CALIFORNIA, 1997—Howdy folks! It’s Bob again, ready to provide you with the good, the bad, and the ugly of the startup scene. This newsletter also includes a list of hot new gadgets to check out and a guide on setting up your own Quake server, so be sure to read to the end! But first, here are some new startups and products that my vast entrepreneurial experience tells me are on the downhill for sure.

1. Orbitz Soda

I remember when this first hit the market and people were intrigued. But tell me—have you ever drunk a beverage and thought, “I wish there were dozens of little balls of gelatin flowing down my throat at this very moment?” Me neither. It’s like drinking your cousin’s science fair experiment, in all of the bad ways.

2. eToys.com

You would think that the only virtual toy store would have potential. After all, kids will always need stuff to fidget with if they’re not spending time with friends. But that’s exactly my point. If you can’t carry the thing out of the store and use it right away, what’s the point? Remember that the next time you’re thinking of skipping that trip to the mall.

3. Coors™ Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water

If you look at Coors™ sparkling water from the perspective of a teetotaler, why on earth would you buy something that looks just like a beer if you squint hard enough? And from the perspective of a college student or degenerate alcoholic, cracking open a Coors™ just became synonymous with GETTING SCAMMED. I can’t believe they didn’t think of that!

4. Nvidia

Consider the giants in tech. I’m talking about Apple, Microsoft, Sun. What they have in common are the visionaries, the hardworking geniuses, and the it factor. Apple has the sleek design by Jobs and Wozniak. Microsoft has Windows. Sun has SPARC and Java. Nvidia has three guys who convened at a Denny’s and decided to start a business in graphics accelerator chips of all things. You read that right. A Denny’s.