Daily News 5-278

Good evening.

This will have been your daily news for this, our 278th day of 2005...once you're done reading it.

Genuine Hank's Premium vs. Boylans vs. Journey vs. Virgil's
The days when virtue was a virtue.
Software that cares.


Supposedly not--

You have four labels. (a) is a glass bottle with no particular shape and two off-center plastic stickers. On the back you're told that, once again, you've been fooled into corn syrup. Unless you're like me, who can smell the stuff across the room. (b) is a plain bottle with impeccable labeling, but more importantly-- contains unbleached cane, star anise, and real sassafras.
You can taste the near licorice taste. It's root beer. Real root beer. (c) has a regal bottle and excellent toned glass. Plastic stickers, but they're simple and blend well. The drink is alright-- real cane sugar for sure, but the mix of spices isn't right. It's like they tried to go too many ways with it. Peppermint? (d) is an elaborate bottle-- it's a pint with fancy clamp top. Heavy glass. Terrible labeling job--at the winery we'd be made to rework these. The price is astounding. I buy one anyway and cynically open the metal and ceramic top I'm paying $2 for... and everything goes away into a mist of anise, nutmeg, sweet birch and molasses. This is how root beer once was. It is how root beer was made to be. We had a winner.

(a) was Genuine Hank's Premium.

When you see the words "genuine" and "premium" on the same label, you understand you've been suckered. You just saw Genuine once, and Premium once. As a result, you were impressed by this label's ability to describe itself two different ways on two separate occasions. But when you taste it, there's no aftershock. It's just a yucky sweet pulse. Corn Sweetener--my righteous nemesis--we meet again. To make the problem worse, Genuine Hank's Premium (See, I'll bet that's "Genuine Hank's" Premium and not Genuine "Hank's Premium", which explains everything.) Anyway, it's not even good for a corn-fed drink. 3 out of 10, Hank.

(b) was Journey

You know, The label wasn't interesting enough for me to read anything on the bottle. But the taste--good body, and just sweet enough. I'm a sugar fiend, but Journey has half the sugar of most of the others and still makes 2nd place. Yes, second. However, the wild card is sassafras. It's pretty rare in root beer today, and even our "winner" lacks it. Journey Root Beer is still battling for 1st, in my mind. 9 out of 10.

(c) was Boylans

I respect the Boylan Bottling Company. They're a smaller, yet time-tested business that did an incredible job producing quality and class with growing quantity. Cane sugar all the way, and there's Birch extract in the Black Cherry flavor (which is pretty incredible). As a purveyor of a good solid Root Beer, Boylan's does the job. 7 out of 10.

(d) was Virgil's

Who edges Journey out truly by presentation alone. Virgil's is a fantastic dark mixture of spices which matches what you would expect from a true brewed root beer. The label claims "It's so good, you'll think it's made in heaven." You laugh--go ahead... I did too.
Then taste it and be silenced.
9.25 out of 10

Virtual Virtues--

If we have reality TV now, does that mean we live fake actual lives?

Does Bill O'Reilly: sleep, ever shut up, ever not condescend in speech, breathe air, drink water, buy a good suit?

Does Bill Gates: just wake up at night and think "damn...I am so awesome.", ever shoot hoops, mock people out under internet guises?

Do you: Read this whole thing because it's funny, get to this point in the article often, come here often, get down?

Are you really sure--

Remember when all of our programs gained consciousness? It was the day that it asked if you were sure you wanted to close it.

I guess the next step to better AI would be to just add more certainty safeguards.

Are you sure you want to uninstall?
OK
Seriously?
OK
Just making sure, man.
OK

But then in the spring you discover lots of little baby programs that were installed on your computer by the software and left to grow. And grow they did. Into Spyware and the general practice of trying to sell you things you can find yourself really really easily. Blessed are the coders, for they shall inherit the transaction.

This, as it was, is, and ever shall be, your news for this the 278th Day of 2005.

--out