Gaming Fuel: 4-way Shootout

Neil Yates writes "It is 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. You have been up all night, fragging away in a Quake3 clan match. Your early morning schedule wore you out and you never had time to take a nap. The server is resetting between games, and you are starting to get a little sleepy-eyed. Milk is not going to do one bit of good and regular Coke or Pepsi are too run of the mill. The last thing that will keep you awake and at the top of your game is some pansy sports drink. Which of these four energy drinks do you reach for? Pepsi Blue, Vanilla Coke, Dr. Pepper's Red Fusion, or Sobe's Mr. Green?" What's wrong with plain old Mt Dew? It did represent 80% of my intake by volume from age 15 to 22.

Comments

on a related note

[lingqi]

Scientific American has an excellent short article on how long a human can stay awake.

within it mentions an experiment where some lab rats were kept awake for ~2 weeks (the longest human record is 11 days) and then they died. the acticle keep emphasizing that it was not proven that the death was caused by sleep depravation. but well... They just don't want to admit that they tortured a buncha cute lil mice to death.

on a even MORE related point: try red bull / blue donkey / green chicken and all that -- they seem to work pretty well. i drove across the US (SJ to NY) on those. 2 bux a can (8.6 oz) is steep, but hey -- when you gotta stay awake, you GOTTA stay awake.

lastly... erm... try some speed. they work too, so i hear.

Somebody has to rain on the parade

[eclectro]

I enjoy a good drink like any late night nerd does. But it is too easy to "OD" on caffeine without knowing it. I have some links to provide food for thought;

An interesting page about liquid candy

Some deaths associated with red bull/energy drinks

Another caffeine death

I am not saying give up your drinks. But I am saying be smart about it. Don't drink/eat so much caffeine that you make yourself feel miserable with the symptoms of too much caffeine. while it is thought that 10 grams is a fatal overdose, I would be willing to bet that a fraction of that can make you feel pretty miserable and is very easily reached with some of the caffeinated drinks/candies/pills out there. A couple liters of mountain dew, four red bulls, and a handful of penguine mints or any combination thereof places you at about 1 gram.

It goes without saying drinking alcohol at the same time exacerbates things.

Also, caffeine is not a substitute for sleep. There are reasons that the body needs to sleep. So if you are depriving your body of sleep for whatever reason you need to start asking yourself what your priorities are. Sleep "binging" where you go without sleep all week and catch up on the weekends is also unhealthy, but this is another topic in itself.

This post is not intended to be medical advice. See your doctor if you have any questions/symptoms. Yada yada yada.

Re:It's about time

[FCAdcock]

Actually, meth only keeps you up for 12+ hours THE FIRST time yo uuse it. After that, it keeps going down and down, until you have to take a hit to wake up.

And getting it out of your system is just about the worst thing on earth. I've done every drug on the market from pot to heroin, and meth is probably second only to herion in the "bad comedown" arena.

I strongly suggest sleep over drugs. It took me years to figure that one out, but I'm so glad I did.

Moral of story: "Drugs are bad, MM-kay?"

Re:bah...

[Saxerman]

Back when we were younger we would drink "Dew Tang" which was a can of Mountain Dew with a scoup of Tang OJ mix added. And when you really needed to be high strung we would make "Nuclear Dew Tang" which was the same mix, with some No-Doze added in. Note that this mix of sugar and caffine has been found to be lethal in some lab mice.

Turkish Coffee

[fuzzybunny]

It's not as convenient as a can of Red Bull, but if you're really looking for the ultimate (!) caffeine kick, you want Turkish/Lebanese coffee--that's the thick, grainy stuff with cardamom.

It tastes great, and smells good too--the perfect solution if you don't mind a bit of, err, sand, in your drink. One tiny cup of the stuff will send you off the walls for hours.

Re:Those aren't even energy drinks!

[Ubergrendle]

I never really understood the value of Mountain Dew, despite it's popularity on the internet for late night hackers/gamers etc. Then, reading the Caffeine FAQ, I realise that in Canada Mountain Dew does not contain any caffeine! In the US it's one of the most caffeinated beverages available, here it's one of the least. Oh, BTW, a cup of coffee still has 3x the caffeine of a can of pop, and there is no difference between a cup of expresso and a cup of coffee.