The Verdict Is In On Diet Coke With Splenda...
Posted on May 30, 2008 in Diet
A few days ago I told you about the new Diet Coke with Splenda. Ever since then I have searched and searched for this product at every store I could think of. I went to Ingles and Publix grocery stores on Thursday, but they didn't have it and nobody knew when they would get it. I went to Eckerds and Walgreens on Friday, but they didn't have it yet either and also didn't know when they would have it. I gave up my search yesterday frustrated that I couldn't find this product I've seen advertised prominently on television just a few days ago on "American Idol." Finally, this morning on my way to church I stopped by the local corner convenience store to see if they had it in stock and I was in luck! I asked the sales clerk how long they've had it and he said they just put it out this morning. WOW! What great timing! I asked him if he had tasted it yet and he said he had not. I told him I would give him a full report about it after my taste test. At $1.69, this 20-ounce bottle had better be worth it! Well, the verdict is in on Diet Coke With Splenda...ME LIKE ME LIKE! As someone who used to regularly drink about 200 ounces of Coca-Cola per day before I started livin' la vida low-carb, I could not believe my taste buds when I took my first few swigs. It was just like the Coke I remembered drinking and not the nasty flavor of the aspartame-poisoned regular Diet Coke. In fact, there were a few times I felt guilty about how much I was enjoying the full flavor of this new version of Diet Coke. But it has ZERO CARBS and ZERO SUGAR and ZERO BAD SWEETENERS! Why in the world did Coca-Cola even mess with their idiotic experiment with C-2, bragging about it having half the carbs and half the sugar of a regular coke? This Diet Coke with Splenda tastes so much better!!! The only knock I have on this new Diet Coke with Splenda is that it still has caffeine (something you try to avoid when you are on a low-carb lifestyle) and sodium (which if you are susceptible to high blood pressure can cause you some problems). Other than that, I would say this arguably the best-tasting soft drink on the shelves today. I'll still drink my Diet Rite and Diet Cheerwine, but I will occasionally drink Diet Coke with Splenda, too. I hope it does well so they can expand it into their other flavors, such as cherry, vanilla and lime. AND hopefully they'll make a caffeine-free version, too. But, as with anything on low-carb, don't overindulge on these. It's still best to drink water first and foremost. Let your diet soda be your treat after downing a gallon of water. Your body will thank you for it and you will feel absolutely fantastic! After church, I went to BI-LO, but they didn't have it. Then I went to Wal-mart to see if they had Diet Coke With Splenda yet, but all I saw there were the 20-ounce bottles on sale for $.78. Where's the 12-pack of cans and the 2-liter bottles? Don't you hate it when companies advertise a new product but they don't get it to the stores until weeks afterwards?! I guess I'll have to be patient and wait for it to come in. I'm sure EVERYBODY will have it by the end of the month. ENJOY and post your thoughts about Diet Coke With Splenda. I'd love to know what you think! Labels: American Idol, caffeine, Coca-Cola, Diet Cheerwine, Diet Coke, Diet Rite, soft drinks, Splenda
Air and water
Posted on April 21, 2008 in Medical care
Last weekend I took some advice often given to bloggers and got out more. Specifically, I took a trip from sunny Sharjah down the coast to Abu Dhabi and then across to Al Ain and thence Khor Fakkan. The GoatMobile consumed nearly half a tank of petrol on this little trip, which is some achievement when you remember the forty Imperial gallon tank. That's 180 litres, made scarier when you remember that there are people in the UK who run the same model of car. Ouch, expense. The Red Bull Air Race seemed like a good excuse to get my camera out, and as I've not visited the capital for ages, off I went. Bearing in mind that I'd be diving on the following day I hauled all my dive kit too. Traffic on Abu Dhabi corniche was predictably chaotic. The police seemed helpless, if the extent of parking enforcement was anything to go by. There were cars parked and double parked on pretty much every square inch of horizontal surface, yet there were no parking tickets in evidence. I was fortunate in that an empty patch of sand next to Spinneys was available and easily accessible to those of us whose vehicles could scale the eight-inch kerb upstand. Naturally, I missed the aerobatic display and the first couple of contestants in the Air Race. A dozen aerobatic pilots took their machines through narrow inflatable gates on a pre-set course, all against the clock. Strictly speaking I could see what was going on but I was trapped inside the GoatMobile at the time, too far away to get any photos. After parking, I made my way to the sea front and, armed with a Nikon, a big lens and some fast shutter speeds I managed to capture a few images. Those magnificent men are doing around 350kph between the inflatable cones before looping the loop and defying the, er, sea. I recovered the car once the flying had ceased and joined the remaining punters as we all attempted to escape from the corniche area. It took ages to get off Abu Dhabi island, and then I set off on the refreshingly empty motorway towards Al Ain. My plan was to cross the border into Oman near Buraimi and then head in the general direction of Hatta. I've not been to Al Ain for ages either. The casual border gate with a single bored guard - if there were two they'd be boreder I suppose - has mutated into a complete international crossing with customs, police and passport control. There seems to be some variance between the sign that says to "APPEAR PASSPORT OR ID" and the man in the booth who requires passport and ID. Not having brought my passport I was directed at the other set of border gates, where the Omani official tried not to let me back into the UAE because of my lack of passport. "But that's why they won't let me leave. So I'm not entering the UAE because I never left." Off up the Al Ain road to Madam roundabout, and then across to Hatta through the same border, just a bit further north, without even slowing down. Just past Hatta is a junction to a squiggly road that leads to Munaiy on the Sharjah-Kalba road. Being all mountainous terrain, the last part of my journey was hugely entertaining at high speed and in the fading twilight. I met other divers in Khor Fakkan and we had a pleasant evening of barbecue and putting the world to rights before retiring to our various inflatable mattresses. Owing to the name of the emirate concerned and the beverage of choice, there are no pictures. The diving on Saturday was very refreshing. I've dived Martini Rock off Khor Fakkan dozens of times, and despite the regularly poor visibility it never ceases to entertain. But I've not dived Inchcape 10 before. Lying just off Fujairah, I hope to dive it a lot more. The wreck is teeming with life. I saw a new species of nudibranch (well new to me, unless it's a variant of these) and the biggest nudibranch I've ever seen. Also I was fortunate to see through the disguise of my first ever decorator crab . The moray , hiding in an old tyre, was crying out to be photographed. The water temperature is still a little chilly. It's in the low to mid twenties Celsius. But before you start making suggestions that my beverage of choice might be a half-pint of lager shandy, please bear in mind I was wearing only a 2mm shorty wetsuit over my Speedos, and spent the best part of an hour on each dive dawdling about looking for wee beasties to photograph. Labels: driving, intemperance, officialdom, scuba, sport buy cilais cheap cialis cheap viagra generic viagra online
Who lobbies for the not-so-special folks?
Posted on April 12, 2008 in Ed pump
Dallas Morning News | Steve Blow: “There is a perfectly fair and practical way to make sure every driver has liability insurance. ... Liability insurance ought to be sold by the gallon. Put a special fee on top of gasoline prices and everyone would automatically buy insurance every time they bought gas. Just that easy. A dime a gallon would do it. And it's fair. The more you drive, the more risk you create, and the more you pay. But has this great idea ever gone anywhere? Absolutely not.” Ed Cognoski responds: That \"big thought\" hasn't anterior anywhere thanks to good ends. First, miles driven is not a good predictor of warrant go hungry costs. Besides important is locality you offensive. Rural drivers facing colossal distances forth Every so often flurry would ceiling dearly with that distribution, but the urban drivers making excepting trips onward profuse city streets have the most accidents. Good drivers would stock the identical for pawn through poor risks. Drivers of large cars (poor gas mileage but good collateral halfway register of accident) would resources more in that warrant than drivers of small cars. The original usefulness of a pay-at-the-pump commitment token model is this everyone would floor price nothing. If the current crisis of uninsured motorists persists, this remedy might eventually outweigh the unfairness of the wisdom. But we're not there yet. Moreover that's the writing why this \"abundant understanding\" hasn't past anywhere. Labels: taxes buy cilais cheap cialis viagra cheap viagra