> Care to explain why, of all things, MOUNTAIN DEW seems to be the beverage-of-choice for programmers, game-house testers, scriptwriters and puter geeks in general? Would a normal person touch something so abominably fluorescent (it's Yellow Dye #5, after all) that also contains... wait for it... *brominated* vegetable oil???

It's the beverage of choice because it has such an inordinately high amount of caffeine in it -- which is what the people you're referring to thrive on (and pizza, of course). It has more caffeine than any other soda (except possibly Jolt -- not sure -- but in any case Jolt is just a rip off of Mountain Dew anyway) and more than most teas.