SodaSCREAM.

As I've mentioned before, I'm the guy who got a SodaStream for Christmas a few years ago and is still using it to this day. I know you were wondering who it was. Yes, it is I.

But SodaStream has pulled a shenanigan I do not like. Normally I don't mind a shenanigan or two. A good shenanigan is just fine with me, in fact. But this one, I don't cotton to, no sir.

On the left is one of the older 16.9-oz. bottles of the SodaStream syrup (what they call soda mix). On the right is one of the new 14.8-oz. bottles. Naturally, they are sold for the same price. So now you get 2.1 fewer ounces.

Is the taste any better? Not that I can tell.

Countertop beverage production has become a jungle. No, really. I had heard a rumor that SodaStream was hoping to get bought up by Keurig, inventor of the K-cup, but Keurig rebuffed them, electing to come out with the Keurig Kold. The latter had one huge advantage over SodaStream: brand-name sodas. (Sodastream has had Kool-Aid and Crystal Light and Ocean Spray flavors, but not big soda names like Coke and Dr Pepper.) And now, Sodastream has countered by making a deal with Pepsi and making a machine that works similar to the K-cup for it.

All this fighting has got to cost big money, and that's why I'm getting gypped 2.1-oz. on every new bottle. Plus, the new measuring cap is a little larger; the old cap was marked to hold just under a 1/4 cup per 1L bottle; now you're expected to use a full 1/4 cup per bottle. So you would go through the soda mix faster even if they hadn't knocked 2.1 ounces off the size.

Why does SodaStream have to balance its books on my back? And considering what we drop on K-cups around this place, I feel like I'm being taxed to pay both sides in this war.

What's that? I could drink water? Tap water?

I'm sure I don't know what you mean.