A busy week down at the Beach…

Six dollars. Count them. One, two, three, four, five, six.

With six dollars I can buy a trio of carbonated liquid at this place called La Mexicana. La Mexicana, located at the corner of 21^st Street and Santa Fe Avenue, is a place where I went to as a kid. When I was young, I would but Funyuns, a type of onion-flavored deep fried corn rings. I would eat those incessantly, and eat them with sandwiches, with the food my mom and dad cook for me, or just by itself when I am watching something on ESPN.

Nowadays, I ditch the Funyuns for those tin cans full of carbonated liquid. But they are not just carbonated liquid. They are a type of carbonated liquid that is laced with chemicals that would seem like illegal substances, but are actually safe. Those chemicals are called taurine, L-carnitine, caffeine, and vitamins and minerals. And that’s just the basics of what’s in that liquid outside of sugar, water, colorings and natural flavors.

The kicker: they are only 2 bucks a can. Cheaper than similar stuff down at the Bookstore or at your regular am/pm. 2 x 3 = 6. Hence, six dollars.

In short, I go to La Mexicana before I hit the PCH 171 heading eastbound for the battlegrounds of the Beach (or the 190’s to 173, the 90’s, or Passport D on the weekends). Sometimes the battleground will be a large body of water with nets on either side. Sometimes the battleground will be a simple football pitch. Other times it will be inside a facility that is shaped like those architectural landmarks in Egypt. Still it could be a softball diamond, or a track, or a practice gym.

In any case, I go to La Mexicana to drink up Rockstar. Zero Carb is my Rockstar drink of choice, because it’s a less-concentrated, but refreshing rendition of the 5-Hour Energy Drink of notoriety. Occasionally I will sip a Rockstar Juiced if Zero Carb is not available. The pomegranate version is what I end up drinking, though I also like the guava version. On rare occasions, it will be a drink other than Rockstar for these games, or it might be a Rockstar and another less potent one, depending on the importance of the contests, and the number of contests going on. It might be a NOS Energy, Full Throttle Mother (acai-flavored), or [even more rarely] TaB Energy. I don’t like using Red Bull for these games, because I use them for study sessions and completing assignments.

With that being said, I am looking forward to this week’s action. Women’s soccer and women’s volleyball have the heavy hitters coming. Fullerton and Riverside will be visiting George Allen Field, while UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly will be dueling the Beach at the Walter Pyramid. It will be interesting to see if we can lift a finger to UC Davis and Stanford at the Campus Pool on Sunday. It would be sweet to beat Stanford in anything other than men’s volleyball.

Never mind that after a Beehive State split, the hockey team will be coming back on the 19th to take on UCLA. That should be a win.

And I’ll need to muster up six dollars to pay for that tasty liquid ammunition in those little 24-fluid ounce tin cans. Chug, chug, chug.