Quickies
Quickies: Einstein’s Brain, Space Trash, and Cats Being Cats
On April 23, 1985, Coca-cola released New Coke. Whether it was a marketing ploy or not, I’m still bummed that I didn’t get to try it!
- The Tragic Story of How Einstein’s Brain Was Stolen and Wasn’t Even Special – What a weird story.
- 6 Photos of the Oldest Living Things in the World – On a related note, I really need to clean out my refrigerator.
- Waste of Space – “135 million pieces of junk are orbiting Earth at 18,000 mph — and U.S. space dominance is in danger of being ripped to shreds.”
- What Are Cats Thinking? – “Inside the mind of the world’s most uncooperative research subject.” Haha, keep on stickin’ it to The Man, kittehs!
Hold off a couple of days on cleaning out the fridge. Make sure a couple of containers of leftovers have their lids popped open. Open a can of Coke and place it in the fridge. After two days, drink it. It’s been a long time since I tasted it, but I think this will give you a close approximation of what New Coke was like.
You could try it today. Mix half a can of Pepsi with half a can of RC and you’ll get what, at the time, I theorized was the formula for New Coke. The sweetness was cloying in the way Pepsi is, the acidity was tamped down, and there was a bit of the cherry note I associated with RC.
I was actually able to manage a blind tasting, because I had a couple of cases of old Coke (not THAT old) in the basement, so me and my buddies did a test. Our rigor could have been better, no doubt, but the main takeaway was that when we didn’t know what we were drinking, we weren’t too good at picking out which was which—especially after multiple tastings. Apparently a carbonated sugar blast with trace flavorings wreaks havoc on the taste buds.
OMG I love RC Cola. I can’t be the only one!
During our taste test, one of my friends declared, “It turns out I’m an RC drinker. I never knew!”
:)
I also never got to try the New Coke. So my first exposure to it was watching some movie from 1985 that ref’d it, wondering what the hell is this?
Malcolm Gladwell ties the New Coke debacle to specific types of cognitive error in “Blink.”
New Coke was pretty awful. You missed nothing.