About

It started with a 2 a.m. soda run

What started as a late-night convenience store run with the boys turned into a project full of soda, design, AI, and getting way too nerdy about all three.

Created and reviewed by John Pascua

A convenience-store fridge stocked with Dr Pepper and other diet sodas — Field research, conducted one convenience-store fridge at a time.

A convenience-store fridge stocked with citrus and zero-sugar sodas — Field research, conducted one convenience-store fridge at a time.

The convenience store near us had dozens of cool-looking drinks: Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a Fanta can with Ghost from Call of Duty on it, prebiotic Pepsi. The list goes on. Faced with some serious analysis paralysis, I started keeping track of every soda I tried and leaving notes so I could tell my friends what was actually worth drinking.

But why stop there? A list of soda reviews this important shouldn't be gatekept in the Notes app on my iPhone 13. I wanted to build something awesome with it.

So I reached out to my buddy Clarence. Together, we built a rubric for rating diet sodas: 8 dimensions, 40 possible points. We had officially gamified drinking soda.

Then it was time to put the reviews somewhere people could actually see them. I wanted to try making a website, but not just another AI-slop website. Nah, let's get nerdy with it.

Somehow, staring at a convenience store fridge turned into an ongoing exercise in prioritization models, AI automations and integrations, vibe coding, UX design, and an unhealthy amount of diet soda drank. This site is where all of that landed.

One boring but important note: product details can change, so check the label if you need the latest ingredient, caffeine, calorie, or sweetener info. This is a soda review project, not medical or nutrition advice.