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Super Green

Super Green from Juice Harvest has a very smooth flavor. It is easily my favorite of the green smoothie drinks that one may find in the grocery store. It is made of juice that is NOT from CONCENTRATE so that is one of the main reasons why I think it tastes so good. Similarly to other juices in its category, “Super Green” has boost-like items inside it. These things include: spirulina, chlorella, blue green algea, wheatgrass and one I’ve never heard of before called, “Dulse.” It is supposed to be some kind of sea vegetable. I got this juice from Gelson’s and it was $3.99. So this is a similar price to other juices in this category. The main thing that I liked about Super Green, was that it tasted slightly sweet, but it was a smooth and relaxed sweet. And the texture was very good. One drawback is that the color looks more brown than other drinks like “Green Machine.” But perhaps that is a good thing because it shows that they don’t use artificial coloring. The taste of Super Green is excellent but the amount of vitamins in it is not very impressive. I think the green drink with the most vitamins out of those I’ve tried is “Green Goodness” from Bolthouse Farms. But that one doesn’t taste as good and it also uses juice From CONCENTRATE, and that doesn’t surprise me.

I drank this Super Green really fast. It was delicious. I was surprised that I had never had it before. For some reason the packaging of the bottle in front of me looks different from the one on the official website. They have a “Evolution” logo and the bottle I have says nothing of this. Perhaps they changed distributors or owners or something. Now the label has purple on it, although the only thing that is purple in the drink is the “Dulse.”

The wheatgrass flavor really tastes good. It is subtle and yet it connects all the other flavors together. You can definitely taste the mango and pineapple in the drink. It is supposed to have 3 oranges in the beverage but I wasn’t able to taste any oranges.

Super Green is Flash Pasteurized.

-Tyler

The Social Network

I just finished watching, “The Social Network” at the Spectrum theaters in Irvine. That movie taught me some valuable lessons. And it also reinforced some beliefs that I already had. This movie is more than a dramatization of an internet phenomenon or startup company. The Social Network has a message and a warning that any young business owner or entrepreneur should heed. The first lesson that I learned from The Social Network is that if you own shares of a company, those shares can be arbitrarily devalued. Walking into the movie I thought that shares in a company could only loose value if all the shares lost value. But from the film I gleaned that certain shares of stock could be targeted to lose value. That is a very scary idea. So I am going to think twice before ever signing anything about sharing stock in any of my business endeavors. So that was worth my $9.00 ticket price right there.

Another important thing that I learned from The Social Network is that you need to stay close to the people you are working with. This is especially true when a business is in its infant stages. In the movie, the character who made the initial financial investment into Facebook seemed to allow himself to get distanced from the project. He was concerned with monetizing too early, and he even paid his friend to live on the other side of the continent. He did this even though he saw that a potential threat was in California. The character, “Eduardo,” really allowed himself to be phased out of the business. It is important to stay close to your partners in the early stages of a project. If you are not in close proximity and tight communication, you can end up losing clout in your own project.

Something that got reinforced by the movie was how there is karma in business. Even though the main character made billions of dollars for himself. He still could not escape the dubious karma about the beginnings of his business. His initial notoriety and success on “facemash.com” (I don’t think this site exists anymore) was created at the expense of other people. And even though the main character, Zuckerberg made tremendous amounts of money in the end. The negativity of his beginnings will forever be immortalized in, The Social Network.

Overall, the film was an extremely pleasurable and interesting viewing experience. I haven’t had this much fun in a movie since I saw, “Inception.” There was one line in the film where Justin Timberlake’s character was talking about how he brought down the record industry. One character asked Timberlake about it and he responded by asking something like: Are you going to run out and invest in a Tower Records anytime soon? (Not a direct quote – paraphrase) I felt that the question summed up the whole movie and how individual people actually do have power. This is true even in a dynamic and huge system that we have today.

-Tyler

Hachi

Richard Gere does a phenomenal job in the touching film, Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. He plays the part of a Professor of music in an east coast University. The story is about a dog named, “Hachi” who is from Japan. He ends up getting lost in the East Coast, USA. And Richard Gere’s character, “Parker” finds him and takes care of him. It seems like any old, man loves dog story but there is an important twist. Hachi loves Parker so much that he goes to great lengths to wait for him as he returns from the train station. Hachi waits at the station every day for over a year and Parker and Hachi have a great life together. But when Parker unexpectedly dies while teaching a music class, he never comes home through the train station. But Hachi faithfully waits for Parker every day for 10 years. His love for Parker never waivers and he waits for him for the rest of his life. Hachi becomes so well known to the community that they even write about him in the newspaper. The local merchants take care of him as best as they can, but Hachi lives alone somewhere in the city. Even though Hachi gets to be very old, he still waits for Parker at the train station.

This movie is actually based on a true story. Hachi was a dog in Japan with a similar situation. And the people of the town loved Hachi so much that they created a bronze statue of him in his honor.

The reason why I say that Hachi will steal your heart is because I watched this movie and I cried. It isn’t about the dog being adorable and it isn’t about the great music. It is about the sheer tremendous amount of love and devotion that is presented in the film. Richard Gere is very convincing in his love for the dog and the dog actor that plays Hachi is unforgettable. It is heart wrenching to see Hachi when he is older. That really twisted my emotions and made me cry a lot. If you love animals at all you need to see this movie. And especially if you have ever owned a dog then this is a must-see.

It was never released in the USA in the theaters but it was released in the theaters in Japan. Almost all the reviews I’ve read for Hachi: A Dog’s Tale are extremely positive or else maximum highest rating. I’ve read at least 20 reviews of people saying they cried watching this movie. This includes men and women.

A great thing about this movie is that it is only about 95 minutes long. So they present the subject matter of the movie extremely efficiently and artistically without turning it into a long epic.

Click here to purchase “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” from Amazon.com.

-Tyler

Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie

I just ate a Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie at the Starbucks in Corona del Mar. It was really fresh and I couldn’t stop myself from eating the entire thing in about four bites. Starbucks and whoever makes their food outdid themselves on this desert item. The flavor of the chocolate is sweet and fudgey and a little bit cakey at the same time. This is a brownie worth celebrating. It isn’t quite as moist as the Chocolate Overload Cake from Jack in the Box. But it doesn’t need to be that moist because it isn’t a cake. It is a brownie and brownies tend to be a little bit more solid than cakes. This is true unless you are talking about Texas Sheet Cake, that kind of desert is very moist indeed. But the key thing that makes Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie so decadent, is the divine consistency of the brownie texture. It both breaks apart in your mouth in elegant chunks, and it doesn’t crumble. But make sure that you get a fresh one of these brownies! I’ve had Double Chocolate Brownies that had been hanging out over a day or so and they were really hard and not delicious. So you might want to ask your barista nicely if they are new brownies. If they don’t know how long they’ve been there, then a safer bet might be the Cheese Danish. Those are also winners.

One thing to note with the Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie is that the Chocolate Chunk pieces in it are slightly waxy. I am not a big fan of waxy chocolate, but they still taste good. But you can easily tell the the chunk pieces are waxier than the main part of the brownie. This was the case even in my extremely fresh Brownie that I ate today. So just know that going into it.

The Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie has 410 calories per brownie. That is a pretty hefty amount of calories to ingest in just a couple minutes, but the taste is well worth it. And there are 24 grams of fat in the brownie. So if you are looking for health food you might want to try something else. If you want to learn more about the Nutritional Information for the Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie then click HERE.

My brownie experience today opened my mind and now I’m feeling adventurous and I want to try even more snacks. I think the Chocolate Overload Cake from yesterday got me in a chocolate mood.

I paired the Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie with a Venti Whole Milk Latte and it tasted great. The bitterness and milkyness of the latte balanced the sweetness of the brownie very well. I’m actually still drinking the latte right now. It is smooth and relaxing.

-Tyler