"Does this soda make me look fat?"

No, your chins do.

My, what pithy comments from the...ughhhh..."readers" of b.

Soda totally erodes the enamel on our teeth. Also, soda is often recommended to clean toilets.

"Readers" indeed. I agree, RoCK.

BTW, swerving off course because I found out the other day that "Mark's Deli" in Reisterstown will soon be "Mike's Deli" (or Michael's Deli - forgot).

I used to have Mountain Dew every day at lunch. Never thought about it much, until my sister-in-law pointed out the wee bit of sugar in each can (in-laws are like that).

Switched from MD to sun-brewed iced tea (no sugar), and lost 15 pounds. Haven't had a soda in over five years...

I gave up soda about a year and half ago. And although it has gotten easier, early on in my "Stop Drinking Soda" campaign I had a great dream about a fountain Coke. It tasted amazing. Now I find I can occasionally have just one soda and enjoy it, but I don't really want anymore. I was also an easy way to eliminate a lot of extra calories.

While this has nothing to do with soda, when I read this article, I thought of the Sandbox and how much this article might be enjoyed.

Am a daily reader, but rare poster...but this still made me think of all of you!

http://www.slate.com/id/2219314/

"What would it take for you to give up soda?"

More tobacco.

Just switch to diet soda. It tastes fine once you get used to it

I think the argument is that diet soda is bad, too. It still increases the craving for sweets. EL

Just quit tobacco after the recent tax rate implemented... a 4 day weaning and then cold turkey since. I think it will work.

Thankfully I was never a big soda drinker... less than 10 a year.

So if the artifical sweetners are the issue, then should we all stop drinking Crystal Light, too? Hate to be the whiner here, but plain water just doesn't interest me.

Yes, lvnbraves, I saw that. Slate is having a food theme this week.

Good article, share with us more, eh?

If I drink 5 gallons of soda in a year, I'd be surprised. Never really got in to it, although I do like the occasional Vernor's and I make homemade ginger ale in the summer sometimes.

I still resent the hell out of being forced to quit smoking, and hate the draconian no smoking rules that have popped up everywhere.

b? Are they still using words? I thought they had transitioned to stick figures and doodles only, given the level of sophistication of the commenters there.

b – Even Free is Too Expensive

I drink diet sodas but have cut way back, there is an 8-pack of bottles in the fridge that has been there for a month.
I've been making my own iced tea, decaf, so I can drink it whenever.

One day a friend suggested that all of the carbonated caffeine that I was ingesting just might have some relationship to the monster - and very scary - acid reflux that I was living with.

(eye roll) Duh!

I think the argument is that diet soda is bad, too. It still increases the craving for sweets. EL

Plus the brain cancer

I only drink 1 diet soda a day, if that. I drink water all day, but I admit that gets old. Sometimes I grab an unsweet tea too.

I view soda as an alternative to beer when I i'm not trying to get drunk. One here or there is fine, but if you find yourself guzzling 3-4 during the course of the day you may have a problem.

And as my original weird connection to beer, I purchase soda as I would purchase my beers. I get something different and not just standard Pepsi. Try the limited edition Pepsi & Mt. Dew throwback. It has the original recipe, no HFCS just pure sugar.

I feel lucky that I've always had a dislike for soda. Unfortunately, I have plenty of other food vices...

Hugh Hefner turned 83 in April

"As is his habit, Hefner chain-drinks decaffeinated diet Pepsi from the can, having eaten lunch earlier: toast and protein drink. Some days he drinks up to 30 Pepsis, leaving a trail of cans behind like cigarette butts.."

I'm thinking it's not the diet sodas that are keeping Hef alive.

I drink a Mt. Dew on my way to work each day. It's a sickness. (I love the Throwback.)

I'm not sure Hef IS alive...

Every now and then, a cartoonish Hef caricature, lacking any recognizable reality, is trotted out.

As to diet sodas, there has been some test with rats that show a link between eating artifical sweetneers and over eating.

Here's an article similar to what Robert of Cross Keys mentioned:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080210183902.htm

Sorry, I haven't figured out how to embed links.

When I worked, I drank lots of diet cola so the caffeine would keep me awake. Now that I'm retired, I brew decaf iced tea and drink maybe two sodas a week--usually Safeway's fruity carbonated clear soda. I don't miss the colas at all.

I actually thought Hef was rather charming and amusing in "The House Bunny" last year, if you could get over the initial premise. Anna Faris (a Baltimore girl, I believe) was delightful.

Eve, you clearly don't watch enough TV. Hef looks fine for his age and he's still TCB. He and his three "girlfriends" had their own popular show on E called The Girls Next Door.

The best way to clean that crusty green crud off your car's battery terminals is to pour a can of Coke over them. Dissolves it right away.

Anna Faris is from Baltimore.

Cleatus, Diet Coke works well too.

Who is Anna Faris?

Stacy,
Anna Faris is a Baltimore-born actress who was in all the of the "Scary Movies" series. She was in a bunch of other movies as well.

Fountain sodas with one large or two little straws.....must go get one...now.
Bottles and cans hold no enchantment
like the bubbly goodness af the fountain soda. Little flecks of wet meeting your face when you go in for that great first sip. Gotta go.

RubyLynda,

I feel the same way. At the local golf course I play (a lot!) they both fountain sodas and bottles. I get the large diet Coke, its like 24 ounces. Usually lasts me the whole round, unless its super hot.

Owl, I'm assuming that Eve, as I am, is aware of The Girls Next Door and was referring to same. sheesh. I thought Hal was suppossed to be joke interpreter.

Hef is sadly not the man he used to be...But he keeps getting those barely legal aged women, so I guess he's got $omething?

Sorry, Joyce. That pop culture joke was too modern for me to understand. :-)

I have neither cable nor dish so I have no clue who The Girls Next Door are.

Am I belaboring the obvious if I point out that Hefner has money & power?

Money is power.

The Girls Next Door is the "reality" show about Hef and his three girlfriends that share him at the mansion. There's nothing real about them. The head skank was on that dancing show I think. Holly something. Good old fashioned ABC family values.

I think he traded them in for three new ones including a pair of twins. All pretty bottom of the barrel viewing.

It is interesting that Hef tries to keep up a vibrant image, but I get the impression that he has a better time playing cards with Tony Curtis and James Cann than going to red carpet events with the three girls.

That's the price you pay for bunny lovin'. Insert carpet joke here

Anna Faris wrote House Bunny too, which bumps her up in my inventory even though I haven't seen it, but Joe Escalante liked it.

"An act of G-d. John Lewis, 23, Columbia"

What is with this "G-d" thing? Could someone explain? God hates vowels? Well, he does, but I'm still asking.

The G-d usage is normally associated with Orthodox Jews. They don't believe that the word God should be used outside of worship, so they use a G-d.

Yes, one could argue about intent, that using G-d in a casual sense is the same as using God in a casual sense. To me this is similar to people who use near curse words, such as "Freakin" or "Darn It" The intent is to use the curse words, so it really is the same as using the curse words.

Now, that being said, I can understand the respect factor. Some may not feel it is right or proper to voice the name of God in a casual manner, just like some don't feel it is ok drop the F-bomb in front of one's mother.

Ah little spider you walked right into my trap. This convention seems like total b_llsh_t to me. Hebrew doesn't have vowels to begin with hence the transliteration YHWH. To me it seems like a totally bogus affectation since there's no way to make YHWH shorter. If you doubt the lack of vowels in Semitic languages, consider the 85 different versions of Cohen: Cohn, Cone, Caan, Kahan, Coen, Koen, Kane, Cane, Cowan, etc etc etc.

And that's how I know that Yahweh hates both vowels and the people he gave that language to, Zeus priovided the Greeks with a robust alphabet of consonants and vowels. So much for the Tower of Babel.

Hence the ridiculous nature of the completely contrived word "Jehovah", a word that exists nowhere in scripture.

That story is one of my favorites ever.

just like some don't feel it is ok drop the F-bomb in front of one's mother.

Good one, RoCK. I'm still chuckling at that one.

... some don't feel it is ok [to] drop the F-bomb in front of one's mother.

I guess that's why RoCK really enjoys living with his mother-in-law? ;-)

That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth. Psalm 83:18

Owlie, it isn't about rationality, it is about using ritual to keep your mindset where it needs to be.

By writing G_d, it reminds you that this is not a word or a concept or an entity like any other.

By writing G_d, it reminds you that this is not a word or a concept or an entity like any other.

Eh. Just like J-Lo amnd K-Fed.

Jehovah is a made up German word.

My point is that this written gimmick isn't done in Hebrew since יהוה (transliterated as YHWH) doesn't have vowels and can't be abbreviated like it's an item on yr shppng lst.

Ahhh, if the Bible had been tweeted instead of written on scrolls, what would it have looked like.

In Hebrew, YHWH is vocalized as "Adonai." So, G_d is just Englishfying an old Hebrew custom, again, to stay in the right mindset.

In my (limited) experience, Orthodox Jews don't spend much time focused on J-Lo.

Yes, and when I see "God" I vocalize it as Mean Old Sociopath Who Lives in the Clouds.

... and that's how Jehovah was constructed for our convenience. German theologians took the Hebrew YHWH sounds which in German would be represented like Jah Vah (who sounds like a Reggae singer) and took the first three vowels from the Greek word Adonai and splish-spliced them together. J a H o V a H or Jehovah to us. Total fiction, plus they turned a two syllable word into three and totally overstated the value of the H, pre-dating Superfly (He's gonna getcha by and by, and if you lose don't aks no questions why, aye aye aye, Superfly), that started out as a sad voiceless pharyngeal fricative . H is such a lame consonant; the Greeks didn't even include it in the alphabet. Not to mention its total servitude as the plastic Sears peg leg in the English digraphs SH, CH, GH, and TH constructions in English. Poor lame H, completely silent in Spanish. Voiceless grapheme, the motorcycle gang girlfriend of the alphabet. The H Train. So abused that your rough breathing cannot even be heard in the pronunciation of your own name – aitch, aitch, aitch ... Whip-o-will, whip-o-will ...

I call that the H rant.

I prefer Cosmic Muffin.

Wow, that's one hell of a paragraph. I'm sure I lost most people by the end. What is wrong with my brain?

Holy Homiletics, Howl Meat Gravy! Here's hoping whatever harrowing hail-storm that made a hash of your homeostasis high-tails it to the hills before we have to hear another head-long, high-flown, half-baked hatchet job or heated hallucination hindering the harmony and harming the health of THE hoi polloi. How about you just hang out in a hammock with your harmonica for the rest of this halcyon day and hold on to your hard-won happiness.

AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...... I'm melting.

Whoa--Laura Lee! My goodness gracious (she said demurely).

I don't know what kind of reaction JM will have when he sees all that alliteration. We better ready the smelling salts.

My my Lexy Laura Lee, that is so texty and full of rough breathing. I do declare I might have the vapors.

Holy Toledo, Laura Lee. That is more alliteration than is in all of Beowulf, I think.

I'm green with envy.

I also love the phrase, "Lexy Laura Lee."

Anyone hear about
the agnostic, insomniac with dyslexia.
He would lie awake at night wondering if there really was a dog.

You've heard about the dyslexic rabbi, Hue? Used to run around saying, "Yo, gevalt!"