dnL or a flipped version of 7-up. Is another soft drink what we really need? How far did they go when they flipped it? Sitting on the shelf of my local grocer that finally got a decent stock of Mountain Dew Code Red was a bottle with the label of a 7-up bottle only the label was upside down. Very interesting. Then the magical word that I dream about popped out to me, “caffeinated.” WOW! A caffeinated version of 7-up. What could be cooler? Well as it turns out, everything is cooler. I have two major problems with this drink and one minor problem. First major problem, the color. This drink is green. “Oh, so it’s like Mountain Dew green,” said Leanne. No, it is the color of grass green. This would not be a problem if it turned your tongue green. In fact that would be really cool. However, it doesn’t turn anything green, and the bottle is clear. I think if you were to freeze it like an ICEE® or as a popsicle it might do a better job of coloring your tongue, and I will have to try that this weekend. For those without that kind of time pass on it for the color. Second major problem, the taste. I was hoping this drink would just be a caffeinated version of 7-up. I know that caffeine is a bitter, bitter substance and that the fine folks that make this drink would have to mask that flavor, but I didn’t think they would go this far. This drink tastes more like Mountain Dew than it does 7-up, but not in a good way. I like the taste of both Mountain Dew and 7-up, but both of these have flaws. Well dnL takes the worst of these two other sodas and puts them together into a drink that is barely palatable. Finally, the minor problem. This drink, according to the press releases at www.dnL-flipit.com, is going to be targeted to teens and young adults. I sadly admit that I am no longer part of this demographic, but I still think that it’s a sorry state when the dot com bubble burst is so wide spread that companies are no longer marketing products to my market: The twenty-something-software-engineer-that-needs-to-stay-up-all-night market. Well, I guess it is time to move on now. I am no longer part of the demographic that companies are going after. I’ll just stay at home with my PlayStation 2, drinking Code Red, eating a Big New Yorker, and watching Friends on my TiVo. Oh, yeah, I should write about the one good thing about this drink. It only cost me 4 bits. That’s right for just fifty American pennies (that includes the California recycle fee) I walked out of that grocery store with a 20oz. bottle of this liquid that someone calls a drink. For that little amount of money, I think I will experiment with the popsicle and the ICEE® style drink. I’ll keep you informed.