Last week I was in Target and saw a bizarre looking product on the shelves. Jones Soda Holiday Pack. Five small bottles of soda, each with a holiday flavor. Cranberry, Pumpkin Pie, Wild Herb Stuffing, Brussels Sprout, and Turkey & Gravy. Seriously. Of course I thought this sounded pretty cool, so I bought it, and decided to share it with my mom next time I saw her, because I figured she'd think it was cool too. So tonight I saw my parents and brought the soda with me, and we tried it.

It's awful.

I mean, really, really awful.

But here's the thing. I don't know if it's awful because of the flavors themselves, or awful because it's made with Splenda and has that awful diet soda aftertaste. I kind of feel like blaming the Splenda. Because it seemed like it could be cool, despite being bizarre, to have turkey flavored soda. And it smells like turkey, and it's the same color as gravy... but it tastes like Splenda gravy.

That one was the worst one, definitely. The herb stuffing one was pretty nauseating too, tasting mostly like carbonated white bread and Splenda liquid, if that evokes anything more than "herb stuffing soda" does. The brussels sprout one is strange and almost as vile as the others but not quite. The pumpkin pie and cranberry ones are the ones that are making me think it's the Splenda more than anything else, because they both smell good, but then just taste really horrid.

So I can't recommend these sodas at all, despite wanting to have liked them. They're awful. Really terrible.

Something else that I wanted to like and didn't... George Carlin's HBO special that was on last night. I like George Carlin, but this just didn't click for me at all. I don't know. Lots of stuff about suicide and why we should have a suicide TV channel, which could have been funny, but wasn't so much.

I also caught 10 minutes of a terrible new reality show on VH1 called "But Can They Sing?" where 9 "celebrities" not known for their singing do an American Idol-type competition. The problem with this show is that I've barely heard of any of the celebrities, and none of them (none that I heard, at least) can actually sing, so it's just watching people you haven't heard of who can't sing. The most famous celebrity on it is Morgan Fairchild, from the Old Navy commercials and some TV shows that aren't on any more. She's not that famous. Then actress Bai Ling, who I've sort of heard of. Some actor on One Tree Hill I've never heard of. A former boxer I've never heard of. One of the Gotti children from that reality show. A former model. And some other people. The judges are people they aren't even pretending anyone has heard of. This show might work if they had real famous people on it, embarrassing themselves. But they don't.

This is a very negative post. Sorry. But I've liked the past few movies I've seen and books I've read, so maybe this is just payback.