My once a week trip to the supermarket next door to my office - Mt. Dew (and all Pepsi products) on sale, 4/$10.00, displayed via an end cap, which really means $2.50 each, but they're tyring to get me to buy 4 of them. It wasn't on my list, but since I'm low on Diet Dew and Ultra Violet ...
I head over to the soda aisle - it's a mess. I scan quickly for ANY diet Code Red and find one column of it, and the two 2-liter bottles are way in the back. I bring them to the front, closer to the customer and thus appearing to have a full column. I also straighten out some other Dew 2-liter columns (who's job is this, anyway). Then I go for the Ultra Violet ... and it's gone. Gone. No note, no message, no call - nothing. Just gone. Like Montgomery Gentry sang, "Gone like a '59 Cadillac, like all the good things that ain't never coming back".
So, it begs the question, as the Three Degrees sang, "when will I see you again? Is this the beginning or is this the end?" Somebody, step up and tell me what he future is for Ultra Violet .... please ...
And, I need more followers with comments ... I still have my goal to reach ...
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Caffeine - it's all relative
Does anyone remember when Mountain Dew was the caffeine soda? Years ago I remember people talking about Mountain Dew like it was a caffeine delivery system, containing so much caffeine it would keep you up all night long. Of course, this did happen to me once. As a naive college sophomore, I lived above a campus store which sold snacks until late into the night. One evening, enjoying my freedom to stay up late and do as I please, I purchased a Mountain Dew around 11:30pm. As someone who didn't drink much soda at all, I was unaware that soda contained caffeine, until my roommate informed me, right as I finished the last drop. And since it was Mountain Dew, he told me I had just consumed so much caffeine that I'd be up all night. And I was. Either because of the caffeine itself, or the threat of caffeine keeping me up all night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for hours. Needless to say, I gave up late night sode drinking and started drinking Mountain Dew in the morning soon thereafter.
But back to my original point - Mountain Dew really isn't very high on the list of caffeinated beverages. Sure, it has more than the usual cola, but not by much. And nowadays, you can find Jolt (can you? can you still find Jolt?), energy drinks, energy shots, expresso, caffeine pills, Starbucks ... tons of ways to deliver caffeine into your body. And Mountain Dew really isn't near the top of that list. Tastewise - yes. Otherwise ....
http://www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database
Mountain Dew: 4.6 caffeine mg. per ounce
Coke: 2.9
Dunkin Donuts Coffer: 8.9
Jolt Energy: 11.9
Expresso: 51.3
Jolt Endurance: 100.0
Redline Power Rush: 140.0
Good thing I didn't have a Redline that night in college many (many) years ago .....
But back to my original point - Mountain Dew really isn't very high on the list of caffeinated beverages. Sure, it has more than the usual cola, but not by much. And nowadays, you can find Jolt (can you? can you still find Jolt?), energy drinks, energy shots, expresso, caffeine pills, Starbucks ... tons of ways to deliver caffeine into your body. And Mountain Dew really isn't near the top of that list. Tastewise - yes. Otherwise ....
http://www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database
Mountain Dew: 4.6 caffeine mg. per ounce
Coke: 2.9
Dunkin Donuts Coffer: 8.9
Jolt Energy: 11.9
Expresso: 51.3
Jolt Endurance: 100.0
Redline Power Rush: 140.0
Good thing I didn't have a Redline that night in college many (many) years ago .....
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Code Red
Whatever happened (is happening to) Code Red? Perhaps the most flavorful of all the Mountain Dew offspring, it's slowing disappearing from view. Today I frequented the local grocery store (see first post) to do another inventory on the soda shelves, and Code Red was only available in 2-liter bottles (almost wrote '64-oz' there ... surely dating myself), and not even in a diet version, which really doesn't taste very diet at all. One Code Red bottle facing the aisle - with a few stacked neatly behind it. What's the deal with this? Personally, not much beats Code Red, but since I'm on this 'half-regular / half-diet' kick, I need both the diet and regular versions to mix together, and I vastly prefer 12-oz cans to the larger bottles. I'm curious, very curious ... what happened to Code Red?
---
I'm on schedule, sort of. Now I have 3 'followers', which triped what I had just after I signed up. Now, if those three tell two people, and they tell two people ... then in no time short I'll be marching towards my 100 followers. As for the posts, I'm still here. I'll still be here at least once a week. Again, my goal is 150 posts and 100 followers within one year.
---
I'm on schedule, sort of. Now I have 3 'followers', which triped what I had just after I signed up. Now, if those three tell two people, and they tell two people ... then in no time short I'll be marching towards my 100 followers. As for the posts, I'm still here. I'll still be here at least once a week. Again, my goal is 150 posts and 100 followers within one year.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Steely Dan
I think it's "... you go back, Jack, do it again ...". Which is what I did - back for seconds with Mountain Dew Ultra Violet. On sale, of course. And I had a wide selection to choose from (although I would have taken Diet Code Red in a twelve pack if I could have found it). But I'm still confused about the total lack of advertising for this one flavor. Anyone have any clues about this?
As for this blog, my theory of "... and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on ..." isn't holding up, or at least these 'two friends' aren't signing up to Follow this blog. Disappointing, to say the least. I may have to find a different way to get the word out.
I find this whole "daylight savings time" issue to be interesting. Not in and of itself, but that some areas fall back timewise, and some (AZ) don't. So, those in say, Phoenix, are sometimes essentially on Mountain Time and sometimes on West Coast Time. I do agree that not falling back makes daily life a little easier - no having to adjust your internal clock twice a year or having to adapt to an abrupt onset of winter darkness - but since almost everybody else does it, why not EVERYBODY? I'm also curiuos about how the "lines" which separate time zones in the United States happen to cut states in half (Kentucky), or carve out parts of states (what's up with Indiana and Kansas?)
http://www.worldtimezone.com/time-usa12.php
As for this blog, my theory of "... and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on ..." isn't holding up, or at least these 'two friends' aren't signing up to Follow this blog. Disappointing, to say the least. I may have to find a different way to get the word out.
I find this whole "daylight savings time" issue to be interesting. Not in and of itself, but that some areas fall back timewise, and some (AZ) don't. So, those in say, Phoenix, are sometimes essentially on Mountain Time and sometimes on West Coast Time. I do agree that not falling back makes daily life a little easier - no having to adjust your internal clock twice a year or having to adapt to an abrupt onset of winter darkness - but since almost everybody else does it, why not EVERYBODY? I'm also curiuos about how the "lines" which separate time zones in the United States happen to cut states in half (Kentucky), or carve out parts of states (what's up with Indiana and Kansas?)
http://www.worldtimezone.com/time-usa12.php
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
How's it going?
Dew note: I've really started to like the 'new' Ultra Violet Dew. I can't drink it by itself, but I find that when mixed with regular Dew it creates a drink with a good flavor (can't describe it) and a terrible color. Take a purple Dew and mix it with a light green Dew and you get an awful darkish-green mess ... that tastes quite good.
So, in that sense it's going well. However, I fear that of the nine 12-packs in the store, eight will still be there, and the expiration date is quickly approching. I fear there's nothing I can do to stop Ultra Violet Dew from disappearing - being put back on the truck and disposed of. Just what do they do with soda that has "expired"? I heard once that sports leagues (like the NFL, MLB, etc) sometimes make two sets of t-shirts / sweatshirts / hats before the championship game - one printed with team X as champions and the other set printed with team Y as champions, and then they have to "dispose" of the set with the losing team. I can imagine boxes of "Arizona Cardinals - Super Bowl Champions" sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
But, as far as 'how's it going' with this blog, well, I now have more posts than all the other Mountain Dew named blogs I listed earlier, so that's promising. However, I remember this shampoo (?) commercial from years ago, which went "I told two people, and they told two people, and they told two people, and so on, and so on ...", showing how exponential word of mouth made this shampoo popular. I'm waiting for that to happen here. I DID tell two people of this blog, and they should have told two people each, who in turn should have told two people each (and each should have 'registed' as following this site), and so on. I'm still waiting .... Shaun and Dave .... and Megan ....
So, in that sense it's going well. However, I fear that of the nine 12-packs in the store, eight will still be there, and the expiration date is quickly approching. I fear there's nothing I can do to stop Ultra Violet Dew from disappearing - being put back on the truck and disposed of. Just what do they do with soda that has "expired"? I heard once that sports leagues (like the NFL, MLB, etc) sometimes make two sets of t-shirts / sweatshirts / hats before the championship game - one printed with team X as champions and the other set printed with team Y as champions, and then they have to "dispose" of the set with the losing team. I can imagine boxes of "Arizona Cardinals - Super Bowl Champions" sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
But, as far as 'how's it going' with this blog, well, I now have more posts than all the other Mountain Dew named blogs I listed earlier, so that's promising. However, I remember this shampoo (?) commercial from years ago, which went "I told two people, and they told two people, and they told two people, and so on, and so on ...", showing how exponential word of mouth made this shampoo popular. I'm waiting for that to happen here. I DID tell two people of this blog, and they should have told two people each, who in turn should have told two people each (and each should have 'registed' as following this site), and so on. I'm still waiting .... Shaun and Dave .... and Megan ....
Thursday, October 22, 2009
What's the deal?
So, why a blog about mountain dew? Why try to go where no person has successfully gone before ? See mountaindew.blogspot.com, mountain-dew.blogspot.com, and of course mountain_dew.blogspot.com ... or better yet, don't - they all were born and died in 2002 after just one or two posts. And yet, they're still out there, which just shows that once somebody puts something out on the internet, it's hard to get rid of it - of which they'll be saying about this blog at one point.
Back to the point of this post - what's the point of this blog? Well, the goal is 150 posts within a year, and 100 people signed up as following this blog. What will that get me? My hope is that if I can blog about mountain dew during this entire time, with all those people signed up to read the posts, Pepsi will send me a year's supply of mountain dew. And I don't mean coupons for dew, or a six-pack / twelve-pack, but a Pepsi truck pulling into my driveway and unloading a ton of this stuff - along with some diet-Pepsi for my wife.
That's it. Will it happen, probably not, but we all have hopes and dreams. But first, I need 100 people signed up to follow this blog (and I won't sit back creating alias email addresses myself) and a year's worth of writing, at about 3 posts per week. At that point, I'll put the pressure on Pepsi for the Dew.
As for my current entry and it's relavance to Dew ... I've tried the "Diet Mountain Dew Ultra Violet" and it's not bad. Actually, I've only tried it mixed with regular Dew (should I caps the "d" in Dew or not?) and I've found 1) it's not bad, actually it's pretty good and 2) combining the light green of regular Dew with the blue/purple of Ultra Violet Dew makes a truly awful color. But I like the flavor.
So, why the limited production and no advertising for Ultra Violet Dew? What's the deal?
Back to the point of this post - what's the point of this blog? Well, the goal is 150 posts within a year, and 100 people signed up as following this blog. What will that get me? My hope is that if I can blog about mountain dew during this entire time, with all those people signed up to read the posts, Pepsi will send me a year's supply of mountain dew. And I don't mean coupons for dew, or a six-pack / twelve-pack, but a Pepsi truck pulling into my driveway and unloading a ton of this stuff - along with some diet-Pepsi for my wife.
That's it. Will it happen, probably not, but we all have hopes and dreams. But first, I need 100 people signed up to follow this blog (and I won't sit back creating alias email addresses myself) and a year's worth of writing, at about 3 posts per week. At that point, I'll put the pressure on Pepsi for the Dew.
As for my current entry and it's relavance to Dew ... I've tried the "Diet Mountain Dew Ultra Violet" and it's not bad. Actually, I've only tried it mixed with regular Dew (should I caps the "d" in Dew or not?) and I've found 1) it's not bad, actually it's pretty good and 2) combining the light green of regular Dew with the blue/purple of Ultra Violet Dew makes a truly awful color. But I like the flavor.
So, why the limited production and no advertising for Ultra Violet Dew? What's the deal?
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Walking down the aisle ...
About once a week or so I make my lunchtime walk a short one and head over the supermarket next door - it's a nice big store, part of the Harris Teeter chain (which is big down here in NC). I try to be somewhat cost-conscious when it's convenient for me, and since I bring my lunch from home everyday, I try to buy 'snacks' at the supermarket to complete my balanced lunch. Usually it's a very quick trip since I know exactly where the pretzels are (healthy), and I know where the cookies / chocolate are (the balancing act to my 'eat-at-my-desk' lunch).
Today I was distracted and made my way down the sode aisle. Actually I saw an 'end cap' (that one phrase is the full extent of my supermarket marketing (can I call it "supermarketing"?) lingo) which had Pepsi products on it and had to look - I rubberneck for Pepsi products like drivers do for crashes. I noticed both good and bad things about the soda aisle here. The bad thing was that Coke had about 55% of the aisle (it was more than half), while Pepsi had about 35%, and 'others' had the remaining 10%. That in itself was disheartening. However I was pleasantly surprised by the great selection of the Mountain Dew family of products. Lots of them. Lots of them in different sized bottles. I couldn't keep track of what product was associated with each particular size (12 oz cans in six packs, 12 oz cans in twelve packs, 16 oz bottles in six packs, 20 oz bottles in six packs, and the 2-liter bottles - however now I fear I've missed a size or two or three), but I did notice that my store sold the following:
Mountain Dew (probably every size)
Diet Mountain Dew (probably every size)
Caffeine Free Mountain Dew (2-liter, plus smaller bottles and cans)
Caffeine Free Diet Mountain Dew - what's the point (2-liter, plus smaller bottles and cans)
Code Red - it just won't die ... (2-liter bottles)
Voltage (12 oz twelve packs)
... and then
Diet Mountain Dew Ultra Violet (12 oz twelve packs) - now this is something I've never seen before.
Note - most other twelve packs had expiration dates of Feb 2010, but all the twelve packs for Ultra Violet had expiration dates of Nov 2009. I stood in awe and sadness - awe that I'd never seen this before, and sadness that there was room for 9 twelve packs on the shelf, and they were all there, neatly stacked. With the expiration date quickly approaching and the cardboard containers fading a little, it looked like they'd been there for a while, untouched. Needless to say, I went for it. Scooped up a 12 pack and brought it back here to work. Not sure what to do with it - probably leave it here, put one in the fridge before I leave tonight, and try it tomorrow, most likely mixing it with a regular 12 oz Dew once I realize first hand 'why' it had been sitting there so long. I'll keep you posted.
In my quest for more knowledge, I went to MountainDew.com (and was greatly disappointed in general ...) to see if they mentioned it. Strangely, no. However they don't mention the "World Warcraft Game Fuel" Dew, of which I've had a 12 oz can on my desk for about 2 months now and can't bring myself to open it. They do mention LiveWire, but I didn't find it on the shelves, and they mention "Baja Blast", which to my relief (relief because I was afraid I had missed yet another one) is only sold as a fountain drink at Taco Bell.Thoughts?
Today I was distracted and made my way down the sode aisle. Actually I saw an 'end cap' (that one phrase is the full extent of my supermarket marketing (can I call it "supermarketing"?) lingo) which had Pepsi products on it and had to look - I rubberneck for Pepsi products like drivers do for crashes. I noticed both good and bad things about the soda aisle here. The bad thing was that Coke had about 55% of the aisle (it was more than half), while Pepsi had about 35%, and 'others' had the remaining 10%. That in itself was disheartening. However I was pleasantly surprised by the great selection of the Mountain Dew family of products. Lots of them. Lots of them in different sized bottles. I couldn't keep track of what product was associated with each particular size (12 oz cans in six packs, 12 oz cans in twelve packs, 16 oz bottles in six packs, 20 oz bottles in six packs, and the 2-liter bottles - however now I fear I've missed a size or two or three), but I did notice that my store sold the following:
Mountain Dew (probably every size)
Diet Mountain Dew (probably every size)
Caffeine Free Mountain Dew (2-liter, plus smaller bottles and cans)
Caffeine Free Diet Mountain Dew - what's the point (2-liter, plus smaller bottles and cans)
Code Red - it just won't die ... (2-liter bottles)
Voltage (12 oz twelve packs)
... and then
Diet Mountain Dew Ultra Violet (12 oz twelve packs) - now this is something I've never seen before.
Note - most other twelve packs had expiration dates of Feb 2010, but all the twelve packs for Ultra Violet had expiration dates of Nov 2009. I stood in awe and sadness - awe that I'd never seen this before, and sadness that there was room for 9 twelve packs on the shelf, and they were all there, neatly stacked. With the expiration date quickly approaching and the cardboard containers fading a little, it looked like they'd been there for a while, untouched. Needless to say, I went for it. Scooped up a 12 pack and brought it back here to work. Not sure what to do with it - probably leave it here, put one in the fridge before I leave tonight, and try it tomorrow, most likely mixing it with a regular 12 oz Dew once I realize first hand 'why' it had been sitting there so long. I'll keep you posted.
In my quest for more knowledge, I went to MountainDew.com (and was greatly disappointed in general ...) to see if they mentioned it. Strangely, no. However they don't mention the "World Warcraft Game Fuel" Dew, of which I've had a 12 oz can on my desk for about 2 months now and can't bring myself to open it. They do mention LiveWire, but I didn't find it on the shelves, and they mention "Baja Blast", which to my relief (relief because I was afraid I had missed yet another one) is only sold as a fountain drink at Taco Bell.Thoughts?
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