If you have any question of 1) whether or not beach volleyball is a legitimate Olympic sport, or 2) the nature of it’s appeal, all you need to know is that this, this, and this, the objet du desir, were among Yahoo!’s most emailed photographs last week.
Have I mentioned how much I love football? I do. A lot. This much [Fade in picture of me with arms outstreched to either side of my body]. I love football so much that I play it at least twice a week (touch football, that is). I’ve been playing with more or less the same group of guys for about three years now. We play pick up games every Saturday (usually three games, sometimes four).
Yesterday was a perfect day for playing, with the sky fairly clear and the temperature hovering in the mid-sixities. We’d played several games when someone spotted the Red Bull mobile. The Red Bull mobile is a modified pickup truck that wanders Minneapolis and St. Paul dispensing Red Bulls. It’s easy to spot because the truck has a huge can of Red Bull with the bottom resting in the cargo bay and the top resting on the back edge of the cab. In the cargo bay, on either side of the can, are refrigerated storage areas where they keep their supply of the energy drink.
So we were playing ball when we notice a pretty blonde girl and a nice looking guy walking toward our game. And of course, they are Red Bull employees come to give us each a complimentary cold can.
I’ve seen the Red Bull mobile around town but that’s the first time I’ve seen it in action. I gotta say that I was very impressed. Their target market is young male athletes, night owls, and college students and they nailed all three because a couple of the guys I play with probably fall into each category. Several of the guys I play with are regular Red Bull drinkers. And everyone was quite happy to get a free Red Bull.
But after enjoying a practical monopoly on the energy drink market, Red Bull is losing market share to, for my money anyway, better tasting and more effective competition (Fortune magazine calls Red Bull a "a caffeine-laced drink that tastes like cough syrup and promises to enhance athletic performance and concentration."
The drink does taste like cough syrup and I don’t think it works nearly as well at energizing than SoBe. SoBe has a diverse product line but I’m partial to SoBe Adrenaline Rush, a direct competitor to Red Bull. It tastes good and works longer. But don’t just take my word for it, I’ve turned three of my friends into SoBe-drinkin fools.
SoBe’s original can design displayed their sense of humor with the slogan "Get it up. Keep it up. Any questions?" Beneath that was a 1-800 number which I presume you were supposed to call and ask when it would go down.
Mmmm….I do love my SoBe but they do gotta work on both their distribution (like in bars) and their visibilty. Hey, they could always sponsor my touch football team.
I was planning on writing an ode to my Nokia 3650 cell phone, then it looked as if I would have to write a eulogy instead but as it turns out, I am writing one of those amazing product stories that marketers would kill for.
My phone, you see, died only to be miraculously revived. Or, more precisely, my phone was killed. Murdered. Diabolically drowned.
It all stared innocently enough with my friends and I going to Champps Americana in New Brighton to watch the Vikings/49ers game. We ate, we drank, we were merry watching the Vikes kick the 9ers all over the field but then late into the fourth quarter, when the Vikings had their third-stringers on the field and our attention was more focused on things other than the game, it happened.
My friend’s wife discovered my pen, which she claimed, absent a shred of proof, to be her own. I, of course, said No you don’t. She replied by writing on my hand with my own pen. I returned the favor and before I knew it, she had seized my cell phone and was threatening to drop it into my glass of Summit.
No civilized person would do such a thing so of course I ignored her threats but, then, the next moment, there it was: My phone. In my beer. Just sitting there. Two great things that are not great together.
So I end up with her cell phone (a Nokia that looks as if it’s just been excavated from an archeological dig) while we figure out how she’s gonna replace my Nokia 3650. Adding insult to injury, I belatedly realize that she’s set her ringtone to ABBA’s Fernando. I begin to feel nostalgic for my dear departed cell phone.
I think of all the good times we had together; the things we’d been through, the moments we’d shared: All of the conversations we had, the emails we sent, the photos and videos we took together, the arcade games we played.
O Nokia 3650, you were my photo album, my life organizer, my memory. You were the first thing I heard in the morning and the last thing I set before going to bed.
So yes, I began to miss her. But, as I’m one of the super-wired class who have abandoned their land lines in favor of a sole cell phone, I knew that she had to be replaced. And soon.
So I began to research her replacement with no small degree of guilt over my extremely abbreviated mourning period. The more I looked, the more exited I got as I pursued the sexy new Sidekick II, with her sleek, elegant lines and easy communication. But then my guilt would overcome me and I’d set aside my searching…only to be drawn irresistibly back to her. I was intrigued, verging on obsession in my quest to find our more and more about her. The fact that she would not have Bluetooth technology only proved that she wasn’t perfect, making her all the more endearing. The fact that she would not be available for another month made her only that much more appealing.
Thus it went, being buffeted between despair and desire, until that by-now familiar refrain of Fernando careened across the walls and, answering my temporary Jurassic Nokia, I heard my friend’s wife on the other end:
"Hi, David."
"Hi."
"Guess what?"
"What?"
"I’m calling you from your cell phone!"
Well, there it was. My beloved Nokia 3650 had ripped off her black veil and would soon return to my life. Suddenly I was feeling a new emotion: Disappointment.
It was clear it was only a matter of time; that I’d be living a double-life, caught between residual affection and anticipated excitement. It is unfair, but I know I’ll just be marking time, counting the drawn-out days until I abandon the old for my new Sidekick.
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