If you haven't seen the Random Chuck Norris Fact Generator yet, go here.

For those of you not living in a cave that has no broadband, Supr.c.ilio.us has some great web 2.0 related additions:

Link: Supr.c.ilio.us: The Blog � Chuck Norris 2.0.

My favorite:  Chuck Norris doesn’t search Google. He just stares at the screen until Google pops the website he needs.

This blog is hilarious...    There's no reason why it should have half the RSS subs I do.  You should go subscribe to their blog now, or Chuck Norris will roundhouse kick you in the face.

Last Friday night, my Fordham Global Outreach team spent the night contributing to the local New Orleans economy on Bourbon Street.  It turned out that Anderson Cooper was broadcasting live from one of the balconies above.  After shouting to him for about a half hour, he came down after his show for a quick photo op.  Here's the video of the Fordham group calling out to him and him snapping a few pictures with us:

I'm finding myself glued to Indian music videos on Channel 73 this morning.  This isn't the first time I've flipped through and stopped to listen and watch. 

I have no idea what they're singing about and a lot of the dancing looks like its a fight between the Jets and the Sharks from West Side Story.  What's with the dancing in big groups?  There also seems to be a lot of rising overhead shots of guys singing with outstretched arms and shouting towards the sky... sort of like Kirk yelling "Khaaaan!" in Star Trek II. 

But yet, I can't stop from bopping along.  This is great stuff.

Music truly is the international language.  Attractive female Indian dancers don't hurt either, admittedly.

So, if anyone has any recommendations as to some of this stuff I should be listening to, let me know. 

Repainted hallway, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

We just finished repainting this hallway...  These ceilings are like 20ft!

FEMA Trailers  Arrive, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Now the personal care attendants have somewhere to stay, after months.

At 3AM this morning, the NYC Transit system--the subways and buses--shut down, as thousands of MTA employees walked off their jobs.

So, I'll be biking in.  Unless it snows, you cannot stop me. 

You can't even hope to contain me.

Bike this.

On our way, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

All I can think of is...



Its 106 miles to Chicago...  We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.



Hit it.



New Orleans, here we come.

We have a blog going for my 5 year Fordham reunion.   (Yeah, yeah, the template looks suspiciously similar...   I've been busy and didn't have time to do a new template.)

People have been updating the class with stories about what they've been up to.  One guy wrote about what it was like to be the Fordham Mascot.  That was pretty good, but I think it might just been topped by the best wedding story I've ever heard...

Someone very sweet sent me some going away popcorn today.  :)

Matt wrote a follow up post to his popular "New Media Deal" piece and I just want to comment on one particular part of it.  Matt writes:

"A big part of peer production is that most people fundamentally, if quietly, want to belong to any bit of community they can find."

I disagree. 

I'm in the middle of reading Bowling Alone in America: the Collapse and Revival of the American Community.  Granted I'm only up to the collapse part, but so much of this story rings true to me. Participation in groups is generally on the decline.  Sure, there are "membership" groups out there like the AARP that are growing, but they're not actual groups, they're more like mailing lists.

I'm talking about real communities, both on the web and offline.  I think the average person is just more concerned with paying bills, raising their kids, etc.  Its really unfortunatel, but I don't think we are the society of "joiners" that the web makes us out to be.  (I hope I'm wrong, and maybe Meetup is proof of that.) Even on the web, most people spend most of their time with applications just meant for them.  Even e-mail isn't a way for most people to find new communities, its something that enriches their own small circle.

If peer production is all about depending on people's explicit interest in belonging to a community, I don't think its going to work.

In fact, I think the really successful "peer" efforts, like del.icio.us, wikipedia, last.fm, and flickr, hell, you can even through in Amazon's "people like me" engine" only work because they understand that people don't really care enough about communities to join them. 

• I don't have to care that there are hundreds of thousands of other people using del.icio.us.  It works for just me... its a better place to store my links. 
• If I see a wikipedia article, I don't care who wrote it, and if its wrong, I'll just fix it.  I don't need to be an editor or talk to other wikipedia editors. 
• last.fm shows a user what they're listening to and makes recommendations.  Frankly, if the recommendations were good, I think people wouldn't care of a person powered them or a computer did.
• Flickr being such a cool community was largely an accident.  I didn't join it because I wanted to be able to interact with all the other people who go to LVHRD parties and take photos... I just needed a place to store my photos and be able to blog and share them.

Now, of course I'm being extreme here.  Being single and in my 20's, I'm probably more interested in community than the average person, and meeting new people is still very important to me, but this seems to decline as people get married, have kids, buy houses, etc.

Depending on people to choose community over just caring about their own little world is a very tough proposition.   Now, if you help me to augment the communities I'm already in, that's helpful, but that's not quite the same thing.

So I'm going to change Matt's statement and offer a new thesis:

"A big part of peer production is that most people fundamentally want the benefits of community, but are not willing to invest much, if any, social capital to get it.  Successful peer production involves leveraging communities and providing value without the explicit intention of the individuals to contribute to a collective."

That's how mesh networks are going to work, for example... because its built into the phone/wifipoint/laptop/whatever...   and the default is on, not because I'm going to download something because I want to help fight the telco's and help my community get free wifi.

Link: New York Daily News - Mets - Bob Raissman's Tuning In: Mex marks spot in Met booth.

Make no mistake, Hernandez, who will work about 110 games, is the star of this show. In TV baseball the main analyst always is. Hernandez has earned top billing. It's not just about his knowledge of the game. Anyone who played big-league baseball for 17 seasons knows the ins and outs. It's his ability to communicate what he knows with clarity, passion and honesty. Hernandez has developed a style.

It ain't white bread and butter.

This is obviously the before picture, and to be honest, it came out so good, I totally forgot to take a picture of it after it came out of the oven.

My grandparents and I used to make pizzas all the time when I was younger.  Both my and my grandfather both liked anchioves and we'd eat them straight out of the can.  We'd also eat a good deal of the cheese before it got to the pizza as well... you know, to test it.

Ingredients:

My homemade sauce with garlic, fresh basil, oregano

Grated locatelli romano (grated the block in a food processor)

lightly salted mozzerella

green peppers

olives

sundried tomatos

anchiovies

mushrooms

onions

hot red pepper

This team isn't going anywhere.  Fast.

And you know what?  They haven't been going anywhere, for a long time.  This has got to be, given the kind of resources that have been available, the most mismanaged franchise in sports ever.  Now, keep in mind that my knowledge of sports franchise management really only goes back about 15 years, but in that period, since 1990, I'd put up this team against anyone. 

It all started in 1990, when they fired Davey Johnson.  That's when the Mets, in my era, started making decisions that had nothing to do with on the field performance whatsoever. 

Under Johnson, the Mets never finished lower than 2nd, and they won two division titles and one World Series.  That was before realignment, when you basically had to win at least 96 games to get into the playoffs.  Competitive baseball... year in, year out. 

And for that, he got canned.  Right about then, the wheels came off the track.  In came the high-priced flops:  Vince Coleman, Bobby Bo, Bret Saberhagen, Eddie Murray, etc. etc. so on and so forth.  We all know the story there.  Then, a few years later we go to the World Series on the back of a catcher and no outfield.  Oh, and the pitch before Kenny Rogers' last pitch to the Braves?  That was a ball as well.  He couldn't throw a strike with the season on the line TWICE. 

But let's talk about now.  Let's talk about how ridiculous this team is now and what really kills me--the fact that the best players aren't the ones getting the most playing time.  Its become management by politics and it drives me nuts. 

Mike Piazza is batting .243.  Remember Jason Phillips?  He's up at .287.  Now, granted with the few meaningless homeruns Mike's hit, his OPS is within a few points of Phillips, but Phillips is throwing out about 20% of the runners than run against him... and A LOT less people run against him.  Mike is tossing them out at a 10% clip, which means my grandmother has a shot on the back end of a double steal at least.  Oh, and the big difference.  Jason Phillips is making about $300k.  Piazza makes $300k a week... not just during the season... all year. 

But, he's still probably better, at least offensively, than half the catchers in the league.  The problem is, we have him batting 5th.  How about flip flopping him with David Wright, who, out of the regulars, leads the team in slugging, total bases, and is 2nd in RBI.  Plus, the guy draws walks and has a .400+ on base pct.  Well, but you can't do that, because then poor Mike and his $15 million feelings are going to get hurt.  You know what?  For $15 million, they could bat me 10th.  New York City teachers make what Mike makes in a day.  He has no right to complain if they move him in the lineup, move him to another position, or trade him to the Orioles for a bucket of baseballs.  I'm sick of watching this guy leave 5 on a night and ground out into a double play with runners in scoring position.

You know who else they're afraid to bench?  How about Tommy Glavine?  Seven guys have started games for the Mets this year.  Glavine has the 2nd worst ERA and the worst WHIP out of any of them.   After the All-Star break last year, Glavine posted a 4-7 record with a 5.06 ERA.  So, the fact that Aaron Heilman isn't a permanent fixture in this rotation, ahead of Glavine, is a joke.  But, he's Tom Glavine, so you can't send him to the bullpen.  So, we're stuck with him for as long as he wants to keep losing to the Braves.

Speaking of money pits...  How about Kaz Matsui?  First of all, and I brought this up at the time, Miguel Tejada (the Miguel Tejada that drove in 150 runs last year), is making about $12 million a year.  Matsui is making $7 million--a guy who had never batted before in the US, and for $5 million more we could have had the 2002 AL MVP.  A lot of good that extra $5 million did.  This is a guy who, when it was obvious that he couldn't play shortstop in the majors, wouldn't give in on the clause in his contract that said he could only play short.  So, we had to wait until the offseason to switch his position.  But, what's spent is spent, and now we put this yahoo out in the field just because we spent the money.  If it were up to me, I'd hand Cairo the job now and Matsui would never bat again.  Does it say in his contract that we have to play him at all?

Bat Wright 5th.  Trade Glavine, Piazza, and Matsui to anyone who will take them.  Let Heilman pitch every 5th day.  Get Rickey Henderson back...  to teach Jose Reyes the strike zone and how to draw a a walk.  (Hell, he could teach Ishii and Zambrano where the strike zone is, too.)   Health Bell should always come out of the bullpen before Manny Aybar.   

And for the love of God, please let Carlos Beltran run.  I don't care who bats behind him.  What the hell is the point of spending all this money on a 30-30 guy if you don't let him steal?  Did I mention I'd like to manage the team?