Int. Meeting Hall, 12-step recovery group. Addicts, including Joey Pardella, sit in a semi-circle.
Vickie: “Hi, my name is Vickie, and I’m an addict.”
Hank: “Hi, my name is Hank, and uh, I’m an addict.”
Joey: (smoking) “Uh, my name’s Joey but, uh, I’m not an addict. [Joey takes a drag. The group reacts indignantly.] Nono, really, really, listen, listen to this. I got in trouble with my computer, right, okay, and my lawyer told the judge that I’m an addict, but I’m not addicted to my computer! No really, really, [Joey takes another drag.] I’m not an addict. I’m not, I’m not. [Joey downs his coffee.] “Can I get some more coffee?”
“Hackers” (movie script)
I don’t have a problem with energy drinks, but I sure would like it to be cheaper. Luckily, one of the nicer twitter moments was a link to a couple of life hacks. One of which showed how you can mix “sodastream energy” syrup with seltzer (soda water, carbonated water) to make your own energy drink (similar to Red Bull and the like).
Why would you want to do it? Well, the price difference is substantial.
The nice thing is that you do not need a sodastream or any other machine, just pour it into the carbonated water.
I recently tried it out and it seems to work. The “sodastream Xstream ENERGY” (without sugar) is good for 9l (with 375 ml syrup), which means it turns out the equivalent of 36 cans of energy drink. With careful dosage you can probably go to up to 50 and get energy drinks for 1/10 of the price.
Not to mention that this syrup allows you do find other uses for energy drinks, but that’s something for another posting.
In any case, be careful when using the syrup. It’s hard to kill yourself with a caffeine overdose when you just drink coffee, but syrup with high amounts of caffeine and guarana might just do that. So err on the side of caution.
other great alternatives to conventional energy drinks:
– Bad Heilbrunner Mate Tee (two teabags and some sugar or a shot of agave syrup should keep you awake for some time, also great as iced tea)
– a tablespoon of guarana powder (somewhere from the internet…) in your favorite juice (guava works great, use rather sweet ones as guarana is kind of tart)
Ah, yes, Mate Tea, never tried it out, but I’ve heard about it. 🙂