News You Can't Use: Coca-Cola Breaks 130-year-old Tradition with First Alcoholic Drink

As you sit on a ruined couch gasping for breath behind multiple sweating rolls of adipose tissue resulting from, among other things, high fructose corn syrup beverages, you're probably wondering if the soda jerks could possibly destroy your life at a faster rate. The good news is "yes," with the addition of a secret ingredient that isn't well understood but has been linked to slurred speech, "wooing" and puking into dumpsters. This so-called "mixed drink" has apparently never been attempted before and as such here's an article all about it.

With its iconic red label and secret recipe, it’s been one of the world’s most famous soft drinks for more than a century. Now, however, Coca-Cola is on the brink of a new chapter – with plans to launch its first alcoholic drink.

Writing the first paragraph is always the hardest, as evidenced by the respective drivel produced by both your humble blogger and the author of this amazing bit of fraud news. Yes, everything is "iconic." We can now through that word on the scrap heap with all the other ones we've ruined like "epic," "literally," "justice" and all the rest.

The company is currently experimenting with the creation of a popular type of Japanese alcopop known as Chu-Hi, containing distilled shochu alcohol mixed with flavoured carbonate water.

That wild Japanese culture. Soda and alcohol? It sounds crazy and alien, but I could actually see it working, maybe.

The low alcohol canned drink will be launched in Japan, home to a thriving if competitive industry, with countless Chu-Hi flavoured drinks – from kiwi to yuzu - sitting on convenience store shelves across the country.

I just have a hard time imagining the polite and clean Land of the Rising Sun convenience stores.

Highlighting how “unique” this venture was for the company, Mr Garduño, who did not specify a timeline for the new product, added: “Coca-Cola has always focused entirely on non-alcoholic beverages, and this is a modest experiment for a specific slice of our market.

I guess as long as we keep it safe in sarcasm quotes the word "unique" will continue to retain its original meaning. 

“The Chu-Hi category is found almost exclusively in Japan. Globally, it’s not uncommon for non-alcoholic beverages to be sold in the same system as alcoholic beverages. It makes sense to give this a try in our market.”

Me like make money. Give me money. This is bliss.

Coca-Cola’s inaugural foray into the world of alcoholic beverages takes place more than 130 years after the original drink was first launched in the US, minus any alcohol in order to circumvent restrictive prohibition laws.

Because historical illiteracy is kewl!

It coincides with shrinking global demand for soft fizzy drinks, due to health concerns relating to sugar consumption, with sports drinks and water emerging as Coca-Cola’s strongest performing beverages.

The struggles of the world's best writers: "What's another word for soda?" After an hour pouring over the Thesaurus the best I could manage was "fizzy drinks."

I'm turning Japanese, I really think so.

Meanwhile, Japan’s alcopop market has grown expansively since the country’s first ready-to-drink Chu-Hi product for stores – called hiLicky - was reportedly released in 1983, with young women fuelling sales. 

This allegedly came out in 1983, we are told.

Full Article.

Komment Korner   

There are entire towns in south MN that do not carry Coke.

Truly pathetic comment - is your name ‘chickin lickin’ by any chance?

The flavoring agent goes to make Coke and the cocaine goes to a St Louis Company that purifies it for medicinal purposes and sells it to doctors, dentists, etc.

Similar disgust as Bi chew from China. Shows Coke are finally losing the plot. Warren Buffet should pull his investments

Well no-one's forcing you to drink it. It's a Japanese thing

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.  

News You Can't Use: To Lure Young, Movie Theaters Shake, Smell and Spritz

Hey, young person! Yes, you there with the Chinese electronics and "with it" ideas. How would you like to see a movie based on a cartoon designed to sell toys from 1986? What do you mean, no? Would you change your mind if I told you that you'll be sprayed with various vile fluids and shaken like a Bond Martini? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Having tried 3-D films, earsplitting sound systems and even alcohol sales in pursuit of younger moviegoers, some theater chains are now installing undulating seats, scent machines and 270-degree screens.

Where gimmicks from the 1950s and "Underage drinker night" failed, the scent machines will surely succeed. Can you imagine how much better old films would be if the sent of desert sand or old newspapers was constantly blasting you in the face? Clearly this will produce a golden age of Super Movies that will make us wonder why we even cared about all that old junk.

For an $8 premium, a Regal theater here even sprays patrons with water and pumps scents (burning rubber, gun powder) into the auditorium.

Still cheaper than the popcorn, haw haw. Here's three Washingtons and a King Lincoln, can't wait to safely simulate car accidents and gun mayhem.

Can’t cope with two hours away from your smartphone? One theater company has found success with instant on-screen messaging — the texted comments pop up next to the action.

As my seat spun around and I inhaled simulated distressed rubber I was worried I was under-stimulated. Thank goodness for this.

“When I step back and think about what will get people off a couch, in a car, down the road and into a theater, the answer is not postage stamp-sized screens and old seats,” said Gerardo I. Lopez, the chief executive of AMC Entertainment, the No. 2 chain in the United States.

What will get you to take that gun out of your mouth, dress yourself, get into that car, hit the accelerator, negotiate traffic on a road, find a designated theater location and then exchange federal reserve paper for the privilege of seeing a Young Adult novel sort of come alive? It's certainly not going to be compelling stories or skillful direction. Scent sprayers, that has a chance.

“Why would they bother? What the hell, stay in the house.”

No spinning seat that rattles in time with the explosions? Might as well just pull that trigger, the world has nothing for you.

Ticket revenue in North America has fallen 4 percent this year compared to the same period in 2013, according to box office analysts, and attendance is equally down.

Well, that explains the explosion of low budget films and huge pay-cuts for name actors.

Last year, despite a glut of extravagant action movies, the number of frequent moviegoers ages 18 to 24 dropped 17 percent, compared to a year earlier; the 12-to-17 age bracket dropped 13 percent.

We know those punks love deadly violence and loud talking from examining their own pathological behaviors, but for reasons unknown they're not going to theaters. Must be the lack of odors.

The undiscerning young ticket buyers Hollywood has long counted on to turn out weekend after weekend are suddenly discerning.

The nightmare of an educated society! Deploy the new Smart Phones!

Or they are at least busying themselves with video games, living room wide-screen televisions and devices that can pull up thousands of movies with a couple of clicks.

Relax, no one got any smarter. Just much lazier and much, much more pathetic.

“The traditional moviegoing experience is at odds with the rest of their lives,” said Ben Carlson, president of Fizziology, a consultancy that focuses on entertainment and social media.

My doctorate in Fizziology is less useful than you might expect.

There are two types of water effects: rain, which drops from the ceiling, and mist, which is squirted from the seat in front of you. (Patrons can turn off the water by pressing a button.)

Forgive me for not wanting anything squirted from the seat in front of me while at the theater.

“We’re adding to the story, not taking away from it,” said Catherine Yi, a senior editor for CJ 4Dplex, the company behind the technology.

For the last time, this not a stupid gimmick. Please stop asking.

“It’s way cooler than it sounds,” said David Ramirez, 25, as he left a crowded 4DX screening of “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1” last weekend.

"I'm a man in my mid-twenties but I went to a movie based on a novel aimed at twelve-year-old girls," he added.

But the current move toward interactivity and immersion is unlikely to go away entirely, analysts say, in part because of a generational shift.

Sure. Wake me when "Sense-r-round" comes back.

I'm a unique individual full of value.

Allowing patrons to use their smartphones in certain auditoriums has been discussed intermittently by exhibitors, although worries about piracy, among other factors, have prevented that notion from moving forward in the United States. But theater chains paid keen attention to a recent texting trial in China.
 

I'd love to read those texts, full of loyalty to the glorious People's Government and Right Think. Show us the way, China.

At August screenings in 11 cities of “The Legend of Qin,” an animated movie, ticket buyers were allowed to log on to a Wi-Fi network and use their mobile phones to text with other attendees as the film played. The messages appeared next to the action, much like VH1’s “Pop Up Video” program.

Behold the huge leap forward in yelling "Don't go in there, girl!" at the screen.

“Our customers really seemed to like it,” said Timothy Warner, Cinemark’s chief executive.

Nothing soul-crushing here, that's for sure.

But Mr. Warner vowed that Cinemark would go only so far. “Unlike some of the others,” he said, “we still think the reason people go to the movies is to see movies.”

It sounds crazy, but you might be on to something here.

Full Story.

"Maybe one day this theater will produce a real rain and a vibrating seat."

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.