Monday, November 27, 2006

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Black Friday, traditionally marks the beginning of the official on-line Christmas retail-shopping season. Much like its off-line counterpart Black Friday, Cyber Monday offers low prices and great time-limited sales for workers returning to the office Monday morning.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Black Friday

Black Friday, the day after American Thanksgiving, traditionally marks the beginning of the official Christmas retail-shopping season. Stores often open up as early as 4 or 5 in the morning, and shoppers often line up late the night before just to be first in line to get the best deals.

Black Friday is not the busiest retail-shopping day of the year, that honour traditionally actually falls on the Saturday just before Christmas. And Black Friday doesn’t refer to the stress and chaos of the long day due to the early opening, the long hours, the upset customers, but really refers to the accounting practice of recording losses in red ink and profits in black ink.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy American Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans enjoying their turkey today! For those of you enjoying your long-weekend away from work, save some turkey for me. And after you wake up from your after-turkey nap, have some more turkey, you will need your energy for the big sales shopping day tomorrow!

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Daylight Savings Time

Benjamin Franklin first mentioned Daylight Savings Time in passing in 1784 as a joke. William Willett first seriously proposed Daylight Savings Time in 1907 but the British Government wouldn’t adopt it. Speaking of which, North Americans refer to it as Daylight Savings Time or DST, while Europeans know it as Summer Time.

Traditionally Daylight Savings Time (DST) or Summer Time ran from 2 am on either the last Sunday of March or the first Sunday of April to 2 am on the last Sunday of October. Effective 2007, the United States Government changed the official duration of Daylight Savings Time as an experiment. Now Daylight Savings Time officially begins at 2 am on the second Sunday of March and ends at 2 am on the first Sunday of November.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Holiday Magic?

The end of October was a memorable time for holidays, and even more so for Duane Dog the Bounty Hunter Chapman, but how much do we truly know about the holidays we pay lip service to? Is Halloween merely a night to dress up and hand out treats to little kids? And why exactly do we reset the clocks back when Daylight Savings Time ends?

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Pandora Internet Radio

Pandora Internet Radio is a cleverly designed service. Pandora requires nothing to download and nothing to install, and is designed to serve up streaming audio at CD quality sound levels. And the service is free.

Basically you enter your favourite songs or favourite artists and Pandora plays that song or those artists, and other songs by other artists that match your favourite music stylings as selected by their music analysts.

The name Pandora means "all gifted" in Greek and comes from ancient Greek mythology; Pandora's box. The God Apollo gave Pandora the gift of music, but Pandora was eternally curious, and this led to her downfall. Far from being a negative though, Pandora Internet Radio is a celebration for the musically curious.

All Souls Day

All Souls Day is a day set apart for honouring the faithful departed. All Souls' Day follows All Saints' Day on November 2nd. If the souls of the departed have not been cleansed from sin, or have not yet atoned for past transgressions, they can not attain beatific vision meaning they can't yet "see" God in Heaven. Prayers and sacrifices by the mass may absolve this and help those souls stuck in purgatory.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

"Weird Al" Yankovic

British Singer/Songwriter James Blunt allowed "Weird Al" Yankovic to parody his song, "You're Beautiful" and gave him permission. But when his label found out, they forbade it against his own wishes. So "Weird Al" released "You're Pitiful" as a free download on his official web site. "Weird Al" was quoted as saying, "I always respect the wishes of artists, but since it was just a bunch of suits, who were going against their own artist's wishes, I had no problem offering the song as a free download on my web site."

All Saints Day

All Saints' Day or All Hallows' Day falls on November 1st, following All Hallows' Eve, and preceding All Souls' Day, celebrated on November 2nd. On this day, many countries make offerings to Saints and Martyrs. Pope Gregory III, in the eighth century, moved the celebration of All Saints Day to November 1st from May 13th to honour all the Saints, known and unknown.