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BATW News!February 10, 2005 Hiya, kids! Well, lookie here - February is a couple of weeks old, and Kevvy finally gets off his tail and writes a news update! Well, truth be told, I've been meaning to put this together, but... Ah, heck with the excuses. Here it is. Sure, I could go on and on about my being out of town for two weeks or trying to catch up with the 551 e-mails that were waiting for me, or how I courageously battled the nasty influenza bug that's invaded Western Iowa for the last few days, but why bother? We've got better things to do than waste our time making excuses. Here's the big news du jour: S&W has redesigned their bean label. And by golly, the beans have gone gold! Now, I must first give credit to and thank friend of the frijoles Steve who wrote to me asking about picking up a can of beans to photograph. It seems that he couldn't find the traditional blue & black label we've been playing with for all these years. All he could find was this new golden label. Would it work? I have to tell you that this news caught me totally off guard. You see, since moving to Cowtown USA a few years back, I'm unable to buy S&W Black Beans in my local MegaMart. It seems that our local chain ("Demon Foods - one helluva place to save!") doesn't have the good sense to carry the best darn frijoles on Earth. So whenever I visit the West coast, I'd always load my suitcase up with a dozen cans or so of my favorite frijoles to bring back home to enjoy/play with over the course of the next year. (Plus, just imagine what the TSA airport screeners must think when they x-ray my suitcase with 12 cans of beans inside!) So I had no idea until I got Steve's e-mail that S&W had redesigned their label. Surprise! For those of you playing along at home, here's what our original label looked like, back when we started this game 12 years ago:
 The original label, circa 1993 The label has gone through a few refinements since then, but for the most part it'd managed to stay pretty close to the original concept. Here's a label from a can purchased summer 2004:
 The second label, circa 2004 But now...there's this!
 Snazzy, ain't it? So - now it looks like we're faced with a huge moral dilemma. Do we stick with only our original blue & black traveling S&W beans, or do we bring into the fold this new (and improved?) design? After much debate, thought, worry, and after consulting with the original can of beans for their opinion (you knew we couldn't exclude them!), here's what we've decided: Despite the difference in their label, deep inside they're still S&W black beans. And since that's the "it's whats inside that counts" spirit that the beans have been trying to promote over the last 12 years, then it's only fitting that we bring the new gold label into the BATW family. So here's the answers to all of those questions that must be running though your minds about now:
Q: Which label is "correct?"
Q: Which label is "preferred"?
Q: Do I need to replace my blue labeled can with the new gold label from now on?
Q: Can I take the new gold can to places where the blue can has already been?
Q: What does the original can of beans think about all of this?
Heh, heh. The beans on top. Very cool. So kudos to my friends at S&W - but next time, how about tossing us a little warning beforehand? Sheesh - it's like coming home from college to find that your old bedroom has been redecorated into Mom's sewing room or something. So there you go. Not your usual bean news for the month, but it's the biggest thing to happen around here in a long time, so when there's news, you've got to run with it, I suppose.
That's right - beans in Hell. Look for all the gory details here soon. My thanks to everyone for all of your e-mails and comments, and my eternal thanks still go out to the members of the BATW Ambassadors Club for keeping this game alive. I promise to have some fresh stuff posted shortly. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or new label sightings, drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you. Take care, Your Beanmaster, Kevin |
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