The Wayback Files: Pepsi and Power

 My last catalog post seemed to go well enough that I figured I'd do it again.  One isn't real impressive but still fun to look back on, the other is one that I am a bit excited to show.  I'll start with that one, its Pepsi.

Drink Pepsi. Get Stuff.  Rather a simple idea, and even though I much rather enjoyed Coca-Cola than Pepsi, Pepsi had.... stuff!  It wouldn't be until a few years later that I would collect Coca-Cola bottlecaps to get rewards from them (and I can't remember what I even got), but in the 90's Pepsi had a few campaigns I remember.  Pepsi Generation Next which might not be the name but it was the one I remember the most.  They also had a Mountain Dew one called Dew Mad Cash (pretty sure it was the name).  They also had Pepsi Stuff.  Not really so much a campaign but a way to get Pepsi.... STUFF.  It was pretty simple as the first photo relays- Drink Pepsi Get Stuff.  The second photo is the front of the catalog thanks once again to the Wayback Archive.  I will say in advance I have a few more of these to do and even some holiday ones, so it should be a fun journey.  But let's look at this Pepsi catalog.

I remember having a grey ball cap.  I don't think I wore it much or whatever happened to it.  It was points well wasted but I also wouldn't mind having one today.  I like wearing caps and that would be a nice addition to the small rotation I have.  I have two go to caps then a few others I will wear depending on the situation.

I vaguely remember the white shirt but I don't think we actually had one.  It would be cool to wear now, even though if I'm honest I didn't like it when they changed the logo in the early 90s.  Call me a traditionalist but I preferred the earlier logo.  I was very happy to see that Mountain Dew went back to their roots and scrapped the MTN logo.  The new logo is a mix of old and new and I can live with that.

I have no idea if I still have it but I absolutely had the CD case.  It didn't hold many CD's but I loved it.  I have even been tempted to buy one on ebay a time or two but quickly realized that I don't have many uses for it besides occasionally using it while traveling.  That said, I still use CD cases, but they are much larger and hold my DVD collection since it saves space and most of them are VHS rips I converted to DVD.  Still I'd love to find the one we had.

The travel bag looks so cool, and I would like to have that too, but again, I don't know how much I would use it.

Cindy Crawford sure did love Pepsi in the 90s, then again if I was paid like her I would too.  As for these items, the only one I remember (and still have) is multiple Kick Sacks.  I have one of each kind and might even have a couple of each.  I never used them for hackey sack, but they from time to time are on display on my shelf of stuff.  Currently the shelf is mostly empty as I prepare to line the wall with socks and I'll need to move the shelf.  Hopefully this fall I'll have it all fixed since its been bare most of the year.

Even though were we pretty heavy soda drinkers in the 90s I doubt we'd ever get enough points to get the bike.  Though that would have been totally awesome.  As much as I love points promotions, its a surprise I never took up smoking to get Marlboro points (though I do have some Marlboro gear which was likely acquired from garage sales).  I never would have done that though.  Today if Pepsi had these similar promotions (which for all I know they do) I doubt I would partake in them.  The Coca-Cola points program started to go downhill right around the time I stopped drinking soda so much (I use to drink it not non-stop but very close).  After dental issues I cut back to almost no soft drinks, though I admit I have started drinking it a bit more than I like lately, but still a lot less than I did 10-15 years ago.

That T-shirt looks nice too and I wouldn't mind having that either.  The GeneratioNext promo they had we had a pullover and a t-shirt or two, which I still have the shirt.  Maybe one day I can wear it again.

For those interested in what the cost per items and some of the stuff I didn't show cost, here it is.  I think 10 cents per extra points is a heck of a deal, That would make the Mountain Bike 275 dollars just on buying the points that way.  Just imagine if you still had it you might make some money on it.

I admit that I thought that would be a bit more exciting that it was, but don't fret I have another catalog to show.  Both will be linked at the end of the blog if you want to browse them more in depth.

A computer magazine from 1997, November to be exact.  While it is a bit fun to look at old technology, I thought this one might be able to skim through quickly.  

Laser Pens, Christian Clipart, and Compaq PC's! OH MY!  I never was into the whole laser pen craze in the 90's so that's lost on me though I do have a couple now that I don't have any use for (they were given to me as promos, and another I had to entertain my cat who is no longer with us).

I'll be honest, 1997 was a little early for me to be diving into clipart (my sister did have a PC for the house and I used it a lot,) but I never had much reason for clipart.  Having said that, by 2002 if that was a lot cheaper (and it probably was 5 years down the road) I would have got that and the Bible Library.  I am surprised I didn't have as much religious computer stuff back then. I really wish I did learn things like HTML (I know a little bit) and some computer programming stuff.  If I knew I would be on computers so much back then I would probably have tried to take more courses on that and would have considered a computer related career.  I could have created a cool (at least to me) religious website in the early 2000s.  It would have included a lot of music, but then again I did work on a Christian Music website around that time.  Sorry for this tangent, but I do wish I could have kept that site active. I even found the founder of the site last year and tried to plant a bug in him to revive the site, but nothing doing.  Oh well.

Compaq proved in the late 90's it was all about the pentiums.... baby.  (Weird Al reference).  I don't find the prices of the computers from those days crazy, but I do find it funny how much hard drive space you got.  A 3.2 GB hard drive, and that actually was a lot back then.  These days they sell 1TB flash drives.  Though I do miss computers having a CD/DVD drive, and wish they still had larger hard drives.  I had a 1TB hard drive in my last desktop.  The chromebook I'm typing this on has roughly 40 GBs of hard drive space.  I'm not complaining because I have a 4TB external hard drive, and this Chromebook is capable to support I think a 512 GB microsd card, so maybe one day I'll get one.  If you took 160 of these Compaq's and added all of their hard drives up, it would be the total of a 512 GB MICROSD CARD!  That's insane to me.  A friend and I joked a few years ago about the amazement of a 20TB hard drive, and now they are capable of 44TB's or more if you have multiple bays for it.  I'm no data hoarder but if I had that much hard drive space I bet I would be.

THATSWHATIMTALKINGBOUT! The best part is that's how blurry a lot of those screenshots were in 1997.

I didn't play a lot of PC games (that weren't also platform games for like PS1 and such), I didn't have any of those EA games.  I remember having NBA Live 97 and 99 on PS1, and Madden at some point (I know I had 2001, but maybe earlier).  I'm not sure I ever played any of those versions.  As for golf, I did have some golf games on platforms like Jack Nicklaus Golf and Mario Golf for NES, up to a few versions of Tiger Woods PGA Golf.  Golf games are very soothing, but I never played actual golf besides hitting the ball in the yard a few times. So those Golf instruction programs would do nothing for me.  Having said that, I did have a golf game on the PC at that time and it was Microsoft Golf.  In fact I would love to play it again sometime.  To this day if I watch golf on TV and someone hits it in the bunker I will say "THAT'S ON THE BEACH!"  Between golf games and Farming Simulator, I've become a much mellow gamer, if I found newer versions cheap I would get them, but I think the last games I had were on the 360.

The Microsoft Library of home software is a trip down memory lane.  First and foremost I remember Bookshelf but nothing about it, and having a version of Encarta Encyclopedia (ours was the 1996 version) as well as a version or two of Streets (not sure the year or even if it was the Microsoft version).  I loved the map/street software just looking up random places (I still do on Google Maps).  I'm not much into GPS and rarely ever used Mapquest for directions, but something about Map software I love.  As for the rest, I have some old Greeting Card software but never actually designed one.  My goal one day is to get a computer with Windows 2000 or even Windows 95 and get a bunch of old software and bask in amazement at how entertained I can be at old technology.

One thing I never did play or care to check out was Flight Simulators.  I mean if I had the software, sure I'd try it out, but I just never cared all that much.

I thought the African American Clip Art was something I never really saw so I included it.  I am totally a sucker for clip art.  I don't get how we went from clip art to emoji's.  It seems backwards to me.

Face and voice recognition in the 90s?  I totally missed out on that.  I remember some Dragon Speaking or some such in the mid-2000's but not earlier.

I wonder how many people won the lottery based off that game.  I would bet the under to that would be +/-10.  I told you I was a sucker for Mapping Software.  Having said that, this is far more advanced for my wallet.  I was buying the value ones for 5-10 bucks at Best Buy, and that was in the early 2000's.  Though these would be fun back then.  These days, I can get by with Google Maps.  I do miss my desktop which had Google Earth Pro on it.  It seemed like I could do more stuff with it, but I'm not complaining.  I only wish the Google Maps overhead shots would be updated more often.  I also wish they had more cars driving around for street view so they can be updated more often and more roads explored (some rural roads would be fun to explore).

Would it be money well wasted? Yes, but I would have totally wanted one of those Snappy Video Snapshots back then.  Especially for wrestling stuff.  Since I was cheap and never heard of it, I'm very happy I never had it.  Even today I still have to sometimes Google how to take a screenshot on my computer.

It seemed everyone had or at least knew how to use some version of Adobe Photoshop.  I never did.  I did have a burnt copy of CS1 a few years later but never knew how to use it.  My expertise (and I wouldn't even call it that) was Microsoft Paint and years later a vague familiarity to GIMP.  I do wish I learned Photoshop because I think it would have been very beneficial.  In a similar vein I wish I learned how to do Power Point.  I think I might have been the only high-school student graduating after 1998 to never had a class where I needed to use Power Point.  I'm sure its easy to do and I can learn it now, but what's the use now.  I'm a famous blogger, lol.  Though seriously Photoshop would have been nice.  I might have even learned how to make custom trading cards, to get signed or to make for local sports.  That would have been fun.

A few more items from the late 90s.  I don't remember the PageMake or the VideoWave, but they would have been fun to try out.  I had a digital voice recorder but never really had a use for it.  I still have it though, so maybe I'll think of something to use it for (especially with the garbled sound that it probably picks up with 2003 technology).

So that's a wrap on a couple catalogs.  They were both fun for me to look through and hope they were for you too.  As for my favorites, I would love to have the Pepsi bike, but the CD Wallet is what I'm glad I had.  As for the computer catalog, I think just having one of those Compaq's today would be fun so I could install old software on it and have fun.  Maybe find a way to make it compatible with current hard drives to add storage to them at least from a usb drive.

As promised, here is the links to both catalogs if you want to look into them a bit more.

Pepsi Stuff

Power Up Computer Catalog

That shall wrap things up for today, I hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend.  As for me, I'm not sure my plans for the weekend, but right now I'm going to play some Microsoft Golf.... Seriously.  Thanks everybody for reading and have a great weekend.