Magic The Gathering Soda

You are a Planeswalker with an arsenal of sorcery at your command…and a bottle of soda in your hand.

Jones Soda Co. and Magic The Gathering have teamed up to bring you limited edition customized Powerful Soda for Planeswalkers from the eagerly awaited M10 edition.

Magic The Gathering  picked some of their most iconic characters representing the Five Colors of Mana and Jones Soda supplied the labels on five great flavors. Add Purifying Fire, Elixir of Purity, Illusion Infusion, Necromancer’s Tonic, Beast Brew to your playing session.

These bottles are available for a limited time only and are unique among the Planes. Get yours before the Mana is gone.

For more information on Magic The Gathering visit www.magicthegathering.com

These beat the WoW-themed Mountain Dew in every aspect of awesomeness. Order them quick before they sell out again.

I’m Such A Consumer

Finally picked up an 8-pack of both WoW-themed Mountain Dew beverages. I usually only drink diet soda, but I had to make an exception for this. They both taste great, but only if you’re already one to enjoy the other Mountain Dew flavors. It takes like pure artificial flavoring and cancer, but you should expect that if you’re drinking Mountain Dew.

Speaking of Warcraft, I’ve been playing a hell of a lot of it the last few days. I literally made my new Druid last night, and got him to 38 in the same day. Thank you, Refer-A-Friend 300% experience bonus and free granted-levels. No telling if this is just a swing or not, but I’m still totally itching to try Everquest 2 after all the Fan Fair 2009 hype has got me interested.

And, if you didn’t notice, welcome back to the old iWinButton.com! Host change is complete. You can always view the updates made on the old host here.

Rockstar Zero Carb = pretty awesome

Most unique tasting energy drink I’ve yet to try, to say the least.

Review incoming. I have a backlog of energy drink impressions to write up and a section of my desk devoted to empty cans of various energy drinks. Rockstar Zero Carb, Rockstar Punched, and Full Throttle Unleaded to name a few.

Nos Energy Drink

This one will be short because I was not impressed at all, and I’m the type of writer who hates snark and only enjoys writing about positive things.

Had to pop the can open a bit earlier tonight around midnight, because work wore me out. I knew from the first sip that Nos was just not my thing, as it instantly reminded me of the SoBe energy drink, with it’s pineapple juice bitter flavor. I drank the rest of the can pretty quickly, skipping the whole savoring phase I usually linger in when drinking a Red Bull or Monster.

As of writing this, It’s been about 1 hour since finishing the Nos, and I don’t feel any more energized than before I drank it.

Verdict: F D+

The taste annoys me, I didn’t feel the energy, and the name makes me think of those annoying people who put Shamu tail spoilers and non-painted box kits on their 4-cylinder 95′ Civic. Fail.

Update 5:09 am: I retract my F grade and boost it to a D+. The taurine and caffeine snuck up on me about an hour after I wrote this. It’s almost made me too jittery. However, it’s still got a horrible name and I’ll never like the taste.

Sugar Free Rockstar

I wasn’t really in the mood to down a new, mysterious, energy drink tonight, but I had set out to do it earlier and I wasn’t going to flake on my blog-promises.

I cracked open this bad-boy around 2 A.M. and began my usual sipping and tasting routine. Before I even opened it up, I was impressed by the ingredients and stats the drink was bringing to the table. It’s coming in with taurine, ginseng, and all other sorts of artificial sounding stuff and questionable herb extract.

Upon tasting, I was instantly impressed. It’s as if a low-carb Monster got it on with a Red Bull and they had some demented monster bull baby. In other words, I loved it. It had the fruity taste of a Monster but still had the taurine-punch taste of a Red Bull, while somehow still evading the melted-candy-like after taste that Monsters usually cause to linger on your taste buds.

Was it packing heat though? I was already beyond the point of being saved from my exhaustion, but I could definitely feel the caffeine and taurine fighting inside my muscles. It helped boost me through another two and a half hours of Lineage 2 at least, so it did its job. I’d rate its power on par with a Red Bull or Monster.

Verdict: A

Chalk this baby up in my top 3 of energy drinks. With low-carb Monster kicking it in 3rd place, and Red Bull riding high in my top spot, Sugar Free Rockstar nestles it’s way into my bloodstream right between them. A fitting spot for a drink that combines the best of both drinks. Will buy again.

Tonight’s Taste Test: Rockstar (sugar free)

My previous idea of calling my energy drink taste-test extravaganza “Up All Night” is out the window, and I’m going back to the drawing board. It’s a working-title till then.

Tonight’s poison: Rockstar (sugar free).

Tomorrow night: NOS, baby. How can it not be horrible with a name like that? We’ll see.

Up All Night: SoBe Adrenaline Rush

Staying up way too late is nothing new for me, but lately I’ve become addicted to staying up late AND energy drinks, a deadly combo. I’m not sure what it is about them. Whether it’s the unique tastes or the buzz-like feeling they give you, I’ve been picking one up every other night it seems. So, in lieu of my heroes over at Giant Bomb who taste-test an energy drink or beverage on pretty much every Bombcast, I’ll be giving reviews of every energy drink I get my hands on in a new feature, Up All Night. I plan to eventually turn this into a short audio clip or video review with live-action taste-testing, but my written word will have to do for now. I sacrifice my blood pressure and digest tons of random ingredients just for you, my readers!

The drink on tonight’s menu was SoBe Adrenaline Rush Sugar Free.

It is said to contain L-Carnitine and D-Ribose, so right from the start I’m digesting some ingredients I am completely uninformed about. Great. Active ingredients aside, my first impression of it was that it had a unique, distinct, taste. It has a hint of pineapple juice, with a texture more like juice rather than the sparkling carbonation of a Red Bull or Full Throttle.

In my usual fashion, I casually drank it in my snifter glass over ice, as to let the energy ease in. I usually go into any energy drink that isn’t Red Bull with pessimism that I will actually get an energy-boost, but I was pretty impressed with SoBe Adrenaline Rush. It wasn’t quite as intense of a buzz as a tall Red Bull will give me, but I could still feel something.

Verdict: C+

It’s got the energy punch, but it lacks a taste that would make me want to buy one again. It’s not a horrible taste, just not my thing. I prefer my energy drinks to have that snappy taste to them that just shocks your taste buds as soon as it makes contact.

Next on the backlog to be reviewed was last night’s failure of a drink, Amp Energy: Overdrive.