Thursday started off typicially enough. I got to work, I checked to see how many more of my Sea-Monkeys died, I hit up every e-mail account I use except the one that actually relates to my job, and I pretended to be on the phone whenever I heard somebody annoying behind me in fear of them striking up one of those terrible "HAY it's the morning let's discuss stuff" conversations. Then I get a real call. It's from Kev, friend and coworker. "Matt, you know about this Coke coffee shit?" I knew where he was going with this. Word had already spread about Coca-Cola's troop of oompas, who were scouring the city this week to give everyone with a free hand a bottle of "Coke BlaK," a new soda enhanced with "coffee essence." They mark "coffee essence" in fairly large print right on the labels, thereby obliterating 100% of the potential heterosexual male market. I digress -- Kev told me to head down to 42nd. The Coke Folks were about to give away four hundred million bottles of BlaK. I didn't have my camera, but he did. Needless to say, I told my project manager that I had to cancel a meeting to handle a "family emergency" that could be magically rectified in the time it took for me to leave the building, walk to 42nd and grab as much Coke BlaK as the oompas would let me carry. Meanwhile, this is what Kev was seeing...

With the speed and efficiency of a top secret spy organization, Coke's team of magicians emptied an unmarked truck containing no less than FOUR HUNDRED TRILLION bottles of Coke BlaK, which were then poured into no less than FOUR HUNDRED MILLION big giant tubs filled with ice. Their goal: Get as many pedestrians to drink the holy drink as possible. Nobody turns down a free sample, and only an idiot would turn down a free sample that came in a glass bottle with a Coke logo on it. This was going to be hot, and after cursing out the elevator for taking too long using such horrible words that I'm almost going to feel like I have to apologize to it tomorrow, I arrived. I arrived, I looked up, and I shouted to God: "Yo big man, you behind this?"

While the assorted worker bees, tourists and vagrants were initially perplexed, everyone soon realized that people were giving out free soda, and if this wasn't a reason to act like you had cancer and they were handing over limited quantities of the cure, I don't know what is. The crowds went absolutely crazy. Hands, feet, heads...everywhere. So, so, so many heads, hands and feet. Though Coke's peeps mandated that everyone was only allowed one bottle, it was very easy to circumvent that spiteful bit of lameness by pocketing each bottle before walking up to the next vendor. I left with two, and I feel like an asshole because I totally could've nailed eight or nine if I had any balls. Then again, nothing will grow testicles faster than the idea of a gigantic, absolutely GIGANTIC soda corporation believing in shady market research and mass-producing a soft drink with the term "coffee essence" printed on the label.

I kid, really I do. Truth is, I've been looking forward to Coke BlaK's debut to the point where you'd swear Coke BlaK was debuting on Christmas morning. I love it when new sodas come out, even bad ones. That's not to say that Coke BlaK is bad or anything, but it's certainly weird, and every time I read "BlaK" I keep thinking they must've named it after one of the girls from En Vogue. But that wouldn't make sense, because everyone in En Vogue died years ago when I killed and ate them.

Look at all that Coke BlaK. And that's just one of the thirty billion tubs. I swear I heard someone in the background yapping about how "there's starving kids in China."

Managing to lift three bottles and two swank cardboard Coke BlaK carriers between us, Kev and I slowly walked back to the office, relishing our victory in a sea of hundreds upon hundreds of others who were doing the same. There wasn't a soul in Times Square without a bottle of complimentary Coke BlaK, but for all of this clever/shrewd/whatever marketing to work, the drink really needed to not be awful. I'm happy to report that Coke BlaK is NOT awful. I will never buy it, but it's not awful.

In a way, it's actually almost sort of halfway to good. Picture cream soda with a splash of cold coffee, but with the psychosomatical edge of drinking it out of a fucking Praise Jesus awesome glass Coca-Cola bottle. (Hopefully the glass bottle thing is for keeps and wasn't just a special deal for today's promotion.) The flavor is in no way overpowering or offensive, relying more on the merits of having a label that says "COFFEE" than, you know, actually tasting like coffee. For me, this one's all about presentation. Glass bottle, revised swirly brown/off-white Coke logo color motif, and the coke-rem de coke-rem -- black bottle caps. I'm so happy soda companies finally realized how badass black bottle caps are, because I've been saying it for years and I prefer to think that the reason they use them now is completely on me. Disagree and I'll smash my bottle and cut you with whatever part is left in my hand.

It's sleek, it's upscale, it'll probably cost more than most other sodas, and it comes in a glass bottle. It's Coke BlaK. Something hovers over the "a," but I'm not sure how to type it.

You know what the BlaKmobile does? Sits around looking pretty.

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