IT Insights Blog — Year-End Blowout

Show of hands, who remembers the episode of The Simpsons where the Springfield mall gets a Mapple store that offers products for sale that reflect the boundless creative genius of Steve Mobs? After discovering that she will most likely never in her natural life have enough money to purchase a Mapple product, Lisa lucks into a MiPod that Krusty the Klown has disdainfully discarded. All is well until she gets her first bill ... for $1,200.

What do you think of when you hear the word "blowout?" Every person doesn't have the same mental image, and that's entirely understandable. There are, according to most standard English dictionaries, at least six different meanings of "blowout."

I was recently reminded of the Sainsbury’s television ad that depicts the Christmas Truce of 1914. On Christmas Eve of that year, in the trenches of the Western Front during the First World War, you could hear German and Allied soldiers singing Christmas carols across enemy lines. On Christmas morning, German troops stepped away from their cover and walked through no-mans-land shouting “Merry Christmas” to their enemies. This initially alarmed the Allied troops, but after realizing the advancing soldiers were unarmed, they went to greet them. Differences were set aside for those few hours (days in some areas), and celebration interrupted the brutal slog of warfare.