Althouse: "It just looks like a huge cup that's way too big...."

February 27, 2023

"It just looks like a huge cup that's way too big...."

@itstherosenthals Buying one asap #stanleycup #gift #fyp ♬ Big Boy Speed Up - Dj Kampung

31 comments:

Old and slow said...: Stay hydrated...; 2/27/23, 9:48 AM
Kevin said...: As long as the cup feels good about itself.; 2/27/23, 9:50 AM
Rusty said...: IOW a normal travel cup of coffee.
And it's big enough so that when it's empty a fella can fill it again as he drives.; 2/27/23, 10:03 AM
Dave Begley said...: Everyone? Everyone?

Professor Ari Kohen of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln tweeted that "everyone blocked" me on Twitter.

I wrote a letter to the President and Chancellor of UNL and told them if I had used "everyone" in a paper at Creighton University, I would have received an F.; 2/27/23, 10:08 AM
Wa St Blogger said...: Water is just one more good thing taken to excess. It is possible to be too hydrated. Almost no one needs a water bottle to carry around with them unless they are traveling to some place with no potable beverages, which in America, unless you are hiking, is virtually non-existent. Certainly no one needs a massive jug like that one. I take no water with me, ever. Have never gone thirsty.; 2/27/23, 10:30 AM
Lilly, a dog said...: Reminds me of the Yankee Stadium Grub Tub:
https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1111401845769920512

But I think the Grub Tub will give you a kidney stone.; 2/27/23, 10:32 AM
Joe Smith said...: Huge water cup people are kind of annoying.

You just know they have a never-used yoga mat behind their closet door along with Six-pack of Kombucha in the fridge that they'll never drink...; 2/27/23, 10:37 AM
rhhardin said...: Would you say that the glass is half full or half empty?

Engineer: I'd say the glass is too big.; 2/27/23, 10:50 AM
Fred Drinkwater said...: A huge cup, as big as two huge cups.; 2/27/23, 11:19 AM
Fred Drinkwater said...: In John McPhee's "Rising From the Plains", his geologist companion, a man accustomed to long days in rough Wyoming terrain, says "If I drink now I'll be thirsty all day."; 2/27/23, 11:23 AM
Wilbur said...: "It just looks like a huge cup that's way too big."

That has a different meaning in baseball gear.; 2/27/23, 11:32 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: These things are all over the gym now. People carry more water to cross the gym floor than Lawrence took to cross the Arabian desert. I’m sure they’d carry two of these if they didn’t need the other hand for their cellphones.; 2/27/23, 11:40 AM
Joe Smith said...: I have four cups that, for simplicity, I name A, B, C, and D.

Today I think I prefer the D-cup...; 2/27/23, 11:45 AM
cubanbob said...: They are very good at keeping the drink cold. I love it for bing watching.; 2/27/23, 11:54 AM
Darkisland said...: In 1989 I helped layout the building and sold and installed the machinery for a high speed (75 gallons/minute or 100 1/2gal/min) water bottling plant. Also rant about 10 5 gallon bottles/min. He was one of the major water bottlers in Puerto Rico.

Owner and I investigated "personal sized", 500ml water. At the time there was no market other than a few specialized brands like Perrier. We elected to put in a fairly manual line for these sizes. He had no intention of selling them, he wanted to give them away at the beach, sporting events, concerts and so on as promotions for his gallons and 5 gallons. As a promo, it worked very well.

In 1999 I spoke at the National Bottled Water Assn convention in New Orleans. I was proceeded by a VP from Coca-cola. He told a story about being in Starbucks with some other execs and they started talking about how the $2.95 Starbucks coffee was really no more than a tarted up 25 cent cup of coffee with some chemicals.

This led to someone saying "Suppose we took out the flavor, sugar and CO2 from Coke, and just sold the water. We could get almost as much as a bottle of Coke and very little cost" (Since they already had the bottles, water and machinery)

Dasini was born and 3-4 years later nobody would leave their house without a bottle or 2 of water. A bottled water plant now needed 6-8 lines, all running 1,200 bottles/minute 23/7 to be profitable. Nestle, under half a dozen names as well as private label (including Trump Water?) has 20-25 plants just in the US each producing probably close to 5 billion bottles per year.

That is one company, just in the US and they are not even the biggest. Niagara is even bigger.

Almost all of that water in the US is the same water you get from your tap. Yes, carbon filtered to remove chlorine, UV treated to sterilize, minerals added or removed to keep it constant. But with few exceptions it is city water.

It is cheap. About 11 cents a bottle at Costco, shipped in from Florida. Locally produced water is a couple cents more.

But it doesn't taste any better than the water I get out of my sink. And I don't have to carry it around with me.

The industry has been good to me over the years. It is definitely not a scam, it provides good product at good value. But it is a totally unnecessary product. As several here have pointed out.

John Henry; 2/27/23, 12:11 PM
Darkisland said...: Blogger rhhardin said...

Would you say that the glass is half full or half empty?

Engineer: I'd say the glass is too big.

Opportunist: "Half empty, half full, I'll just take it and drink it while you are wondering"

John Henry; 2/27/23, 12:12 PM
RigelDog said...: I have a similar one, from Walmart, except that my lid is contoured so that you can drink directly from it. The key is that handle, because the bigger cups are hard to hold. I personally slide a metal straw into the sippy part of the lid so I don't have to tilt it to drink.

I really do use it everyday, for maximum convenience. I drink a lot of water and also unsweetened iced tea. It's insulated so you can fill it with ice and have a cold drink stay cold, and with no condensation on the exterior.; 2/27/23, 12:41 PM
iowan2 said...: I dont go far with out taking my Yeti, 30 oz mug. I leave it in the truck, but seldom without it.; 2/27/23, 1:04 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: "It just looks like a huge cup that's way too big."

Yeah, us guys learn to always suspect this, after we’ve unhooked a few bras stuffed with tissue paper.; 2/27/23, 1:33 PM
Narr said...: I always have either a large Tervis tumbler of ice water or a Tervis cup of black coffee in my hand. Usually I have both nearby in the daytime.

I don't like the kind featured in the TikTok.; 2/27/23, 1:37 PM
MadisonMan said...: Would you say that the glass is half full or half empty?

Engineer: I'd say the glass is too big.

Not quite. The glass is the wrong size.; 2/27/23, 2:00 PM
Michael said...: And when did kids in school start carrying around their own water bottle?; 2/27/23, 2:03 PM
cubanbob said...: John Henry you say the dechlorinated, sterilized and mineral balanced for taste water like it was a bad thing. I'm prone to kidney stones so drinking a lot of palatable water is necessary for me. But thats just me.; 2/27/23, 2:15 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Reminds me of the Dutch woman saying in Dutch ‘We will never eat like that in this house.’”; 2/27/23, 2:46 PM
Temp Blog said...: "And when did kids in school start carrying around their own water bottle?"

In my neck of the woods that preceded COVID by a year or two when our government schools installed bottle filling stations alongside the water fountains so kids could "save the planet" by not using single-use plastic bottles. A personal water bottle was also a social signal of the athletic, because they had to "stay hydrated".

Along came COVID and after the kids were allowed back into the schools the fountains were off limits because the government functionaries that run the government schools determined there was some sort of risk associated with sharing a water fountain that never existed in the history of government schools. So now all the kids have their bottles and they are subject to class distinctions and used for social signaling in the same manner as all possessions wielded by government school kids are.; 2/27/23, 3:30 PM
Darkisland said...: Blogger cubanbob said...

John Henry you say the dechlorinated, sterilized and mineral balanced for taste water like it was a bad thing.

Didn't mean to imply it is a bad thing. I said specifically it was "good value". I think I also said that it was good water.

I thought I implied that the bottlers took city water and purified and standardized it.

It is certainly very good water in every plant I've been in. Just that it seldom comes from that small spring in the hazy meadow on the mountaintop.

Some water, like Glaceau Smart Water (Which is what I buy when I buy water for me) is distilled in a huge vapor compression still from city water. It then has minerals added back in.

But very little is actually "Spring Water". Even when owned by the bottler, the water usually comes from a well or wells.

And I don't mean that as a bad thing. Or anything else bad about the industry.

John Henry; 2/27/23, 3:32 PM
Darkisland said...: About 15 years ago I spent a couple weeks in a water bottler in Canada. They had 6 lines at the time, all running 1200 bottles/min. They had 12 bays total and intention of an additional line every year until they had all bays running.

This was one of 5 plants the company had in Canada.

They made 4 different kinds of water in 20-30 brands. There are technical names for each type but I can never remember.

1 They took the well water and removed much of the mineral content. It had low total dissolved solids in the bottle.

2 Another Came from the well and basically had the minerals that came with it.

3 A 3rd came from the well and they added in the minerals that came out of #1 so that it had high TDS.

4 They owned a natural spring about 20 miles away in the proverbial dewy mountain meadow (I assume, never saw it) and trucked in in in tanker trucks. That went in the bottles as it came.

Speaking of minerals, all were filtered and sterilized.

I made a comment about "Water is water" and they made me do a taste test. I could definitely tell the difference between low, normal and high TDS as well as the spring water. Not so much taste as mouthfeel.

John Henry; 2/27/23, 3:43 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Nearly everyone I know has one of these or similar. I do not. I do not ever want to drink that much of anything. I do not want to clean any item like that, and I especially do not want to clean a reusable straw. I do not understand this cup.; 2/27/23, 5:07 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: If I drink coffee from my house in the car, I drink it from a ceramic mug held in my right hand. Safe? I don't know. Civilized.

This is not to imply that the mugs are attractive. Some are, but that is not a requirement. A discolored Christmas mug is ready to be carried into a waiting room at any time of year.; 2/27/23, 5:11 PM
Narr said...: So, TDS is in the water.; 2/27/23, 6:32 PM
John henry said...: Freeman,

In the navy I learned never to wash a coffee mug. Maybe rinse occasionally if absolutely necessary

The dark fuzzy fuzzy lining on the cup walls is what really gives the coffee it's flavor

I have a 4 year old Stanly 20 ounce that is just getting broken in. The stainless still peeps through in places.

John Henry; 2/27/23, 9:03 PM