Monday night was my last night working at Bloatmeal. No, I didn't quit, nor was I fired. (At least not yet. You never know what's happening tomorrow.) As of today, October 12th, Bloatmeal has officially rebranded itself and changed its name. If you've peeked at my Guide to Hamburgerland, you know that the company I was hired at 12 years ago was bought up by a larger company. The current corporation is basically an amalgamation of smaller companies within the realm of printing and graphic arts, all with their unique names and emphases. They tried coming up with a new corporate name a few years back, but at that time decided it was better to keep the old names. (Well, in part, anyway. My particular shop was weaned from it's old name to that of the pre-press company that gobbled it up.) Earlier this year, some muckety muck changed their mind and decided that they wanted all the divisions to adopt a common name to emphasize our ability to provide total solutions to our clients, or some such hype. They solicited the employees for suggestions (I submitted some half-baked, Latin sounding name as a joke) but eventually decided to just use the name of one of the divisions, seeing how they had already done all the research regarding trademarking, cultural propriety and all that junk. It all seems like a bunch of hooey to me. I mean, I can understand wanting a recognizable brand name and all. But the brands I know and respect (and buy) are those that offer good product or service. I use Kodak film because I tried a number of brands and theirs was the film that gave me the best results. On the other hand, I used to avoid McDonald's because I wanted my hamburgers with ketchup only and they took forever to fill my order. So I can't imagine too many potential customers suddenly knocking down our doors just because we've changed the logo and answer the phones differently. But, like it or not--understand it or not--a new era is upon us. However, I like the psuedonym I created for my employer, so on these pages Bloatmeal shall remain Bloatmeal. (At least until I can come up with something funnier...)