Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

I'm not sure how fresh the coffee is this morning. I got in a little earlier than usual (massive trauma must have hit some other way in today) and poured the last of the carafe into my disposable cup on my way to my cubicle.
On reflexion, I'm pretty sure someone turned the burner on under a pot of coffee from Friday.
If the coffee doesn't date from Friday, then I suspect the coffee beans have been mixed in an unpleasant way with black beans, pinto beans or possibly refried beans in order to save someone some cash somewhere along the coffee supply chain.
In short, there is not enough Splenda in the world.
Not that I'm not drinking it.
And on the subject of caffeine for the sake of caffeine . . . Over the weekend I had my first experience with non-Coca-Cola diet carbonated soft drinks since kicking off the Coke Rewards Points project on this very blog around a year ago.
Side note: The current Coke Rewards Point total is 2529. I may be saving up for a "Wii", which is appropriate given how often I have to do just that drinking this much cola.
Anyway, Diet Pepsi Max yelled at me from the shelf in the cola aisle. It called me from the deli area and enticed me with its gleaming silver label and top.
Someone said it had more caffeine than Diet Mountain Dew, and I knew I'd have to try it.
I could not commit to a twelve pack, but I picked up a 2-liter bottle just to see if it really was "Max", as they say.
I researched the actual chemistry. Diet Mountain Dew runs 55mg of caffeine per 12oz. The same amount of Diet Pepsi Max emotionally destroys the old gamer "Mountain Dew Standard" with an awesome 69mg of magic. Anyone find it interesting that Pepsi has been using the phrase "More Happy" for marketing lately? I like to see truth in advertising.
So, Saturday night after Gwynyth went to bed I filled a glass with ice and dragged the two-liter bottle towards my laptop for some beverage performance testing.
I poured a glass.
It tastes a lot like Diet Pepsi -- which is to say "cola-like" for anyone who has destroyed their taste buds with aspartame.
I had work to do online. Webinara needed 13,000 honor points for a new helmet and (at 2-4 points per kill) I knew I'd be in the battleground for a long time.
I'm hesitant to credit Diet Pepsi Max entirely, but there were several matches where Webinara finished in first place for damage by over 30,000 points, with over 100 honorable kills for even the weaker rounds.
After a particularly brutal smack down of some Alliance n00bz, I went to pour another glass and discovered that I had consumed the entire 2 liter bottle. 90 minutes had passed since I poured the initial glass.
On the bright side, close to 400mg of caffeine purchased Webinara's new epic helmet quite nicely.
The downside was that I was still thirsty. And seeing "things" that were not necessarily really "there".
I'd drink it again.