The creative (and zany) folks at the digital media sharing site, JibJab, have released their ‘salute’ to 2001 with, “2011, Buh-Bye!” After a year full of ‘downer’ news for many, here’s a chance to put a smile on your face:

He’s making a list and checking it twice…

And he’ll be in Huntington Beach on Sunday, December 5th at an annual “Meet Santa” event sponsored by my good friend Barbara Delgleize who is  a broker with RE/MAX Select One in Huntington Beach.

Every year Barbara invites her community, friends and families to greet and have their picture taken with Santa. I’ve been honored to be the photographer at these events and it’s always a thrill to see the excitement and smiles of the children as they meet Santa and tell him their “Christmas list.”

If you’re in Orange County and would like to have Santa at your party, special event or to schedule a home visit, check out SurfCitySanta.com and talk to my friend John Prusa he’ll get you setup.

And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our clients, friends and families.

- Mark

Congratulations to “The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe!”

As you know I posted yesterday about the Google name change to Topeka. Apparently, they had second thoughts (customer complaints? sobered up?) and changed their name back to Google today.

Actually (as you should know by now) it was an April Fool’s Day joke. And it got a lot of ‘buzz’ as you might expect. Google changed their logo from “Google” to “Topeka” and linked it to a complete (bogus and humorous) story about the reason for the change.

This isn’t the first time that the search engine giant has pulled such a prank on it’s visitors. In fact, PC World has a nice article on “Google’s 5 Funniest April Fools’ Jokes” which should check out.

We’re glad to see Google has come back to their senses and when you visit Google, you’ll realize that – like Dorothy and Toto – “you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Have you “Topeka’d” yourself lately?

In a move that shocked the online world, it was announced today that the top online search engine, Google, has changed it’s name to Topeka.

The story reported today on the official Topeka (formerly Google) blog states:

A different kind of company name
4/01/2010 12:01:00 AM

Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka. We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka’s municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.

The report also includes tips on the proper use of the Topeka site:

For the FULL STORY visit the Official Google Blog.

This is really a game changer and worth the read.

Make sure you read it today because I have a feeling that the if not successful, they might change their name back to Google on April 2.

Your thoughts and comments always welcomed.