Mike Literman - 1759 Reviews

Paint then caulk. Paint then caulk. Paint then caulk. That's all Francis was doing. He had just moved into a new house and had to caulk and paint the whole house himself. He had some time off and just wanted to knock it out as soon as he could. Paint then caulk. Such a time consuming process. Paint, wash brushes, caulk. Over and over. He knew he could spice it up a bit so he took a break for lunch and saw a new energy drink that he hadn't had before. SuperSours sounds like something he would have drank as a kid. As an adult with a fresh mortgage, he now looked back fondly at his day of youth filled with just playing with friends until the sun set night after night. Now it was just office work day in and day out. Wearing heavily starched shirts with ties, khakis, and dress shoes every day just to sell office supplies. In hindsight, it was not the life that he ever thought that he would lead.

He took a drink and it took him back to those days. He took another sip and just closed his eyes and reminisced about playing in the pool with friends, playing hockey in the street, and football in people's front yards. It was a sour that was somewhere in between a Warhead and a Jolly Rancher. It was a familiar taste that he hadn't had in years. He took another sip and it seemed more and more childish and less like it was a good idea to buy it. What was he doing? It was an energy drink that didn't taste like an energy drink, which was good, but it was a sour, sour apple drink. That was kids stuff. Why would kids drink an energy drink? Kids are filled with energy. Francis was feeling more like an adult with every sip. He said to himself, "Hey, kids can't fix a sink like me. Kids can't crunch numbers to make deals like me. I was a dumb kid. Now look at me. I've got a great haircut, a semi-babe as a girlfriend, and a sweet new house. Who needs this kid stuff? I'm a friggin' adult!" People looked at him like he was crazy. He slowly got up and walked back to his house. He grabbed the tube of caulk and started again and though to himself, "Oh yeah. This sucks. I wish I was a kid again...again."

If bakers know one thing, it's that measurements count. "Heaping" is not a word that bakers use. "Heaping" is a work that cooks use. Learn how to measure, cooks. While making this drink, I was ordered by the Canadian Government that is Tim Horton's to use three "heaping" teaspoons to water. This drink is weak. Weak, son. Get that weak stuff out of here. I am not completely penalizing them because I could have just added more stuff but when I follow directions to their ranged rate, there is clearly room for error since "heaping" is a variable amount.

What does it taste like? It tastes like cappuccino that you might get from a gas station but not as good. Something about those crappy gas station blends are good. It's just that it's so much like an adult hot chocolate that it borders on just a mockery of coffee related drinks and pure, unadulterated garbage. As for the English Toffee, eh, I guess if you left a Heath bar in a crappy cup of cappuccino that it would taste a bit like this so that is a pass. This whole drink is a pass. If this were a graded class, it would be a C+. It would do better on a pass/fail scale where everyone is either one or the other with no quality, just pass or fail.

How do you ring in the New Year? Do you kiss the person standing next to you? Do you make resolutions about losing weight? Do you drink until you can't see straight and drive home like a total idiot? Not me. I sit around with family watching Dick Clark's New Year extravaganza until about five to twelve when we prepare. We prepare to irritate the neighborhood by blowing horns, spinning noisemakers, setting off car alarms, and banging pots and pans. Five minutes later, we go inside because it is now the first, which doubles as my uncle's birthday. He makes a toast, which, this year was "the golden rule." I don't come from a drinking family, so not everyone drinks. Kids drink non-alcoholic champagne and most of the adults do, too. I drank raspberry iced tea from the Keurig.

It's how I ring in the New Year. New drinks. Thirsty Dudes doesn't stop. 2013 to 2014 is just one more year we do this. This iced tea started the year off right, too. It was lightly sweetened. It tasted like a watered down raspberry Snapple. It had a good raspberry taste and was a lot less sweet than the sweet tea, which I love. This was good and I was actually surprised, even after stirring and making it to the bottom of the glass, that there wasn't a "sweet spot" in there somewhere. It was well blended, well flavored, and a good way to kick in the New Year.

Amy and Brian, lovers, loved coconuts. They would go out a couple times a week for dessert and always get a sundae with shaved coconuts on it. Their favorite candy bars were Mounds and Almond Joy in that order. Their favorite place to visit on vacation was somewhere tropical that they could get coconuts right off the tree. They loved the stuff.

They went to the Maldives on their honeymoon just to indulge in coconut fare. They went out the first night they were there and were served a drink that was on the menu simply as "coconut juice with pulp." How could they resist? They could not. They each got a large glass of it and when it came, their eyes lit up. It was coconut water with little chunks of coconut in it. Small chunks, like someone did a poor job straining, not that Amy or Brian were complaining. It had a bit of a natural sweetness that often times comes from coconut water and the chunks just made it more fun than a standard glass of coconut water.

Amy and Brian were in love with each other and this drink. They knew that this was a step in the right direction for their honeymoon and their future lives together. All it took was a little pulp.

Look, if an iced tea can even possibly be good past its expiration date, I'm fine with it. Those are just suggestions anyhow, right? Sure, this expired in April and here we are deep into December but honestly, how bad could it have gotten? There isn't anything in this drink that could really go bad. I suppose that could be a bad thing in itself if you think about it. Like that shot of a McDonald's cheeseburger every day for a month that looks just as good as the day it was purchased. Something that will never die and never tarnish is wrong in itself. We're supposed to age. We're supposed to get wrinkles. That's what our natural, genetic makeup is telling our bodies to do. Get hunchy, get grey, and get upset when people walk on your lawn.

This drink, old age and all, was good. I don't think that if I drank it in it's specifically allocated time it would have been any better or even different really. It tastes different than American lemon green teas. It's almost hard to place what makes it different but something here just tastes more right. It tastes like there is some actual tea in there. Sure, in the ingredients it's listed as "green tea extract" and "green tea flavor" but that's about all you can get out of green tea, right? Lemon juice concentrate is real lemon. Honey is honey. "Lemon flavor" is a bit sketch but it's lemon. Who cares? We know what it tastes like. This might be all of the above ingredients plus a hint or essence of something floral.

If I ever go to Taiwan, I will most certainly look for M. Bison, but after that search promptly grinds to a halt, I feel like I will have fun looking for drinks like this because this tastes right.

When buying a home, how many times in one day can you go to the hardware store? I have gone to Home Depot at least once a day, today twice, for the last week and a half. Caulk, wood, paint, primer, faucets, ceiling fans, wall sconces, and so on and so forth. It's a lot of work and a lot of money and a lot of time. Today I decided to treat myself a little bit.

Sure, I needed paintable caulk. Sure I did. Why wouldn't I? On my way to the first trip to the store, I decided to get something nice to drink for myself to pre-reward myself for an impending job well done. I saw this at the store and it stood out because I knew we hadn't done it. Sometimes I think we have done it all but then I leave my guard down, new stuff fills the shelves and it seems our job will never end. I bought it without thought and headed home for my double entendre "Caulkfest" of an afternoon with a father/son electrical duo.

This tea put me in a good place. Sure my hands were filled with caulk and plaster dust and general grime, but when I took sips of this drink it put all that in the back of my mind. This tea was a great middle ground between a sweetened and unsweetened tea. Sure, I know, once you add sugar, it's no longer an unsweetened tea, but it's lightly sweetened and nothing is masked by the sweetness of a sweetener. You can taste the bitterness of the oolong tea and although there is no actual honey in the drink, there is essence of honey that you can really taste. There is also essence of caramel, which, if you think about it, you can taste.

This is a wonderful addition to the great teas that Tazo makes for us. If you've got a long day of monotonous tasks ahead of you, maybe you should buy yourself a vacation drink like this.

Chuck didn't like Christmas. It was always the time where everyone was very thoughtful and it made him feel like a pile of garbage. Everyone else was happy, buying gifts for each other and he just never wanted to participate in any of the festivities. He never was at a store and thought, "Oh, Karen would love this." He knew it was him and he could probably fix it if he just tried harder but he was in his thirties and if it didn't just happen by now, it never was going to.

This Christmas was no different. He went out on Christmas Eve and just bought everyone gift cards. He knew it's what people could use but not necessarily what they wanted, which also made him feel bad.

He went to his girlfriend's parent's house for Christmas and felt like he was just going through the motions. Everyone was open presents around him, smiling, and just shredding paper like it was suffocating the presents it was encasing. He just sat there and opened his, respectfully and to himself. Socks, ill-fitting sweater, videos in a format he can't use...same thing every year. All of a suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was his girlfriend's dad with a cup of tea. He was a cynical man himself and just gave Chuck a nod like he understood. He smelled it and it was rich with cinnamon. He took a sip and it was a very strong cup of tea but it was good. It was almost like a spicy, candy cinnamon but it wasn't sweet. There were some other spices in there that made it a pretty bold tea. It defiantly perked him up and allowed him to at least fake a smile as people opened their awful gifts from him.

A couple minutes later when the wrapping paper was all picked up and everyone was catching their breath, Chuck was sitting with a half full cup of tea thinking to himself that he couldn't finish it. It was good but it was just too much for him to choke down the rest of. It was too strong and sure he could have steeped it less but it really wasn't in there that long. He wished everyone happy holidays but was happy to just go home and go to sleep like the Grinch he knew he was and the old man that he knew he was becoming.

Ahh, Christmas Eve. 'Tis the time for me to wrap all the presents I bought in one day while the little buddy is away. Did I succeed? Ha! No. I am actually writing a review instead of wrapping presents. Will I catch gruff for it? Probably. Will this review write itself? Nope. You see the priority of things in my life. Review, then joy.

It's snowing here and this is a summer drink. Pomegranate lemon green tea: Summer drink. It might just be the lemon but if we're talking about season fruit, isn't pomegranate a fall fruit? I've got one in the kitchen but I bet it's going to be alright. Why? Because I'm no fruit connoisseur, that's why.

This is a good drink, even if I have to go out after the review and shovel. It, as most Made drinks do, have a good green tea bitterness. The pomegranate is there and just a titch of lemon that you can actually taste. I really have enjoyed Made and this is no different. Their green tea line is good because they've got a good base and everything else is just icing.

Bleh. This is gross. I really like Sweet Leaf stuff. Even those strange mint ones. I was happy to see them integrated into stores locally because there were only select places that I could get them around me. This though, this blows. This is some of the worst diet iced tea I've ever had. It has single handedly soiled the good name of sweet tea and slapped the face of the people that worship it. It tastes like it's almost a decent sweet tea as a base. Ingredients are simple until you reach the devil that is sucralose. Filtered water, black tea, citric acid. That's the making of a good, long lasting tea.

You want to know what the best diet tea is? Unsweetened tea. This is swill. The sucralose absolutely ruins whatever integrity this tea could have had. Congratulations, murderer. You have struck again.

You want to know what the best diet tea is? Unsweetened tea. This is swill. The sucralose absolutely ruins whatever integrity this tea could have had. Congratulations, murderer. You have striken again.

Take a look around. Do you see any other bottles of tea on the shelves with real friggin' lemons in it? No, not lemon flavoring, seasoning, or essence. A real slab of lemon right there in the bottle. Aside from that, you've got a black tea and that is sweetened with honey. Could you imagine a better combination? I am not going to run through the ingredients again. I will just leave it there on the table, all spread out. One, two, three and you can take a look and decide if you need anything else to make a wonderful iced tea.

If diamonds are a girl's best friend than what would this be? Well let's find out together, shall we? Girls are taken care of. They have diamonds. Good call, girls. Who is left? Men, women, kids, and old people? Who would this be for? I think we can vote out old people because this is too sparkly for them. They like bland things like mashed potatoes with nothing on them and no extra spice. Women already have diamonds from when they were younger since not only are diamonds a girls best friend, but they are also forever so women, pick your diamonds with care since you are living with them.

Kids...I don't think you would be into this. It's sweet but diety sweet. Not much, but kids love sugar and corn syrup. Adults have come to accept it as a necessary evil. Kids? Off the list.

Who's left? Men. I am loosely affiliated with this group here. This is a manly, clear bottle with a sharp carbonation. It's a little diet but it's not labeled as such so you don't need to hand in your man card that you didn't have to do anything to get except either live past twenty eight or save someone from a burning building. The taste of this is like that of a grapefruit. A light grapefruit that you might put a little Splenda on instead of sugar to cut that gnarly sourness that comes with grapefruits.

There you have it men, women, children, and the elderly. You all have your stuff and now men have one more thing than they knew they had yesterday. Congratulations. Sure, with diamonds, girls up to women up to elderly women will pretty eternally win. This is just a diet drink that will go bad six months after you buy it and has a retail price quite lower than a fancy pants, princess cut, F class diamond.

Jeff had a filthy mouth. He didn't swear but he also didn't brush his teeth regularly. His dentist asked him how he was going to meet new people with a mouth that looked like old cheese. He said that he just didn't have time for it and he didn't care. He said that when his teeth fell out, he was just going to get fake ones and not need to brush them. His dentist told him that is not how it worked and that he still had to brush fake teeth. He assured her that he read online that someone was trying to invent antibacterial fake teeth and the dentist was wrong.

His dentist thanked him for finally coming in and attempted to sway him out of his bad habits. Jeff had won a trip to the dentist in the world's worst bachelor party prize and decided he should not waste it. His dentist was sweating trying to clean the trash dump that his mouth had become. An hour and a half of cleaning, drilling, filling, patching, and bridging later, it was time for fluoride. The dentist asked if he wanted to drink some new Hint drink that the office was trying to push as an alternative to pop. Jeff thought he would try it. He liked it but it had a bit of a familiar taste that he couldn't place. It tasted a little like a floral honeydew. He thought that it was a good alternative to water, which he felt was disgusting. His dentist gave him a fluoride rinse and he spit it right out in the sink. He said, "That was it!" at the top of his lungs. The dentist didn't know what he was talking about. Jeff exclaimed that the hint tasted like fluoride and the dentist took a sip and sadly agreed. Jeff did a proper rinse and had had as clean a bill of health as you can for not being to a dentist in over a decade.

Rumors have been circulating about where I have been. People have said that I was in China selling cows. I have heard that I had left Thirsty Dudes in order to work full time to fulfill my dream of becoming a professional competitive pie eater. I have also heard that I was being groomed to become the newest host of the late night television show "Mike Night with Mike." I can say, for sure, that these are all false.

Regardless of what I was doing, which you don't care about anyway, let's be honest, I'm back in full effect with this, a thrilling review of a drink that is supposed to get my metabolism boosted. Look, I'm thirty-one years old and don't have the metabolism that I had when I was a terribly haired, equally terribly dressed high school student. That being said, I do not believe that this is going to give me the endurance that would allow me to do things like get three hours of sleep and just rage all day. As a terribly, immature adult, this does quench my thirst because it is good. It doesn't have a strong tea taste. Light tea taste. Not strong. Strong berry taste. According to the pictures on the bottle, there are cherries (which I can taste), blueberries (which I cannot taste), strawberries (which I might be able to taste) and raspberries (which I also might be able to taste). That's a good fifty percent tasty fruit to tasteless fruit. I suppose it's a fair ratio.

Hey, regardless of what seedy or otherwise not terribly entertaining things I've been up to these past five days, I'm back and this review proves it. I'm off to continue my new career of playing as a rodeo clown but you don't care about that.

Hey dude, mom bought you some water. Yeah, water. Well it's called "Halo" because she knew that you spent so much time playing Halo. No, I don't think Bungie makes it. Just go get it. Mom is putting the groceries away now. If you don't get it, she might let dad drink it and you know he doesn't stop when it comes to drinking bottles of stuff.

Did you get it? Do you want to play Halo while drinking it? I think it's only fitting. You can be Master Chief because I know you have a cow when you aren't. I'll be, I don't know, Master Chief 2? We play as the same dude, don't we? Alright, open that bottle up. I'm getting thirsty.

This is good. It's just like a watered down juice or something. I think mom would like this because it tastes like one of her types of drinks. What do you mean you don't know what I'm talking about? Have you ever drunk mom's juice? It's like one part juice to four parts water. This is good though. It's got a better raspberry taste than strawberry taste. I feel like I can taste that tartness from the raspberries more than the flavor of the strawberry. I don't care though. Do you know why? It's because I have a Warthog. Oh crud. You have a Wraith. Great. Welp, looks like I'm drinking tea tonight.

I will tell you for those who do not already know, that one of the worst things ever is packing for a big move. I live in a small house and am moving to a slightly larger house but I have been packing non-stop for days. It feels like an eternity but I am slowly seeing everything I own broken down and crammed into boxes and put into a corner of my house. It still feels like there is so much more stuff to pack but I am finally, after today, in a place where I think that I see an end.

In doing so, I had three boxes of things that I had to donate. After I was done and they gave me a "receipt" which is a piece of paper that says, "The IRS uses the honor system when you claim donations." which I thought was very strange and lazy, I decided to go right down the street and get something warm. It was very cold today, as I am sure you all know since I believe the entire country is going through a cold front right now. I believe it was twenty degrees outside and at the time of writing this, it was snowing. I wanted a mocha, but then I saw a sign that promoted the salted caramel hot chocolate. Since I think it was seasonal, I had to get it.

After waiting for it to decrease from the temperature of the sun, it was time to drink. I leaned in my house, in my kitchen, surrounded by both full and empty boxes, and took sip after sip and just cleared my head. This was a good, well-balanced drink. The caramel smoothed it out, the base hot cocoa was there and the salt was not overpowering and gave it a nice sweet and salty taste. It's a nice change of pace for the lovers of hot cocoa in times like these. Cold times. Winter times.

Peter Ayala was often a hungry man and when he was hungry, he knew there was no better place to go than the Greek place by his house? Why is that? Well it's because they had everything on the menu. What other place could you go where on the same menu they had, gyros, hamburgers, meat loaf, bahn mi, pizza, and quesadillas? Sure, nothing was mind blowing but when Peter was hungry and didn't want to go through the whole, "Where do I want to eat?" thing, he would just go to the Greek restaurant and just get something.

One thing he thought was a classic move, that no place aside from Greek restaurants do anymore, was they put out the little bowl of After Dinner mints. He loved that they had the glass bowl and a little spoon in it and you just helped yourself. He loved those mints. One day when the manager wasn't looking he took a couple more than he normally would. Sure he could just buy them at the store but he wanted to try something a little different.

He went home, unloaded two dozen mints onto the table and filled up an empty two liter of pop with water, put the mints in along with some peppermint leaves and just let it all infuse together. Then, the time was ready. He readied a glass and took a sip. He couldn't have been happier. He was worried that it was going to be too strong but to his surprise it was a nice, refreshing drink that didn't taste like toothpaste or like he put candy inside water. He could make more and more as the summer heat came down, as it was a very refreshing and cooling drink.

He would never tell the restaurant what he discovered but every time after that faithful day he would take twice as many mints as he should have. One serving for him and one for the drink he would always make to cap off his day.

Oh Sir Limonitz. What brings you to this part of town? You don't leave your castle as much as you used to. It seems that you just wave your scepter around having us peasants to do your bidding for you. Sir, if I may say so, you have become rather slovenly since you have taken this position as a proper sir. Don't think that we haven't noticed that you have begun to overflow out of your once respectfully fitting clothes. We still adore you, sir, we really do, but I thought that it would be nice if someone told you before it got out of hand.

So what brings you here to these parts? A new beverage? That's fantastic. Your last lemonade was very good and we can only hope that this one is as well. Let me see here. Ahh, strawberry. Good fruit choice, sir. Oh, it smells wonderful. It smells like a veritable bouquet of strawberries. I also appreciate the bountiful amount of pulp that is swirling around in here. Let's take a sip...wow. Sir, you have outdone yourself with this. It tastes as good as it smells and it probably bites harder than your little dog that you've got there. It's got a wonderful lemonade base but the fruitiness of the strawberries cuts through. Sir, you have outdone yourself. Now I know why you have us doing your tasks for you; so you can invent things like this drink. Keep up the good work and, Sir, please, take care of yourself.

We've been hard on ol' Rob in the past and he has been very good to us. I should say, and we should say more often, that they gave us these drinks to try and they are glass, plentiful, and heavy so that was probably no easy task. It's hard to dis companies that are so nice to us that might put out not-so-good drinks. Credit where credit's due, Rob's is pushing the envelope when it comes to some of his flavors and he has to know that they're not going to be for everyone.

Now, on to this coconut water. Everyone knows the pains of coconut water. You have to drink it when it's ice cold otherwise it gets chalky and gross. Append that to the fact that they use Erythritol and you could have a dangerous mix on your hands. Was Rob able to man the wild horses, save the town and get the girl? Yes. Rob rode the blackest steed in all the land, tamed it and then fed it a friggin' carrot. He gave the bad guy a wedgie and also took his lunch money. He got the girl and the girl had a ten face, ten body and liked playing video games. This might be the best coconut drink I've ever had. It's got a good mix between real coconut and candied coconut shavings you would get on an ice cream or a Mounds bar. The Erythritol just kind of cools it all down while sweetening it up.

Rob deserves a pat on the back and all the gold in the land for taming that beast.

When Jay goes on tour, he comes home with some different drinks. If you stay in one place, things get stale. Jay knows that all too well so he's on tour a fair amount and, if I didn't know better, he spends as much time with the band as he does on the hunt for new drinks.

Now he just was in the United States but came across this little Australian tart. You know a drink that comes both in glass and with an awesome pull-tab is going to be good, so is it? Well, it's good and it's better than most but is it as good as I wanted to be? I don't think so. It is a nice, dark licorice filled root beer. That's for sure. What's wrong with it then? It's a little too sweet. Is it the molasses? Maybe. It almost tastes like a good root beer with something like a grape hard candy in it. That's not the worst thing but whatever that "candy" thing is in there, it knocks its great potential down a peg or two. Am I in the position to be assigning proper peg state? I like to think that I am. I would like to think that in turn someone out there is placing me on some ladder whether it be a skill ladder, sexual ladder, or something in between. We can all agree that those are the two extents of social ladders, right?

Mark Smits was a famous actor. He rose to stardom after a series of romantic comedies and after that, his stardom just kept rising. He quickly saw the danger in being so famous and influential. People were doing things like carving their names in their arms, getting tattoos of his perfect face on their bodies, and dressing like him at comic book conventions. His friends started to notice it and made him do things to see just how far people would go "in his honor." They would do things like have him go up to people in the streets and say that he'll give them a hug if they grab strangers butts and they would do it without hesitation. He made people get "MARK SMIT" tattood on their knuckles with the leftover "S" on their thumb and a peace sign on the other thumb and people did it and smiled the whole way. To step it up a notch, his friends dared him to start a company with the premise of people buying anything he endorses. The challenge was on.

Mark bought a thousand bottles, went down to the point in city where the trucks dumped all the snow and just filled up the bottles with salty, dirty, melted snow water. People cringed a bit when they drank it but since Mark said that it was cool, so did everyone else. He decided he did not like what he had become and quit acting all together. He decided to take his million of dollars and invest it wisely and spend the rest on doing good in cities around the country. It would all come full circle when he was working across the country at a soup kitchen and a case of his salty snow water came in and the homeless people recognized him from the campaign and made him sign bottles of it. Mark would never be able to escape his unfortunately uber-successful past.