Diet Coke. Bleh. BLEH. The aftertaste, it’s awful. If I go to a restaurant that has no other diet sodas, I’ll usually get half Diet Coke, half Dr. Pepper so as to drink something with less calories that will not set off my gag reflex. It does depress me that usually Diet Coke is the only thing offered at restaurants, because I think more people would give diet a chance if they’d try diet beverages that don’t offend the taste buds. However, I do know people who are used to the aftertaste, and no joke, actually crave Diet Coke. I’m sure this has some sort of relation to that syndrome that kidnapping victims get when they start to love their captors, but I haven’t really done any research to prove it just yet.

Diet Pepsi. Bleh, but not as bad as Diet Coke. Same deal as above, mostly.

Diet Dr. Pepper. Oh how I love thee. It actually truly does taste a lot like regular Dr. Pepper. And it doesn’t go flat quickly.

Pibb Zero. Notice that they’ve gotten rid of the formalities and ditched the Mr. At any rate, good tasting, but it goes flat quickly.

Coke Zero. Goes flat quickly, but tastes pretty good at first. I’d say it tastes pretty similar to regular Coke, just not as syrupy sweet.

Cherry Coke Zero. Used to love it, but we bought it like 1,000 times in a row and now the gag reflex starts up with the taste of fake cherry flavoring.

Diet Cherry Coke. Way better than regular Diet Coke, but we did the same thing with this as with Cherry Coke Zero, so gag reflex and all.

Diet Sprite. Good stuff. Goes flat quickly, but I do like adding it to grape juice to make it fizzy (and to drink less sugar with juice).

Diet Mountain Dew. Tastes very much like regular Mountain Dew, if you’re a fan. For some reason, a lot of people like to hate on the Dew, which I don’t get, unless maybe it has a redneck sort of feel to it or something. Plus, it’s a sickly green color. But I like it just fine.

Diet Root Beer, any brand. BLEH. Not worth buying. If you crave root beer, just buy IBC, not diet. It’s the bomb diggity.

Wirefly.com is an online retailer of cell phones and wireless service plans. And you know what? It’s actually a pretty cool site. And I’m not just saying that because I’m being paid to write this. Which is exactly what a person would say if they were writing nice things because they were being paid for it. But I wouldn’t be a sellout like that (I’m an honest sellout), so there.

The Wirefly homepage advertises free phone offers with new accounts from certain carriers. This is pretty sweet if you’re free to start a new plan. For an example, Cingular advertises that you can get a free Blue Rzr with the 900 minutes plan ($59.99 per month) or get two free Rzr phones with a shared plan (700 minutes, $69 per month). 

Also, you can enter your zip code and search by carrier, cell phone, or service plan. So I began by searching by carrier. It listed all the carriers in my area, but only the top five had J.D. Power ratings on cost and service plan options and customer care. There’s also a Wirefly rating system that is “an indicator of the extent to which a Service Provider has coverage in a local market area.” Pretty much all of the carriers had good Wirefly ratings. You can select the carriers that you are interested in, and then see a list of their individual and shared plans and prices. It claims you can compare certain plans by checking them off, but for some reason, after I checked them off, I couldn’t figure out the next step in order to see a side-by-side comparison. Nonetheless, the list of plans and their prices was pretty comprehensive. Also, there was a list on the side of the most popular plans, for those of us that are into bandwagons and whatnot.

If you’re looking for a cell phone or carrier, this site is pretty useful. It does your homework for you, helping you to make an informed choice and get the best deal in your area. So, for those of us who are looking for new plans or carriers, it’s great. For those of us who are slaves to our carrier because all of our friends and family are with the same carrier and therefore it is free to call them (hi Verizon!), it’s still cool because we can use it to shop for phones. Yay for options.