Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Returning to the Valley of Mello Yello

Last year I helped a friend move to South Carolina, and lamented over how much Mello Yello they tried to pour down my throat.

Last WEEK I returned to see my friends in South Carolina, and I'm pleased to report that they did not offer me a single glass of Mello Yello. In fact, we shared a chuckle over the experience and I drank a Coke-with-no-ice with dinner.

During the trip, we went to visit the Freestyle Music amusement park. This was formerly the Hard Rock amusement park, but it went bankrupt and was bought and re-named a year later.

When you have a brand as world recognized as Hard Rock, and you can't make money, you are doing something WRONG! An amusement park called Hard Rock should be able to host a concert every Friday in the Summer with a well recognized pop/rock star. Hell, Sun Tan Lake did it for all of those years!

(The park, by the way, STILL has the giant Hard Rock guitar logo on top of a tower at the edge of the park. You would think the Hard Rock people would try to capitalize on SOME part of this...!)

HOWEVER, before I blast the hard Rock for their failure, let me give you some feedback on the Freestyle Music amusement park.

1) It was very clean and had some very cool roller coasters
2) It was practically empty.

INCREDIBLE! Here it was, July 5th. Great weather. Good prices (Four of us got in for $82.00) and the place was empty. It was like back in the day when Michael Jackson would have an amusement park privatized so he and his little friends could play! We felt like special guests or something. (Yeah -something from Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park!)

In all, we had a great time and I DID drink a soda while I was there.
Hey, after all, an empty amusement park can be good (not for the owners, of course)...and Soda is Good!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Cola (life), Twitter (mob) and a Rally!

My pal Simon Berry is using the power of Twitter (as well as Facebook) to get the message across.

This Friday (17/7/09), 3pm Trafalgar Square, he and his team of ColaLife supporters will be gathering in Trafalgar to celebrate ColaLife and see the giant aidpod take its rightful place on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square!

Simon has been encouraging the use of Twitter to get the message out, and gives some pointers on the best way to go about it here.

Personally, I HATE Twitter and find it to be a garbage app.
HOWEVER, if enough people use it for a common cause...and reach out to a large pool of people...then at least it's being used for something powerful and meaningful.

(as opposed to some recent 'tweets' I've seen like "Beautiful day in Denver!" or "Going to Taco Bell for a Fourthmeal. Yummmm....")

You'll be able to watch them live (pronounced LIE-v, not LIH-v) here: http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

The ColaLife website is awesome!
It's dedicated to getting Coca Cola to use their power of distribution to provide medicine and water to the Third World poor (as opposed to just sending soda....)

It's a powerful message with a lot of good behind it.
Even if you cannot be in Trafalgar Square to lend your support, I hope you'll check out their website.