At last count, 3,299 Diet Coke Reward Points were hanging out in my account. While most of this number can be held almost directly responsible for the damage to my own internal systems, a number of people have been regularly emailing me codes in an attempt to keep my kidneys working.

My dad sends codes and has ever since he found out about this project. They come in emails marked as sent via a BlackBerry handheld device, which suggests they were emailed while away from the computer doing something awesome or at least that the urgency merits navigating the tiny thumb-cramping keyboards on those things. I really appreciate it either way.

Also, my friend Ted sends codes -- though he says the true credit for them goes to his daughter for reminding him to save them.

This is especially neat when one considers that I've been getting codes from them for months and she just recently asked (through Ted) what the end goal was supposed to be.

I replied that the end goal was a Nintendo Wii but that it would run just about 7,000 points.

However, I was inspired by the question to visit the Coke Rewards site to take a look for myself just to remind myself why I'm drinking enough Diet Coke that I sweat aspartame and caramel color, why I only sleep 28 hours a week, and why (I hesitate to admit) I have to go #1 more often than a whole group of third grade girls on a bus tour of the Catskills. I rarely go to the official site since they switched to a bloated flash-based interface. I can enter codes through a desktop widget thingy and just do that most of the time.

Hey, now that you've read all that, would anyone care to guess what Nintendo-branded game system is no longer offered in exchange for Coke Reward Points?

I was a little relieved, to be honest. I could cash out early. End the damage to my liver. Drink mountain spring water and enter into a purification diet of tofu and activated carbon.

But guess what else? They seem sold out of everything in my point range that is the least bit interesting.

They still offer Nintendo stuff, though. This isn't like when the partnership with Sony fell through and all references to them on the website were forever destroyed. They just switched to offering games for one's existing Wii which, in my case, is an imaginary one which fails to play any games at all.

The whole Coke Rewards Conspiracy is weakened by the serving of two masters -- The drive to sell increasing volumes of Coca-Cola and the need to push the products of the sponsor partners, in this case offering rewards which can be used only by people who drop the cash on a new gaming system. Actually, there is a third master -- Nal-Ahnana, Abyssal Dark Queen of Kidney Stones, though her ambitions are not so clearly spelled out on the official website.

Am I quitting? I just twisted the cap off a delicious and vitamin and mineral enhanced Diet Coke Plus (37% of my Vitamin B6 for the day is hidden in there somewhere) so probably not.

But I'm afraid to admit the project has no driving purpose at this point.

I may wait until they re-invent the program again next year and hope for better stuff. I may have built up enough points by then to pick up a red and white striped hybrid SUV (with extra drink holders for even more Diet Coke) or perhaps some kind of super-weapon to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies or anyone who drinks Pepsi or, worse, drinks Coke and discards the codes.

So the current plan is this: I will continue to drink Diet Coke and collect the points. I will hoard them into an ever-increasing heap. I will bide my time and wait for the Coke Rewards people to make a move and then . . . I will cash in my rewards for something entirely unrelated to a T-Shirt featuring the Grand Theft Auto guy from the parody commercial they showed during the Superbowl.

I will purchase no Coke-branded desk lamp or bumper sticker pack to advertise their delicious fizzy and refreshing product line.

I will buy no key chain or wall cover or ring tone.

There will, one day, be something cool. And I will be ready.

Okay, listen:

Holy crap!
Both gaming magazines, Dungeon and Dragon, are closing shop in September!
I've read those since I was a kid!
Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro, now) plans to offer an online version with a paid subscription.
Holy crap!
Who wants to lug a computer to the gaming table?
So now I have to pay and print everything?
I'm all about saving trees, but Dungeon and Dragon (I'd assumed) were printed on sickly trees. Or trees that were depressed. Or maybe trees that the other trees were a little bit sick of being around.

As if I weren't disgusted enough with that bit of corporate nonsense, Coke "revitalized" the rewards program.
This apparently means they add a few products, remove a bunch, and jack up the prices.
As if my kidneys didn't already pulse with agony.
I have no choice but to ramp up the project yet again just to keep them from getting away with it.
I'll show them. Oh, yes. Revenge will be mine as soon as I stop crying when I try to go #1.
I did manage to find a couple of bottles of Diet Coke Plus on my way in this morning, which should at least stave off scurvy for a few weeks.

But wait!
In a bit of good news, Starbucks has fled the field of battle since I exposed their conspiracy.
Cinnamon Dolce has vanished entirely from the menu, both online and in every store I stopped in.
I'll celebrate my victory as soon as the last of it leaves my system -- probably at the end of one of these weird shakes I've developed.
Perhaps next time they will think twice before tangling with an angry blogger.

I'll gloat when I next order a quad-shot venti breve no-foam latte. Probably later today.

Maybe twice.

I'm so very thirsty.

What is the life expectancy for a New Year's resolution?
My primary resolution was downgraded to "guideline" yesterday, with a projected forecast of "best effort" followed by a strong front of "whatever".
You see, I'd resolved to hate less on the users.
I know. That is a ridiculous and unattainable resolution on the order of "I'm going to win the lottery this year", but I had high hopes.
It isn't like I ever had any real control over that, anyway. My hatred is externally generated. Otherwise some enterprising government-type would have long ago quietly shuffled me off to a lab for "observation", only to later plug my hatred into the power grid somewhere to eventually get us all over our addiction to fossil fuels.
Of course, this also works under the assumption that there is such a thing as an "enterprising government type". I can see them now, cavorting through nature with the loch ness monster, a unicorn, three yeti, a chupacabra and a platypus.
I know the discovery channel claims to have footage of the last one, but until I've personally handled one, I refuse to believe in them.
Like a user who isn't completely all about just inventing problems for I.T., there is no such animal.
Here is a summary of the request that flushed away my resolution:

We have some very expensive and well-put-together print servers to handle all of the user's hard copy needs. There are, in fact, several multi-function printers on every floor, all available on the network.
One user, when trying to print to the printer plugged directly into her desktop computer instead of through those print servers, sometimes gets print outs the wrong size. Either the whole page is printed the size of a postage stamp or the heading is spanned across thirty pages.
That's bad, I'll admit.
But why won't she print to the network printer? It is too far.
Seriously. It is twelve (I counted) regular shuffling steps to the printer that works correctly 100% of the time.
So, my team and I need to troubleshoot an intermittent issue on unsupported hardware because someone doesn't want to get up, or even just wheel her desk chair over there to pick up a print out.
See? My hatred is not internally created! I have proof!

I still have other resolutions to worry about, now that the primary resolution is dead to me.
For example, I've resolved to gather and spend more Coke Reward Points than last year.
They have, as predicted, added new stuff. They have also jacked up the prices substantially.
In order to get a new digital camera for Shana, I need 6,999 points. That breaks down to almost 1,000 points per megapixel. You may recall I got a PlayStation 2 for 850 points.
As I type this, I have 1,511 points.
If you drink Coke, Coke Zero or Diet Coke in 20oz or 12-pack form and aren't planning on spending points yourself, I need them. Badly.
Seriously. My recent lower back pain is not related to my patented geek slouch -- my kidneys are eating themselves.