Over the holidays I picked up the Copag EPOC plastic playing cards, which are available in the Tastefully Driven Game Store, and  they are simply amazing all around.

The first thing that catches your eyes about these cards is that they have an all black background that you can’t ignore.  I’ve personally never seen black playings cards before, so this definitely caught my attention.  Beyond the black design the EPOC cards have a very slick index and suit design.  The suits and index layer over the darkness with a vibrant red for hearts and diamonds and a contrasting bright white for clubs and spades creating an artistically designed deck of playing cards.

Not only is the design amazing, the make and feel of these plastic playing cards are of the highest quality.  The first thing I said out loud when I got my first touch of these cards was “Wow”.  I was so amazed by how great the cards felt I had to show everyone I knew and get their reactions. The reactions I got were a lot similar to mine, booyah I wasn’t going crazy thinking how awesome these cards were.

Copag cards are high quality and beautifully designed and I would expect nothing less from a leader in card manufacturing.    Copag cards has definitely proved itself to me after I got  my first deck in comparison to other plastic cards and paper cards that I’ve had, bar none .   Go check out other Copag cards available at Tastefully Driven.

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Adam is on vacation this week and it’s my pleasure to guest post for him this week.  I wrote a post about the online holiday shopping season and here’s an excerpt from the post.

“For us at Pure Adapt the 2008 holiday shopping season was a solid one and we finished the year strong despite the abysmal economy. We were prepared this year with a full fledged marketing plan for the 2008 holiday season and it paid off.”

View the complete post of 2008 Online Holiday Shopping Season in Review on Adam’s Blog.

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In May of 2008 I wrote a post about the hard time I had signing up for online storage Xdrive and it’s become one of my most popular posts to date.  As an update to that post, Xdrive will be closing down on January 12, 2009.

I received a good amount of comments on that post and slowly there were whispers that they may be closing down.  Those whispers would later become true and there was no reason to sign up for a dying service.  The horrible thing about this is my post was acknowledged by Xdrive and they replied to me by saying that they were working on a new registration process.

Xdrive made it simple enough to get your files by offering you a zip file of all your files after you login, but the zip file took a while to be created.  I was able to get all my Xdrive files but the overall experience with Xdrive was not a pleasant one at all.

Good Riddance to Xdrive

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Last Thursday parts of the Northeast were hit by a nasty ice storm. There was an estimated 300,000 homes and businesses that lost power. Fortunately I didn’t lose power for a long. I only lost power temporarily while they shut down power to fix a power line in my backyard. I was actually outside when there was a huge flash of light in backyard when the power line went down. Anyways there were quite a few areas that were declared a state of emergency and the great Northeast winter is here to wreak havoc at a very important retail shopping time.

At Pure Adapt we weren’t able to ship that Firday but luckily the storm didn’t affect any Christmas shipping deadlines. There were many other businesses that didn’t fare as well. Especially during this peak of holiday shopping time, this has to be one of the worst times to have a power outage. I saw places like Kmart and Bed Bath and Beyond that went into the weekend without electricity. I don’t even want to imagine what the revenue loss would be to lose a full holiday weekend for a business that thrive a good holiday season. I’m pretty sure there are still places that still don’t have electricity and it’s been a week, so that’s got o really tough for those businesses bottom lines.

Mother Nature can be ruthless but the beauty of Mother Nature at the same time can be breathtaking. I headed to the warehouse that Saturday and I thought I was driving through a winter wonderland. The storm was over but it stayed cold enough where the ice stayed frozen on the trees. While I was driving I was like I got take the camera from work and snap some pictures. Check out some of the ice storm pictures I took.

It was a beautiful scene that the storm left behind but it was also disastrous for some. Mother Nature will always be a force to be reckoned with and sometimes it’s just a reminder of the things we take for granted. Have a safe winter.

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Thanksgiving has arrived once again and I am thankful for so many things. It’s been an amazing year so far as 2008 starts to wind down and here is what I’m thankful for:

• I will always be gracious for my health
• I’m thankful for great friends and family all around me
• Many thanks to a great business team that is Pure Adapt, Inc.
• I’m extremely thankful for my parents who have been so patient and supportive in so many ways
• I’m thankful for a solid business year even with a slowing economy
• I’m thankful that we can pay ourselves a salary at Pure Adapt
• Thank you to all the charities that I’ve wrote about this year for all the great work they do
• A special thanks to all the people of the armed forces past and present for preserving the freedom that is the United States of America
• I’m also thankful for the goofy turkey stock image I used lol
• Lastly thank you to everyone that reads my blog

Be thankful and be safe this Thanksgiving and enjoy some shopping, lets stimulate the economy if we can. Detailed Image and Tastefully Driven are running some great sales too (I had to plug our stores).

Happy Thanksgiving!!

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A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about Texas Hold’em Basics on the Tastefully Driven Blog. I’m going to a write a series of the blog post for Tastefully Driven on Texas Hold’em Poker as I try to become a better player and learn more about the game. Here’s the intro to the post:

“Poker has exploded in past few years since they started to air some big tournaments on TV and I won’t deny the hype of it because I’ve played a fair amount myself with friends and online. It’s been a while since the last time I’ve played and I was an average player at best, so I’ve decided to step my game up. More specifically I will be focusing on Texas Hold’em. I’m going to do some research to become a better poker player and share it here on the Tastefully Driven Blog. For all you beginners or those interested in getting started with Texas Hold’em poker I hope you will join me to become better poker players. “ read more…

Check out the post and the video that I cut and narrated (it’s always funny to hear yourself talk in my opinion. Do I really sound like that?). Stay tuned for the rest of my post on Texas Hold’em Poker.

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