Here comes X-Guy to save the company!

There’s this company called Acxiom that has created a new mascot for marketing purposes.  They are calling him X-Guy.  (It used to be X-Man, but that was probably too close to lawsuit territory.)  Anyway, on the company homepage, there’s a flash video where he appears to rescue a marketer who is sitting at his computer in a cubicle.  If you’re thinking that sounds lame, you would be right, but that’s what makes it amusing.

While I normally applaud the use of humor by corporations and other professional groups, I’m thinking this particular methodology probably isn’t the best marketing strategy for a company that is in the information technology (IT) sector.  This is a company with $1.4 billion in annual revenue, yet this is how they are promoting their “X” brand.  They even issued a press release to announce their new website design.  (I don’t know why…)  Regardless of whether it’s a good strategy or not, they did it, so check it out and have a laugh.

Here’s the link : Acxiom homepage.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do not work for this company.  But I am somewhat familiar with it, for various reasons.

snow

We finally got some snow accumulation here in Conway, AR, last night.  But it was only 1-2″ inches of accumulation.  Russellville got 11″, and they’re only about 45 miles to the northwest.  So we were ripped off.  But at least it’s something, even if it’s mostly melted just a few hours later.

The reason it didn’t accumulate much is because two days ago it was over 70 degrees, with the low in the 60s.  Then it snows the next night, and then tomorrow the high is 62.  But at least we got something.

Since there wasn’t much snow on the ground, I couldn’t build the snow castle / fortress that I’m planning to, but I did build a snow midget.  It’s not much, but at least there was a few minutes of enjoying the snow.

If only I had an industrial-sized snow-maker…

the military’s new ray gun

The military now has an actual ray gun, which they call the “Active Denial System”.  It shoots out a 100,000 watt beam of radio waves.  It does no permanent damage, but it can stop people in their tracks up to half a mile away.

There’s some videos at this link.

I just want to know — where can I get one?  🙂

This would be great for keeping the neighbor’s pets out of my yard, along with those annoying door-to-door salesmen.  Plus it would be great at parties, although they need to develop a hand-gun sized version.  Maybe I should get the Buffet o’ Blog R&D department to develop one.  I bet it would sell like hotcakes…

two years of blogging

This month marks the two-year anniversary of Buffet o’ Blog.  And what a time it has been!  Randomness reigns, and traffic is skyrocketing.

Now, after two years, our stats are :

  • 412 posts
  • 1,564 comments
  • 29,901 spam comments
  • 40,740 page hits

I’m really thankful for Akismet, which catches most of our spam comments!  (FYI, the spam comments don’t count toward page hits.)

blog trafficAs you can see by this chart, traffic is growing at a significant rate.  (Click the image for a larger picture.)

Thank you to all the readers here, who partake of my ramblings.  And thanks for all the comments, because it helps make this into more of a community, with all of the recurring “characters”.  🙂  It’s exciting to have this kind of traffic, and I enjoy producing this site.  And we’ve got some new features in the works, which you shall see and experience shortly.  It’s just an exciting time!

To celebrate, I’d like to take all my regular readers to Larry’s Pizza, where we will conquer the seemingly endless buffet of pizza.  However, there is a flaw in the slaw — our budget.  So while I’d like to buy pizza for everyone, the funds are at $0.00, which doesn’t buy much pizza.  So you’ll just have to pay for your own (because I still plan to go).