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Rankin-Bass: Kings of the Christmas Special

Posted in 80s, advertising, Apple, Christmas, holiday, pop culture, Rankin/Bass, TV shows with tags cartoons, Christmas, pop culture, Rankin-Bass, TV shows on December 11, 2008 by Paxton

Xmas Classics DVD It’s Christmas time! I love Christmas time. The decorations, the holiday-only items in the stores and toys. Can’t have Christmas without kick-ass toys. However, I especially love flipping through the TV channels during the holiday season. All of the TV logos are juiced up for the holidays and our old Christmas Special favorites are dusted off and traipsed out in front of us like a former beauty queen, well past her prime. There are plenty to catch. Endless remakes of A Christmas Carol, TV shows centering their activities around Christmas parties, beloved cartoon characters meeting Santa Claus and learning that “to give is better than to receive”. You’ve seen them, you know them. But the undisputed king of television holiday specials has got to be the studios of Rankin-Bass. Rankin-Bass consistently made the most treasured and beloved holiday specials of all time. Their track record is undeniable. Their influence on the holiday is unmistakable. Let’s take a look back at the animation studios of Rankin-Bass and some of their most famous specials; most you’ve no doubt seen dozens of times, but many you probably didn’t realize they created.

Rankin-Bass logo

Rankin-Bass was established in the early ’60s by Arthur Rankin Jr and Jules Bass. Originally named Videocraft International, they independently produced several animation series including Pinocchio in 1960 and Tales of the Wizard of Oz in 1961. Pinocchio was animated in the “ani-magic” style of animation using puppets and stop motion photography (which would later become a Rankin-Bass trademark), while Tales of the Wizard of Oz was animated in traditional 2-D animation. The Oz series would be popular enough to adapt into a TV movie in 1964. This TV movie would air on the popular GE Fantasy Hour. Then, in December of 1964, the GE Fantasy Hour would air the first Rankin-Bass Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which would go on to become one of the most popular and longest running specials in TV history.

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Google 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.

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My iPhone can now kill hookers, travel through time

Posted in Apple, cell phones, humor, iPhone, pop culture, technology with tags Apple, humor, iPhone, technology on September 12, 2008 by Paxton

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “If Pax writes any more about his stupid iPhone I’m going to cut him with the prison shank I keep in my bathroom toilet.” Well, maybe you’re not thinking of that specifically, because, as my wife just informed me, not everyone has a prison shank hidden in their toilet tank (which is crazy, because you should have one. Seriously). All physical threats of violence to the side, I am in fact going to talk about my supremely awesome iPhone again. If you got a got a problem with it, you can meet me on the corner of Shut and The Hell Up. I’ll be the guy stabbing people with a wet prison shank named Skip. Yes, his name is Skip. He likes action movies, listening to AC/DC, and shanking people in the gut. Come up, say hi and he’ll shank you in the gut.

For those that don’t want to die, I thought I’d talk a little bit about applications you can download for your iPhone. Ever since Apple let third party developers design mini-applications (aka apps) for the iPhone that get distributed on iTunes, many cool and interesting games and productivity apps have shown up. As good as these apps are, they don’t cover every circumstance you find yourself in. What if some A-hole cuts you off in traffic and giving the guy “the finger” just won’t cut it? Or what if the hooker you are seeing threatens to go to your wife? The iPhone can’t help you in either situation, bro. However, I’ve designed a few apps that may give you the upper hand should you find yourself in one of the above “less than ideal” situations.

If you thought the iPhone was awesome before, my new “Cavalcade of Awesome” apps make the iPhone so ridiculously kick-ass it may bend the fabric of reality itself. You could be talking on your iPhone, set off one of my apps, then find yourself in another dimension. My stuff is that good. Be careful though, I was testing some of my applications and next thing I know I was in a battle arena on Cylus 3 facing the nose tusk of a Snaarlak beast. Let me tell you, a Snaarlak beast makes a Chnultha serpent look like a baby Greeb. My situation escalated quickly and I had to use the Cavalcade of Awesome apps to their full extent. I’m lucky to be typing this article today.

So let’s take a look at a few of my new apps.

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New Mountain Dew flavor decided by the people; And the people, are wrong!

Posted in Mountain Dew, Pepsi, pop culture, retail, soda, websites with tags Mountain Dew, Pepsi, soda, sodapalooza on August 22, 2008 by Paxton

I’m sure everyone by now has tried the three test flavors of Mt Dew; Supernova, Revolution and Voltage. I mentioned them at the bottom of an article back in May. Pepsi released the three flavors and promoted a contest where people would try all three flavors and then vote for their favorite. Each flavor was designed based on people logging into the Dewmocracy website, playing a game, and deciding what types of flavor extensions they would like to see. After testing the flavors, the people would log back into Dewmocracy.com and vote for their favorite. Well the flavor battle was waged and it was a tough battle indeed. Since the people would decide the outcome, propaganda and campaign posters and images promoting certain flavors were put up everywhere.

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I got an iPhone 3G — I just became even more awesome

Posted in Apple, iPhone, personal, pop culture, reviews, technology with tags Apple, humor, iPhone, technology on August 18, 2008 by Paxton

That’s right, people. AT&T finally acquiesced and gave me my birthright; the iPhone 3G! I wrote about my personal comedy of errors trying to get an iPhone 3G last month, but all of that is now moot. I have the small piece of electronic Valhalla right here in my sweaty, awesome little hands. And let me tell you, this thing is AWESOME. You know me, you know I don’t own, consort with or marry anything that isn’t just flat out awesome. It’s just how I live my life. I’ve dedicated myself to all things awesome, and this little phone may be the most awesome thing I have ever seen and I don’t throw around hyperbole like that every day (well, actually, I do, but this time it’s for reals).

I’ve had MONTHS to build up my anticipation for this phone. I was given money on my birthday way back in May (nearly 3 months ago!) to buy this thing and I’ve been obstructed in my purchase every step of the way. The first obstruction was that Apple took most iPhones off the shelves in May in preparation for the release of iPhone 3G. Next, the release date was set for July 11. I went in to my local AT&T store ready to upgrade and found out that my current plan wouldn’t let me upgrade until August 9. You should remember this graphic:

It was agonizing waiting until August 9th. However, on the day of August 9th, I was in Columbus, OH, so I couldn’t really order it then (there was a 7 day wait). I didn’t get back to Jax until late on Sunday and AT&T was closed an hour before I could get there (closed at 6pm on a Sunday?! WTF, are they a bank?!). It was like some higher power didn’t want me to have an iPhone, something I’ve come to believe is my destiny. Why, you ask, would a higher power not want me to have an iPhone? It’s not hard to figure out. The iPhone is super-awesome. No one denies that. I myself am also super-awesome. Who can refute that? It’s like the iPhone is an electronic version of myself (We are both awesome and very portable). The combination of our mutal awesomeness might be too much for the fabric of the space-time continuum and send the entire universe into a backspin leading to the destruction of all mankind (this is just a theory, mind you). So despite all of these odds against me, I perservered and got my iPhone 3G. You know, the Lifetime network should contact me about making my experience getting an iPhone a movie of the week. It’s pretty damn inspiring.

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