You're a nerd. Based on your high-nerd, low-impact lifestyle, you don't have a lot of energy. And yet, like professional athletes or astronauts, you too need energy -- energy so you can finish your all night MMO gaming sessions, your Android hacking sessions, and and getting your hexmaps designed for your next month-long D&D campaign.
If you hung out at nightclubs, you could possibly score some drugs; if you worked at a pharmacy, you might be able to steal some prescription stimulants. However, since both of those things are illegal (also, they involve working and/or going to nightclubs) your best bet for energizing your flabby nerd body is the completely legal and utterly fabulous caffeine. But why stick to ordinary coffee and soda when there's so many other fabulous and exotic options out there? Here's a few ways you can get this wonder drug into your system you might not have known about -- and where you can get them. 8) Jolt Cola
If you haven't heard of Jolt Cola, what's wrong with you? Are you a Communist? Introduced at a time in the 1980s when soda was reducing sugar, caffeine, and flavor, Jolt came along and said "Nope, twice the caffeine!" Its pure embrace of a favorable stimulant is part of its charm. Now most commonly appearing as an energy drink in a giant metal can, you can still find it in an old-fashioned bottle plain cola form. Sweet, yet violent, it's like an old art school girlfriend with a bipolar disorder -- you should walk away but you just can't.
So, these marshmallows are not only a reference to Ghostbusters, but they're caffeinated! It's like someone took nerd, put it inside nerd, and then added nerd. Considering each marshmallow has more caffeine than a 20oz bottle of normal soda, how can you not have your heart explode with joy? Well for one, don't eat an entire box, which contains 24 marshmallows (yes, they come in a box. They are fancy). Also of note is that they are stackable, as they are strangely as square as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is rotund. Further, Hebrews need not worry as these marshmallows are kosher, because what is more blessed than sugary softness stacked with stimulants?
This long-lasting Germancola has about 250mgs of caffeine per liter. That's a little less than a Red Bull, but in far tastier cola form. They actually tried to market a less potent version of Afri-Cola in Germany for a while, but sales immediately plummeted, so they cranked the content back up again. Why is it called "Afri-Cola?" No idea. It's hard to know since this cola is German, and it has now been nearly 80 years since it's original release. This means that this cola has some awesomely weird old commercials to it... like the one above.
How can you not like this from the title alone? Mind you, unlike the other items on this list, it is not a product you can buy, but a recipe you can make, so it requires some effort. Therefore, if you feel too lazy to make this, take one of the other items on this list and find the energy. I mean, you've got pretty much the three basic American food groups here - caffeine, barbecue and booze. You're going to get buzzed, drunk and fat IN ONE CONVENIENT SUBSTANCE! You can't really get much better than this unless you dropped a hamburger in a giant mug of beer and chugged it while inhaling ground French roast.
4) Surge/Urge/Vault
So, in 1996, Coke decided that Pepsi's Mountain Dew needed a competitor. So, starting off in Norway, they test marketed their own citrus-y, extra-caffeinated beverage called Urge. After it was successful, it was brought to the states as Surge. I guess maybe "Urge" was too vaguely sexual -- there's a rule not about naming anything for Americans with anything vaguely sexual, less our repressed selves tear off our clothes and start humping the sidewalks. In any case, they ran it until about 2002 here in the States and then decided to just yoink it off our shelves. Caffeine addicts protested, going as far as to make a whole online organization dedicated to it. The Pepsi deities answered in 2005 with the release of a soda that contained the same ingredients as Surge, but with more caffeine, known as Vault. It contains at least 70mg per 12 oz bottle, which is more than Mountain Dew's 55mg for the same fluid content. So, not only did addicts get what they want, they got more! Go addicts.
This coffee (also known as Kopi luwak) is harvested after going through the digestive system of a Civet, a tiny furry little bastard that lives in Sumatra, Indonesia. It looks like this:
If you are wondering WHY at one point someone said "Hey, let's make coffee from rodent crap," well, it came about during Dutch colonial times. The Dutch allowed the native people of the Dutch East Indies to cultivate the coffee beans, but not keep any. You know, because they were so nice. The natives found a loophole - take the beans from civet crap, since there were no restrictions on brewing crap. The beans are, cleaned, roasted, and cleaned again and thus makes for some of the world's most expensive coffee. Not only is a little mammal that eats raw coffee beans hard to follow, the enzymes in the little creature's gut take all the bitter acid right out and make for a coffee that is, by most reviews, oddly fantastic. Really!
Right, so cocaine is illegal. But raw, powdered caffeine? Nope! So you can get this little container of 11 grams of pure caffeine, or the caffeine content of 100 cups of coffee. That's right, a hundred. Will this kill you if you ingest the whole container in one sitting? ABSOLUTELY. You are only supposed to ingest this in tiny amounts, usually mixed into a "shake," with a recommendation to take no more than five "shakes" a day, with "shakes" being an appropriate term for this. This is pretty much about as far as you can take caffeine addiction to where it crosses the line from "recreational" to "AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" This much crack cocaine would get you at least 10 years in prison. This, you can buy for less than $15 dollars. What a crazy country!
So a nerd decided to mess around with a variety of scientific apparatus and came up with a substance that puts all the caffeine in two pots of coffee into one 3-5 oz size. This was done because the Berkeley-based scientist behind it got diabetes and was trying to way to make his coffee sweet without sugar. So, through a secret process of vacuums and flasks and science, he achieved his goal - in concentrating coffee to such a small amount, it gets rid of most of the acid, and allows the natural sweetness to come through. The downside is that this will kill you if you take too much of it. Black Blood of the Earth has 40 times as much caffeine as a regular cup of coffee. The official site recommends you have no more than 3.5 ounces of Black Blood a day -- less than a third a can of soda. Otherwise you've gotten rid of the sugar, but you may need a coffin.
Ever since the first birthday for Star Wars in May of 1978, people have been baking Star Wars-inspired cakes. It’s almost an art form to itself with some amazing designs popping up in the last few years. A wedding cake that’s a dead Tauntaun with Luke pouring out of its belly? Yup that’s been done. As have just about any Star Wars creation you can think of, in edible cake form.
As you’ll see below, there’s an awful lot that goes into protecting our nation’s gold. Considering that it’s current value is around $270 billion, some speculate that there’s more than just gold inside. Some say there are…
Weapons and Defense Items: In case of nuclear or zombie attack (or both) there is no safer place in the world. Could there be secret weapons and a way to get the President and other important people down there in case DC is compromised?
Aliens: Whenever tinfoil hats come out, aliens have to be in the picture.
Lies: What if we already sold off all of our gold? The vault would be the perfect way to keep our economy from collapsing despite the lack of a gold standard.
Whatever you believe, one thing is certain: you’d have an easier time getting into the White House than you would getting into Fort Knox (and don’t try to get into the White House – it’s dangerous over there).
This infographic by CreditSesame breaks down the facts and speculations nicely. Click to enlarge.
He's a modern day master making incredible 3D images that pop off the page - armed only with a pencil and a piece of paper.
At just 20-years-old, Chilean artist Fredo is quickly captivating the online art world with his series of graphite sketches.
He is now planning to take his art to the streets in a bid to spread his fanbase from the virtual world to the real one.
Scroll down for video...
How it all began: Fredo's first picture of a butterfly, which led him to develop his technique
Busting through: An elephant seemingly charges its way through the paper
Fredo, whose real name is Wladimir Inostroza, learnt his startling technique purely by accident.
Drawing a butterfly whilst laid out on his bed, he realised the picture had been stretched out across the page.
On closer inspection he saw how the animal appeared to be floating, and that by chance he had used a method similar to one used by English 3D artist Julian Beever.
Scary: Spread across two pages, this series looks like a man is jumping off the paper
Out of the box: This picture looks like a puppet is being pulled out of the box
Down time: This man is waiting with an empty glass of wine
After adding in the shade with a set of charcoals, he took a photograph - and has never looked back.
With his own blog, thousands of fans on his Facebook page, and countless pages dedicated to his work, Fredo is now keen to expand on his talents and take his art to the streets of Santiago and beyond.
Picture frame: The photograph is handing Fredo a pencil in this image
Helping hand: Bionic and human joints combine in this picture
Pathway: This sketch looks like an intricate wood carving
Hard at work: A make believe image of Fredo pondering on his next project
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
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