THIS CHRISTMAS

Well its 2009 and its Christmas day (Ok 2 minutes into Christmas as I’m writing this).

This Christmas is the first Christmas in 3 years I’ve been able to spend with my family (most of it anyway). And even though I’m older (and because of the economy no one really has any money so there wont be a whole bunch of gifts), I feel giddy like I did as a kid. Tonight my mother and I went out to dinner and then took a ride through the Fantasy Lights Lane and it was a lot of fun. Tomorrow we will pack up the car and head over to my grandmothers house to open gifts play games and have dinner with my aunties and cousins.

All of this reminds me about when I was a kid living in Alaska. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving we would all pack up the car and go up to my grandfathers house at Nancy Lake. When we lived in Anchorage the drive was close to 100 miles, but it didn’t bother us, because it was worth it in order to spend the time with family. We would all sit around and catch up on whatever was happening in our lives even though most of us only lived a couple of blocks from each other. We would play games and watch movies, us kids would usually end up having a snowball fight at some point. Then we would all sit around the dining table and have a big dinner, talking and laughing the whole time. During this time we also had the tradition that no matter who you were, you were family and you were invited, wether it was my cousin Jay’s friend Warren, or my sisters friend Angela, If you were there you were family.

Well this Christmas the family will be smaller, there will only be 7 of us at Grannas but we will be a family. We will laugh. We will play games. We will have dinner. We will all catch up because now we live a lot further from each other than we did as kids. And as always we will welcome new members to our family. But most important to all of us, WE WILL BE TOGETHER.

JOLT COLA WHY CANT YOU KEEP UP!!!!

Remember Jolt Cola? It was the original energy drink.

Created in 1985, the brand was touted as the soft drink “with all the sugar and twice the caffeine” and proud of it. In essence, it was the first “energy drink” (before anyone knew what that was) to land in the American scene more than 20 years before anyone heard of Red Bull. And land it did Jolt was seen everywhere within a couple of years, from movies like Hackers, Jurassic Park, Wayne’s World 2, Asteroid, Men At Work & Gremlins to “small” towns across America.

Then the Energy Drink boom happened and Jolt decided that they were not going to compete with “ENERGY DRINKS” they were a cola after all.

Now Jolt and its parent company Wet Planet has had a lot of firsts in the industry. and I quote…

Wet Planet revolutionized the beverage industry by introducing value-added marketing. The notion of added ingredients inspired the formation of New Age Beverages (Energy Drinks).

Wet Planet was the first beverage company to uniformly utilize beer wholesalers as its primary method of distribution. This created an entire “new age beverage” distribution system that paved the way for thousands of brands that followed. Among them were Snapple, Arizona, SoBe, etc.

JOLT was the first soft drink to sell at a premium price above Coke and Pepsi. All previous competitors assumed the only way to entice consumers was to provide them with a product at a lower cost.

JOLT was the first-ever consumer good of any kind to list it’s website on all labels and packaging.

Wet Planet Beverages was the first soft drink company to implement a virtual store…selling beverages throughout the world through a storefront on a website.

JOLT was the first soft drink to embrace the information age. As a result, JOLT is a lifestyle soda and the first choice among the computer industry, internet users and virtual reality enthusiasts. For the past 12 years the computer programming industry presents the “JOLT Awards” in recognition of excellence.

JOLT was the first new age product to expand internationally…generating significant sales in Australia, Japan and Germany, etc.

JOLT was the first soft drink to successfully diversify into non-beverage items. Among them are Jolt Snowboards, Jolt Candies, Jolt Gum, Jolt Mints, etc.

However it took them until 2007 to release their first “Energy Drink” Jolt Energy. Even though Pepsi to counter Jolts Claim to fame of twice the caffein introduced Josta in 1995 and was officially the first energy drink on the US market.
(SOME FACTS)
By the year 2001, the US energy drink market had grown to nearly 8 million per year in retail sales.
Over the next 5 years, it grew an average of over 50% per year, totaling over $3 billion in 2005.
Diet energy drinks are growing at nearly twice that rate within the category, as are 16-ounce sized energy drinks. The energy drink market became a $5.4 billion dollar market in 2007, and both Goldman Sachs and Mintel predict that it will hit $10 billion by 2010.

So by 2001 energy drinks had retail sales of 8 million per year and Jolt where were you? Well you had become a novelty item because you were behind the times. In 2001 there were over 300 different varieties of energy drinks. Why would someone go buy a Jolt that only had twice the caffein.

Now back to 2007 and Jolt Energy hits the market and everyone agrees it is the best tasting energy drink out there with one exception…
THE DIET FLAVORS TASTE AWFUL!!!

Guys come on, if Red Bull figured out how to make a decent tasting (it tastes bad too but given a choice I’d choose diet Red Bull over diet Jolt anyday) diet energy drink why can’t you? Are we going to have to wait till 2012 for it?

Phineas & Ferb

If you could distill out the clever irreverent wit and the “something for all ages” mix of gags and references from “Family Guy”, “The Simpsons”, “SpongeBob”, and South Park”; and then jettison all the off-color, negative, and crude low-hanging fruit elements of those cartoons you would get something like The Disney Channel’s “Phineas and Ferb” which premiered in August 2007.

The title characters, non-stop talker Phineas (Vincent Martella) and his usually silent brother Ferb (Thomas Sangster) are suburban stepbrothers trying to make the most of their summer vacation. This means constructing elaborate gadgets like a time machine and a roller- coaster, or making a feature film. They are usually assisted by an industrious troop of Camp Fire Girls (Fireside Girls) led by their neighbor Isabella (Alyson Stoner) who has a major crush on Phineas. The brothers are just trying to have a fun summer, they aren’t trying to cause trouble or be cool, and they are at that age where boys are not even conscious of girls or of who is popular.

Typically their teenage sister Candace (Ashley Tisdale) gets reluctantly drawn into their projects as she strives to keep them from embarrassing her in front of her crush Jeremy (Mitchell Musso). Each storyline has her trying to “bust them” by phoning their mother about the latest home project, but by the time Mom gets home all evidence has conveniently vanished. Although there is a sibling rivalry the three obviously care about each other. Candace is the best part of the series and Tisdale does unexpectedly well supplying her voice; the part is very challenging, as the mercurial Candace requires a wide range of intonations and energy levels in her voice.

Although the series could get by just cutting between Candace and her brothers, it ups the energy level each episode with a “James Bond” type parallel story involving the family’s pet platypus Perry (he’s a semi-aquatic, egg-laying, mammal of action). Perry is a secret agent assigned to foil the plots of evil (but hopelessly inept) scientist Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (co- creator Dan Povenmire).

The animation style is the same simplistic stuff (Phineas’ head is a triangle) found in the other four cartoon series although like “SpongeBob” the occasional “real-life” photo is thrown into the mix. For the benefit of boy viewers, a more serious drawing style is devoted to one of the minor characters, Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s beautiful daughter Veronica (Olivia Olson).

“Phineas and Ferb” might be the all-time best “compromise” cartoon; incorporating many subtle elements for adult viewers while relying on its absurdist humor and identification elements to hook both pre-teens and teens.

Hello world!

Well Well Well…

So my last blog was deleted

Ok… I can deal with that.

So here I go starting a new one.

On here I will post things that happen to me around the Seattle & Tacoma area, as well as rant and rave about whatever I feel like. and if you don’t like it then don’t read it cause I don’t care.
><codeRyan Hamilton

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