Author: Olly

  • Chocolate Milk Review – Arla Gulp & Wing-Co

    I heard someone say “write about what you know” once in a movie, or maybe it wasn’t a movie – maybe i didn’t hear anyone say it at all – well wherever i heard it, i have decided to embrace it and start reviewing chocolate milk as its something that i know – and am quite well known for drinking.

    Rather than start with something run-of-the-mill im starting my chocolate milk reviews by talking about 2 new brands from the same manufacturer.

    New chocolate milk review...

    Arla are no newcomer to the milk product world but they are newbies in the chocolate milk world – this report on the Grocer written only a few months ago states how Arla “are not in it for the short term, we are not a flash in the pan” which to me is good news as their first two efforts are not too shabby.

    I’ll start with Gulp – a kind of obviously named chocolate milk drink with a very different flavour compared to similar drinks on the market here in the UK – it reminded me of how chocolate milk tasted in europe (chocomel etc) but its much thicker like a Friij. It a nice alternative to the other thicker chocolate milks on the market and i would definitely buy again.

    The Wing-Co chocolate drink was a different beast altogether – its being aimed at men and marketed as an alternative to snacking – it contains 40% more protein than other chocolate milks and you can taste it when you drink it – its nice, but it was very filling and it cant really be consumed as a drink which to me kind of defeats the point. I may buy it again – but when i’m hungry not thirsty.

    All in all, both drinks were nice and i would buy both again depending on circumstances – i prefer the bottle shape this size too, it means you can hold and store a bit easier.

    Chocolate Gulp – 8/10
    Wing-Co Chocolate – 6/10

    EDIT: Bought Arla Gulp a few times since and realised that it reminds me of the taste of chocolate custard or chocolate rice pudding… I knew it was familiar

  • Obsessions: Summer 2013

    I have an extremely addictive personality and slight hoarder-ish habits – and i go through phases of being totally obsessed with things…

    Some of these things last for a few months then die off… Some seem to last for years.

    The last few years have seen an increasing obsession with Rap Battles, like this one;

    http://www.youtube.com/user/DontFlop

    And this last year has seen me become TOTALLY obsessed with Professional/Competition Eating.. Like this;

    http://www.youtube.com/user/furiouspete123

    I had a phase of watching Storage Wars, Pawn Stars and all those awesome programs about old treasure.. That obsession has passed for now.

  • Home Security Measures

    We’ve recently moved into a property we bought in Mansfield, and so far its been amazing. Its not the biggest and best house in the world – but its ours.

    The last few weeks have seen various house upgrades such as new carpets and freshly papered and painted walls – but one of the next items on my list is a solid, professional home security system.

    Living room, before and after...

    I want at least 3 cameras, fed to a DVR that is high enough resolution for the images to be used in a court of law. I’m also going to be installing carpet grippers along certain fences to aid in protecting my stuff – i have spoken to the police who have off advised me which fences not to put them on – he didn’t say much about the others 🙂

    I’ve also read that using spikey plants like the “Spanish Dagger” in your garden is a great way to protect against burglars – totally legal, they look awesome and if someone jumps over a fence to steal your warez they get some very sharp spikes in their bottom.

  • Syncing my Social World

    Hello 🙂

    So for ages i have argued with myself about how i should use the social networks that are available to me – i use about 6 quite regularly but i feel that i repeat myself or end up writing the same thing, on a few of them, and i only have the same friends/followers on most of them anyway.

    I’ve been pondering over an idea to simply use each social network for the things it does best (or what it started out doing) and then bringing them all together using one of the 6.

    Here is my plan, i think…

    Firstly, YouTube and Miso don’t really come into the plan (as such) as they are specific social networks and you cant really do what you do on these on the likes of Facebook or Twitter. I will however bring these into one of the more generic ones so that all my social activity is linked.

    I am going to use Twitter to chat, talk, and post quick messages (that’s what its made fo’) and i’m going to start posting all my images through Flickr (again, that’s what its made for) but of course each of these social networks will link to the other, so Flickr will notify Twitter that there is a new image, which will in turn post to Facebook)

    Foursquare will continue to be my location based social network – i used it before Facebook introduced the ability to check in.

    Im going to try and only use Facebook to show my updates from everything else – i’m going to (try to) sack off adding updates directly to it and only use the app for replying to any notifications.

    And i’m afraid coming in last place – is Google Plus. I do use it and i’m trying to use it more, but at the moment the only thing it really gets used for is the instant backup of all my photos. I do use the communities and find it more of a nerdy social network than anything else – i guess i need to expand my nerd crowd a bit more 🙂

    Its all going to take some planning as if i’m not careful ill have multiple updates on the same networks for the same information – ill draw myself a nice diagram later!

    Let me know how you use your social network accounts – do you link them up? Do you use any cool tools or apps to enable you to never miss a trick? 🙂