Aperto!

Saturday night, Molly and I ate dinner with friends @ Aperto in Portrero Hill. What a great meal! What great friends! What laughter! Oh my...how many bottles of wine did we drink? Did we really need Lingba Tea before dinner?

I loved the bruschto with figs. Yummy enough for Molly to grab extra bread and wipe up the fig that was left on the plate. The Dungenous crab cakes were delicious...I would tell you more about them, but everyone was eating them off of my plate! I desired more beets in the beet salad, but it was very fresh and filled with flavors. For an entree, I had the butternut squash ravioli with sage - oh my, oh my. Fabulous. Loved, loved, loved it!

Laughing Squid Decade II

Ryan Is Hungry » Scott Beale Explains Laughing Squid

In preparation for tomorrow night's Laughing Squid party, a little definition as to what Laughing Squid is!

Now...I really have to encourage you to come tomorrow night. Support both Scott and the arts within the Bay Area.

UCLA Student Tazed

Obviously, all of the facts need to be flushed out. But from this single perspective it is pretty damning. "Go back or you will get tazed too." That portion disturbs me to no end. As we don't know the facts around the entire incident, my judgment is on hold. However, a citizen should always be able to get officer's badge numbers.

YouTube - UCLA Student Tasered by Police in Library

Casino Royale

Molly and I saw a preview of Casino Royale last night, kindly sponsored by Smirnoff (a damn great Vodka, btw) and had a blast. The opening chase scenes are INTENSE! I thought I was watching the Urban Ninja from youtube:

It felt as if, in the editing room, the movie was just too long. The end of the movie appears where they took their most generous cuts, as the story seems to jump and bounce for the last 30 minutes. Which is sad, as the rest of the movie is great.

BTW...You will quickly realize that while the story starts with Bond's first assignment, it is set in modern day. So the toys, technology and luxuries are definitely today's future.

One last point: product placement central. Bond driving a Ford? Sony digital cameras? Vaio notebooks? Bars lined with Smirnoff? Sony Ericsson phones in everyone's hands? The products placed so perfectly, the action stopping just enough...it is every marketers wet dream. We laughed and actually pointed to the screen to highlight product placements. A fun little game!

For all of you actually worried about transparency...Diageo provided the event for free. However, I dig Smirnoff and always have. So there.

Pee Wee Football Fight

I just love parents. I absolutely love parents. They rock! Such wonderful role models...

YouTube - Pee Wee Football Fight

Scripting News, Historically Speaking

So...it happened again. I see a ton of new posts on Scripting News, Dave Winer's site. As I start reading them, I feel like I am in a time warp. And then I check them...they are all really old! And this is not the first time it has happened...probably the 2nd or 3rd time in the past week or two. Weird!

• Seen on FoRK, the Floridian Rhapsody (sung to the tune of
• Jeffrey Baker sent a screen shot of Scripting News in Links
• Python is no longer driving me crazy. Thanks to Fredrik, Der
• This morning I needed to create a Radio UserLand tool, so I
• Financial Times: "The willingness of each man to drag the
• A common response to yesterday's piece, VCs don't have time for
• This has been an interesting period. I've been meeting the most
• BTW, it's December 1. Where did the year go??

They all said (Posted 37 minutes ago)...

SPAM SUCKS!

So...my gmail account rocks. Love it. However, I can't seem to bring up all unread messages. I have almost 750 messages unread -- none of them in the last 2-3 months -- that litter my box. To locate them, I need to go through the box.

But the real point of this...ARGH! I am getting destroyed by SPAM. This is about 2 weeks worth of SPAM. And they are pouring in this week. I think the spammers are really increasing their output as we head into the holidays. Man. I really, really hate spammers. Really.

GMAIL Feature Request

A little while back, I posted a request for features. I woke to a message from a Reader engineer talking about the requests. That is damn, damn cool. Thank you...

Now...wanna see me happier than shit? Integrate my blogger, reading, and e-mail experiences. Make the lines completely blur...

• I would like my news reader to be part of gmail. Gmail is essentially a river of news, so the interface is similar. I have seen greasemonkey scripts...let's see the real thing! In all honesty, the web clip thing is a waste of real estate (even though it is one line.)
• Integrate my blog into the system. Each of my posts would look like an email from gmail. To compose a new post, I would use the same gmail interface. Comments would come be associated as responses to my post. They would operate the same as gmail conversations: posts with new comments would rise to the top. I could approve or reject the comment right there. I would have the ability to e-mail the writer back or post a comment back. You could even extend blogsearch and allow trackback type functionality the same exact way. Wow...that would ROCK!

Should we really treat blogs different from e-mail? They are just conversations -- although levels of privacy *may* chnage. But the way my mind works...I am communicating, whether it be my blog, comments, e-mails, etc. Give me one interface and I will never leave. Well, it will take a lot from me to leave!

Mark Cuban and YouTube

I was really getting tired of hearing Mark Cuban continue his rant against YouTube. But it was worth sticking around for...I am interested to see where this goes...

The LA Riots Videos vs Gootube - The Actual Filing - Blog Maverick:

To say the stakes are huge would be an understatement. The filing references a very interesting point. If you are under the safe harbor rules, and merely a conduit to others hosting files, how in the world could you give yourself a license to those files ? In other words, Youtube owns what you just uploaded, and can do anything they want with it, without limitation, but at the same time under the DMCA they want to be considered only a conduit that falls under the safe harbors .

Register.com SUCKS!

Yes, they blow. You know that your business is in trouble when you make it as hard as possible for your customers to leave. I realized that saucesf.com, the domain for our restaurant is still on register.com (one of our last). In attempting to move it off to my registrar of choice, I find that you have to CALL to get the auth code. Now, everything else can be done via e-mail or web interface. But leave? Hell no, you have to call and speak with someone. Guess who's business is in trouble? Thank God for competition....

VCs and Video

Sounds like it is a great time to be in podcasting and not videocasting:

MercuryNews.com | 11/10/2006 | Stay tuned: Venture dollars pave way of new media:

"I now spend about 60 percent of my time" looking at video-related start-ups, said investor Mike Maples, who manages a $15 million microfund.

To be an entrepeneur

People write about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Here's my general response:

• I don't have the time to define what is successful or not. So, I can't tell you if I am being successful or not. Therefore, how could I tell you what or what not to do?
• I try not to look globally at everything we have to do, because I don't want to get depressed and climb into a hole. Honestly, how does one accomplish everything they need to everyday? The only defense/survival mechanism that I have developed is to compartmentalize everything and focus on each section. Here is product management, do it. Here are the parts that I am responsible for developing, do it. Here are the company wide management responsibilities, do it. Here is business strategy, do it. Here is marketing, do it. Here is sales, do it. and the list continues...
• I just dream of tomorrow...and that dream is so big and glorious that it makes up for today. Gotta stay focused on that better time.
• Pray that my girlfriend *really* understands and is betting on the future as well. We will have more time together, honey. Promise.

Wish I had time to really think about write something more...

Like.com

Munjal Shah was just on Fox News talking about http://www.like.com/.

Don't ask me what I was doing with Fox News on. Mea maxima culpa.

Hacking Web 2.0

Awesome...

The Technology Chronicles : Hacking the Web 2.0 Conference

: "Web 2.0 'is a great conference,' Kopelman said. 'This is not a dig at them at all. O'Reilly writes all about hacking things. We just figured we'd hack the conference.'"

I Voted

I voted...how about you? Look. I won't allow you to bitch about the government, elected officials, laws, or taxes around me unless you voted. Promise. I mean it. If you want voting guide, e-mail me and I will send you mine.

"Office Space" Recut

A couple of years back, I was Director of Development of a startup. We were flying fairly fast and furious, but our CEO was a short, incompetent man who just couldn't figure anything out. We had "learning lunches" every Friday which consisted of a catered lunch and a staff member getting up and speaking about a subject. It didn't have to be focused on our business; it was designed to allow office mates to bond. Whatever, the Dev team was working through lunches and I saw it to be a waste. So...when he asked me to run a learning lunch and teach, I doth protested. When forced, I decided to show "Office Space" as my learning lunch.

So Jared sends over this excellent remix of "Office Space" and I laughed my ass off. What a GREAT remix! If you are an "Office Space" fan, take a couple of minutes to enjoy...

YouTube - "Office Space" Recut

Asparagus Pee

Just this weekend, we had some conversations about asparagus pee. This is an interesting turn...

Gourmet Food Editors' Blog at Epicurious.com:

It turns out, everyone who eats asparagus has the metabolic byproducts in their urine, (with some debate over exactly which; S-methyl thioacrylate, methanethiol, or sulfur compounds.) But not everyone has the genetic disposition to smell it.
Fascinating.

Micro Business

This is why I absolutely love the internet and how it has changed just about everything we do. Here's a guy marketing rivets for cardboard to make cardboard castles, boats, fire engines (et al) for your kids. That's the whole business. And he states it! He has a website, a storfront & processing through PayPal, and some cool designs that you can use. Make just linked to him...I hope he gets a lot of business from it. Awesome...

About Mr. McGroovy's:

Mr. McGroovy's is a microbusiness
established in January 2005 to develop educational activities that promote learning, creativity and pretend play. But my wife thinks I should focus more on selling all the rivets in the garage.

Overheard on Valencia

I'm walking home on Valencia St in the rain when I pass two guys in front of Good Vibrations. Both are older, un-showered, and a wee bit beaten down:

Man1: That's that store that ladies go into to buy stuff to put in your ass.
Man2: Yeah, I know. A lady drug me in there one time and wanted me to buy all these things. "No way thems going in my ass," I said.
Man1: Yeah.

But who's their U2?

I have heard a couple of people speak about Zune and iPod and ask, "But who's their ZuneU2?" [Ok...typing a blog post when you are exhausted and working your ass off creates much typos...] This references the coolness of Apple to be able to get U2 to rep their mp3 player. Well, if MS REALLY wants to have a great splash, they should take advantage of the wireless capabilities and allow artists, at rock concerts, to beam everyone a track or two -- right there. Hell, they should pay someone like the Rolling Stones to push a copy of track recorded -- that night -- to everyone in the audience. You can only get it if you have a Zune and bring it to the show.

There's your U2 and raising you a Moby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KwiBwT-0nc

Google Reader Feature Requests

Hey Reader team...

I have a couple of requests for you that would just make my life insanely GREAT!

1. Allow me to blog directly from the reader. I would like to be able to highlight part of a post, click on a blog button, and use the api to automatically create a post for me! Currently, I have to click the title, go to the site, highlight what I want, etc. One click blogging would rock!
2. Groups with whom I can share links with. For instance, I may have a business group with whom my business partners and I can mark articles for each other to read. I may have another group for my friends for us to track events and happenings in SF. While I can create a tag and make that public, I don't have the security of keeping that public for a limited group. I would love for it to work much like the sharing in Google Docs...
3. While I finally figured it out, make it easier for people find their public lists/pages and share them. Perhaps it is another place, but I had to hits Settings, Tags, "add clip to your site," none of which are very descriptive.
4. Reading groups...I would love to be able to get the river of news in groups. For instance, there are blogs that I read for work, entertainment, flickr feeds, general news, stats from our business system, etc. They have different priorities in my life. While it is a great excuse to have to go through all of them so that I can get my business reading done, I would prefer to have areas of focus for me to go through.

Your reader ROCKS and I am a huge fan. Keep kicking ass...

Link Blog

I have decided to add a link list on my side bar for "Articles of Interest." I am utilizing the share feature of Google Reader, my preferred reader. I love the fact that I can integrate my sharing directly into my consumption process. While reading, I can simply click the "share" icon and it is added to my feed. Now...I really want to burn that as a feedburner feed and then offer the icon for people to subscribe to it. Hmmmm...will figure that out when I get a moment to think.