Ever since, the Mary Kay lady, Candi, comes by once a week or so to drop off the most recently purchased crack make-up. Whenever she does, all the other girls crowd around the desk of the girl who bought the make up to see the colors and to drool.

Candi is actually now know to all the b5ers, mostly because on days she’s coming, the girls shout it out 7 times; and when she shows up, everybody cheers.

Moral: if your team isn’t getting along, just do a make-up party.

2) How old is this coffee?

3) Who has the key to the men’s washroom?

4) Did you read my blog?

Things we know and love about Chad:

1) He doesn’t drink dairy- not for dietary reasons, but because of the conspiracy the Dairy Producers are engaged in.

2) He goes to the gym every day at lunch.

3) He drinks coffee everyday, and everyday he says he drinks too much coffee

4) He starts work at 6:30 am

5) He’s a germophobe and requires a new container of Clorox wipes on a monthly basis

6) He can pick a lock.

7) The most extravagant thing he ever spent money on was a truck load of ice for his swimming pool on a hot summer day.

What else do we know about Chad?

Chad on the other hand, brought in some leftover grouper fish today and heated it up in the microwave, sending fish fumes throughout the office. Being used to the fish smell, my office mates and I just ignored it, figuring it would die down soon. Chad didn’t finish all that he brought, and, being mindful of the office smell, put the rest of it in the garbage in the floor’s common kitchenette near the washrooms. We keep the doors closed, so we’re ok.

The rest of the floor complained though. Franca, who sits near the front door, heard several of our neighbours complaining of the smell as they left to grab their lunch. The drama came when the office superintendant was called in to deal with the smell becaue of the neighbours complaints. Chad of couse, was oblivious to all this. The rest of the office will never let him forget it.

The first week of November was a touch dispointing. Jon, our usually trustworthy VP of Finance, announced early in the day on Monday that he was bringing in the loot his kids took in trick-or-treating on Halloween. (No, no, he didn’t take away the candy from his kids, they’re all just so allergic he bought them new stuff). He keeps swearing that the candy is in the trunk of his car. He drives in everyday. I have not yet seen the candy.

Our team has changed a lot since last post. Joey DeVilla left us earlier this month. We will certainly miss his cutting edge sense of humour, and of course his accordion, but he has agreed to come back for birthdays so we can have background music when we sing.

There’s was a shift with the Channel Editors. Kori Ellis is now manageing the Tech and Beauty channels in addition to the Sports channel she has grown really well. Mary Jo Manzanars took on the Business Channel in addition to the worldly Travel Channel. And Gayla McCord, who has been the Lifestyles guru forever took over the Health and Wellness channel. Arieanna Schweber, who has been a channel editor for entertainment for a zillion years came aboard full time as the producer for Starked (see launch announcement below). She’s still the channel editor at entertainment.

We’ve also hired two of our Entertainment bloggers as fulltime staff writters. Julie Bonner and Nikki Katz are part of the full-timers now at b5. Woo hoo!

At HQ in Toronto, we hired Ellen Ewart as Marketing Coordinator. Her favorite food is bacon.

We hired a new Sales Rep down in San Francisco. Anna Riddle (no relation to that Harry Potter character).

We attended Blog World Expo in Vegas in the middle of September. It was a big success for us. Tons of fun too.

While at BWE, we launched our new website at b5media.com and our new entertainment portal, Starked.

Some team anniversaries: Lee Newton, has been impressing us for a year as a server-whisperer. He reads a lot of books. Not server books. Books in general. Ok, so that was the only anniversary.

Check out the video that was done for byte tv. It’s pretty nifty.

We made Profit Hot 50’s list. (#6)

I’m sure I missed an event or two in there, so you can see why we’ve been too busy to post! I’ll try to keep it more up to date.

Things we know about CJ:

- She has pigs as pets

- She drinks Bud Light

- She likes girly things

- She drives a Suburban

- Blonde, Texan, Happy-Go-Lucky

- She still drinks Bud Light

We’re really sad to to CJ go, but we know you’ll be kicking around. I miss you already. Sniff.

Friday September 19th:  Blogger Summit- this is held at the convention center (room number yet to be confirmed). It will be a full day of workshops/talks about all things blog related. We have some big names speaking…a schedule of all the topics and speakers can be found here. A great all-star lineup of speakers! It’d be great to just come out and meet everyone!

In the evening of September 19th, we’re having a blogger meet up at Fusia restaurant at the Luxor hotel from 7pm to 9pm. Space for the event is limited, so if you are interested in joining us, please rsvp to ed@b5media.com. The event is open to all our bloggers, partners, friends. Come on out!!

Saturday September 20th is the official first day of BWE. During the day, you can find us at our booth (#309). Pop by for some poker! Like last year, we will have a poker table set up in our booth and great prizes to win! We’ll have tons of fun ways to earn a spot at the table. The team plans on attending the BWE opening night party, and we look forward to mingling with you all there.

Sunday September 21st is the last day of the conference. We’ll be in full force during the day at the conference, and look forward to seeing you there. If you can’t make it out to play poker on the first day, come this day. We’ll still be pumping the gambling!

Please let me know if you plan on coming out so I can say hi!

Out of the bloggers that are coming, I’m personally excited to hook up with my old pal Jon Rochetti from The DC Traveller. He really knows my style and we are going out on the town. Shea Sylvia from MTV Reality World is going to be there too. After all the time we spent together at SXSW in March, she’s gotta be missing me by now. Lara Kulpa from Dating Dames is meeting up with us. Hopefully she can offer me some advice on my love life (my blue complexion gets a lot of attention, but sometimes I think it’s all just superficial). Even Jason Bean from Microsoft Weblog is coming out! Like Shea, he probably misses all the fun times we shared at SXSW! And Kevin Palmer is coming. Big deal.

The Channel Editors that are making it out include Kelly from the Business Channel. Hopefully she’s not all business!! Of course Mary Jo from the travel channel is coming…she’d go to anything that she could travel to. And Arieanna from Entertainment is coming out…hopefully she can entertain us down there. I know she certainly did at SXSW!! b5’s new Training Manager, and Channel Editor for the Music Channel, Jeanne Dupuis,  is coming out. I wonder if she does music training? We’ll have to find out.

Should be a good time all around…can’t wait to see everyone!! We got some good stuff planned for the weekend we are there, so let us know if you are going to be around so we can include you!!!

Like last year, b5 is doing a blogger day the day before the full conference starts. It’s open to the public, but we’re really hoping to get a lot of b5 bloggers out this year. Being in the head office is cool, but we LOVE meeting the men and women who really make it happen for us….we realized this at SXSW in March when we got to meet Shea Sylvia, Jason Bean and Joe Ruiz.

We’ve got tons of fun b5 stuff planned for while we’re down there and a lot of the team is coming. (Finally, I get to meet some of the Channel Editors!) We’ll keep you posted on the fun stuff that’s planned…come out and meet us!