Yarr: Pirated Star Trek: TNG DVDs

I bought these because they were cheap. I bought these because I thought they were official. I mean, lots of stuff is officially released in Asia. However, I discovered once I’d bid on this item on Ebay that Star Trek: The Next Generation was never released officially in Asia. So these are not for real. Which is readily apparent when you examine them. I write this article not for sympathy, and certainly not to promote these DVDs. I write this article to warn others away from Asian import DVDs, particularly when Star Trek is concerned.

Here are the signs that will pretty much guarantee what you buy of Ebay will disappoint you:

1. Item is described as having “Asian text on discs and some menus”. In the case of ST:TNG DVDs, there’s no Asian text on the menus. The discs and boxes are loaded with it. I don’t have a problem with Asian text on the boxes or menus, however we must remember that Paramount has never licensed Asian releases of Star Trek on DVD.

2. Auction item claims DVDs will be shipped out specific to your region. Actually, they’ll be shipped out with no region encoding whatsoever, and will play on any DVD player on the planet. Due to the formalities and realities of international trade, virtually all official DVDs are region encoded.

3. No photo of the item is provided on the auction. This is because the Asian knock-off DVDs ship in hideous cardboard boxes and look so blatantly fake you’d never buy them otherwise. (And we’ve already established I’m an idiot for buying these DVDs.)

So, what’s all the fuss about, anyway? Lets examine the booty! Yarr!

This is the absolutely gorgeous box that ST:TNG Season Five comes in! I bought all seven seasons, and they progress through vile primary colours as the series spans out (pink, purple, green, blue, turquoise, brown and orange if you’re curious). I’ve only opened season five as I own official copies of seasons one to four already. I may not open any more of them, as they have an unpleasant stench of that weird glue elaborate Asian cardboard packaging is always sealed with. It’s worth noting the text looks absolutely nothing like the real ST:TNG logo. Hmm.

We’ve established the boxes are cardboard. For some reason, every single thing ever made in Asia always seems to be packaged in an over-the-top cardboard case, usually complete with metal hinges and clips, or a magnetic seal, and often some kind of canvassy fabric covering it. To be honest, I don’t mind these types of boxes. I think they’re classy, in a weird way. The boxes the ST:TNG DVDs are shipped in are not so classy, though.

The inside is covered with gold paper, and the lip of the case is held closed with magnets set behind the paper. The DVDs live in a recess in the box.

The discs themselves are packaged in incredibly cheap plastic pouches. Season five is arranged with two sets of three discs in individual thin pouches which are then wedged tightly into a third, thicker pouch. A third thick pouch houses the remaining disc. There is no booklet containing the episode names for the season, as per the official DVD sets. The inside of the cover has a crappy black and white picture of the Trek crew that has most of their faces cut off.

I suppose you could forgive the packaging if the discs were of decent quality, right? Well, not this time. The discs themselves have several flaws. Worst of all of these are the extremely obvious malformations around the edges (inside and out) of the discs. These look like a result of either heat damage (unlikely) or the use of extremely cheap, poor quality discs (ka-ching!).

I keep using the phrase “you could forgive these things if“, but it all comes down to this, really: You could forgive all of these things IF….the DVDs worked properly.

Do they? What do you reckon? Place your bets!

Of course they don’t!

Selecting the last episode of the last disc, which is the disc with only two episodes and a bunch of special features, presents an issue. There’re no menu items visible. The DVD arrow thing (shown as a red semi-circle hovering to the far left of “mission logs” in the third picture above) cruises around the screen, but you have no idea what you’re selecting. Which is incredibly convenient. This is obviously a flaw in the DVD duplication process, where they’ve evidently used the same software from the other four episode discs for the last disc. The copyright notice is included, but the language selection screen is absent.

So that’s about it, really.

Almost.

There’s one other minor issue.

It’s not really that important, I suppose.

But it annoys me ever-so-slightly.

Wanna know what it is?

Oh, alright.

EVERY FOURTH EPISODE HAS NO ENDING.

No biggie.

Tiny trains: HO scale Sydney railway station

I, uh, don't have a model railroad. But that didn't stop me from undertaking a weekend project to make a tiny railway station. I've made them in 3D before, but the real world is another story.

The various bits are cut from thick card, the kind that photographic prints are delivered with, to keep them from bending in the post.

Hit the "Read More" linky-dinky to, uh, read more. There're a heap more pictures.

Here's the superstructure of the building. The corners are reinforced with extra card to give them the illusion of columns of brickwork, to match the brick columns along each side. It was sheer luck that the card was the right thickness to look like added brickwork.

I cheated with the exterior. The brick pattern is "texture mapped" by creating a brick pattern in Photoshop to the correct scale (HO, in this case, which is around 88:1). The folds are all scored so the thick photo paper bends nicely.

All "textured". The pale blue wheelchair ramp box is popped out on a piece of card to give it depth. I built some fake shadows and staining into the texture map to give it some age and interest around the brick columns, doorways and windows. The network map and station signage is all to scale.

The platform is not exactly long enough to be true to scale, but as I don't have a model railroad to put it in, that's kind of a moot point. The surface of the platform was a fluke -- it's very fine grit wet-and-dry sandpaper which was used to sand some items that had been painted in black paint. The glossy black paint had worn into the paper, making darker, shiny patches. It looks exactly like a gravel-on-tar surface that's been in the hot sun, allowing the shiny black tar to seep through the gravel. If I was to ever make platforms for a model railroad, I'd deliberately use this approach.

"Aerial" view, showing how remarkably decent the accidental platform surface turned out. The yellow lines are just strips of yellow paper cut very fine. The platform trim is white fine-grit sandpaper (no tricks, straight out of the packet) to give the illusion of texture, and the markings along the platform edge are made to scale in Photoshop and printed on photo paper. If I was to do this seriously, I'd have used matte photo paper for the things that really shouldn't be shiny.

Daylight! The station is sitting on the roof of my car. The porch is made from matchsticks for support and some more of the same card I built the structure from. It's not beautiful, but it gets the job done. The lights are bits of bent wire with tiny blocks of card on the ends, painted silver. They don't light up, obviously.

More detail from the platform edge. A lesson learned from this is that it'd probably be best, if I made another, to "inlay" the paper layers, rather than just gluing them on top of each other. It'd reduce the buckling and generally look better. The "2" in the yellow block is a car marker, to indicate to the train driver where to stop the train, and a bit of a joke on my part, as it's only scaled to be a two-car platform. (Ordinarily, a station of this kind would have room for at least six cars, more likely eight.)

I guess this would be the view from the "other" platform, but -- of course -- there isn't one.

As an added bonus, here's a tiny tiny tiny version of the old manual timetable displays that appeared on the station platforms. The real ones have a dozen or so rotating blocks with station names, this one only has four. Usually it's Strathfield marked in red, as it's a big interchange for several lines. As a joke no one will get, I've marked it as "Redmyre", which was the original name of Strathfield's station. As another joke no one will get, I've named my station "Bresnahan".

Here it is, with a coin. It's very small.

Op-shoppery: Polymertex Scrabble

Any time I go searching on the 'net for something and I can't find it, I feel two things:

1. I feel annoyed, because I wanted information and I didn't find it.
2. I feel obligated to fill the gap with what little information I can contribute.

Back in November 2007 (this is a back-dated post), I was lucky enough to stumble across a complete set of Polymertex "Modern Plastics" Scrabble.

I'll tell you what I know about it:

• it's made in the Philippines
• the company that made it, Polymertex, no longer exists
• there's a Russian company by the same name, but I imagine that's coincidental
• there's also a kind of Korean paint by the same name
• the tiles are so green I suspect they may be radioactive
• it's clearly very old, as Scrabble boards go. This site/question/thing suggests in a roundabout way that it might be from 1968, which fits pretty neatly with my own assumptions that it's probably from the '60s, early '70s at the latest..
• based on information on this website, it's "possibly one of the rarest Scrabble sets I've seen", and from the response to the abovelinked Topix question, it's apparently "superb collectors item!!"
• from the same website comes the suggestion that it could be a trade sample, I would assume from a plastics manufacturing company

There are a few things that I want to know:

• is it an actual, licensed Scrabble game, or is it a knock-off?
• what's it worth?
• why are the pieces so freaking green?
• is it worth hanging on to?

Green Scrabble. Enjoy.

Lightning, time machines and photography

Here's a small gallery of lightning photos from the 24th of October, 2007, when a small storm skirted the outside of Lightning Ridge.

Exotic beverage review: Bullit Energy Drink

I've had this one sitting on my shelf for some time. A few months ago, I was kindly sent a package of three energy drinks from the Netherlands. (Actually, I was sent four, but one of them sadly exploded in the mail, leaving only the remaining three. Which were quite sticky.)

I've already sampled two of them, and found them to be average and disturbingly sugar-free.

I've been told, however, that the subject of this review, Bullit, is a particularly awesome example of an energy drink. At the risk of jumping to conclusions, I can't help but think:

a) it's got to be different to Red Bull. If this has been quantified as being better than other drinks, then I'm assuming it's not a Red Bull clone, which is a relief. I've sampled eleventy squillion drinks that are just Red Bull in a re-painted can, and I'm sick of it, already.

b) it may not taste as great as I'm expecting. I returned the favour by sending a package of three energy drinks from Australia back to the Netherlands. The package contained Hype, V and Mother. You can read my opinions of those drinks on the reviews I've linked to, there. In short, I don't mind Hype and V, and I think Mother is the piss of Satan's ugliest aunt. Mark, who was kind enough to send me the four Dutch drinks, disliked both Hype and V. So you'll understand my hesitation in sampling Bullit.

c) it's got the motherfucking Vetruvian Man on the can, which means it's awesome even if it tastes like brake fluid. This one gets bonus points all over for can art.

It's standard Energy Drink Yellow(tm). So far, so good.

It smells basically like (wait for it), Red Bull.

Okay, so it's not Red Bull. It's floral, it's slightly bile-flavoured, it's really well carbonated. It's kinda generic, but not at all unpleasant. (Or maybe I'm becoming seasoned.)

Exotic beverage review: Buzz Monkey Energy Drink

Wild plum extract is the keystone on this one. The can explains: "Wild plum leaf & fruit has been used for centuries by the Australian natives to sustain energy and enhance endurance during tribal walkabouts". I have to commend Buzz Monkey for not turning this beverage into some horrific racist parody of the Aboriginal culture, as a lesser drink company may have thought to do.

Finally, an energy drink that isn't just a Red Bull clone. This one features extract of the Australian wild plum.

This drink also, unfortunately, is the advertising bitch of a former late-night television program, Quizmania. Quizmania is essentially an unwinnable game targeted towards those who have difficulty determining which shoe goes on which foot. Typical quizzes on Quizmania feature questions in the calibre of "What is two plus two?", and all callers who're capable of stringing together the crude vowel and consonant string required to pronounce the word "four" are instantly screened out by the Quizmania switchboard. This leaves the daft host to ad-lib for hours waiting for the next dullard to dial the on-screen number.

It's less yellow than most energy drinks. I believe this may be a redeeming factor.

It smells phenomenally sweet, and I believe it's actually possible to smell the wild plum extract. Thankfully, there's no aroma of monkey.

I'd say this is probably 30% Red Bull/bile/flowers flavour, 40% pleasant fruitiness and a further 30% a really strong acrid flavour that is actually not at all unpleasant. This is one of the few energy drinks I've sampled that has a strong flavour that isn't solely there to mask the unpleasantries of b-vitamins and caffeine. There's a slight sensation that you might be drinking mouthwash, but it passes quickly.

The weird acrid flavouring remains for quite some time, resilient in the strange oily slick with which these drinks tend to coat your mouth.

In short, it's not bad. In fact, it's quite pleasant. It's definitely one of the stronger tasting energy drinks I've consumed, and it's also one of the few where I'm capable of drinking an entire can without wishing I'd never been born. Bravo, Buzz Monkey!

Exotic beverage review: Guaraná Antarctica

The can is green. And it doesn't say a whole bunch about what's inside. The inclusion of guarana in the title is my only basis for this being categorised as an energy drink, and I'm vaguely terrified of trying it.

The drink itself is beige. It also fizzed like a fizzing thing.

I'm tempted to say it smells like floral paint stripper, but that's probably a bit harsh. The small is actually quite faint, and you almost need to inhale the drink to smell it. It smells quite sweet, and at this point, I don't believe it's going to taste particularly bad. Only time will tell, though.

Time's about to tell.

Holy crap.

It's really nice.

I mean, it's totally benign. There's nothing unpleasant at all about the flavour. In fact, it's incredibly subtle. There's a slight, slight hint of vanilla, which is probably the source of the weird floral scent. I believe this drink works because it doesn't have the abhorrent b-vitamin groupings that almost all energy drinks suffer horrendously from. It also tastes slightly brewed, but not in any way unpleasant.

There's no noticable aftertaste. It tastes like you've just sipped some creaming soda. The brown kind, not the red kind.

Outstanding. Good things come, apparently, in poorly labelled packages.

Exotic beverage review: Rodeo Power Drink

This drink was kindly sent to me from The Netherlands by Kees Engels. This makes me feel bad for giving it a fairly harsh review.

The label is printed in French, Dutch, German, Czech and Polish, so this could be interesting. I believe it's manufactured by Menken Drinks in Bodegraven, The Netherlands.

It has the usual "not recommended for children, pregnant or lactating women or individuals sensitive to caffeine" warning that most energy drinks display, albeit in half a dozen languages, none of which I understand. It also has a warning that it contains phenylalanine. Joy.

This is the first sugar free energy drink I've sampled, so I anticipate it to be quite a harsh review. I'm not a fan of phenylalanine (or aspartame, or nutra-sweet, or it's billion other names), it simply tastes like vaguely sweet soap, and does not improve the flavour of a drink. Although, when an energy drink's life depends on being able to mask the unpleasant flavours of its main ingredients, I wonder how the addition of another unpleasant flavour will help it.

The can opened with a minimum of ceremony, there was no evidence of carbonation at all, but it eventually began to bubble. It appears to be the usual shade of energy drink yellow, with a slightly golden tinge to it.

Okay, so far it smells like a generic energy drink. This is a good thing. If it can pass all tests as being an average energy drink, then it's several steps ahead of what I expect from a sugar free energy drink. Hell, I may even try sugar free Red Bull if this works out. There's only one way to find out..

Well, it's not as bad as I'd expected. The flavour itself is mostly pleasant. It tastes very much like Red Bull, it has the usual flavours of tartness, slightly sickly-sweet and a bit like vomit, and clearly pasteurised. It has the slight flavour of dairy and antibiotics that most pasteurised energy drinks exhibit. However..

Over time, and given warmth, he flavour mellows greatly, becoming an unpleasantly spicy fluid. The artificial sweetener flavour thickens and becomes quite noticable when you're drinking it warm. Don't drink it warm.

The aftertaste is horrible. Artificial sweeteners suck. I've always found with drinks like Diet Coke that they taste quite decent while you're drinking them, but then you're stuck with the unfortunate reality that once you stop drinking, your mouth starts to taste like you've just sprayed it with WD-40 and sucked on a bar of soap. Well, a sugar-free energy drink is worse. The flavours of an energy drink are a procarious balance of horrible tasting things and strong, mostly pleasant tasting things. Ingredients like caffiene and vitamin-B give the drinks incredibly bitter and lasting flavours, and the added sugars and berries and whatnot basically just mask this flavour while you drink it. Almost all energy drinks have a horrid aftertaste of vitamin-B. Add phenylalanine to the mix, and it becomes entirely disgusting. The artificial sweetener grabs the unpleasant flavours of the drink, wrestles them into a malleable goo, and sticks them with great force to the roof of your mouth, allowing them to ooze slowly out over the next period of several minutes, along with the unpleasant flavour of soap and engine degreaser. Mmm. Tasty.

It's not as bad as I'd thought. I had predicted the artificial sweetener would kill it, and it kind of has. On the other hand, it's certainly not a total let down. I'll stick to non-sugar-free, myself, but if it's your fancy, then by all means, go for it.

Exotic beverage review: Pokka Milk Coffee

There're no medical warnings on the can, but there is a warning that "the appearance of milk particles in this product is natural and does not affect the quality". This does not fill me with confidence.

I've sampled canned coffee before. There's the Dare Shot, made by the same company that makes Dare iced coffee, which is reasonably pleasant. I've also sampled a canned coffee called K'Fee, which was extremely unpleasant. So this should be interesting.

Pokka Milk Coffee is made by the same company that makes Pocari Sweat, the infamous Japanese sports drink. It's basically just an equivalent to Gatorade, but it's named after a bodily fluid, so who am I to argue?

It's dark. And slightly translucent. And, as the label on the can warns, it's covered in bits of floating debris. There're small milk particles covering the whole surface, and something that looks like an oil slick bubbling across it. Something tells me that my first sip of this stuff is going to include all of these bits and pieces. Mmm!

It smells like coffee. It also smells slightly like long-life milk, which I guess is to be expected.

It tastes like cold coffee. Not iced coffee, cold coffee. It tastes exactly like the dregs of a mug of coffee that you've left on your desk while you've scuttled off to take care of more important tasks.

I'm unsure if this drink is meant to be consumed cold or warm. I've heard rumours that Japanese vending machines sell the product warm, which would make sense, as it tastes as though it'd benefit from not being icy cold. I scoured the can for advice on temperature, but it doesn't give one, so I went for the safe approach of refrigerating it prior to sampling it. The Asian supermarket had refrigerated cans of the stuff available, so I figured they knew something I didn't.

There's a bitterness that's exactly the same as after a cup of strong coffee.

It's not the worst thing I've tasted. Every fibre of my being wants me to dislike this drink. It's Japanese, it's coffee in a can, it's a dairy product, it's brewed. It's also sold in vending machines in Japan, which puts it at about eight on the weirdness scale from one-to-schoolgirl-panties. However, it doesn't taste too bad, and assuming I don't collapse from intense intestinal pain within the next few hours, it appears harmless.

Exotic beverage review: HYPE!

The Hype can has possibly the lengthiest product blurb I've yet seen on an energy drink. I quote below:

"FOR MAXIMUM ENJOYMENT PLEASE READ:

HYPE! should be kept safely out of reach of those whose conversation you do not enjoy! Drinking HYPE! before a BBQ may lead to excessive smack talking. Any action you get while drinking HYPE! will be purely coincidental. HYPE! is made with the finest ingredients like real elderberry juice, taurine, guarana, ginseng and caffeine. Look for HYPE! wherever things are happening. Open, sip, stay HYPE!"

Apparently HYPE! can be spelled either with or without the exclamation point. The can also suggests serving Hype ICE cold. Not ice cold, ICE cold.

It's kind of a reddish, rustish, orangish tomatoish colour. It's also really clear, which is quite refreshing, it's not milky or smokey like a lot of energy drinks.

HYPE! smells like an awkward blend of extreme refreshingness (which is probably from the elderberry juice) and vitamin-B, which makes me very curious about the flavour.

Damn, I was hoping it would be unpleasant. I've had an unusually lucky run of drinks that don't taste like ass, lately. Hype tastes like a pleasant combination of elderberry and fruitiness with a vague hint of vitamin-B lurking mischieviously in the bushes. It's not bad, really. It's also clearly got that weird bile-like taste that all pasteurised energy drinks feature, manifesting itself as a kind of petrochemical aroma. I'm grasping at straws to find something to dislike about Hype. Generally speaking, it's quite pleasant. It actually tastes slightly healthy.

Yeah, this one's best avoided warm. It's just vitamin-B and paint thinner, really. It also produces the same weird smell of superglue that V and Red Bull create when warm. There's something very unsettling about that smell.

Mm. The aftertaste is not so great. After the fruit flavour has dissipated, the vitamin-B rears its ugly head and belches unpleasantness on the whole parade. Also, the pasteurised weirdness is quite strong, producing a flavour I can only liken to one thing - the smell of fresh house paint. Mmm, painty goodness.

I suspect this is a drink that would be absolutely awesomely flavoured if it had no vitamin-B in it at all. I mean, aren't all the other weird and spectacular ingredients good enough without the one that makes everything taste like rancid, liquefacted celery? Celery and paint fumes abound in this one, but all together, it's not a bad energy drink. I give it four exclamation points. But I'm not going to type them, because that would be tacky.

Exotic beverage review: Red Lizard Energy Drink

The main unique ingredient in this drink is amino acids. However, "amino acid" is kind of a container term for all manner of wonderful (and mostly inert and useless) chemicals. If you're really interested, you can read this page on Wikipedia, which tells you absolutely nothing about them, but uses a lot of big words.

Red Lizard is a cliché energy drink if ever there was one. It meets the required benchmarks, thus:

✔ Name involving a coloured animal Red Lizard. Red Bull. Blue Ox. Orange Gerbil. Whatever.

✔ Contains useless ingredient In this case, amino acids, clearly included because "amino acid" is a yuppy buzzword for "magical ingredient", and because it gives the false idea that allowing the beverage to ferment in a primordial atmosphere may bring about the advent of new life. Probably in the form of lizards. Red ones.

I was hoping it would be red. But it's not. It's the same urine yellow as most energy drinks. It's incredibly carbonated, though! I can hear it fizzing as I type this.

At the risk of comparing yet another drink to the benchmark - it smells like Red Bull. Upon opening the can, there's a strong smell of chemicals, however. It's exactly the same smell as the aroma of black felt pens, before they banned the inclusion of xylene as an ingredient. You remember the smell that you could taste? Mmm. Xylene.

It tastes slightly floral. Its similar to Red Bull, in that it tastes like vomit, but in this case, it's slightly floral vomit. The sweetness is definitely stronger than other drinks of the same kind. Not bad, really. Incidentally, it's still carbonated wonderfully. If I could award a drink based entirely on its bubbles, this one would be ze winnah.

The aftertaste is slightly greasy, but still floral. Somehow the floral or soapy flavour carries into the aftertaste. I've had worse drinks. If I could be bothered to waste the money on it, I'd have a can of Red Bull handy to compare these drinks to, but yeah, a ) can't afford it, and b ) I really don't want to have to drink a can of [insert beverage here] and then a can of Red Bull as well. I'd die. And we don't want that.

It's another Red Bull clone, but it's sweeter and slightly less offensive. Either that, or I'm becoming adjusted. There's a frightening thought.

Exotic beverage review: V

It's extremely yellow, quite like Red Eye Gold. Unlike the Red Eye beverages, which I use as a benchmark due to their superiority in most regards (i.e. taste), V retains its carbonation, rather than losing it entirely upon the bottle being opened.

V has a strong berry-like taste with a hint of medicine. It smells quite refreshing. Disturbingly, however, if you leave an open can or bottle of V in your car for a length of time, it emits a smell not dissimilar to superglue.

The flavour is quite strong. It tastes very much of berries, like some odd foreign fruit drink. There's no real taste evidence of vitamin B, which is a good thing. The berry flavour is obviously used to mask some of the other potential horrors in the drink. It's so strong it can actually make you squint a bit upon first tasting it. Overall, though, the taste is not unpleasant.

The berry-like masking flavour remains somewhat, presumably continuing to mask the vitamin B taste that's probably lurking beneath it. Due to the strength of the fruitiness and the fact the beverage remains carbonated, belching post-consumption revives the berry-like fruitiness considerably, and is not so pleasant.

It tastes strongly of berries. Blackcurrant, perhaps. No real bad tastes present, but the strength can be overwhelming. The stuff tastes quite pleasant mixed with lemonade, though.

Exotic beverage review: Power Booster

This is the first of three energy drinks I was mailed from The Netherlands, courtesy of Kees Engels. I'm slightly daunted, but I shall soldier on! It's in a bright blue can, and the label is written in Dutch and French.

It's yellow and vaguely carbonated. It looks like essentially every other energy drink available.

Upon opening the can, one is greeted by an overwhelming onslaught of aroma, a weird combination of sweetness and medication. Up close, it smells identical to Red Bull, however. Bonus points for the incredibly intense stench as the can is opened. It's possible the smell of the beverage and the taste of the beverage aren't on agreeable terms, and at the first opportunity of freedom, the stink evacuates out of the opening drink-hole for freedom. I like to imagine the taste of the drink to be the type to talk non-stop about the brand of socks it buys and how they best fight food odour, while the smell of the drink clambers around the top of the can trying to evolve claws with which to pry open the egress.

Mmm...bitter Red Bull. It has all the "ACTUNG, I AM A CHEMICAL" flavour of Red Bull, but with a slight additional woody taste, and a bit of bitterness. It's as though it's slightly more organic than Red Bull, which is clearly manufactured in airtight laboratories on a distant moon somewhere. Upon further sippage, there's also a bit of soapiness present. If it wasn't for my ritualistic vigorous washing of the glass before pouring an energy drink into it, I'd say the flavour was akin to dishwashing detergent left in the glass. Not unpleasant, but..yeah, unnecessary. All up, the flavour is neither better nor worse than Red Bull, which places it wholly within the midrange of energy drinks in general.

The soapiness continues slightly after consumption. It tastes like you've just washed your hair and had an awkward shampoo/mouth moment during the process. It's not unpleasant, all told, but these tiny chips of disgustingness do slowly erode away an otherwise decent energy drink.

It's okay. It's nothing special. It's essentially Red Bull in a different can with a bit of soap and bitterness added.

Exotic Beverage: Monster Energy

Monster is one of the pack leaders in energy drinks, up there with Rockstar and Red Bull, and in Australia, with V and Mother.

It's in a huge can, and it has a sense of humour. All other points aside, this usually doesn't bode well for an energy drink. Adorning the starboard side of the can are the "5 good reasons to make a Monster Energy Drink". They are, as follows:

1. We tried to make a relaxation drink, but everyone just fell asleep.
2. Unlike liquor, there's no background check.
3. It makes your urine go really cool colours.
4. It doesn't claim to be good for you.
5. Because size really does count.

So there.

It's yellow. Similar to beer. And similar to most energy drinks. Mmm, yellow.

It smells strangely inoffensive! It's vaguely reminiscent of Red Bull, but without the overwhelming stench of bile. It's similar to Red Eye Plus, but not as dairy-ish. So far, so good with this one!

Of all the drinks I've had lined up, waiting to try, this one made me most hesitant. Partially because it's sold in a huge can with a screaming man on it. Partially because I bought it in Newtown, Sydney. Partially because it's the only energy drink I've encountered so far to feature the word "urine" on the can. However, I'm disappointed. It tastes quite nice. It's by far more pleasant than Red Bull, my trusty energy drink benchmark, and it actually justifies the oversized dimensions of its can by being entirely drinkable.

There's also very little chemical aftertaste. Even the flavour of b-vitamins, the bane of all energy drink belches, is not present. There's a slight hint of fruitiness, but overall it's not unpleasant in any way.

I'm stunned. I totally expected a horrible, horrible drink. However, it's a pleasant, oversized drink that's completely drinkable.

Adrenalin - Exotic Beverage Review

It's nice to find an energy drink that isn't obviously a Red Bull clone, after the recent onslaught of them that I've sampled. Adrenalin comes in a variety of flavours, including "orange" and "citrus", a flavour definition about as broad as "potato" and "tubers". The other flavour is "berry", which I wish I'd bought, but decided not to, feeling it was a pretty generic flavour for energy drinks and that citrus was sightly more unique.

It's the colour of radioactive urine. It's YELLOW. Not just yellow. In fact, not just YELLOW. It's YELLOW. And it's not carbonated, so there's no movement in it at all.

It smells like an intriguing (albeit slightly sickening) combination of Mountain Dew, lemon cordial, and Berocca. I get the feeling there'll be lots of vitamin B to be enjoyed in this one. Mmm.

To taste, it's vitamin-B flavoured Gatorade, really. It's slightly lemony at first, but it's overwhelmingly laden with vitamin B and the taste of wood and chemicals. It also seems to strip the lining off the inside of your mouth at the exact same time it sends some weird chemical message to your saliva glands, telling them to quit manufacturing saliva because it's harming the environment. Or something. It dries your mouth out like you're sucking on a piece of chalk. That said, the taste itself isn't that bad! It's just oddly textured and slightly weird.

Oh, God. Don't burp. For the love of Christ, if you feel a belch coming, compress it and make it come out someplace else. It's the most unpleasant form of reflux you can possibly imagine. Remember those herbal cold and flu tablets? The green ones, shaped like diamonds? I think they had red ones that were the "night" variant. They produced an unpleasant aftertaste of garlic, vitamin B and death when you belched. This stuff produces the same taste, but with a nice liquidness to it, reminding you that you just drank something that's chemically indiscriminate from yak piss.

I don't know what to make of this one. The concept is nice, it's basically envigorated Gatorade. It's nice that it's not carbonated, but I don't think it'd be of any benefit to slam this stuff down fast, as it'd probably throw your immune system into chaos. The flavour is quite nice, but the aftertaste and ultimate belching make you want to smash the bottle on a nearby hard thing and commit ritual hari-kari before any more of it millimetres its way up your eosophagus. Like I said, I'm not sure. I guess this is about average for an energy drink, all things considered. Nice taste, makes your soul ache.

As of 2013: Extinct. No longer for sale. What a shame, too.

Exotic beverage: Rhino's Energy Drink

I don't have much to report on this one. I somehow thought this would turn out to be one of the weird aphrodisiac drinks, containing extract of rhinoceros horn, or something. I guess import and poaching laws nipped that one in the bud, eh?

It's a tad paler than the usual slightly burned yellow colour energy drinks generally take on. I'd predicted red. I was wrong.

It smells similar to the scent of Red Eye Plus, a slightly fruity but contradictorily dairy aroma. It contains taurine and is pasteurised, so there's probably a link there.

It's really quite pleasant. It's got the vague taste of Red Bull (i.e. a sickly sweet flavour, kind of like vomit -- but in a good way) with a slightly spicy overtone. There's also very little taste of random chemicals, and miraculously no taste at all of vitamin-B. I'm impressed. Totally.

There's no aftertaste that's unexpected. The taste of generic energy drink lingers for a while, but it's thankfully lacking the flavour of vitamin B. It does leave a slight greasy "skin" on your mouth, but that's to be expected from these drinks. Bravo for someone finally making an energy drink that tastes like an energy drink should, but doesn't leave you feeling like you've just imbibed an entire health food store and a litre of sump oil.

I apologise for the dullness of this review, but I've not managed to find any part of Rhino's Energy Drink to mock, parody or otherwise take the piss out of. It's flavour is exactly how an energy drink should taste, with no outstanding good or bad points. It's pleasant, as a beverage. Hoorah, Rhino's Energy Drink.

B-52 - Exotic Beverage Review

This is one of many disturbing drinks made in The Netherlands, like Private Energy, although they're all imported by different importers, as far as I can tell. This one states "Dutch Original" on the can, which is intriguing.

It's that generic "energy drink gold" colour. Kinda looks like either beer or pee, depending on whether you're a pessimist or a pessimist. It's slightly carbonated, and the carbonation vanishes speedily once the can is breached.

It smells identical to Red Bull. I had suspicions when I sampled Private Energy that it was merely re-branded Red Bull, but I was thwarted in that case by the inclusion of Ginseng, an ingredient not found in Red Bull. In this case, B52 does not claim to be pasteurised, which I assume is a mandatory statement on the can if it's the case. So again, not an actual Red Bull clone, just a similar recipe.

To taste: Whoa. It's very much unlike Red Bull. For approximately a quarter of a second, it tastes like Red Bull, then it becomes totally overpowering and bitter. The bubbles seem to amplify the excessively sour/bitter flavour, causing an uncontrollable shudder. Forcing myself to sip at the beverage now, I find I can manage no sips larger than about a half teaspoon at a time. It has a vague soapy fragrance hanging above it. It's worth noting that the can I have is past its best before date by two months, so it's possible the flavour has been affected. That said, I find it hard to imagine this tasted any better in November.

The only aftertaste is the irritating vitamin-B flavour, which tastes very much like you have a wad of fermenting lawn clippings wedged at the back of your throat. Overall, my soul doesn't feel too greatly damaged by this drink, although I don't believe I've imbibed more than a tablespoon of it.

It's a truly middle-of-the-road energy drink. It follows all the required criteria. Tiny can with snappy graphics on it. A name suggesting an explosion of flavour and energy. A price tag leaving you wondering why you wasted so much money on it. The reeking flavour of vitamin B, masked ineffectually by numerous fragrant fruit and artificial flavourings. Mild carbonation that vanishes upon opening the can. If Red Bull is the benchmark for an average energy drink -- in both content and flavour -- then this is just below the average point.

It's bad, very bad: Mother energy drink

Note: This review is based on the original recipe of Mother, which was released in 2006. In 2008, Coca Cola decided -- wisely -- to reformulate the crap into a basic Red Bull clone, and marketed it with the slogan "It tastes nothing like the old one", transparently demonstrating their acknowledgement of the fact that the drink you're about to read a review about tasted like Satan's crotchpit.

Mother claims to be an "all natural" energy drink, although I suspect most drinks can parade themselves under this label if they choose to. It contains an alarming amount of "natural" chemicals, including something extracted from the berries of the Açaí, a type of palm tree native to the Amazon basin, Korean Ginseng and the usual caffeine and guarana characters.

This drink is available almost everywhere, but I first located it in a convenience store in Sydney city. The store was being loaded with crates of the stuff, suggesting to me that it may actually be a decent drink.

It's slightly red-brown, and not as dark as cola. It's also quite carbonated and remains that way for much longer than other energy drinks.

It smells of ginger. It's like weak ginger beer, with a hint of medicine over it. I don't like ginger, or ginger beer, so this doesn't bode well for Mother.

It tastes utterly unpleasant. In fact, it tastes as though it just corroded part of my soul. It's slightly gingery with no effort made whatsoever to mask the reeking flavour of b-vitamins. There's also a hint of aniseed and the general flavouring of medicine. I can detect no flavour whatsoever that feels either safe, nor good for me.

It leaves very little aftertaste, and what it does leave tastes simply fresh, as though I've just swilled with ginger mouthwash. There's a very mild hint of b-vitamins.

I find it rather difficult to rate this drink on a whole. It's neither pleasant nor unpleasant, and my immediate dislike of it probably stems from my general avoidance of ginger, which makes my opinion more biased than usual. The problem with these drinks on a whole is that the ingredients rarely perform the magical tasks they claim, and are rarely well thought-out as companion ingredients in the same beverage. Having "all natural ingredients" doesn't necessarily mean that the ingredients, when mixed together, won't curdle your innards. This drink isn't unpleasant, but it does taste of ginger. It's unlike any other energy drink I've reviewed, thus far, so it stands alone in its weirdness.

Exotic beverage: Speed

"Speed" is a licensed trademark of "Steb", and is apparently canned..or manufactured..or something, in Clayton, Victoria. It's distributed by L-Z Distribution. Not sure if there was ever an A-K Distribution. More research needed.

No spectacularly bizarre ingredients, but it does contain Citric Aurantium, which has no redeeming qualities other than being used occasionally as a flavouring in Asian dishes.

I guess the ultimate way to get people to buy your product is to name it as though it contains narcotics. Or to name it after a Keanu Reeves movie.

It's a darkish, dusty maroon. Purple, really. The photos don't do it justice. My camera is red/purple colourblind. It's quite fizzy. (The drink. Not the camera.)

It's got a really strong stink of raspberry, combined with a smell of stale beer and methylated spirits. That said, though, it doesn't smell too bad. What the hell is wrong with me?

It tastes slightly of raspberry and quite a bit like the official standard of "energy drinks", which is the overpowering flavour of vitamin B, usually coupled with some horrendous fruit flavour trying to hose it away. It's got quite a rough texture, too. Although having described it, it's still not that bad.

Once again I have to deal with the fundamental vitamin B flavour trying to eat away at my soft palate. The methylated spirits aroma from before again reappears, which isn't the most pleasant experience.

It's not that bad. I can't say much more than that. After all of the above mocking, it's still quite drinkable.

Exotic beverage review: Private Energy

This is the first energy drink I've seen to feature a porn star on the can. In pale green relief in the top corner is porn "model" Silvia Saint (link is from Wikipedia, it's relatively safe). I was curious as to whether this drink fell into the curious "energy drinks and aphrodisiacs" category, but it seems to contain no aphrodisiac ingredients, nor claim any magical powers in the bedroomal department.

It's yellow-brown. I partly suspected this was going to be either blue or green, but that's based entirely on the colour of the print on the can. I'm neither impressed nor disappointed in the colour of the beverage, so far. The label claims the drink is carbonated, but it was barely even pressurised upon opening and the drink poured as flat as a car parking lot.

It smells exactly -- and I wish I had a second can so as to test this theory properly -- like Red Bull. This leads me to suspect that Private Energy may be colonpipe.com's first rebadged exotic beverage! The colour and smell are absolutely identical to Red Bull. It's also pasteurised. The only spanner in these works is that Private Energy's label claims it contains ginseng, an ingredient not present in Red Bull. Lacking a mass-spectrometer, I cannot chemically analyze this drink. Thus, one test remains!

It's still Red Bull. I'm grasping at minutiae here, but it's a tiny, tiny, tiny bit sweeter than Red Bull.

It does an amazing job of drying out the mouth and throat. I've recently had a cold, and Private Energy seems to want nothing better than to make me cough in an awkward fashion.

Quite frankly, you can read my review of Red Bull for my opinion of that, because it's virtually identical. I shall paraphrase for the terminally lazy: It tastes kind of like vomit, albeit in this case vomit with added sweetness. And apparently ginseng. And I'm curious as to whether all cans of this gear are flat, or whether I simply bought a dodgy one.