Display Systems Intl

Operation Christmas Child

Stephen — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:36:38 +0000

This year the staff at DSI took part in Operation Christmas Child, a nonprofit program aimed at distributing gifts to underprivileged children. Working in concert with other members of Saskatoon’s business community, we dropped off a total of 22 full gift boxes last Friday. The final care packages contained a variety of toys, games, art supplies (my main contribution), clothing, toiletries, and a few other miscellaneous things we thought might be fun or useful. Once we’d finished packing boxes with gifts and gathering everything up for delivery, Jon and I dropped them off at J&H Builder’s Warehouse, from which they’ll be picked up and shipped off for pre-Christmas delivery to the children they’re intended for.

Overall the whole thing seems to have been a pretty big success, and fun too.

Jon pretends to be the Ghost of Christmas Future, with the help of a double exposure.

Pumpkin Carving Party

Whitney — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:16:29 +0000

Last week, my desk was covered with pumpkins. I had to peek in between a couple of them to see the front door when it opened. But on Thursday the plan was to take them all off of my desk and bring them upstairs to Dale’s office (aka the rec room because it is so large!) to carve them up! The plan was to start the party at about 3:30pm to give everyone plenty of time to carve. Hardcore carvers would use the whole hour and half, and short-and-sweet carvers would have plenty of time to take their pick of locally brewed beer at Dale’s bar.

So it’s 2:30pm and I’m still deciding between carving “Angry Bird” or a character from an internet meme when the office goes dark. And our UPS’s go crazy – there is obnoxious beeping coming from everywhere. When the lights didn’t immediately come back on, the upstairs staff came downstairs to start the party! Looks like we’re carving by candlelight! No lie – Dale had stocked the entire office with mini flashlights just a few weeks prior, so we used them to their full advantage and found our way to the bar to get drinks. Then with what little daylight we had (it was rainy and very unsunny outside) and a few lit tealights, we began our carving.

The gang begins the messy process of emptying the pumpkins.

Those are some excellent stabbing skills.

As the self-proclaimed office fashionista, I must point out that I'm wearing an apron over top of my dress.

A totally successful first ever pumpkin carving party at DSI. Make sure you check out our Facebook page for more pictures. And try to guess whose pumpkin belongs to who! We’ll be posting a picture with the whole staff each holding the pumpkins that they carved.

http://www.facebook.com/displaysystemsintl

DSI Fall Premier TV Reviews Part Deux

Jon — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:08:27 +0000

Welcome back to our second instalment of the series. Today I’ll be reviewing 2 Broke Girls and New Girl.

First up! 2 Broke Girls

So broke they have to share a horse.

Best Part: I am madly in love with Kat Dennings.

Worst Part: Terrible terrible terrible (terrible) laugh track.

Overall Rating: 2.5 Dales out of 5

Next up! New Girl

Hijinks!

Best Part: I am madly in love with Zooey Deschanel.

Worst Part: The word “adorkable”.

Overall Rating: 2.5 Dales out of 5

That’s all for now. Stay tuned next week for more TV insights!

DSI Fall Premier TV Reviews

Jon — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:55:22 +0000

Hello everyone and welcome to DSI’s Fall Premier TV Review series! We watch and review all the new shows so you don’t have to!

First up, the new CW show starring Sarah Michelle Gellar – RINGER

There are 800 mirrors in the pilot.

Best Part: Horatio Hornblower/Mr. Fantastic is in this! (his real name is silly)

Worst Part: The name “Shiobahn” is used about a million times.

Overall Rating: 1.5 Dales out of 5

Next up! Up All Night

Best Part: “Cheese guy says we’re going to need a rinder…”

Worst Part: The 10 seconds of Nick Cannon.

Overall Rating: 4 Dales out of 5

That’s all for today! Stay tuned for the rest of our Fall Premier Review series!

Follow the Leader (of scrolling television channel guides and customer satisfaction!)

Jon — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:32:32 +0000

Hello to everyone in DSI land!

According to Google, DSI Land would/does look a lot like this.

Today’s blog post is a special one because today we celebrate our 100th follower on Twitter (of which, Whitney assures me, only 10-20 are mindless robots who may or may not be bent on the complete eradication of the human race).

Or DO They?! (Picture from: http://tinyurl.com/3b5ndln)

In honour of this milestone, I present you with three things only tangentially related:

The song “I Follow Rivers” by Lykke Li

The trailer for “Following”, a film by Christopher Nolan

The Poem “Follower” by Seamus Heaney

My father worked with a horse plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck.

Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.

I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow around the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

That’s all for today. Thanks for following us and enjoy your Mark Walberg wednesday!

Books with one letter missing

Stephen — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:38:16 +0000

#bookswithonelettermissing is trending on Twitter right now and it’s hilarious. Here’s my attempt at a few:

Pride and Pre-juice
A gripping historical book documenting the rise of modern fruit farming techniques.

The Importance of Being Ernest
A simplified version of The Importance of Being Earnest which strips out all the puns, double entendres, and personality of the original.

Little Omen
An ill-fated spin-off of the movie The Omen, intended to appeal to children.

Olive Twist
A collection of Charles Dickens’ favourite martini recipes.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter if you haven’t already!

Jay Onrait

Jon — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:47:31 +0000

Apparently Jay Onrait will be hosting a new show on Much More Music starting this weekend. In honour of Jay and his recent success I offer you this youtube video of Jay and his SportsCentre partner Dan at their finest.

Jon gets married, pranked

Stephen — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:23:37 +0000

Yesterday Jon returned to work after taking a week off to GET MARRIED. It’s kind of a big deal, and we thought it was fitting to celebrate his newfound matrimony by playing a prank on him. Several possibilities were discussed, but we settled on decorating his jeep with a Just Married sign (courtesy of Lisa) and attaching tin cans on strings underneath his back bumper. When he went to leave for the day, he was suitably surprised. Here’s a video I took of him driving off:

Goodbye Tree (?-2011)

Stephen — Thu, 26 May 2011 17:55:30 +0000

Today our office was visited by two city workers armed with a chainsaw. It was a good thing, though, because they were here to remove the tree that’s been dying in our front yard. We gathered together to tell stories about the tree (like the time I almost got poked in the eye by one of its branches), while the workers unceremoniously fed its remains into a wood chipper. The entire process of chopping it down and transforming it into tiny chunks of wood only took about 10-15 minutes, which is almost sort of sad when you consider that it took the tree several decades to grow.

Try not to get too close to one of these.

Goodbye Tree. You’ll be missed.

The tree was haunted, by the way. Click to enlarge.

May the 10th be with you…wait, what?

Jon — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:06:29 +0000

Hey everyone!

Starting to really look and feel like summer outside. Not that Dale would know though, he’s been busy jet-setting around from trade-shows to conferences and back again! (Come visit us at our next trade show: The HITEC show in Austin Texas, from June 20-23)

Anyways, you know what they say: While the boss is away THE EMPLOYEES WILL WORK HARDER THAN EVER TO INCREASE SALES AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION (if Dale is reading this, no need to read further!)

We most definitely haven’t been spending any extra time watching adorable videos of Russian kittens on Youtube, that’s for sure!

How did that get there?