Tag Archives: Arizona Green Tea

A life of total leisure

Man, I just want a life of total leisure, is that really too much to ask for? I don’t want a job, I don’t want to have to go to work, I don’t want to have to do my laundry or fold any clothes. Just a life of relaxation and contemplation. Sure, maybe once in a while I’ll do something, I’ll go outside and water the plants, maybe, I’ll cook a big meal and I’ll think to myself, OK, that was useful. But really I don’t want any of that stuff. No chores, no responsibilities. I just want to always be able to go outside to my backyard and sprawl out on the grass looking up at the sky, always perfect weather, the perfect breeze, just the right amount of sunshine.

My kitchen always stocked with all of the best snacks and foods. Like if I want a Fruit Roll-up, bam, there it is, Fruit Roll-up. And I’m not talking about those yellow and blue multi-color ones, I’m talking the good flavors, only the best flavors, strawberry, like you can see the strawberry seeds smashed into the roll-up if you hold it up to the light, or watermelon, which, let’s be honest, it doesn’t taste anything like a real watermelon, neither do watermelon Jolly Ranchers, but that’s OK, it’s still a really cool taste, a really interesting flavor. One time I found this bottle of watermelon Gatorade, and yeah, I was skeptical, but it actually tasted just like watermelon. Funny enough, I didn’t like it. I wound up dumping the rest down the drain and heading back to the store for a yellow.

Just yellow Gatorade, or orange, I’d love for my fridge to be stocked with only my favorite drinks, Arizona Green Tea, even though I don’t really like it anymore, like I got sick of it from drinking way too much. I want that old feeling, that refreshed satisfaction that I got just by looking at one of those giant ninety-nine cent cans, and I’d buy like three or four of them, a whole plastic bag filled with Arizona Green Tea. Sometimes I’ll buy an Honest Tea Green Tea, because, I don’t know, what am I trying to find? What itch am I thinking that I’ll scratch? Because it doesn’t quite do it. It comes close, but yeah, it’s like Arizona is too sweet but Honest Tea is too boring.

I just want a job where I only have to go in like once a week, maybe four hours at a time, nothing big, nothing too strenuous. Or just a little strenuous, but only strenuous for like twenty minute intervals. I’d go in, or I wouldn’t go in, that would be the beauty of this job, because, you know what? Forgot the whole once a week business. I want a job where I just go in whenever I feel like it, if I ever wind up feeling like it at all. I’d go in batteries fully charged, I’d hit the ground running, it would be like I had never left in the first place. We’d all run around, getting a ton of work done but then, all right, let’s take a break. I want one of those cool bosses that orders everybody pizzas, like he’s looking out at all of us busting our asses and he thinks to himself, you know what would be awesome? If I order the crew a whole bunch of pizzas.

And he doesn’t come out to take an order, no, it’s a total surprise. And he nails it, he nails the order, he gets the perfect mix of different varieties, a plain pie, a buffalo chicken pie, some cool new pie that the pizza place is experimenting with, something I personally wouldn’t have thought to have ordered, but now that I’m trying it out, I’m like, damn, this is delicious, I’m definitely going to make it a point to order this kind of pizza in the future.

After work everybody goes out for drinks, the bar has Big Buck Hunter, and it’s only a dollar. You put in a dollar and the game lasts for like ten, fifteen minutes, and that’s not even including bonus rounds or extended firing if you get ten out of ten big bucks. I wind up playing against some old timer, this crazy looking regular, and we’re having a blast, I keep throwing dollars into the machine, he keeps making a motion like he’s going to leave, like he’s bothering me, but I insist, I’m like, “No way man, you’re not bothering me. The more the merrier! Let’s keep playing!”

And after like two hours of video games, I say to that guy, “You want a drink?” and he surprises me, it turns out he’s the owner of the bar, that this is exactly why he opened a bar in the first place, for that life of leisure, it’s a business, yeah, but it’s about something more, it’s about friendship and fun, it’s about Big Buck Hunter and making new acquaintances. He picks up the tab for the whole group and he sends out for chicken wings.

Man, is it too much to ask for? This life of leisure? We’d all head home and I’d be like, “See you when I see you!” and I’d go home, take my dog for a little walk, I’d head out to the backyard and lie down in the grass, staring up at the night sky, I can see the Milky Way, I can see the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, all of the constellations, it doesn’t matter if you’re not supposed to see them at the same time in the same season, because there they are, right there, and just when I think my life can’t get any better, I see a shooting star, and then a comet, and then a whole meteor shower, and then Northern Lights, and the International Space Station passes by, slowly, and even though I can’t see the astronauts and cosmonauts, I know they’re looking down, they’re waving at me, they’re like, “Hey Rob! Greetings from outer space!”

astronauts ISS leisure

A message from my corporate sponsors

Folks, I’ve decided to monetize this whole blogging experience, and so I’ve agreed to start lacing my writing with product placements. Not to worry though, I’m such a talented writer that I can assure you the built-in advertisements will blend in seamlessly with my award-winning prose. It’s like you won’t even know you’re being marketed to. Like when you’re eating a delicious bowl of Kashi breakfast cereal, you’re thinking to yourself, I can’t believe how smoothly our friends at Kashi have combined great taste with all of these all natural ingredients. Talk about getting your day off to a great start. Vitamins, minerals, all of the good complex carbs and proteins. That’s what you need to fuel your day. Or lunch. There’s nothing wrong with having cereal for lunch. Or even dinner. You’re hungry, you’re hungry. Kashi’s a great choice any time of the day.

That’s what this new approach is going to be like. You’ll say to yourself, wow, I just read a whole piece and I couldn’t even tell I was being sold on something. Obviously the blue highlighted hyperlinks might stand out somewhat, but just try not to think about them. Just read my blog posts for the same entertainment that you know you’re always guaranteed to experience. Just like when you watch House of Cards on Netflix. You’re not thinking about streaming video or what device you’re watching it on. You’re thinking to yourself, how have I lived my life so far without watching this groundbreaking new show? Compelling drama. Gripping narrative. Like it grips your imagination. Like Goodyear Tires grip the road, regardless of the terrain, rain or shine, you know your vehicle is in good hands.

Invariably there are going to be some people not happy with this new arrangement. They’ll call me a sell out. They’ll accuse me of promoting products and services that maybe I don’t even really like, that maybe I’m just bowing to corporate pressure, to increase traffic to a particular web site, or to draw attention to a paying sponsor. But that’s not what I’ve ever been about, and that’s not what I’m ever about to be about. It’s about delivering quality content to you, the reader. It’s about uncompromising values, about standards. It’s like TD Ameritrade, when they put together a portfolio of investments, you know they’re not sacrificing quality over profit. Just like Tommy Lee Jones and that guy from Law and Order tell you on the commercials: you’re putting your money somewhere you can trust, with people you can count on.

It’s about me writing new and fresh content, it’s about me not making the same joke over and over again, paragraph after paragraph, highlighting some random company, pretending they’re my corporate patron, making a generic sounding complement about them, and then linking to them. You’re gong to enjoy what you read here. Like you enjoy Coke. I love Coke. And Mountain Dew. I love Mountain Dew also. See? That’s different. Coke and Mountain Dew are clearly owned by two separate companies, and so they both wouldn’t pay to advertise on the same site, in the same paragraph. One of those is a paid shout-out, one of them my own opinion. See I can have it both ways. I can still write and have a voice and …

Hold on, I just got an email. I was wrong. I don’t like Mountain Dew at all. It’s gross. Too much sugar. And remember that whole thing about yellow number five? Doesn’t it decrease your sperm count?

Wait a second, another email. I actually had that mixed up. Coke is the problem here. Those bunch of fascists. Mountain Dew has always been one of my favorite soft drinks. And the sperm count thing? Yellow five actually increases your sperm count. Helping America, helping the next generation. Mountain Dew.

Readers, I guarantee that you’ll still be entertained every day. And if you get pointed to some quality products in the meantime? That sounds like a win-win to me. Like those big cans of Arizona green tea. The first win is that it’s only ninety-nine cents. The second win is after you take your first sip and realize just how delicious and refreshing your beverage is. The third win, so yeah, it’s actually a win-win-win, is when you finish that last sip, still want more, but realize that, because it’s so cheap, you can keep buying them and drinking them without pause. A true win-win-win.

And that’s what I’m going to offer. I thank you for your continued support, and look forward to offering only the finest of endorsements. Also, I’m thinking of paying some marketing firm to pay other blogs to mention my blog in their blog posts. Does that sound like a good idea? You think it might boost traffic? Let me know. Let’s go viral. Let’s get this going viral.

Let me tell you the most interesting story, about soda

I love soda. Even though I don’t really drink it that much anymore, soda has played a very significant role in my life. Growing up, we always had two-liter bottles of Coke and Sprite on the kitchen table. It’s what we all drank with every meal, or in between meals whenever we were thirsty. If we had McDonald’s or Burger King for dinner, my parents always let me Super Size my meal. The rule was, as long as I finished everything that I had ordered, I could get anything I wanted. It was some sort of lesson about waste, I don’t know. So there was never any objection to letting me consume a small garbage pail sized cup filled with carbonated sugar water. And I always finished, because soda is delicious.

Soda was so central to our family that it was a huge deal if we didn’t have any. There were two or three years when we all gave it up for Lent. I know it’s what the Lord wanted, but it was torture. I especially remember one year, I was in second grade, and Pepsi released Crystal Pepsi right in the middle of our soda fast. Finally, a soda for my generation, but all I could do was sulk around at school, listening to all the other kids talk about how awesome it was. That Easter, when we were released from Lent’s crazy prohibition, the Easter bunny brought us a lot of it, and I remember sitting outside of our house just chugging as much of it as I could, trying desperately to make up for weeks of misery and deprivation. Looking back, it was kind of a weird soda. It must not have been that good, because I don’t have any other memories of it besides from that one day. And it got discontinued pretty soon afterwards. My family always drank Coke anyway.

One time we all got Wendy’s for dinner, and me being the asshole oldest brother, I pushed the plastic “diet” button on the lid of one of my brother’s soda, and then I told him that mom had accidentally ordered him diet. I teased him until he was crying. My mom ordered me to stop, so I did, but I while I said out loud that it was a regular Coke, I was all the while looking at him in the eye with a smirk that communicated nonverbally, “Hey, mom’s only making me say that it’s regular. It’s totally diet.” He flipped out and refused to finish his dinner, so I finished it for him, including his regular Coke.

When I went away to school, I used to visit Costco maybe once a month and buy as many bulk packs of canned Coke that would fit under my bed. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I would drink at least eight a day. Towards the end of college, I had a pretty serious affair with Arizona Green Tea, which isn’t technically soda but, chemically speaking, I don’t think there’s much of a difference. I found that the absence of carbonation made Arizona easier to chug, and therefore consume more of, in a single day. Also, all of the bodegas around school sold it in these giant cans for ninety-nine cents, and so instead of having to make a trip to an actual grocery store for soda, I could satisfy my craving at any hour of the day, right outside of campus.

Like I said, I really don’t drink too much soda anymore (I’ve since switched to beer, which is basically soda for adults) but there are certain occasions where I always get one. Whenever I’m at a Mexican place I’ll get a bottle of Mexican Coke, because everyone says it tastes better with the real sugar, and everyone can’t be wrong, right? (In this case, everyone is totally right.) Also, whenever I’m buying hot dogs off the street, I always get a can of grape soda. There’s just something about the hot dog-sauerkraut-mustard-Dimetapp combination that I find irresistible. I’ve never seen grape soda sold anywhere else.

My friend Ben told me about a McDonald’s by his place that has this futuristic computer controlled Coke machine with over a hundred different soda flavors. Every time he tells me about it I get so pissed, first because I haven’t tried it yet, but second because I don’t think they’ve yet introduced these dream machines for home installation, and I know that when I finally do get to try it, I’m going to be totally addicted.

One day I’m going to make a pilgrimage to Atlanta to visit the Coke museum (but that’s it – airport, Coke Museum, airport, and straight back to New York) where they allegedly have this whole wall of fountain drinks offering every single Coke product that’s ever existed on this or any other planet. I’m going to bring a six-gallon jug and I’m going to fill it up with Surge.

I’m pretty sure that, in the Bible, Jesus had actually turned all of that water into soda. But soda hadn’t yet been invented, so nobody knew what to call it. When they finally wrote down the story generations after his death, it was incorrectly described as wine.