Dear TV,

     I'm afraid this isn't really going to work out.  There's someone else.  Actually, there's a couple of others... there's the web, and, well, its not even just the web... there's my whole life, with the softball and the kayaking, and you just don't fit into it with your rigid scheduling and DRM lifestyle.

     You always want to do things on your terms...  showing shows only at certain times, only at home on my couch.  God forbid you let me copy a show and watch it on my computer or a video iPod.  Its all about you... you don't want to share and I'm just a free spirit.  You can't keep me caged in anymore.

     I want a relationship that lets me watch Jeopardy on the subway the morning after it airs... or even in a podcast on my bike.  I'm willing to go halfway--I'll even take the commercials with me if it makes you feel better, but no, you're not happy about that.  And, even when you do let me take a show with me, you want me to pay for each one individually.

     Why do you have to be so controlling?  You could be so much more.  You could just publish all the content freely and attach ads to it and let people take them wherever they want.  You could break free from the box... why do you keep holding back?

     You know, I thought things were getting better.  I was watching those funny SNL clips on YouTube and it made me feel like I wanted to get close to you again... maybe work things out.  But then you went and spoiled everything.

     I'm tired of feeling so confined.  There's a whole big world out there, and if you don't want to come with me, on my phone, on my Ipod, on the computer, then I think we need to end this.  You're so stuck in your ways and if you don't change, you're going to die alone. 

     I don't regret any of our time together...  our afternoons when I was 9, watching Airwolf, two episodes of Knight Rider, and two episodes of the A-Team...  but I'm 26 now and I need something more.  I'm sorry.

Charlie

PS...  There wasn't enough sex either.

Swing Juice, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

The founder of Swing Juice swung by the new boathouse today with a free sample. It was pretty good... Its targeted to golfers, but I'm sure works for any sports enthusiasts. Check it out. Www.swingjuice.com

Sitting in Union Square Starbucks now, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Its 3:23...planning on being here until 6. Come say hello if you want...but just hello. I'm working. :)

Yesterday, we celebrated both my dad's 66th birthday and my grandmother's (mom's mom) 88th birthday at, where else, Gino's. 

Watching how they treat my dad is like watching people visit the Godfather.  (And my dad isn't even Italian.)

The beginning of this video features Sayo the waiter trying to gather his troops for a little waitstaff in the round birthday song.   My maternal nana is sitting to my left, and my other nana is on my right.  My brother Steve is at the end of the table.

Don't my parents look pretty good for their age?

So, about a month ago, I took a personal dispute public.  Adrianna wanted to infultrate and conquer my pleated wardrobe and I was quite resistant.  In retaliation, instead of just opening up to her influence, I decided to create the first open source fashion recommendation system:  Coat Idol.

I needed a winter coat.

People nominated coats in del.icio.us.

And now, you can vote on which one I'll buy:  (Note, some of the coats didn't make it, b/c their permalinks weren't so permanent and I couldn't find them again.  Silly retailers.)

Voting ends Tuesday at 5PM.  At that point, I'll blindly place a rush order (its getting pretty cold here) for whatever coat has the most votes.  Please vote only once.

Here are the choices... vote at the bottom.

1) New University Coat (with Thinsolate)  - $198

2)  Columbia Men's Leather Bib Hipster Jacket - $180

3)   Kenneth Cole Reaction Wool Peacoat - $175

4)  Kenneth Cole REACTION  "Boxcar" Coat - $99

5)  Andrew Marc's Marc New York - $195

6) Leather Car Coat - $119

So, after a haircut yesterday, I came to terms a very difficult problem.  Its a problem that many people take a long time to confront.  No one wants it to happen to them, but when it does, I think the best thing to do is to be open and honest about it.

I'm losing my hair.

There.  I said it.  To be honest, I knew it was coming eventually.  It was only a matter of time.  It was thin to begin with, particularly upfront.  Now its creeping way up there in the corners and trying to circle back around, cutting off the supply lines to the beleaguered troops on the front lines.  By combing it back in my normal style, I only made it more difficult to hide.  People noticed and had been noticing the thinness for some time.  It would show up in a dimly restaurant if I was sitting directly under a light, which would throw back a bit too much shine for someone without a sparsity issue.  Hairspray and gel became a non-starter.  Can't have these guys clumping up on me...  Not enough to go around.  Spread out guys...  Make the place look crowded.  Can't tell people its a slow night.  Once you lose your customers, there's no bringing them back.
     Well, now that I've come to terms with it, pretty early, to my credit, if I might add, what do I do about it?  Without question, there will be no hats, comb arounds, unders, overs or throughs.  There will be no creams, shampoos, pills, or rinses.  No hair will be brought in from the outside, be it from other places on my body, other heads, animals, or from a lab or factory.  No, we built this franchise from inside and we're not going to get into the business of signing high priced free agents that might not pan out.  I will not have my head become the '93 Mets. 
     No, we're going with what we have, and actually even less than that.  Sometime before dodgeball on Sunday, I'm getting a buzzcut.  This way, I won't have to worry about it.  It will be my way of saying, "Hey, we weren't up to this full head of hair business.  We tried... gave it our best shot, but it just wasn't in the cards.  You know, maternal grandfather and all...  There was nothing to be done about it."
     I'm confident about this decision, too.  You never really see anyone with a buzz that anyone says looks bad.  Thinning hair and attempts to hide it, no matter how valiant, however, always look bad.  So that's it.  This is the way its going to be around here from now on, and there are a lot worse things I could be dealing with.  I'm happy, I'm healthy, and come sometime this week, I'm not going to have very much hair.  Problem?  Not at all.  I'm over it.

Starbucks and What the Doormouse Said, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Cheese foccaccia bread thing was ok... Not great. I don't drink coffee so I had a chai. What is chai anyway?

From MTV...

The Recording Industry Association of America — the lobbying group behind the thousands of lawsuits over unauthorized sharing and downloading of songs — says the answer is definitely no. "Selling an iPod preloaded with music is no different than selling a DVD onto which you have burned your entire music collection," the RIAA said in a statement. "Either act is a clear violation of U.S. copyright law. The RIAA is monitoring this means of infringement. In short: seller beware.

So here's a question...

Love the beam, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

I had an infrared port on my laptop all throughout college...never knew what it was for.



Recently, I've been stuck in some situations where our internet was down and had no USB cord, but I had to get a file onto our server from my phone.



The beam!



Now I'm beam obsessed. Its one of the most underutilized parts of the laptop.



Brad is getting rid of an old compuer and needs to get some files onto our fileserver.



So I'm beaming them over.

This is ridiculous...

How about we just go out and get this guy instead?

Jae Seo, we'll miss you.

When I was in the 7th grade, I had a Valentine.  We dated for six months before we really made out...  lots of hand holding.

When it happened, we broke up soon after.  I really don't think the relationship was ready for that level of physical intimacy.

I had a Valentine in my freshman year of high school...  a sophomore.  She was cool.  She liked the Ramones and the Lunachicks, and she could makeout with gum in her mouth.  I could never find where she was hiding it, but I tried.  I bought her perfume and gave it to her at Mimi's pizzeria on the Upper East Side.  She told me, upon acceptance, that she didn't really wear perfume.  Why she couldn't just graciously accept, I have no idea...  that bothered me and we broke up soon after. 

I often wonder what happened to that perfume.

When I was a senior, I was in the middle of a serious two year high school romance.  Valentine's Day was the end of a long string of relationship capex.  November: Anniversary.  December: Christmas.  January: Birthday.  February: Valentine's Day.  Love was an expensive proposition.

She doesn't talk to me anymore, even though she lives about three blocks away from me now, but there's still something that persists from that relationship:  A black Pink Floyd t-shirt.  Its 10 years old now, and there's not a single hole in it.  I wear it to the gym and its been washed a million times.  Its faded, but like Keith Richards, it cannot be killed by conventional weapons.

As a junior in college, Valentine's Day got me back into a relationship with my best college friend.  I was smitten for two years and she was... well...  looking for a boyfriend.  That lasted until I realized that this wasn't the ultimate culmination of three years of emotional friendship...  but instead a boyfriend beartrap that I stumbled into in the hopes of a tuna sandwich.  Tigers are kind of stupid that way.  Growl.

She'll be getting married later this year.

The year after college, I dated a girl who wanted to change the world.  I made her some kind of fake meat tortilla for Valentine's Day, which she didn't really eat, because it still looked like meat.  I threw myself at her for six months, we dated for six months, got dumped, then tried unsuccessfully to prove to her that she'd regret dumped me by being the best guy on the face of the earth.  This included helping her move to Ohio, where she ultimately fell for her Americorps supervisor. 

I guess getting a girl like that to fall for a guy working for the General Motors Corporation was a bit of a longshot.  Perhaps if we oppressed the weak a little less and curbed some of the polluting, and if she hadn't seen Roger & Me things might have gone differently. 

Damn you Michael Moore.

Last year, I dated a girl who seemed to want to be everyone's Valentine...  like in bars and with guys that she had been with before.  Sketchy sketchy.  I did like her cat, though, and I don't even really like cats.

Her actual cat.  Get your mind out of the gutter.

And now?  And now after all that I've been through, I think I know less about love than I ever did before.  Sometimes, I really thought I knew what I want and other times, I really knew what I want and couldn't get my stupid male mind to accept it.  I go after what isn't good for me, and kick and scream when things seem just right.

I'm not real bright and I'm far from as in touch with this part of myself as I need to be.  Regrets?  I have the growing suspicion that I now have them.  Hope?  Yes, everyday.  I hope for clarity of vision...  to see into myself and understand who I want to be, and therefore, who I want to be with.  The search for others really is a search for self and I think things don't work out when you forget that its just as much about you as it is about the other person.  If you don't have all your ducks in a row, forget about the doves. 

Someone should write the "Art of Love" and model it after the "Art of War."  Know thyself.  I hope I figure it all out one day... and soon, before my ducks and doves start pecking away at each other.

So, at first, Gtalk was underwhelming.

But, integrated into my Gmail inbox, I've been using it all day... but in a different way than I use AIM.  I've noticed that, when someone sends me an e-mail, and they're online, its a quick way to ping somebody right back--because they're still in the inbox.  Its very task oriented, whereas AIM is more conversational.

Anyone else feel the same way?  Differently?  Have you used it more now?

SANY0018, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

$5.15 for a pre-made hero and a side salad. Can anyone beat that? This is from Deli Marche on 5th, between 22nd and 23rd, just a few doors down from Jamba Juice. They usually have some kind of turkey hero and that's what I get. When you work in NYC, lunch is often the most expensive meal of the day... Paninis for $7.95?? No thanks!

I don't remember where I heard this, but someone made a very good observation as to why  educational software pales in comparison to the kind of experience kids get at home on their Xbox...  the development budgets on the average video game are exponentially higher.  So, kids can shoot bad guys with cutting edge graphics, but learning geometry takes them back to 1990. 

So why not make educational plugins for Halo?  Shoot bad guys with ellipses and paralell lines... or construct tanks by solving math problems with angles.   God forbid kids might learn something and have fun at the same time.

The same is true about education and web applications--schools are getting left behind because of antiquated notions about what students should be exposed to.

Take Blackboard, for example.  The company has made a huge business out of selling a content management system to schools as enterprise software.  Schools pay thousands of dollars for installation and implementation of this education portal so that teachers can get their classes online. 

Has anyone actually seen or used Blackboard?  I've taught classes and I've tried to use it.  Its awful.  It looks like it was designed in 1998, and compared to the sites that most college students spend their time on, MySpace and the Facebook, its about as captivating as cafeteria food. 

This is a market ripe for a lightweight, social web-app.  Students would love to logon, get their homework, search the profiles of other students in their class, pair off in groups, like to MySpace profiles, etc. 

The only problem is, schools are slow decision makers and they've already invested so much in Blackboard.  So, for a product to go viral, it needs to be grassroots and free.

But free necessitates some kind of advertising, and that's where the party ends for an educational web app.  Schools have gotten a lot of heat for bringing corporations anywhere near the classroom and so the market shys away from such a thing.

But this is hypocritical and unrealistic.  Corporations sponsor athletic teams.  They run ads in school newspapers.  Plus, its not like schools have a monopoly on the eyeballs.  What do you think students get exposed to when they head to the web or turn on their school cable?  What about MySpace and the Facebook?  These companies recognize that students are consumers, too, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be exposed to responsible advertising.  The great thing about the web is that, unlike athletic sponsorship, students can tune it out and switch services when it gets to be too much for them.

A few people are out there trying to do online content management apps for education, and so far, none of those services have even approached the advertising model.  I say why not.  What's wrong with a tabbed portal where students log onto where they get their homework and travel deals for spring break in the same place?  Its not like they're getting pop-ups in the middle of a history lesson.  These are the kind of advertisements students actually want to get and its silly if they can't be used to support web applications that enhance learning a lot better than the clunky Blackboard enterprise software does. 

Snowy Stang, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Hopefully, its in the 60's all week, b/c I don't feel like shoveling this out.

I am continually underwhelmed by business model creativity.  I had an entreprenuer ask me not too long ago if there was any other way to monetize his business besides AdSense...   I'm quite sure he didn't expect to be on the phone that long when I answered.

Yes, Virginia, there are alternatives... lots.  They just require a little creativity.

Take 3Bubbles, for example, profiled on TechCrunch.

Just thinking of this as ad supported chat really underestimates the power of a distributed communication service where people have a profile and a history of content generation in context.

I'm sure they'll get the implementation particulars right at some point, but think of it this way:

What if every content site had this service, and instead of walled garden chatrooms, they were all connected in a network. 

Essentially, you will have built a social network on the back of the web w/o a single central location.  I could be introduced to people who are chatting about the same things I am, and get recommendations based on the things they are chatting about.  By indicating which things I feel strongly enough to chat about, connecting to others like me, this could create a recommended reading list for me based on the profile it creates watching by my actions.   I wrote about how one could port this profile to other completely different types of services in my piece about Theirware and MyWare.

So, the profile built as the data exhaust from my 3Bubbles communications could be used to power e-commerce on other sites.  3Bubbles could be the place where I keep my offer inbox...   I chat about travel, and so travel companies offer me travel deals.  If you're an advertiser, imagine being able to give offers to the people who chat most about your product.  There are a ton of companies trying to track who the evangelists are for consumer products companies...  this would spotlight exactly who those people were and I'm sure companies would pay for access to them.

This could be really interesting... a lot more interesting than just ad supported chat.

I just tried vSocial and, while I had a nitpick about the uploading, the results are dramatically different than YouTube.

It doesn't pop you back your video right away, which was annoying.  So, I took my video over to YouTube.  I didn't edit it at all, and just uploaded the way too big MPEG4 straight into YouTube.  Well, not only was the quality of the video degraded, but the framing was all screwy.  It didn't shrink my video down to websize, it just showed the top corner of the video.  That's a dumb service.

So, just now, I got an e-mail note that my vSocial video was ready and I was so impressed with the results.  It looks just as nice as the video I took, rightsized itself, and played much quicker than YouTube.

Now, I don't know if this is scalable or not, because YouTube has a lot more traffic, but if it is, you should definitely be using vSocial for video hosting.

I don't know where this guy needs to go, but here's the ridiculous thing about Brooklyn... about 2 minutes later, someone came and took that open parking space.

SANY0002, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Still coming down...