My Form Letter Meets Your Form Letter and "Fuck" is Involved but not in a Sexy Way

Dear Tim,

Thank you for contacting us at Pepsi-Cola regarding the availability of Caffeine Free Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Throwback .

I am so sorry you are having a problem locating this product. We do operate under a franchise bottler system and as such, bottlers have the freedom to decide which product flavors and package sizes they will offer. For this reason, local availability can vary across the country.

To locate stores in your local area that might sell our products, (within a 50 mile radius), please log on to www.pepsiproductfacts.com. Simply click on the STORE LOCATOR tab in the upper right hand corner of the page, select the product you're trying to find, enter your zip code, and you'll see a list of the chain grocery stores and chain pharmacies closest to you that have sold the product in the last 30 days. This information is generated by stores that use computer scanning equipment in their check-out process.

If you would like additional assistance, please call our Consumer Relations department at 1 (800) 433-2652 Monday – Friday, 9am-6pm EST. When calling, please refer to the file number located at the bottom of this email.

Thanks again for contacting us.


Tina
Consumer Relations Representative

012910540A

{\i DID YOU KNOW ... *** All of Pepsi-Cola’s plastic soft-drink bottles contain an average of 10% recycled plastic, and the average aluminum can contains 40% to 50% recycled aluminum. ***}

Dear Pepsico,

You're a bunch of jerks. You can't leave important decisions like this up the bottlers, they're idiots. A fucking bottler can't make a same tasting drink two weeks in a row, yet you trust them to know what the market is? Did no one tell the idiot bottlers that Mountain Dew Throwback would sell out of my local store within a day? Have you ever TRIED Caffeine Free Mountain Dew in the NYC area?

No. Seriously, you should fix this.

Hugs,

me

Koch Industries, Brawny Paper Towels

Not a soda, I know, but I couldn't resist writing a letter to Brawny telling them I wouldn't be buying any more of their paper towels because they are owned by Koch Industries. Seriously, that mustachio'd gentleman who traditionally adorns the wrapper would not approve of what the Koch dicks do.

Here was the response:

Thank you for contacting the Georgia-Pacific Consumer Response Center.
Georgia-Pacific places tremendous importance on the opinions we receive
from our consumers.

Georgia-Pacific is a wholly-owned, independently managed subsidiary of
Koch Industries.  Koch companies, the Koch family and Koch foundations
have worked for more than 40 years to make the world a better place by
supporting market-based solutions to society's challenges. The company
believes that emphasis on market-based solutions is important, because
extensive historical and theoretical research shows that economic
freedom best fosters innovation, environmental stewardship and an
improved quality of life throughout society.

If you would like more information about Koch's record of responsible
operations, the company's market-based policy positions or its ongoing
efforts to promote economic freedom, please visit www.kochfacts.com.

We appreciate your comments and they have been forwarded to our
marketing personnel and management.



Consumer Response Center
gpcrc@gapac.com | 800-283-5547
-

I am completely baffled at their belief that economic freedom is equated with environmental stewardship. And the idea that a company can believe anything is ridiculous. It's frightening that I've used these paper towels to blot up messes, as they were obviously designed by retards.

This Blog isn't Dead, I'm Just Bored...

...because it's fucking boring to write "Oh, this strawberry soda tastes like strawberries but a little chemical fake" for the eight-hundredth time. Seriously, give me a break. I was powered by foulness, by liquid malignancy passed off as child treats. I haven't found a soda evil enough to be reviewed.

And I'm lazy. That too.

I shit you not, I have six milk crates of sodas and threw away another three last time I moved. Soon they'll all be botulism flavored, which at least will give me a run for my money. I can't bring myself to drink another boring god-damn soda.

Boring.


BOOOORING.

Shoot me.

Dr. Pepper Fucks Little Guy

So the NY Times has a great article about the big Dr. Pepper snuffing Dublin Dr. Pepper. Which sucks. I had one, it tasted better.

Alas.

The Work of the Devil

The world needs more White Castles, not less. Thus is a tragedy, painful and wrong. Seriously, someone needs to fix this.

The truly terrible thing, though, is that this is my fault. All 2012 I've been having my karmic balance aggressively maintained. I got my picture in the NYTimes, which was good, the next day I get a bunch of stitches in my hand - bad. Again and again, these wild swings...

The White Castle was shut down because earlier that day I'd struck up a delightful correspondence with a very respected game writer and it looked like we were sealing a Deal. Ba-zing, there goes the White Castle.

I'm so sorry.

Hotdogs and Chili at White Castle is Okay by Me, not to Give Anything Away

Okay, this is a Nathan's hot dog. Nathan's is a NYC institution type thing, with a delicious ur-restaurant in Coney Island and a handful of exceptionally shitty chain restaurants scattered hither and non. Your average Nathan's hot dog from a non-Coney Island restaurant is awful. Which reminds me:

At a Nathan's in Bay Ridge I laughed at the condiment bar, it had these dipping ladles and all around the troughs of toppings and etc there was food spilled everywhere. It was like the palsy brigade had come through and had a spazz-fest while trying to relish up their hotdogs. I laughed at the implied incompetency of the customers there. But the trouble was not with the retards that eat at Nathan's, it was with the condiment bar itself - the ladle handles were so long that you couldn't lift the ladle straight up out of the troughs without hitting the sneeze guard. You had to turn the ladle half on its side, spilling most of the contents. Hilarious and stupid.

But White Castle has somehow gotten Nathan's hot dogs right. This was one of the best hot dogs I've ever had, seriously. It also lacked that weird Nathan's butter taste that I'm not always a fan of. The mini-hot dog from White Castle is fantastic - soft yet with a slight bit of snap.

Wow.



The chili, though, warn't so hot. The steak was chewy, the whole thing too greasy. Good as fuck on the hot dog though. Notice that cup behind the chili, it's a Mountain Dew not-Slurpee from a Hess station. It's fantastic.

Ouzon Soda, Opa! Originals

Ouzon Soda, Opa! Originals

Dare I take the Ouzon plunge?

Whenever a company offers to send me a soda for free in the mail, I am always slightly afraid someone is trying to poison me. I mean, it's the internet, right? There are people out there who want to poison me. It's a given.

Ouzon was sent to my by, I presume, the company that makes it. While they didn't actually poison me, it wasn't exactly clear at the beginning if I would walk away or not. The initial yuck factor was pretty high.

Pre-yuck.

Post-yuck.

There's a handful of strikes against Ouzon before you even open the bottle. "The Original Non-Alchoholic Ouzo Flavored Soda" is a bad start. Any non-alcohol alcohol I've ever tried has been bad, except for Senorial Sangria which is dreamy. Senorial Sangria sets a high standard for unalcohol alcohol. The other strike against Ouzon is a suspicious panel on the back of the bottle saying that 5% of the after-tax profits go something to do with "Orthodox Minsteries". I'm not sure what that means, let's deploy google... Okay, the Farah Foundation seems to give out piles of money to Christian organizations of a certain bent.

Elsewhere on this blog I've made my opinion of that stuff very clear, so I'm going to pretend really hard that these are the bad-ass Christian types who fund secret anti-vampire squads and make epic mosaics. I hope. So if you spent a dollar on Ouzon this foundation probably gets two cents, don't do this if you are a vampire or are mosaicrophobic.

But to business. What does this stuff taste like? To me it tastes like bad, natural licorice. Or you can read this sentence aloud:

"Ouzon tastes like anise".

Read it aloud to a friend and watch their face. It'll be great.

But yeah, I don't like natural licorice. I don't like fake black licorice. I don't like things that are anise flavored. BUT! (Anise, but!) But, I keep taking little micro-sips while I write this. I can't really stop poking at the bottle, it's like a scab ready to pick. It hurts to do it, but I gotta keep sipping. Partially, it might be because it is delightfully cold - something Opa Originals can't take credit for. Partially, there might be some secret bit of good in here. But I doubt it.

Not the best thing to come out of post-Atlantis Greece, not as good as Stala Orange Drink. Maybe if I was a recovering drunkard this might help stave off my ouzo urges, but I'm not. And I don't like anise things. And I think religion is bad for everyone. So...