I almost titled this "the final Pepsi/iTunes update of 2005," and I'm fully intending it to be, but you just never know...

Last week at Ralphs, they had no more 20-ounce Pepsis with the magical yellow caps, but they did still have some one-liter bottles for only 10 cents more than the 20-ounce bottles. So I bought five, which would get me to a nice, even number of Pepsis purchased during this promotion (although now I realize I probably should have gone for a number evenly divisible by 3).

None of the one-liter bottles was a winner. What's worse is that one liter is about three servings of Pepsi, so I had to keep looking at the "PLEASE PLAY AGAIN" on the underside of all the caps, taunting me.

This means that my final winning record is 19 for 50 (13 songs, 6 free Pepsis). Given the stated odds -- 1 in 3 for a free song, 1 in 6 for a free Pepsi -- the expected result would have been 16 songs and 8 free Pepsis. It's been a long time since that statistics course I took in college, but I think I'm within one sigma of the expected result (especially since 50 isn't really that big of a number for things like this). That's pretty good, considering things may have been skewed by other people tilting the bottles, which I still haven't figured out how to do correctly, despite practicing at home before I opened some of the Pepsis.

I'm sick of Pepsi now. I'm not drinking any more unless I'm at a sports arena where they don't have Coke, or unless they do this iTunes promotion again next year, in which case you'll have another 50,000 blog posts to look forward to. Well, maybe only 50.

Hmm, the comments aren't working. I know the files are on the server, they're just not showing up correctly on the pages. I wonder if the hosting company upgraded PHP versions and broke the comments that way.

New comments have always been automatically e-mailed to me, and that's still working (I just tested), so I'll still be able to read your words of wisdom -- and everyone else will once I fix whatever's screwed up. Unfortunately, I won't really have time to deal with this for a while (maybe as much as a few weeks).

The Pepsi update is that I'm 19 for 49 (13 songs, 6 free Pepsis) with only one Pepsi bottle left to open. That's right, I had four non-winners in a row after making a deliberate attempt to get to a nice, even number 50. More details after the last Pepsi.

I am very glad I needed new sunglasses, because four of the five Pepsis I bought at Rite Aid have yielded free songs. The randomly chosen song this time: "Amie," a #27 hit in 1975 for Cincinnati's own Pure Prairie League (because when you think of Cincinnati, you think of prairies).

I am now 19 for 45 (13 songs, 6 free Pepsis).

Original comments...

Matt: Which version did you get, Jim -- the shortened radio version (fades during chorus), the standard version (ends cold), or the album version (featuring extra singing in minor key prior to the standard intro)???

Levi: You've picked another song I really like. But I'm surprised to hear that it didn't even crack the top twenty. It sure got/still gets a lot more play than that downstate.

The third free song in a row, and today's randomly selected choice is "Here's Where the Story Ends" by The Sundays. Not a pop hit, but I think it got lots of airplay on college radio in 1990.

I am now 18 for 44 (12 songs, 6 free Pepsis).

Another cap with a free song, and the randomly chosen song this time was Sarah Vaughan's "1955 studio version" of "How High the Moon," which did not make the Billboard pop charts.

I am 17 for 43 (11 songs, 6 free Pepsis).

There was a popular book published in Japan last year called "Densha Otoko" -- which translates to "Trainman," which is the Internet "screen name" of the protagonist. I was made aware of its existence by an article in the Los Angeles Times this morning (and here's an article from the Japan Times that will probably be free for longer). I assume the movie will make it to Los Angeles eventually.

At last, another winning song. This time, the random number site came up with number 8, which was Cheap Trick's "Surrender," from 1978. It only went up the charts as far as #62, but it's almost as big an album-oriented rock radio staple as "I Want You to Want Me."

I am 16 for 42 (10 songs, 6 free Pepsis).

"Buckles," March 2, 1999 (on my refrigerator as part of a collection of comic strips that mention places I've lived)...



"Buckles," April 16, 2005...



Discussion questions:

1. Arden the bird is joking in 1999, apparently "smiling through the pain" -- note his rimshot imitation -- but he's being serious in 2005. Does this relate to the fact that it's often said that flying within the U.S. is "harder" now, given post-9/11 security issues, than it used to be? Is Buckles the dog's misinterpretation of his seriousness in 2005 meant to be a political comment?

2. Try to disassociate the names of the cities with the cities themselves. Now, which is funnier: "Tampa" or "New York City"? Additional evidence: Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's "The Deeper Meaning of Liff" (think Sniglets, but with actual place names instead of made-up words) does not include New York City, but it does include Tampa ("the sound of a rubber eraser coming to rest after dropping off a desk in a very quiet room").

3. Birds have arms?

4. The bird's name is Arden?

5. The dog's name is Buckles?!

It seems they were pretty serious about that April 11th date, because even before that, Pepsis with the yellow caps were few and far between. There were only three in the cooler at 7-Eleven on Friday, April 8th -- the 7-Eleven that was relatively lucky for me with their Big Gulp cups last year -- and all three turned out to be non-winners, making me wonder if those were the only three left because all the winning ones had been found by ne'er-do-wells who had tilted them.

Nevertheless, on Monday, I bought the four that were left in the cooler at the CVS drugstore near me. I've checked three of the four so far, and one garnered me another free Pepsi, so I am officially 15 for 40 (9 songs, 6 free Pepsis).

I happened to need new cheap sunglasses today, so I went to the Rite Aid near my office to check out their selection. They had about 10 yellow-capped Pepsis in their cooler -- and no wonder, since they were charging $1.39 apiece. I hadn't gotten a basket at the door, so I felt the most I could comfortably carry up to the register (along with the sunglasses) was four.

Because I couldn't get the buy-one-get-one-free bottlecap out of my pants fast enough, though, the cashier had already rung up all four Pepsis; he then realized he hadn't done the "void" correctly after my credit card had already gone through, so when the manager came over, I had a brainstorm: "Would it be easier if I just went back and got another one?"

So I still have six Pepsis to go.

Original comments...

Levi: I bought a Pepsi to take to Wrigley Field with me the other day from Broadway/Lawrence Liquors. Pepsi's scheme worked: I chose Pepsi rather than Coke because of the promotion.

I won a song, but I gave it to Stacey because she more often takes the computer with her to work than I do.

The next day, I attempted to buy another song-winning Pepsi, but the yellow-capped ones were gone.

By the way: did you make the mistake of trying Pepsi Holiday Spice? It's awful.

Jim: No, I did not try Pepsi Holiday Spice. I know better.

Anon: Mmm, Pepsi Holiday Spice... Cinnamon... It's good! What's wrong with you people?

The latest addition: "Good Night," by Matthew Sweet. Who says the iTunes Music Store doesn't have any Beatles? (They just don't have anything performed by the Beatles.) This one was picked by a different web site that gives random numbers.

I am 14 for 34 (9 songs, 5 free Pepsis).

Two more non-winners from Sav-on, so I am now 13 for 32 (8 songs, 5 free Pepsis).

I happened to spot this while fast-forwarding the TiVo. It's one of a succession of images that flash by during a promo for newly enhanced traffic reports on KNBC's morning news show. While this image is on-screen, the announcer is saying that the traffic reports use "real-time data from the streets of Los Angeles."



That view is several thousand mies from the streets of Los Angeles. (It's Atlanta.)

From the April 1st comics page:







Obviously, this would have been a lot better if more than three strips had used the same joke (compare April 1, 1997, when a significant majority of comic strips were drawn by the cartoonists of other strips). Perhaps if the setup involved golf, more cartoonists would have participated.