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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.
Not only is Mt. Dew missing, but so is Jolt, Bawls, and all the other Highly Caffeinated cans/bottles of goodness. If you are relying on sobe or Dr. Pepper for a late-nite energy infusion, you may as well drink Cold Water ;)
Maybe then you won't put on 100 pounds of fat, and continue to score only at video games.
"And like that
REAL men get some of those giant Pixy Stix and dump one into whatever it is they're drinking.
Gaming is MUCH more fun with that strobe effect from your eyelids twitching. I just wish that damn pink elephant would give me my mouse back.
"I think you guys with quotes in your signatures should go have an original thought." -- Dan Miller
First of all, this article is getting posted waaay too early. 12:30? Wait until 2, and get genuine reponses. At least from the Eastern half of the US, anyway (where I happen to live, so quiet, all of you).
Personally, I tend to drink Mountain Dew. It's cheap, easy to find...
That, or I just go to bed. The server will be there later, and I find that the longer I prolong the inevitable, the worse my aim gets.
~Chazzf
No statement is true, not even this one.
There wasn't any of these fancy schmancy drinks or overpriced thinkgeek goodies, you had two choices: coffee or Jolt.
I prefer chocolate covered expresso beans for when you absolutely must stay up, however I dont have trouble staying up till 2am, I have trouble when I want to NOT sleep cause I'm up till 8 or 10am - When can we hope to bottle the stuff that keeps me awake when I'm working on my favorite project or I just cant find that proggy bug? I hear speed works wonders but what I really want is some black market adrenaline. Why arent people manufacturing and selling that?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Sobe's Mr. Green is people!
PDHoss
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
What about when a mouthful goes down the wrong way and you spray all over the screen? What about knocking the bottle over, spilling onto your keyboard? These are the important things I need to know!
Well, that depends on what night you started...
Shouldn't this be a poll? I want my "reach for Cowboy Neal" option
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Just in case anyone still believes that old tale... get the straight dope here.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Pepsi Blue? Dr. Pepper? Vanilla Coke? Since when are these in the category of "energy drink?" They're pop/soda for chrisstakes! Sick of run of the mill coke or pepsi? Look elsewhere, it's not like these will make much of a difference.
I thought that just maybe this new Sobe drink was energy-ifious- but nope. Looked at the FAQ and it's just plain old pop. 37 mg per 8 oz. Claims to have some ginseng, but just being a soda, I doubt it contains more than what is required to claim that it is "flavored with ginseng."
This "news" site was probably bought off by Coke and Pepsico (which owns SoBe) to do an "article" about their "energy drinks" in exchange for a few cases of each of these drinks. I can't say I blame them for looking out for No. 1, but puuuleeze.
Why not evaluate Red Bull and shit like that? Or make your own whacky cocktail of Water Joe, nicotine water, and crushed up adderals?
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I don't have the stamina for staying up days at a time like I did when I was 16. Back then a 24-pack of Mountain Dew would keep my running at 100% for several nights.
I think I have funny blood sugar things going on -- like many other modern Americans -- and the sugar content of what I consume has a huge impact on my wakefulness. Specifically, if I consume too much sugar too quickly it puts me to sleep. Likewise, too much caffeine doesn't help much. Beyond a reasonable level of caffeine, typically one 8-ounce light brew coffee (light has more caffeine), I just get red irritated eyes and slightly jittery. (The volume of coffee that's right for you may depend on how much of it you usually drink.)
Thus to stay up all night I have to plan ahead. I try to have a coffee a few hours before I'm going to need it, then sip something low-sugar with moderate caffeine as the night progresses. It sounds kind of sissy, but iced black tea is:
a) refreshing
b) cheap (important!!!)
c) seems to have the right amount of caffeine
d) is low sugar
e) can be produced on demand in any desired quantity
Another pleasant side effect of iced tea is that, even after consuming large volumes, it doesn't leave me so rotund as other drinks might. This is also convenient for being a stealth geek: a narrow radar signature leaves most people clueless to the fact that I know anything about computers, which in turn means fewer "say, you look like you know computers: when I try to use my American Online..." queries.
Mountain Dew actually seems to have about the right amount of caffeine, but it also has so much sugar that the caffeine is, for me, effectively negated.
It's only 9:34 on the West Coast where I'm at, but maybe I'll report back around 5:00 AM...
Here's an exercise: cut out all caffeine for six months. Yes, I said six months. Notice how your mind is calmer and more organized. Notice how your hands don't shake at the same frequency as the fluorescent lights above you. Notice how your penis now grows to full length.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Tea tastes good. It's good for you. It keeps you alert. Drinkable with or without milk and with or without sugar. Low cost. Socially acceptable in all circles. No plastic wastage. Drink it icy cold in summer or piping hot in winter.
Why waste money on carbonated sugar water? Sure, Coca-Cola and Mountain Dew can be nice once in a while. But if you need copious quantities of a tasty drink then tea is the answer.
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.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
FYI: Red Bull + alcohol
Just sayin'.
Nutin' like a good, luke-warm, frothy glass of Whore Piss! Now with extra crack! The very memory of drinking this will keep you up for many a night!
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.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
and definitely not milk -- it feeds cancer and contains all kinds of hormones you don't want in your body.
Thanks, Mr. PETA. Pardon me while I go have a nice juicy steak, with a nice, cool, tall glass of milk.
And maybe after dinner, I'll club a few seals.
Today's specimin: the PETA troll, not a type you often see here in Slashdot, but they've all but overrun their natural habitats and are starting to turn up even here.
You'll note the complete lack of factual backup for the alarmist warnings about milk, making the claim difficult to verify or deny. It's likely a distorted paraphrase of some legitimate literature.
Note also the New-Agey reference to "imbalanced body chemistry", also with no linkage or factual backing. These are indeed classic troll droppings.
This must be one of the young however, for its trap is easily detected. A more clever one would have lured us in with some more reasonable prose before jumping straight to the propaganda.
Enjoy the rest of your stay, and remember to never feed the trolls!
The law is that caffeine may not be added to any beverage unless it is a cola-type beverage. The addition of caffeine to beverages has been rationalized by the soft drink manufacturers as giving their product a distinctive flavour. Since caffeine is a drug, it has been restricted to only being added to cola because of the historical use of caffeine in these products. Or something. Here's the text of the relevant section of the food and drug act. Search the page for the word caffeine.
This sig is umop apisdn.
This might be useful information for some people out there. It took me long enough to figure it out!
Taurine is the principal ingredient in Red Bull energy drinks, and in Australia, recent relaxations in the various what-you-can-put-in-drinks laws means that Taurine is now an additive in most energy beverages.
That's all fine, except I'm apparently allergic to Taurine. I started throwing up for no apparent reason last year, and it turned out to be the Taurine, which just got added to my favorite energy drink, but didn't kick in until three days after ingestion, which is why it took so long to figure out.
Taurine is a bull protein, in the same way that Lactose is a cow protein. Some people are lactose intolerant. I seem to be Taurine intolerant, with many of the same symptoms.
The only energy drink left in Australia that does not contain Taurine is called 'Lift', it is quite tasty, and has Guarana and Ginseng in it. Try it.
Since I figured all this out, I ran into another Jeremy who had precisely the same reaction. So, if your name is 'Jeremy', you might want to stay away from the Red Bull.
Any faulty logical inferences in the above message are left as excercises for the reader.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
The only thing, those other things are just fizzy pop. Red Bull is the only thing which can keep me up for 36 hours of straight clubbing on the White Isle, it can sure as hell keep me up for a bit of fragging (or coding for that matter). But 2am? pardon?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
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.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage