts are pretty tame compared to others you can suffer, they're still up there with the worst.

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: Icing Sugar

I made some cakes with the kids today, which while it can get messy, is containable, because I am in charge of doling out the ingredients. Sugar, flour, eggs, all ended up nicely in the bowl (apart from the egg I dropped, but I'll ignore that). But once the cakes were baked, it was of course time to ice them, and that's where things got complicated, because I had to use icing sugar.

Icing sugar is basically sugar in a powdered form. This means that when you pour it from the box, instead of falling in a nice stream, it is often akin to releasing some kind of chemical bomb. I wish I could say that my experiences with icing sugar have made it easier for me to pour out, but every time I use it my kitchen looks like it's being dusted for prints. But not only is icing sugar messy, the very nature of it means that I can never pour it out just the once, I have to keep doing it again and again. When making rudimentary icing by combining icing sugar and water, I am pretty certain it's impossible to get the levels right. No matter how little water I fill the bowl up with, every time I pour out what I assume to be the right amount of icing sugar, it promptly disappears into the void, leaving me with an unsatisfactory consistency. More and more sugar is poured, more escapes into the atmosphere, and by the time I have a nice gloopy mixture it looks like it's snowed inside. I don't like you, icing sugar. You may be a key component in tasty cake toppings and fillings, but I certainly don't condone your methods.

My rating: 1/5

Today's Review: Iron Man 3

The Avengers have saved the world, and since then split up with little to no contact, because Tony Stark is on his own again, and suffering a little. But then along comes The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), a mysterious terrorist leader who is making all kinds of nasty explosions go off and threatening the president to boot. When Tony's head of security is injured in an attack, he decides to declare war on the Mandarin, who responds promptly by blowing the crap out of his mansion. Now alone and lacking his arsenal of suits, Tony must pool together all his resources to get to the bottom of the plot and take down those responsible.

I'll start by saying that Iron Man 3 is a great summer blockbuster. There are masses of explosions, plenty of well planned out action sequences, and that token comic relief that has become synonymous with these new Marvel titles. That being said, I did leave the movie a little disappointed, mostly because a lot of the time the action and comedy severely overtook any semblance of plot. Sure, there was an underlying story, but not everything is explained in a satisfactory way, and there were several plot holes I could point out immediately that just seemed to be brushed off with more explosions. This lack of detail really took the edge off the bad guys, as it wasn't clear exactly what their end game was a lot of the time.

Thankfully, there are some great performances throughout that help to carry the whole thing a little better. Downey Jr. is fantastic as always, especially when paired with Ty Simpkins as Harley, the banter between them is probably some of the best in the movie. The role I was most excited for was The Mandarin, and Kingsley has a great tone and presence that makes him distinctly menacing. Unfortunately the character is ruined before long in a disappointing scene played out for comic effect, leaving us with another villain taking the reins, Aldrich Killian, played by Guy Pearce, who just kind of falls flat, and for some reason reminded me of a slightly more competent Justin Hammer, as seen in Iron Man 2.

So if you like your superhero movies, you probably won't want to pass this up. Explosions and action scenes galore, and even though Tony spends an annoyingly long time out of the suit, he still manages to pull some kick ass moves. But when there isn't stuff blowing up, the plot is kind of messy and confusing, and it's unclear even what Tony's behaviour is going to be like from one scene to the next. Sure, there has to be some kind of character progression after his near death experience in The Avengers, but it just didn't seem to be handled all that well in this movie, and only employed properly when there was a slow moment to clearly point it out. So overall, it's a good movie for shoving popcorn in your face, but it's not great. I certainly feel a little disappointed after seeing what can be done with The Avengers. But hey, I still have faith they can get back on track.

My rating: 3/5

Today's Review: Drying Up

I have mentioned my hatred of washing up before, but since then I've been washing up more frequently, and in a systematic order, and the experience, while still not good, is more bearable. The part of washing up that I still don't like, although I did at one point in my life, is the drying up afterwards.

The theory is that after you wash all your plates, cups and utensils, you should grab the nearest tea towel and wipe all that shit down so you can put it away and make your kitchen look brand new and unused. I used to dry up for my granddad many years ago, so there's some nostalgia in it for me, but nowadays I absolutely hate drying up. This is because I've found that if you simply let the stuff sit in the draining board and return an hour later, all the stuff is dry and bubble free. I mean, that's why they call it a draining board, all the water drains off.

So really, what is the point of drying up? It gets the kitchen looking nicer, sure, but I'm always in and out of the kitchen getting food and drinks, because I have children who think it's normal to eat the world every day. So really, it's beneficial to me to have a selection of plates and cutlery sitting in the draining board for me to grab. But really, it's the actual wiping that gets me. While you may start out with a clean, dry tea towel, before long it's going to be a dirty, wet tea towel, that you're still poking into your glasses to wipe off the actual clean, soapy water. It seems backwards to me. Don't even get me started on having to manoeuvre the towel into the most stubborn suds underneath rims of bowls and at the bottom of glasses. Drying up dishes is a stupid thing to do. Just leave it, go do something else, and come back to nice dry plates. I won't judge you for not putting everything away immediately.

My rating: 0/5

Today's Review: Blueberries

Less than 50% of those blueberries are actually blue. Get it together, blueberry plant.

Yes, I've recently started enjoying portions of blueberries. They probably wouldn't be my fruit of choice, but they have a relatively low amount of carbs compared to others, so I was all over that idea. Thankfully they don't taste like crap either. Unlike most berries I've tried, be they straw, black or rasp, blueberries don't really have that sour taste to them.There's a hint of it, but not enough to make eating them an unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, the overall flavour, while pretty sweet, is a little bland and dry, but adding a little double cream to the bowl really livens things up.

So yes, I enjoy blueberries. They may not be the most flavoursome of berries, but they are juicy little morsels of sweetness. Plus they're one of the few naturally occurring blue foods, so that's gotta count for something.

My rating: 4/5