Free Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit? by Steve Lowe, Alan Mcarthur, Brendan Hay

we’ve crossed the Rubicon, where will it stop? This adding of habits could become habit forming. He might start introducing, say, complicated ways to cook fish.
    E-MAIL BRAGGING
    People who complain about how many messages they get sent, especially after they get back from vacation—“I’m still plowing through them!” Yes, well done. You’re really fucking important.
    EMERGEN-C
    Of all the cold-and-flu-relief citrus-flavored powdered drinks, only Emergen-C encourages you to, quote, “Feel the good.” Apparently the more direct “Feel the chalky water” didn’t test as well.
    Emergen-C is scientific. Science with a capital “Science.” Even the tropical ones. The heavyweight nature of this best-selling concoction is reflected in its Web site, encouraging an entire “the good” lifestyle with links like “share the good,” “good ads,” “good stories,” and “worship the good.” Apparently if you fight colds with anything else, you’re living “the bad.”
    Oh, hang on, it’s just some crushed-up vitamins that tastes a bit lemony. It perks you up slightly, but then so does Gatorade.
    What you need to make your own Emergen-C:
    •Water.
    •Alka-Seltzer.
    •Vitamin C. Important note: Make sure the
C
is capital. Vitamin c will only produce Emergen-c.
    ENERGY DRINKS
    These days, being given “wings” is not enough. Today’s young folk sleep around 20% less than their parents’ generation, while being 64% more badass, which means they need 750% more tartrazine, sugar, caffeine, and lurid food dye.
    Rockstar energy drink—“Party Like a Rockstar”—plays on rock stars’ legendary love of energy drinks. Sometimes they party on energy drinks to the point where they choke on their own energy drink vomit.
    Another group with much activity to cram into their busy days are pimps. Their favored energy drink is Pimp Juice, which does not contain juice. They also probably take cocaine.
    Or at least “Cocaine,” the energy drink with “three times as much caffeine” as Red Bull that was pulled from shelves in May 2007 after the FDA decided the beverage’s manufacturer was “illegally marketing their drink as an alternative to street drugs.” Don’t panic, though: One month later, Redux Beverages began redistributing the drink under the new labeling of “No Name.” Because who can focus their eyes to read when they’re jittering so much they look like bobbleheads.
    ENTOURAGES
    Imagine, if you can, being a member of Donatella Versace’s entourage. Is it the height of
sophis de sophis
? Or do you fear the night, the dark, hollow times when you believe that you do not even exist?
    As we all know by now, from the VH1 documentaries, from the HBO series, or just from the ether, entourages are great fun. Diddy has a permanent video diarist and on-call writer for off-the-cuff speechifying. Mariah needs people to hold her cups, to waft cigarette smoke away from her environment, and also to waft the air when she farts. Shania apparently goes around with grooms for her horses and two sniffer dogs (plus handlers) who sweep concert halls for explosives. (Who could be bothered to blow up Shania Twain? Who?)
    Then we can drool over the fabulous gunplay between rival rap packs who, with ineffable willingness, shoot each other’s legs off for their main man. Like the incident resulting from 50 Cent deciding to kick The Game out of his own G-Unit entourage. When you’re out of an entourage, you’re out: not a bit in and a bit out. Out. So outside Hot 97 in New York, a member of The Game’s entourage—he, of course, had his own entourage by this point—was shot three times in a confrontation with 50 Cent’s new entourage. Another of 50’s crew got really confused and sadly shot his own arms off.
    All this is clearly guns-a-totin’ fun, but all these Western pretenders have so much to learn. They have nothing—
nothing
—on North Korean player-dictator Kim Jong Il. That guy is so boss! Since his