NEW Coke Wasn't So Bad

A lot of bleary eyed people at work today. I know we were up at 1:00 AM watching movie-like lightning strikes. Milo came in about 1:00 soaking wet. Columbus only received only 1.25 inches of rain while Madison had twice that amount.
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Readership is finally dwindling with lack of Johnny Depp photos but I still get emails from lurkers. Had one the other day from a lurker that lived on Grinders Island. How many of you are out there???? Still getting 2500 unique readers a week but that is down from 4500 last week, and 6000 the week before. At this rate in two weeks it'll be just DJ and she will be an every other day.

It does take the pressure off a little!
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This homebrewing thing is funny. There is a guy in our golf league that is rather . . . caustic. Always complaining about something and has even gotten in my face seconds before I tee off screaming about some stupid rule.

He's a nice guy at times but there is something ALWAYS bugging him.

One day I mentioned I was making beer while we were in the clubhouse and he says "I make beer". A friendship is born!! LOL Last night before league we talked for 15 minutes about beer making and he hands me three beers he made and talks about their style . Weird how things happen isn't it.

My beer making is been ramped up a little as I am delving into recipes instead of kits. However last night during storm #4 and #5 I realized that I need a small refrigerator for keeping my ingredients fresh.

If any of you know of any small dorm size units for cheap let me know!!
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On July 11 1914 Babe Ruth made his 1st Major League appearance and pitched 7 innings against the Cleveland Indians. Babe was #1 of eight children but only him and his sister survived infancy.

The nickname "Babe' was given to him by teammates for his naiveté in his first year in the Majors, he was 19.
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Also on this date NEW COKE is introduced on this day in 1985. One of the biggest blunders in history which worked out so well for Coca-Cola that some people think they did the "blunder" on purpose.

Pepsi had taken the lead in Cola wars and the Coca-Cola execs felt they had to so SOMETHING. So they started experimenting with a new formula for Coke. They had many many taste tests and one formula was constantly winning. Beating Pepsi and the current Coke.

So they decided to make NEW Coke.

It sold OK for a few days and even with MORE taste tests NEW Coke was beating all soft drinks. But trouble was brewing. People started to complain and those complaints got louder and louder even while New Coke was out scoring all soft drinks.

Phone lines to Coca-Cola were jammed with calls insisting on reinstating the old formula. In Houston at the Astros game an ad ran on their scoreboard for NEW Coke and they had to hold the game up as people started throwing things on the field and booing.

Coca-Cola hired psychologists to listen to the phone calls and after thousands of calls they said it was not the flavor that was creating this uproar, it was something completely different.

It was the idea. People associated the taste of OLD Coke with places, times and memory's of the past. They did not want to lose those feelings. The complaints were not "NEW Coke tastes like crap", they were more like "we grew up on this flavor" style complaints, nostalgic sentiments.

People started going to stores and buying every can of OLD Coke they could find and hoarding the cans. All of a sudden Coca-Cola was having a HUGE run on Old Coke, far far outpacing the sales of Pepsi.

So after a while the exec's came out with Coke Classic (OLD Coke). On that day every soap opera on TV was interrupted. Peter Jennings had a special report that Coke was coming back and every Major Newspaper in the country had Coke Classic as it's headline.

Since that day Coke has never trailed Pepsi in sales. The biggest blunder turned into gold.
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Here is a little tidbit of info about Coke. Before 1903 Coke contained nine milligrams of cocaine per glass. To this day, Coca Cola uses as an ingredient a cocaine free coca leaf extract.

Coca-Cola Orange is only available in United Kingdom.
Coca-Cola Citra is only available in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, New Zealand and Japan.
Coca-Cola Raspberry was only available in New Zealand.
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No blog tomorrow - busy Saturday and I don't think we will be Kurthing it tonight - OF COURSE that does not stop anybody else from going.

See ya!

Rod