"Energy" Drink Review: V8 V-Fusion + Energy

It looks like this.

My buddy Rebekah, on an extended Mom-visiting trip down South recently alerted me to a product advertised during Mom TV shows: V8's line of "energy" beverages. V-Fusion are the vegetable and fruit juice V8 mixes. I will admit I've never had V8 because I have always assumed it tastes like tomato juice and/or carrots, both of which I am morally opposed to. However, for energy drink science, I will try this "pomegranate and blueberry"-flavored V-Fusion beverage that supposedly contains "natural energy" from "green tea" (FACT: tea tastes like tree bark). We will see if it can help me not want to stab myself in the eye so much while I figure out how to make a running subtotal chart (not nested subtotals) within a larger spreadsheet in Excel 2003 because temp job/impossible task.

Flavor: the pomegranate and the blueberry are definitely the strongest flavors, but there's a tea-y undertone(?) to the whole thing that I'm not really into. The more I drink it though, the less I notice the tea part. It just makes the fruitiness slightly watered (tead?) down.

Effectiveness: As we all know, I have a caffeine problem. This can is only 8 ounces, though it claims to have nearly twice as much (80mg vs. 46 mg.) caffeine as a 12-ounce can of a "leading diet cola." I certainly don't feel more tired or anything having finished it, but I don't feel a significant energy boost either. Without the delicious chemicals of Diet Coke, I have a hard time telling if it's working. I'll give it some more time and see if there's a "crash" of any kind before lunch.

Update: It's FINE and better than nothing, I suppose. Good for people who dislike all the "chemical" flavors and actual chemicals to most energy drinks. I had to buy it in a six-pack, so maybe I'll just bring this for the morning at work from now on.