Help us with a mascot!!!

Hey all:

I spent way too much time this weekend watching all kinds of sports events. In the interim, I was reading some marketing magazines and articles and it hit me -- we need a mascot! No, not a real-life furry thing like the Phillie Phantic, just a two-dimensional character to give us a bit of a personality. Someone (something?) who represents who we are and what we do.

So, here's what we're going to do -- we're going to have a two-part contest.

For the creatively-challenged, we get to come up with a name for this new mascot.

For those who are more creative (read: those who can draw), you get to try to come up with a character or image.

I'll find some cool stuff to give away as prizes to the people who help us out the most.

Submit your ideas via e-mail to: Rich.Bradley@proforma.com. In the subject line, use the word "mascot."

Thanks!!!!

Going green

There's been a big push in the promotional products industry to "go green." It seems like everyday we receive another catalog or mailing or e-mail about a new "green" product.

Now, I'm a big fan of the earth. I haven't really found a much better place to live up to this point. However, I haven't received one call or e-mail from a customer or prospect asking for something "green" -- even from companies that I thought might be heavily in favor of promoting a green effort. In fact, the closest I've heard is "we're just looking for ways to not use as much paper."

OK, I guess you have to start somewhere, but that hardly seems like corporate tree-hugging.

I'd love to hear from anyone whose company has really embraced the green movement, and what they've done.

Having some fun on Cinco De Mayo

OK, so maybe Cinco De Mayo isn't the biggest holiday here on the East Coast, but don't tell that to any of friends back in San Diego. Not that we're ever at a loss to celebrate something, but we figured we'd take a break from our usual "stuff", and have a little bit of fun with a trivia contest.

Since I'll be giving the answers at the end of the column, there won't be any prizes if you get everything right, but some smug satisfaction of knowing that you know a lot of little-known facts. Test yourself out..some of these are a bit tricky (and depending on your political slant, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McClain are not correct answers to any of these questions).

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward.

3. Of all vegetables (yuck!), only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perenial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquors stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. How did the pear get in the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable (more vegetables???) or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet, that begin with the letter 's'.



Answers:
1. Boxing
2. Niagara Falls
3. Asparagus and rhubarb
4. Strawberry
5. It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small.
6. Dwarf, dwell and dwindle
7. Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces and ellipses.
8. Lettuce
9. Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.


How'd you do? E-mail me the number of correct answers at Rich.Bradley@proforma.com. For the record, I got four right...but at least I know the names of the two actors who played Darren on "Bewitched." So there!!