Thanksgiving Week: Day Five - Soda Shaq: Vanilla Cream Soda

It's day five of the Soda Shaq taste test!  I've sipped and chugged my way through orange, strawberry, and blueberry, and now it's time to get to what I'm hoping is the best of the best.  Or possibly just the "not worst" of the "overall okay."

Enough fiddle-faddle.  Let's get drinkin'.

Thanksgiving Week: Day Four - Soda Shaq: Blueberry Cream

I cannot say I've ever had blueberry cream anything in my life before this day.  I've seen it, so it's not that I was simply prevented from experiencing it, I simply never took the opportunity to try it.  Apparently I've been missing out if it's a strong enough flavor for Shaquille O'Neal to devote his attention to it.

Day three of the soda test continues, so where does this new flavor rate?

Thanksgiving Week: Day Three - Soda Shaq: Strawberry Cream Soda

It's day two of tasting the marvel that is Soda Shaq brand drinks from the Arizona (AriZona?) drink company, and while I was nervous about the orange cream flavor of yesterday's beverage, this one actually gives me pause.

Thanksgiving Week: Day Two - Soda Shaq: Orange Cream Soda

Can I confess something?

I was never really a creamsicle fan.  When I was young, I could just never really wrap my head around the idea of "oranges" as a dessert.  To me, oranges were for juice and to put in salads.  Or to stick in my mouth to get a bit goofy grinning face.

I decided to step lightly into the Soda Shaq pool with this one because I know that "orange cream" is a flavor done with more frequency than blueberry or strawberry, but I wanted to save vanilla for last because I hope it's really hard to screw up that flavor.

So, what did I think?  More after the cut.

Thanksgiving Week Introduction

Hey, everyone!  It's Thanksgiving week!  You know what that means!

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That's right, it's time for me to make up some arbitrary theme to tie the week together!  Not only have I found a theme, I think I've found a theme that will make Thanksgiving week memorable for YEARS to come.

Thanksgivikah! Hanuksgiving! Chanksgivukah!

This upcoming Thursday, something extremely rare is going to happen.  November 28th, as any true American knows, is Thanksgiving.  It is also the first day of Hannukah.

A brief aside, I'm never sure if I should spell it as Hannukah or Chanukah.  If any readers are Jewish, please let me know if one method is preferred over another.

When's the last time it happened?  Well, depending on how technical you want to get, it was either on November 29th, 1888 or on November 28th, 1918.  When will it happen again?  Probably not until the year 79811.  No, that's not a typo.  Seventy-nine thousand, eight hundred eleven.

So how does all this happen?  Interesting you should ask.

Erik's Favorite Comics: Peter David's Supergirl

I think the record will show that I like comic books.  In case it doesn't, let me make it official:

I think comic books are more than just pictures of people with ridiculous body images fighting each other.  I think they allow us both a form of entertainment and education in a format that nothing else can duplicate.  Television is visual and aural, books are simply reading, music and lectures are mostly aural with a few visual additions.  Only comics really allow words to be combined with the context of an image in a way that presents situations or ideas and allows the imagination to fill in what's missing or provide a deeper meaning.  For instance, take the following comics panel:

In that one page, the narration and image help set an atmosphere that could, at the very least, be described as "haunting."  It sets the mood perfectly in one picture what might take a movie or television show several minutes of footage to do, but it doesn't rush you.  You can read it at your own pace, or start with the picture first, or move back and forth to take it all in.

But I'm not here to talk about Batman (this time), I'm here to talk about one of my favorite comic series of all time, one that most people fall on the "love it or hate it" sides of the spectrum: Peter David's run on Supergirl.