But things go better with Diet Pepsi

/ August 20, 2015
Yes, that's our girl.

Yes, that’s our girl.

My dear wife Karen received the above photo with a text from our D.C.-area friend Carolyn today.

Glad to see our beloved rescue mutt is on her mind down there in our sweltering nation’s capital.

My dear wife Karen and Carolyn toast with a non-Coke beverage during our April visit to Washington, D.C.

My dear wife Karen and Carolyn toast with a non-Coke beverage during our April visit to Washington, D.C.

And also that her name makes the Coke folk’s bottle label game grade.

As for me, no thank you to Diet Coke. I’m forever a Diet Pepsi man. Not even my pooch’s moniker on the bottle would sway me over to the dark side.

Are you more likely to partake in a Pepsi or Coke product, and why? Have you spotted your name or that of a loved one on a Coke bottle lately, and if so, what did you do? What’s your pet’s name, and how did you come up with it?

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86 thoughts on “But things go better with Diet Pepsi”

  2. All these questions, Mark! They might drive a person to drink. For me, that drink would never be diet, regular, or any other soft drinks. These days, I’m restricting my hydrating to water. (Unless you count hot chocolate, which doesn’t call out anybody by name.)

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  3. I haven’t seen any Vonita’s on coke bottles. If you do see one pls let me know! I’m a sparkling water girl, perhaps because I’m allergic to coke and Pepsi does not do it for me. I like lemonade but cannot consume it guilt free laden as it is with sugar.

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  4. No names on the cherry cokes, and that is the only kind of coke I’ll drink bro Mark. My usual poison is Dr. Pepper though, far superior to coke products. Nothing diet though. Whatever they put in the diet stuff is pure poison when it hits my blood stream. Within a minute I’ll have a blinding headache that requires a doctor visit, a shot of something to knock me out, absolute darkness, no noise, no movement, no food, just a week of sleep and maybe I’ll be okay, or maybe it will be a one to two month episode. All of that from one sip of artificial sweetener. If that isn’t pure poison, I don’t know what is.

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      • I’ve read all the studies on the diet stuff bro Mark — almost required reading for people with MS, and aspartame is the worst, and the one used the most in the past because it was cheapest. It is also listed as poison in all the reports I’ve read, causing numerous organ damage and eventual shut down. The others aren’t as bad, but they act the same for me, so I just had to cut them out. Tried Splenda, it worked too well. I ate constantly, gained 75 pounds, blood sugar was always high, but as soon as I realized that was the problem and went back to sugar, lost the weight, appetite back to normal, b/s normal, A 1 C great, no more headaches from artificial sweeteners. Just the normal ones now, and I’m so used to those I would think something was wrong if they went away.
        With migraines bro Mark, if she is anything like me, she was probably praying to die, and the sooner the better. Unless you have had one, you will never know what they are like, because there are no words to fully explain that experience.

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  5. ha! so cute and thoughtful. i’ve not seen my name, and mg spells his with a ‘c’ so it’s pretty rare to find on most anything. i’ll drink either, but i’m not a big pop drinker. –

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    • I do have the more familiar spelling of our first name, Beth. My new socks prove it. 🙂 Then I went at spelled my daughter’s name Elisabeth instead of going with the more familiar ‘z’ because I liked the way it looked and felt to me. Go figure. I’m surprised that you and she can’t find a bottle with Beth on it. It’s a common name, am I right? And, is your Beth shortened from anything?

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  6. Where I live, Pepsi is the undisputed king, followed by Dr. Pepper. Coke is something people drink only if they have no choice. I didn’t even realize Coke was the king of the soft drink world until I was in my 20’s, and it’s still hard for me to come to grips with that…

    That said, I’ll drink either, and out of a soda fountain they taste almost identical to me anyway. I’ll even mix and match if I need to refresh a glass of fountain Coke with one of my Pepsi bottle in the fridge…

    Just keep the diet stuff away from me…… very, very far away from me….

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  7. I prefer Diet Pepsi over Diet Coke. Have to have my Diet Pepsi with lemon slices and tons of ice. Diet Coke has that weird aspartame taste to it – too sweet. But I would take a Tab over both of them if I could find one.
    As far as pet names go, we have Mikey (really named Micah – because he has that silver tint to his fur) but he answers to the myriad of names my sons have given him – Ebazulou, Cute-ums, Doodles, Stealth Dog, Shadow Runner, Long-Body, the Breath of Death. Maxie is short for Maximillian but he is generally called Wide-Body, Cute-Ass puppy, Large Body and Cute-ums as well.

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  8. Pepsi has already switched to splenda-only formula so I am on Diet Coke now, trying to kick the habit altogether. I just saw a mention of Fresca, so now I need to check to see if that is still OK for me to drink or not.

    Supposedly my name is out there; last year it was only in Europe. Funny thing is, last year Matt was in the US but Matthew was in Europe, yet Mike/Michael were available in both. No matter, this year I’ve had a lot of “Matthews” during this end-of-soda transition.

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    • Interesting, all of it, J, from the formula to the names. I wish you well in the end-of-soda campaign because, well, diet beverages and their artificial sweeteners are scary to health in the big picture. Matthew and Matt, Michael and Mike, and they even have Sheena on a bottle. Ha. Couldn’t help myself there, J. ❤

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  11. I used to love Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper but gave them up. It was hard, but there is concern that they erode tooth enamel, so I made the switch to iced tea and hot coffee. I miss them though!

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    • Yes, Anna Cokewoman! Karen goes away tonight until Thursday for her annual Girls Getaway!! It’ll be me and Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle fending for ourselves in sunny Syracuse. You have a great weekend in Stockholm. 😉

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  15. Good to come across you again, Mark!

    As some of you may have heard, Diet Pepsi recently dropped aspartame from its formula, and I find the new version an improvement. Its flavor reminds me a bit of Pepsi One, the low-calorie version with Splenda that Pepsi gradually phased out last fall, and which I preferred to either Diet Coke or the old Diet Pepsi.

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  16. I’m in the Pepsi camp also, Mark. Stay away from the dark side! And if I see my Bailey’s name on a can, I’ll smile but rest assured she won’t get any. We’ve got to keep our girls healthy and trim, right? Chemical-free!

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    • Yes, keep our pooches away from the soda/pop for sure! I hope Bailey has a good weekend thrilling the neighbors, Kay. Ellie B and I will be on our own in Syracuse because Karen departs for her annual Girls Getaway with her friends. Oh, my! Six days. We can handle it. I think.

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  20. I am a Coca-Cola lover. I have one every day. I prefer Coke to Pepsi, but I prefer Diet Pepsi to Diet Coke by far. I cannot regularly consume fake sweeteners, though, they cause me migraines and inflame my joints. (especially aspartame)

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    • Just had to jump in here Joey. Artificial sweeteners put me in the hospital, sometimes up to 2 months with headaches that won’t go away. Horrible!

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      • Oh that is horrible! Yeah, I used to have chronic headaches in college, most of which were migraines, and it turns out diet drinks were to blame. I used to love those lo-cal, clear, carbonated drinks. Not anymore!
        I avoid all of it when I can, especially aspartame, and I seldom get a migraine now, maybe 3-4 times a year.

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      • Lucky you Joey. I was born with headaches, so they are commonplace for me, but the migraines were something I just couldn’t handle. The MS headaches can get bad, but nothing like migraines. With those I prayed for a fast and merciful death.

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    • I am with you, Joey. I get migraines too, and artificial sweeteners are one of my triggers. So no Diet Coke or Pepsi for me. However, I do get the tiny cans for portion control purposes. I love Wild Cherry Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and regular Coke. Limiting myself to one can and drinking water or tea the rest of the day doesn’t make me feel deprived.

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  21. As far as I know, neither one was available in England when I was growing up so I never became addicted to it. My very first memory of drinking a cola was an RC Cola out of a crate in a garage in Mobile, Alabama the first time we came to the US… our car broke down on one of our moves from Florida to Texas. I drank those for a while until I discovered Dr. Pepper… But I never was a big soda drinker anyway and haven’t had any sodas in a long long long time. Now I prefer lemon flavored Perrier for refreshment!

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    • You were fortunate not to get looped into Big Soda when you were a kid, Ros. Once the fizz gets its hooks in you, it’s a tough habit to break, believe me. The lemon-flavored Perrier sounds refreshing. I kind of like the store-brand flavored seltzer waters here, 89 cents a liter bottle, as a refreshing choice, as well. 🙂

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  23. Well this #shareacoke campaign started here in Nigeria over a year ago and it’s always a delight to find my name or names of close friends on a bottle. Initially I’d take photos of the bottle and send them to the respective friends just for fun.

    As for choice, I’d always ask for non-diet coke first. But I can always have whatever is available – Coke or Pepsi.

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    • I’m glad you have pride in the initial campaign. I was unaware of its origin! Thank you for sharing that fact here, blaqaffairs. It is fun sending these type of photos to friends. Look at what I did with the photo Carolyn sent to my wife. 🙂 I can’t go for sugary drinks of any type, so it has to be diet, unfortunately.

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      • They really do Mark. Our taste and smell share some brain processing areas and what smells good usually tastes good (in the food department). When I hauled gas we had some employees that loved the smell of gas fumes and others who detested it. I can recall pulling into a station in the wee hours of the morning one` summer night when all was quiet. It was a 24 hour site and the attendant -a young woman – came out to say Hi. She was taken by the unloading of the fuel; and wanted to know where the fumes in the tank went. I pointed out the vents on the other side of the yard and she said “Oh, I love the smell of gas fumes” and walked over to stand under the vents where the gas fumes were cascading down. She stood there until I was finished unloading. To each their own.

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    • No, it just makes you unlikely to devoutly care about one or the other, Marissa. And it makes you more likely to buy whatever’s on sale. Lately, I’ve been laying off the soda entirely and drinking more water from the tap. 🙂

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      • Yep, more water. Kids today have too much sugar drinks. I switched from regular Coke or Pepsi to diet because I am leaning on the diabetic side of the fence now but they say all the chemicals in diet drinks are more harmful than the sugar. Yep, more water is the wise choice.

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      • I am relieved to know I am not unAmerican. I had a tough night last night worrying about that one!! Yes, water has been my drink of choice for a long time too. Much healthier.

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