I was a bit sleepy driving home from the Christmas party, so I stopped at a convenience store to get some caffeine. Little did I realize that I was stopping at a magical convenience store which wasn't out of my beloved Livewire. There miraculously was nine bottles. After careful deliberation, I determined that I should leave some for any other weary travelers who happen upon this magical orange oasis and that it would be wrong for me to purchase all of them right then and there.

When I mentioned my dilemma in small-talk to the manager, she disagreed with my logic and thought that I should purchase all nine and, while I was at it, all of the Pitch Black flavor too before they canceled that, too. When I didn't pick up on her joke, she suggested that I drink one of my new Livewires right away because I was obviously very tired.

So the good news is that I got me some Livewire. The bad news is that though I don't want to finish the bottle, I can't let any of what little I have to go waste, which means that I'm not going to get very good sleep tonight.

But that's okay because I have my Livewire and all is right with the world.

Wyoming, like Utah, Texas, Louisiana, and apparently every other state except Idaho, apparently has Livewire.

What did Idaho do wrong?!

I finally tried the new Mountain Dew: Pitch Black II drink. They did punch up the formula somewhat. It has a sour taste to it. Since Pitch Black was originally a grape-flavored drink, I'm surprised they didn't go with a much more obvious name:

Mountain Dew: Sour Grapes

I am so angry with PepsiCo that I could scream. As many of you know, I have an addiction to Livewire. I mourned when it went out of season last year, though I tried to keep it in perspective because it was going to come back this summer.

Except that it didn't.

PepsiCo re-released it, but declined to distribute it to the entire state of Idaho. The only times I've gotten to drink it I've been in Utah, Texas, or Louisiana.

This isn't simply a matter of stores up here electing not to carry it. Last year everyone carried it and this year nobody does. Someone, somewhere decided that Idaho was not worth selling to.

Sometimes I hate capitalism.

But then comes the kicker. Last year they introduced another variation of Mountain Dew called Pitch Black. It was, to say the least, a flop. I don't think I have ever seen a soft drink flop so badly. By January they were selling 20oz bottles at 5/$1.

But that they'd decided to try again. They've changed it up at least a little (it's Pitch Black II), but even so, there was almost nothing good about the original Pitch Black. Grape-flavored Mountain Dew just doesn't fly. There is no reason for it to exist and even less reason to dedicate precious shelf-space that could go to my beloved Livewire trying to rehash a failed experiment.

Sometimes I hate and do not understand capitalism.

Stupid PepsiCo.

Every now and again, I'll write a post and put it in the Drafts folder (or its Nucleus equivalent). Then I'll forget about it. Then, longer after it's relevent, I'll forget that I ever wrote it. This is one of those posts. Many of you are familiar with my fascination with Mountain Dew lines of drinks. Grape-flavored Pitch Black replaced my beloved Livewire a year or two back in their seasonal rotation. It did so poorly that they eventually had to start selling them 3/$1. This year they introduced Pitch Black II, or as I call it: Mountain Dew Sour Grapes. Anyway, here's a post that I never posted on the Pitch Black of the old variety.

RAW: I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my Pitch Black.
Eel: Why did you buy it?
RAW: It's on sale. 3 for $1.
Eel: But you don't like it, do you?
RAW: No, but I was coming around.
Eel: But...?
RAW: I'm starting to feel sick every time I drink it.
Eel: Then don't drink it. It won't go bad if it sits in the fridge a few days.
RAW: But I don't know how long this is going to last. It might make me sick in the forseeable future.
Eel: Then don't drink it!
RAW: But it'll go bad. I learned that with the Livewire. Except that Pitch Black isn't as good. I can't imagine how bad it would be flat.
Eel: There are worse things than letting a drink go bad.
RAW: Yeah, a thirty-three cent drink.
Eel: Yeah.
RAW: That I don't like very much.
Eel: Yeah.
RAW: That's making me sick to my stomach.
Eel: ...
RAW: I should probably let this slide.
Eel: ...

A long time ago, Jolt Cola released a series of flavors. They had a citrus (ie Mountain Dew), orange, and white grape flavor in addition to their regular coke flavor. All forms of Jolt were, of course, loaded with caffeine and sugar.

They were absolutely wonderful.

As a college student, I used to make special trips to the one convenience store in the area that carried them. Some time after I left UH they stopped selling them, which was a tragedy.

Mountain Dew picked up the mantle not long ago when they launched cough-syrup flavored Code Red. In Taco Bell you can get this icky Baja Blueberry flavored drink, but I wouldn't recommend it. More recently they released grape-flavored Pitch Black.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, they released Livewire. Outside of Jones Soda, it is without a doubt the best soft drink ever made. Orange taste mixed with Dew-levels of caffeine and sugar make an absolutely winning combination. Since it remotely states like orange and has some orange juice in it (listed after water, high-fructose corn syrup, and sugar - a surefire mix for a good drink!), it makes a good breakfast-on-the-go.

Unfortunately, the product is apparently seasonal and it's presently being phased out. They apparently did this last year, but I never ran across the drink. When I discovered this, it ruined my next two minutes hard (thank heavens for my short attention span).

Since then, it's been harder and harder to get around town. Not impossible yet, though. Some convenience stores still have it in stock and I know where they are. But soon they, too, will run out.

I was getting lunch at a convenience store near my work that had only one bottle left. The only reason they still have it is because they had a mishap with their freezer last week and the row of coke including my precious Livewire was frozen solid. They apparently fixed the glitch because the Livewire bottle they had remaining was in convenient liquid form.

I'm not sure of the physics behind it, but frozen-the-unfrozen coke doesn't generally taste good. Something to do with the carbonation, I'd imagine. But when there's only one left, there's only one left.

Sure enough, it was flat as all heck.

And yet, even flat, this stuff is still better than 90% of the stuff out there.

It turns out that when I inadvertently ran across The Best Soft Drink Of All Time the other day, it was just the tip of the iceburg. Since then three more convenience stores in Falls have had a resurgence of the drink. I'm in hog heaven.

Briefly, I wondered if Mountain Dew had come to their senses and brought it back permanently.

Then I discovered that all of the Livewire that remains is at least a month past the sell date.

Oh well.

I recieved an email this morning entitled "I have an important link for you." I almost put it in the spambox without even reading who it was from because it seems like half of the spam out there (the ones that are still in English and no t inn s p a m-sp ee ck. Turns out that it was from Anna. Good thing I didn't because it was an important link!

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