Lug this monstrosity back to Brooklyn?
Screw it... Good time to buy a flat screen, don't you think?
Spoiled Dog
Mom warms the dog's food on the stove. Me? I got a cold chicken cutlet sandwich. You tell me who rates around here.
acept
I went to the New York Venture Summit this morning and someone mentioned to me, for the second time in a couple of days that since I'm the analyst at Union Square Ventures, I must be "doing all the work." Its always meant jokingly, and often that's probably true at different firms, but ever since I joined USV, its been a real surprise how collaborative the effort has been. Brad and Fred really roll up their sleeves--to the point where I probably have a pretty visceral reaction to that insinuation, even though its probably meant jokingly. These guys really get into the nuts and bolts of every deal... no outsourcing the due diligence to the analysts. I know a lot of firms probably say that, but here its really true. That's it... that's all I have for today. Its quite busy here... for all of us.
My 50 Favorite Movies -- U-Turn
It was really hot yesterday.
I was in a new place.
I didn't have a Mustang Convertible.
I still haven't closed on my apartment yet, and it seems like whatever can go wrong with this close will go wrong.
Reminds me of U-Turn, with Sean Penn, and that's my movie this week. Directed by Oliver Stone, U-Turn takes Murphy's Law to new heights (or depths). Fingers cut off by a loanshark, car broken down, Sean Penn finds himself in a one horse town in the Arizona desert. If that's not bad enough, he gets mixed up with the most backwards, twisted collection of characters I think I've seen in any movie not named House of 1000 Corpses. Billy Bob Thorton plays a car mechanic that gets dirtier more ornery with every piece he rips off of Penn's 64 1/2 Mustang. Jennifer Lopez gives new definition to the phrase, "Don't get involved with a crazy hot chic who may or may not be having an inappropriate relationship with her father in Arizona after a loanshark cuts off two of your fingers." Ok, so that's not an often-used phrase, I'll admit, but it should be, because its just a bad idea.
Things in U-Turn just get from bad, to worse, to ugly, to whatever's much worse than bad, worse, and ugly combined. Great movie... not so great for the whole family to watch.
Moving Sucks
Its 1:13 AM.
I'm packing up all my stuff... well, throwing a lot of it out and packing the minimum amount of what's worth holding onto.
I haven't closed yet, but I'm allowed to move my stuff in. Just my stuff, not me. Hopefully, I'll close this week. I'm homeless as of Friday.
Should I throw out all my little league baseball trophies? Perhaps just keep the few most important ones?
What the hell is on all of these cassette tapes?
Why do I still have textbooks from high school?
What do I do with my laptop from freshman year of college with the busted touchpad? I think I'll throw that out.
Shit... all the framed pictures and prints I have on my walls... jeez, I have to take all those down.
Didn't I ever dust?
What is dust anyway? Is this my own skin I'm sweeping up? I'm sure some of this is from kayaking in the Hudson.
Moving sucks.
Fordham Tipped by ImClone 15-2
Just two weeks ago, Fordham played a perfect defensive game on the field.
On Wednesday night, they gave up 15 runs to a team that hit the ball out of the infield just a handful of times, dropping their record to 2-5. Clearly, this went awry in the field. After the game, Fordham fired fielding coach Bill Buckner.
"I taught them everything I knew, and apparently it just wasn't good enough," Buckner told the press.
The bad fielding crushed an otherwise solid effort on the mound by Patty Dickerson, who proved to be quite durable, throwing 243 pitches in the losing effort.
The team may have been feeling a bit pressured to turn in highlight film plays in the field, because the offence has been non existent. The team has only averaged 4.57 runs a game, second worst in their division.
Still, you have to give the team credit for having heart. After the game, most of the players stayed for an extra 45 minutes of practice, in addition to the extra inning they played after the mercy rule kicked in.
Also hurting the team were the departures of Alexis Kramer to Chicago and Kevin Rodricks to Boston. Both players were traded for future considerations in cost cutting moves forced by the movement of University funding to scholarship students.
"Apparently, academics, and not alumni softball, is the priority for this school," commented Manager Charlie O'Donnell after the game. "You have to wonder whether or not the University is really thinking about the future if they're going to have these kinds of lopsided priorities."
Introducing the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 :: AO
Vimeo / Jeremy Rolling at the Downtown Boathouse
This is the kind of cool stuff we do as volunteers at the Downtown Boathouse. Come hang out with us and volunteer!
Batman Begins
I went to go see Batman Begins last night and I absolutely loved it. I had high expectations going in, because I love the Batman character--he's my favorite superhero by far. I think its mostly because he has no special powers. It kind of gives me hope for my own future superhero potential. I don't need to concern myself with getting dropped in a vat of toxic waste or something to become a superhero. All I need is about $5 billion dollars. Perhaps I should leave a podcast pitch for Fred, although I think our fund is too small to make me Batman.
Well, the movie by far surpassed my expectations.
Batman Begins really rescues the franchise from the awful campiness that George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, and the worst villians ever--the sexy but ridiculous Uma Thurman and played out Ahh-nold, left us off with. Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Katie Holmes all represent serious upgrades over previous supporting casts, with the exception being Jack Nicolson's portrayal of the Joker. I loved the original Batman--the lone, mysterious Dark Knight. Michael Keaton was by far the best one and Tim Burton's original really captured the mood perfectly. The whole idea of Robin is just annoying and I never figured out why the story needed him, but whatever.
This movie is way different. Its not a "superhero" movie. Its an actual movie that explores real charactors. We don't even see Batman until the second half of the movie. The story has a lot of depth to it, and halfway through it, I thought to myself, "Wow, there really covering a lot of bases here, but it doesn't seem like its overly long or complicated." Chris Nolan has done this twice before--telling a complicated story where you sort of know where its going, while maintaining great pace and viewer interest--in Momento and Insomnia. To have these three movies under his belt at 35 its really impressive.
Definate candidate for my top 50 list... we'll see when we get closer to the end. I might have even liked it better than the original.
Journal Gazette | 06/06/2005 | Trading stocks for cookies
I went to junior high school with Cara... After reading the article below, I think I'm going to start sending cookies around instead of flowers, which are generally overpriced and pretty wilted most of the time. If you're sending something to anyone in Brooklyn, try her shop. The number is 718-680-6680.
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| Newsday photos |
Cara Macksoud left her job as a specialist on the New York Stock Exchange floor to run a franchise of Cookies In Bloom. |
Link: Journal Gazette | 06/06/2005 | Trading stocks for cookies.
NEW YORK – Two years ago Cara Macksoud was trading Spiders, Diamonds and other sophisticated investments on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She’s now taking orders for chocolate turtles and S’mores at her Cookies in Bloom franchise in New York.
My 50 Favorite Movies -- 25th Hour
So, I should be closing this week *hopefully* and moving to Brooklyn this weekend. It has me thinking a lot about neighborhoods and New York, and whenever I think about that, I always think of this scene in 25th Hour where Edward Norton is in the bathroom of his father's bar. He goes off into this rant, cursing out all the different New York neighborhoods and accompanying inhabitants. When he got to Bensonhurst, I was pretty sure I knew some of those guys and exactly where they were when they filmed it.
25th Hour is a really powerful movie, and the situation effectively packs a lifetime into a single day--Edward Norton's last day as a free man before he goes off to jain for a seven year sentence.
What would you do? How would you spend it? Who would you want to be with?
The supporting cast is great, too. Robert Scoble... eerrr.. Phillip Seymor Hoffman couldn't be more uncomfortable tagging along the last day of a ride that left without him some years ago. He and Barry Pepper play Norton's childhood friends whose paths all diverged pretty significantly, making the juxtaposition of their presence on this contrived last day all the more emotional and complicated. Anna Paquin, as Hoffman's underage and oversexed student, Brian Cox as Norton's Dad, and Rosario Dawson as the girlfriend that might have turned Norton in round out a really perfect cast. This film is a must see for Edward Nortan fans, New Yorkers, and just about anyone else.
Waiting at Gino's
They just doubled the size of the place, and we're still waiting at the bar. Its mobbed today. This place is too popular.