In case you haven’t gone into a Starbucks [SBUX] store lately, there’s been a change to the look of the joint media offering card format.

This is one of those rare moments, the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day in the year “11″ (2011) that makes extra special this original commemoration of Armistice Day and the additional recognition for military veterans.

Let’s observe a moment of silence at this time for our servicemen and servicewomen who have done, and are doing, their duty for our country.

Also, please review the US Department of Veterans Affairs site that has interesting tidbits about this holiday.

N.B.

Previous posts (in reverse chronological order):

• Veterans Day 2010
• Veterans Day

In case you’re just tuning in…

Welcome!

Premiering tonight is a new CBS drama called Person of Interest, which brings JJ Abrams back to nighttime TV once again. Immediately, I was struck with its premise sounding hauntingly familiar.

Lessee… A guy who has unique talents, fairly communicative, is being positioned in place and time to intercede on the behalf of victims, aided by another guy who has access to various tidbits of information that is not always 100% reliable due to circumstance or gaps.

Ah-ha! Quantum Leap!

Yes, it’s not just time/space travel anymore, and there’s that personal anonymity instead of body-switching, and yes, it’s definitely got that grittier feel that makes it more up-to-date than a show from the 1989-1993 (as opposed to merely a remake of Quantum Leap, ‘natch). But all of the essentials are apparently intact between the two shows. And like Quantum Leap, it’s one of those shows that, despite the extra twists and turns, there is both a familiarity and coziness to match the curious teases and fuzziness… This is what makes Person of Interest fun to watch. Let’s see how far this journey will take us.

First observed iOS app in the wild: Shazam Encore

Hi, intrepid Starbucks [SBUX] iTunes promotion fans:

It’s been a loooong time since we discussed the favorably fun Starbucks iTunes weekly offerings, that have morphed from a simple joint experimental item between Starbucks and Apple [AAPL] into a lucrative people-attracting feature in so many Starbucks outlets worldwide.

So, here’s a new, welcome twist on the campaign: offering iOS applications! So, it beefs up the possible weekly options, from single iTunes music tracks, to individual videos, to entire digital albums and compilations, to now… applications!

And it looks like, to kick it off, there’s the big brother to the popular free Shazam, known as Shazam Encore.

While Apple’s [AAPL] online store was offline for a few hours earlier today, as reported by various news outlets, and even some blogs, it seems that it has resumed online operations.

What Happened to the Quad-Core Mac Pro?

When I went to check on the online site myself, I certainly did see the new drop down lists allowing for Twitter and Facebook toss-ups, but when I visited the Mac Pro page, I noticed that the quad-core 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” based model was marked as unavailable.

Fortunately, several minutes later, with a page refresh, the model was available once again.

So… is this an example of super-real-time inventory control? Or just a fluke?

If you’re a Capital One [COF] Bank customer, you may have noticed some inklings of trouble in the company today. As one of the latest of a series of customer-facing snafus and negative actions, as of less than one-half hour ago, the entire bank network is still down.

When I went to check on this, I received direct verification from a couple of branch managers that, yes, in fact the entire bank network is down, so deposits will not be honored until the system is operational again. However, there were no assurances or time estimates given as to when the network would be brought back online. Other forms of deposits, such as via ATM, will be held until processing can resume, which the SWAG from one of the branch managers, “… could be several hours to maybe a few days… who knows?”

Steve Jobs of Apple [AAPL] fame has sent out an E-mail stating his intention to take another sick leave, and he is once again relying on Tim Cook to keep the company running along until his return.

Thus far, having Steve step away from active duty for a finite period of time seems to be reasonably acceptable to the company, the customers, and the stock market.

So, does this mean that Tim will be able to slip in some pricing improvements to various Apple products in the interim, like price drops on the MacBook Air models, or spinning out the next generation of the iPad, or a sneak preview of an iPhone 4G-LTE, or updates to the Mac Pro and iMac models, or even a multi-multi-version of the AirPort Extreme?

Hmm…

Maybe even fulfillment of that wish for the hybrid iPad-Mac computer…

Once again, Starbucks [SBUX] is changing its famous logo for its cupware and branding.

The new Starbucks logo (Image courtesy of Starbucks, Inc.)

But you most likely are already quite familiar with its new mascot: the Mermaid. But now, she is going to be a bit more prominently displayed. In a nouveau simplification, perhaps even spartan, maneuver, the new logo boldly shows the Mermaid, but it excludes the usual Starbucks text slogan.

The new logo will be gradually filtering out to the various outlets, as the current inventory of supplies runs out.

Welcome to 2011.

Although the modern celebration of New Year’s Day typically involves a lot of commercial ventures and advertising and party-going, the roots of the holiday predates this by several centuries.

Not to be outdone by other e-tailers and even brick-and-mortar retailers, Amazon.com [AMZN] has furthered its reach, since the “online” Black Friday deals and yesterday’s Cyber Monday sale… by adding yet more deals as the winter holiday sales season rages onward, toward the inevitable Christmas splurginess (yeah, not really a universally recognized term yet, but since it’s coined here: it means the act of generating excess or overwhelming abundance) of sales attempts.

Cyber Monday’s momentum is being carried forward by Cyber Week, which is Amazon’s extension of their Lightning sales offers until the end of this week.

And for the video gaming crowd, there are the Seventeen Days of Deals in Video Games, leading up to that unofficial shipping cutoff deadline date of December 16, 2010, when it will be ostensibly very difficult to guarantee a decent delivery on Christmas Day.

And these are in addition to the other promotions that Amazon regularly runs, like the Gold Box deals, for instance.

Good times, folks, good times… Just make sure your credit card is ready to roll!