I hope everyone has a pleasant and safe Thanksgiving.
….
Oh, and Kathy, be prepared to face not being ranked #1 after Saturday. It’s inevitable.
Have a great holiday everyone and I’ll see you on the backslide into Christmas 2008!!
Archive for November, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving from the Cavalcade of Awesome!!
Posted in holiday, humor, Thanksgiving with tags Thanksgiving on November 26, 2008 by PaxtonGoogle Gmail: Now with ninjas!!
Posted in Gmail, Google, ninjas, reviews, technology with tags Gmail, Google, ninjas, technology on November 25, 2008 by Paxton
I joined Google’s Gmail service back in March of 2005. At that point, you could only join by invitation. I was able to find a guy that had a Gmail account on one of the tech websites I usually visit (PCMag.com) and got him to forward me an invitation. Once I was approved and given a log on, I tried it out. I was immediately in love. Google Gmail is simple, elegant, and has TONS of space to store all of your emails. It’s because Gmail started offering 2.5Gb of storage that Yahoo! Mail had to up their limit too. While Gmail’s form factor, or interface, is minimal (which is typical Google), the functionality is fantastic.
Gmail has many cool features that I enjoy. Instead of folders, it uses labels. You can affix multiple labels to a message and search on these labels. Makes finding emails easier. Also, Gmail will sort your emails into groups. Emails with the same subject get stacked on top of each other into a message thread called a “conversation”. This lets you see all the emails pertaining to a subject instead of having to search through 15 separate emails for a piece of info. It also lets you see each email within the context it was sent. This particular behavior takes some getting used to, but I love it now that I am.
For the first few years Google added small items of functionality to Gmail, but the online interface remained the same. When you logged on, this is pretty much what you saw.
Battle Scars: Running the Winn-Dixie Obstacle Course
Posted in humor, life, personal, work with tags personal, work on November 18, 2008 by Paxton
So, every year, Winn-Dixie throws its employees a picnic and calls it Associate Appreciation Day. They have vendors come in and give out tons of free stuff. Pepsi and Coke show up and give out cans and bottles of free soda. Sometimes they even give out test flavors. Last year we got to try Squirt Citrus Power before it hit the shelves earlier this year.
At these picnics, Winn-Dixie will organize events that we, as employees, will participate in. One year they had a tri-sport challenge where you threw a football, shot a basketball and kicked a soccer ball to win prizes. Another year they organized a “Winn-Dixie Jacksonville Idol” karaoke contest. Usually management organizes their groups into teams and watches us compete. Days before this event, these managers will start smack talking each other saying their department will win this, other departments are scared of their team, etc, etc. It’s like the Associate Appreciation Day events are the equivalent of the “Coliseum Games” in Rome. We employees are the gladiators, the CEO and management team are the Emperor and Senate. The employees team up and compete in the “games”, trying to outdo each other and entertain management while they gorge themselves on food and drink. It’s fun for all. 🙂
This year there were several events and collectively it was called the Winn-Dixie Olympics. I competed in two events; the tug-of-war and the obstacle course. The tug-of-war almost became a blog article in and of itself. Our team won 2 matches then was told we were eliminated because we didn’t beat our opponents quick enough. I didn’t realize there was a time restriction. We dispatched our first opponent in just over 7 seconds. The second one took a little longer but not much more than 12 seconds. We were all a little ticked that a team that went 2-0 was being eliminated. Come to find out later, we actually did win the Gold in that event. I don’t know who fell asleep at the wheel, but I’m glad they finally recognized. IT PeopleSoft came to REPRESENT, yo. Here’s the winning tug-of-war team:
Pepsi modifies its Globe logo and soda packaging
Posted in advertising, Coca Cola, Pepsi, pop culture, soda with tags advertising, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, soda, sodapalooza on November 12, 2008 by Paxton
I was surfing around some of my favorite soda websites several months ago and I saw that Pepsi was planning a “change up” with its logo and labels. Soda companies usually do this every few years to “freshen up” their image. It’s fairly common and many times you hardly notice the change until years later when you compare the designs side-by-side. This obviously interested me so I waited for graphical proof that this was going to happen. The pictures finally showed up several weeks ago but I’ve been busy with AWESOME-tober-fest so now I can finally bring you the goods on Pepsi’s new image.
Now, the picture to the left of “The Hoff” dry humping the top of a Pepsi bottle is NOT a part of the new branding. Hasselhoff as the new face of Pepsi would be like the Fisher Space Pen, strawberry flavored Cheetos or Jessica Biel’s body; awesome beyond human comprehension. Words couldn’t begin to describe the jaw dropping bad ass that would be unleashed on the unsuspecting soda drinking public. However, it’s only happening in Europe because, for some reason, America doesn’t embrace Mr. Knight anymore like they do abroad. But I think he’s making a mini-comeback with America’s Got Talent and recent roles in movies like Click, Anaconda III and the new Knight Rider tv show.
But, enough about DH. I could ramble on about “His Hoffness” for four or five blog articles and not begin to scratch the surface of his gleaming kick-assitude (yes, I said kick-assitude. WHAT. UP.). Instead let’s get back to talking about Pepsi’s new logo design. The current logo is the red and blue globe seen below.
Neverending Story: Election Day is here…finally!!
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Election Day, personal, voting on November 4, 2008 by Paxton
Well, after what feels like a campaign that lasted most of my adult life, it’s finally time to go out and participate in the democratic process (which, we aren’t really a democracy, but a mostly two party republic, however that’s a discussion for a different blog). We finally can put an end to this non-stop political circus the current presidential campaigns have become. Whoever wins, I’ll just be glad this is over. Let’s move on, man. I want to get back to watching TV, playing video games and pretty much acting like our government doesn’t exist. It’s what I do. *shrugs*
I got up early and went to my designated location around 6:45am to get my voting done. I was a bit surprised at the unbelievably complicated and technical voting booths the state of Florida provided us. Check them out:
I believe this was an e-voting booth and they just chucked the hardware and attached a pen. If it was good enough for Lincoln, it’s good enough for us. I’m surprised that they didn’t provide a quill pen with ink well. I guess the Florida voting debacle of 2004 warranted another change in the process. I felt like I was taking the Stanford Achievement Test in junior high, coloring in circles and placing my ballot in the scanning device. Could they muck up the voting process any more? I mean, I guess if you change the process over and over, an official who didn’t get elected can point at the voting process as the reason they lost because we all know that if a candidate loses, it’s the fault of voter fraud, or voter error or hanging chads. It’s not that the system worked.
But that’s just me. I’m tired from a long day of training (yes, I’m back in training). Get out and vote, people. Let your voice be heard, otherwise you have no reason to complain when everything comes crashing down around us like an imploding casino.
Cavalcade of Awesome 
