It was a day that was supposed to be more fun than Christmas, Hanukkah, and International Talk Like a Pirate Day combined, but as millions of jubilant Americans returned home from Best Buy with copies of Guns N' Roses' much-anticipated new album yesterday and tried to log on to drpepper.com to claim their free bottle of soda, they got only disappointment. Despite repeated promises from its manufacturer to furnish every man, woman, and child in America (Slash and Buckethead excepted) with a coupon for a complimentary Dr. Pepper on the day of Chinese Democracy's release, the Website for the popular tooth-rotting beverage became overwhelmed with demand, resulting in error messages, unloaded pages, and widespread sadness. Was it intentional sabotage on the part of a company that didn't want to follow through with an expensive promotion? Or just general Web-based incompetence? Axl worked really hard to make this happen, but the day was ruined (we see they've actually extended the promotion until 6 p.m. today — and we still can't download our coupon). The fact that Dr. Pepper tastes sort of gross is of no consolation.

Update: A publicist for Dr. Pepper informs us that you can also try dialing 1-888-DRPEPPER (1-888-377-3773) to claim your soda, though right now it's giving us a busy signal.

Page Load Error [DrPepper.com]

Earlier: Dr. Pepper Announces Lame Details of Its ‘Chinese Democracy’ Promotion
Your Next Dr. Pepper May Be on Axl Rose