s Pepsi’s heavily marketed new nasty blue cola starts hitting store shelves this week, Coke is putting the finishing touches on its own new soda: Pepsi Coke. The new cola, subject of heated rumors for months and developed under the code name Cokesi, is a Pepsi-flavored version of its Coca-Cola Classic brand, and will appear in regional markets in August.

The apparent coincidence of the two launches is a familiar trick in the ruthless cola wars, in which the business world’s two most famous and petty rivals are forever scheming to one-up and stink-finger each other. Pepsi is hoping that its own blind stab in the dark, Pepsi Blue, a berry-flavored cola described as “what it would taste like if fruit could scream,� will be the aorta-spurting death blow it has been hoping to deal to rival Coke for decades. Naturally, Coke wants its hunk of the spotlight as well, and has little interest in “being stomped into asshole powder,� by rival Pepsi, as the industry jargon goes. With the release of new Pepsi Coke, Coca-Cola hopes to hit Pepsi right where it lives, namely in producing Pepsi-flavored sodas for the national market.

Coke’s tactics are not new in the industry. The last time Pepsi tried to re-invent the wheel by making it a different color, Coke responded quicker than the producers of the 1988 comedy Vice Versa. Pepsi’s Crystal Pepsi, a clear cola that tasted like a robot had pissed on a box of Nerds candy, was quickly one-upped in 1992 with Tab Invisible from Coke, a move that confused consumers and sent them back to drinking water.

Hoping to not only match Pepsi, but match them twice, Coke is also hedging its bets by releasing its own new berry-flavored blue drink, Fanta Berry, ensuring that Pepsi Blue won’t be lonely during its short slide into pop-culture trivia obscurity.

Stan Villanowski, a Coke spokesman and terrific liar, denied that Fanta Berry is being launched in response to Pepsi Blue. “Pssssh. Who told you that? What an imagination. Fanta is the No. 1 fruit-flavored soft drink in the world,� he said. “Plus, it comes in those cool cascading dispensers that make it look like Fanta is already being digested. Fanta Berry is a logical extension for the Fanta brand, bringing balance to the Fanta Univerise.� Besides, the drink will also be more of a cobalt blue rather than the “dirty antifreeze blue� of Pepsi’s new cola, he added.

Fanta, sold in over 70 flavors at failing fast-food chains in over 188 countries, was relaunched this spring as a national brand in the U.S. and is sold in four flavors: orange, strawberry, grapple and pineappleberry.

Pepsi appears to give less than two shits about the new Coke brand. “It seems our idea ‘blue’ them away,� said a Pepsi spokesman, Harvey Pearsons, pausing expectantly for a laugh that never came.

If we’re going to have to choke down blue Fanta when the fifteen year-old vegetable behind the counter puts it in our Icee cup on accident, then will we at least have the consolation of seeing how they work in a blue Fantana — a new member of the fruit rock group created for Fanta’s ad campaign?

“There is a Fantana that represents the four major flavors of the Fanta brand,� Mr. Villanowski said. “They’re not the only ones on the island of Fantana, however, so it wouldn’t surprise me if a berry Fanta eventually joined the Fantanas here in the U.S. for their New Year’s jam with the Cokeanistas and TABBA,� Villanowski continued, getting a paranoid look in his eye. “I’m buying up all the tickets I can so I can scalp them when the time of the concert grows nigh. Then, with that money I can finally quit this lousy job and move to New Zealand, where the Fantanas would never think to look. And I’m bringing lots of bottled water.� Mr. Villanowski continued much like this for about three-quarters of an hour, cutting patterns into his tie with a pair of scissors as the commune news gradually inched its way closer and closer to the door.

ew infrared images from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter featuring the long-debated formation known as the "Face on Mars" have sent shockwaves through the shut-in and conspiracy geek communities. Anxious and unbathed web surfers who expected the infrared pictures to provide new revelations about the features voiced their disappointment, saying the new images are bullshit because they don't show any kind of recognizable face at all, just a couple of bumps in the dirt.

NASA claims this is because there never was a face, stupid, only a trick of light and shadow fueled by desperate weirdoes who haven't worked in years. Fans of the face contend that it was only the lack of "night-vision" imagery that failed to expose the Sphinxlike visage they have come to know and love. NASA responded with a patronizing smile and a hand gesture indicating "okaaay."

The debate over the Face has simmered for the last twenty-five years, since NASA's Viking orbiters transmitted pictures of the Cydonia region that appeared to show a half-shadowed, helmeted face staring up from the planet's surface like some kind of cross between Kermit the Frog and Han Solo. Since then, additional formations have been identified as the "Alien Conspiracy Pyramid," "the Mounds of Xena" and so forth — and fans of the Face have argued that the formations showed evidence of a vast Martian civilization populated by breathtaking huge-breasted women incapable of resisting the charms of virginal 30 year-old earth men.

In the past five years, sharper imagery from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter popped a big-ol' hole in that over-inflated fantasy balloon, confirming the mainstream view that the Face and the other formations were nothing more than a whole lot of wind-eroded dirt, much like everything else on Mars. But die-hard fans of the Face refused to give up hope, disregarding the newer photos as hoaxes and propaganda, and confusing everyone in their apartment buildings by going as "The Face" for Halloween.

The new Mars Odyssey images are unique in that they were taken using infrared light, unlike the visible light used for the Viking and Global Surveyor images of Cydonias. This allowed for day or night photography unhindered by shadows. Many fans of the Face, however, took issue with NASA's methodology.

"We got gypped," griped Thomas Reinhold of Jackson, Miss. "They totally lead us to believe they were going to be doing some nighttime infrared imagery, not just daytime. What if the face only comes out at night? Didn't think of that, did you, NASA?"

"He said what?" questioned Tony Rice, a member of the Arizona State University imaging team that worked with NASA on the project. "Jesus. Thanks to AOL, every kind of mook can get on the net now."

The Arizona State imaging research team denied any unique features belonging to the mesas that make up the Face. "What do we have to do, draw you people a map?" Rice questioned. "Oh, wait, that's right. We already did that. Morons."

No stranger to being called morons, the Face fans press on with their hunt for the truth.

"Those white-coated government lackeys over at NASA can conspiratize all they want, but we know the truth," boasted Elmer Noonan of Vine Grove, KY. "We've seen the pictures. The first picture, anyway. All the other ones after that were bullshit. A total governmental cover-up, straight out of the handbook. If it hadn't been for that Libertarian dude working at NASA back in '76, we never would have got to see that original image of the face. I bet those NASA guys have been kicking themselves every day since they released that thing. Ha. Jerks."

"We're putting new stuff out there every day for the public to look at," Rice said while playing with a hole in the bottom of his shoe. "I don't know what their problem is. Oh, right. The conspiracy. I almost forgot. Well, you're going to have to excuse me while I conspire to drive my shitty little Tercel over to Arby's and eat a roast beef sandwich for lunch."

Well, the good news is that I'm sitting pretty in the car-fund department thanks to my monster windfall from the raffle, a.k.a. "The Great Downtown Bingo Fire of 2003." And even better, I've been cleared of any wrongdoing thanks to my clever use of the fake name Homer Bicks on all the official paperwork, and the fact that I wore a very distracting Bob Dole mask the whole time I was down there. It was doubly distracting since half of everybody thought it was a Raul Julia mask, and they were all arguing about if he'd died or if that was just some Hollywood publicity gimmick to help promote the next Addams Family movie, The Addams Family Vs. The Manson Family. Personally, I thought it was a damned good Bob Dole mask, but it was pretty dinged up from some bachelor party action so that may have accounted for the Raul Julia misconceptions.

The bad news is I can't find anybody reputable who wants to sell me a goddamned car. I used to not trifle with such minor details as the personal ethics or legal status of some dude trying to sell me a set of wheels, that is until I got saddled with the most recent incarnation of the Bricksmobile, that flaming piece of shit that only went fast when it was rolling down the street away from me. That thing was possessed like Christine except it was by the ghost of some lazy motherfucker who didn't want to kill anybody and just liked to sit on his front lawn with his shirt off.

I'd bought that epic shitbox from this guy named Steamboat Willie out in front of an Indian casino several years back. Yeah, I know that story sounds like bad news right from the start, no shit Sherlock, but beggars can't be choosy when they're nearly broke and too drunk to climb on top of a tour bus and scam a ride home.

I'd met Steamboat Willie several hours earlier, at a party some blind guy was throwing in his hotel room, and I immediately disliked him. Nobody at the party was supposed to be there, it was all just a bunch of guys who had figured out they could drink for free if they impersonated a celebrity voice and fooled the blind dude into thinking the whole cast of Hollywood Squares was partying in his room.

Most of the folks there were pretty cool, picking the voice of some celebrity who could actually conceivably be there, like Robin Leach or Dick Clark. I for one was doing a pretty spot-on Arsenio Hall impression, if my memory serves me correctly. But not that asshole Willie, that hotdog had to piss everybody off by doing a fucking Mickey Mouse voice, endangering the good times and free booze for all. Thankfully the blind host guy was drunk as shit and actually wanted his picture taken with Mickey, he didn't suspect a thing. Somebody clicked their pager like they were taking a picture and everybody was happy.

That didn't stop Willie from eventually finding a way to spoil the party, as he propositioned one too many girls in that squeaky voice to go fuck on the patio, on top of stupidly refusing the blind guy's offer of a giant wheel of cheese. This brought the whole house of cards tumbling down and we all got thrown out of the hotel and casino simultaneously. But that's Steamboat Willie for you. He's the kind of sick bastard who would cut a big, wet fart in a girl's face and call it "Butterscotch Kisses." I hated that guy.

But, you know, I needed a ride home after we got tossed out and $50 sounded like a pretty good deal for a car that wasn't missing any doors or anything major like the floor. If I'd been slightly less trashed I might have considered the high emotional cost the Bricksmobile would eventually toll, but at that point I was just happy to have a comfortable place to sit down. Actually, it wasn't called the Bricksmobile back then, I'm not even sure what kind of car it was. In retrospect, it probably should have set off some alarms upstairs that the name of the car had been filed off, but like I said I was half in the bag and thought it was just an "unmarked car," like some kind of cool FBI shit.

Needless to say, Omar Bricks learned his lesson there, and this time around I'm not buying a car from anybody who talks in a cartoon voice or refers to himself in the third person. Call me prejudiced, but I've got to look out for my own best interests on this one. I can't afford to buy another car that has the "Armageddon" light come on in the dash after I've only been driving it for ten miles.

Maybe I should check and see if Consumer Reports has a rating for that shit. I need a car that rates a full moon or whatever their symbol is for "bitchin'".

Bricks out.

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