Panera Bread Co. has recently implemented a supposedly family friendly Internet browsing policy for at least some, if not all, of their 1168 bakery-cafes. This policy bans visiting sites such as YouTube, Blogger, PhotoBucket, and Imageshack.

Their policy seems normal enough at first, one must login, agree to their TOS (which basically gives them the right to do anything) and then the user is rerouted via a proxy service. Unfortunately, the coffee shop geek attempting to use Panera’s Wi-fi will no longer be able to visit little known sites like YouTube, Blogger, Photoshop, Imageshack, etc. Upon calling their tech support hotline I was told it was a filtering problem and the issue would be resolved within a matter of minutes. 5 hours later the problem persists. However, another individual called Panera on the 26th of January and was told that this policy was implemented in order to insure a family friendly environment for all of Panera’s users. Obviously, YouTube, Blogger, Imageshack, etc are hubs for nefarious individuals who are trying to insure the break down of the American Nuclear family.

According to Panera’s website:

“Panera Bread is expanding quickly across America, currently operating 1168 bakery-cafes in 40 states. Among these locations, 493 are company-owned and 675 are franchised. 170-180 new bakery-cafes (85-90 company-owned and 85-90 franchise) are targeted to open in 2007.”

A share of Panera’s stock is valued at 35.81 as of the posting of this blog 1/29/08.

Panera’s Total revenue for 2006 was 828.97 million dollars and their Total revenue for the quarter ending in September 2007 was 273.21 million dollars. Unfortunately for Panera, this revenue trend may slow if this censorship policy is continued.

Personally, I enjoy the ambience of Panera. Their locations, which I have visited many of, are pleasant, clean, and their staff is professional and courteous. However, their new policy may show the disconnect between their top level management and their everyday customer.

*This blog will be updated when and if Panera’s current policies change.

Update!!!

As of February 1st, 2008, Panera has reversed their policy and is now allowing its patrons to use YouTube, Blogger, Photobucket, Imageshack, etc. Behold the power of the blog!!!

As I was trying to scrounge up some pictures of the old NES and Genesis systems for my last blog, I accidentally ran into one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while – functional NES and Sega Genesis guitars handmade out of Les Paul parts.

MegaDriver, the creator behind this beautiful piece of machinery, took his childhood NES and Genesis and decided that he didn’t want to play games on them anymore. Rather, he decided that he wanted to rock out on them by turning them into completely functional guitars. By taking the pickups out of a black Les Paul along with the fret board, volume knobs, input jack and various other parts MegaDriver brilliantly crafted the aptly named NES Paul, a functioning guitar that any diehard video game musician would kill for. Check out the pictures below if you still don’t believe me.

Check this bad boy out!

Why rock out on this…

…when you could be playing your favorite songs on this?

MegaDriver showing off his other guitar creation – the 16-BIT Sega axe

If you still don’t believe me or think this is cheesy then check out MegaDriver shredding out on his creation in the video below. Not only is MegaDriver a creative genius, but he’s also one hell of a guitar player. As always, thanks for reading.

-Dillon (D-Dub)