I'm goofing around with my avatar, experimenting with text to speech and giving him a little more futuristic look.  I've got him saying the first paragraph of the Sunscreen Song, which came out the year I graduated high school.

Billy Wagner and I both had big Sundays...   

When Wagner was asked if he was ready to go again after blowing a four run lead for the Mets on Saturday, he responded, "Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?"

For you cityfolk, he meant yes.

So when he came back on out for the third day in a row to nail down the rubber game of this weekend's Subway Series, it was big. 

Billy, I know how you feel.

Last week, Sunday morning softball was an utter disaster.  After getting yanked in the middle of an inning after booted two routine fly balls, I left the field and didn't return.  It was pretty much a low point in my casual team sports career.

So when I rejoined the team yesterday and the first ball came to me in right...  I had a little voice in my head.

"Don't f*ckin' miss this...  don't f*ckin' miss this."

Caught.

[Sigh of relief]

So when I got back to the dugout, we all had a good laugh about getting that behind me.

But just catching a flyball wasn't quite enough to nail the coffin shut on last week's demons.  So, when their lefty cleanup hitter came up in a 7-2 game with two on, I knew it was time for a hammer.

The kid hadn't taken a pitch all day and everything he hit was hard....  pulled hard.   So I backed up to the edge of our field, about 20 feet from the next field over (no fences).   Brian said that when the ball left his bat and said over his head at first, he figured it was gone.  But I was on my horse and got a step on it. 

He told me after that I must have been thinking, "I might actually have this."

He was totally right.

I figure given the time I was running, I was about 75 feet past the edge of our field, fully into the outfield of the next one over.... and I caught the ball in-stride with my hand high in the air.

Redemption feels good.... especially when you undo exactly what you screwed up on the last time.

Today, redemption feels a little sore, though.  I played three softball games yesterday, two in the morning, and one Zog game in the afternoon...  sandwiching a Zog touch football playoff game in the middle.  Three softball wins and one football loss...   all in all a pretty good day.

This was on the radio last night...   The "Sunscreen Song" of 2004?

"Underwear Goes Inside the Pants"
Lazyboy

Why is marijuana not legal? Why is marijuana not legal?
It's a natural plant that grows in the dirt.
Do you know what's not natural?
80 year old dudes with hard-ons. That's not natural.
But we got pills for that.
We're dedicating all our medical resources to keeping the old guys erect,
but we're putting people in jail for something that grows in the dirt?

You know we have more prescription drugs now.
Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad.
I can't watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases.
Like: "Do you ever wake up tired in the morning?"
Oh my god I have this, write this down. Whatever it is, I have it.
Half the time I don't even know what the commercial is:
people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean.
I'm like that is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that?
That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy.

The schools now: It is all about self-esteem in the schools now.
Build the kids' self-esteem, make them feel good about themselves.
If everybody grows up with high self-esteem, who is going to dance in our strip clubs?
What's going to happen to our porno industry?
These women don't just grown on trees.
It takes lots of drunk dads missing dance recitals before you decide to blow a goat on the internet for fifty bucks.
And if that disappears, where does that leave me on a Friday night with my new high speed connection?

Masterminds are another word that comes up all the time.
You keep hearing about these terrorists masterminds that get killed in the middle east.
Terrorists masterminds.
Mastermind is sort of a lofty way to describe what these guys do, don't you think?
They're not masterminds.
"OK, you take bomb, right? And you put in your backpack. And you get on bus and you blow yourself up. Alright?"
"Why do I have to blow myself up? Why can't I just:"
"Who's the fucking mastermind here? Me or you?"

Americans, let's face it: We've been a spoiled country for a long time.
Do you know what the number one health risk in America is?
Obesity. They say we're in the middle of an obesity epidemic.
An epidemic like it is polio. Like we'll be telling our grand kids about it one day.
The Great Obesity Epidemic of 2004.
"How'd you get through it grandpa?"
"Oh, it was horrible Johnny, there was cheesecake and pork chops everywhere."

Nobody knows why were getting fatter? Look at our lifestyle.
I'll sit at a drive thru.
I'll sit there behind fifteen other cars instead of getting up to make the eight foot walk to the totally empty counter.
Everything is mega meal, super sized. Want biggie fries, super sized, want to go large.
You want to have thirty burgers for a nickel you fat mother fucker. There's room in the back. Take it!
Want a 55 gallon drum of Coke with that? It's only three more cents.

Sometimes you have to suffer a little bit in your youth to motivate yourself to succeed in later life.
Do you think if Bill Gates got laid in high school, do you think there'd be a Microsoft?
Of course not.
You got to spend a long time in your own locker with your underwear shoved up your ass before you start to think,
"You'll see. I'm going to take of the world of computers! I'll show them."

We're in one of the richest countries in the world,
but the minimum wage is lower than it was thirty five years ago.
There are homeless people everywhere.
This homeless guy asked me for money the other day.
I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol.
And then I thought, that's what I'm going to use it on.
Why am I judging this poor bastard.
People love to judge homeless guys. Like if you give them money they're just going to waste it.
Well, he lives in a box, what do you want him to do? Save it up and buy a wall unit?
Take a little run to the store for a throw rug and a CD rack? He's homeless.
I walked behind this guy the other day.
A homeless guy asked him for money.
He looks right at the homeless guy and says why don't you go get a job you bum.
People always say that to homeless guys like it is so easy.
This homeless guy was wearing his underwear outside his pants.
Outside his pants. I'm guessing his resume isn't all up to date.
I'm predicting some problems during the interview process.
I'm pretty sure even McDonalds has a "underwear goes inside the pants" policy.
Not that they enforce it really strictly, but technically I'm sure it is on the books.

Since I bought my place, the MR 16 halogen bulbs on my tracklight haven't worked right.

I turn them on, they light for light 5-10 minutes, then blowout.. .but they're not really blown out, because if I shut them off, and turn them on again later, they'll work.  Sometimes they'll just go back on by themselves.   I've bought new bulbs, replaced the little sliding arm things they plug into...  only put one track light at a time up... nothing seems to work.  I don't get it.

1. Take care of your own business before you start a new one.
2. Project a positive and professional image to generate trust.
3. Pay attention... listen, ask.
4. Dive into your interests and make your life reflective of who you are.
5. Don't wait for someone to tell you to be an entreprenuer... only you can hire yourself.
6. Think long term.
7. Know yourself.
8. Constantly reevaluate.
9. Deligate.  Share both responsibility and credit.
10. Learn from your mistakes and failures.

Its an arms race out there.

I have 17' wheels on my car, but I know there's someone out there with an 18' inch set.

I could buy a gold plated cellphone, but you know someone else probably has diamonds.

So how do you win?  What's the bling that no one else can top?

Me.

Me-bling, actually.  Anyone can get a ringtone just like yours, or steal your MySpace background, but no one else is going to use your own expression of yourself to top you. 

So, no matter how many people get avatars...  no one else will have the bald Charlie avatar who stands in front of the boathouse, goes to Met games or stands in Union Square.  Why would they?

I think if we've learned anything from the whole blog revolution, its that people want to be able to interact with the media and services they consume, and to express themselves in a personal way.  I think the growth of the "virtual goods" markets like in Second Life or MMPORGs, the ringtone market, etc. proves that you can also make a great business out of enabling these things.  What will be interesting is how you do it on the web, where standards are open, HTML is pastable, screens are capturable, and unlike mobile phones, distribution isn't locked down.

Mica Scalin from the Pan made this awesome video of our dodgeball tournament.   She even used some text to speech tools to make the music.  So cool!

Every morning, I get two private equity industry newsletters in my inbox.  One is PE Week Wire from Thomson and the other is VentureWire Alert from Dow Jones.

Today I unsubscribed from Dow Jones.

Why? 

Because they're basically the exact same content, except that, with PE Week Wire, I get the commentary (essentially blogging) of Dan Primack, an actual human being with a personality who I've met before.  When all content is equal and I can access anything, I'll take my content with a pulse, thank you.  Dan runs Final Four tournaments and complains when the "Trusty Pontiac" isn't so trusty.

DJ VentureWire wants me to pay to get anything more than about 8 words and there are no mention of any humans who contribute to the production of their newsletter.

So, here's my choice every morning:

From DJ Newswire:

venture market summary

By VentureWire Staff Reporters

Investors across the Atlantic appear more willing to line up behind companies raising larger rounds, as the median size of venture capital commitments to European start-ups in the first quarter reached a six-year high.

(story continues for a few stale paragraphs...)

Chinese Podcasting Site Toodou.com Raises $8.5M Series B

By VentureWire Staff Reporters

5/15/2006 – Toodou.com, a Shanghai-based podcasting Web site, has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding [ full story ] <-- Subscribers only.

From PE Week Wire:

Random Ramblings

Back in the saddle after my short

Toronto

I’m not going to provide a speech transcript (nor could I, since it was based on just a few lines of written notes), but here’s the gist:

There are three major private equity trends that will likely reshape the market for decades to come. The first is also the most obvious: Globalization. Most talk of private equity globalization revolves around investment opportunities, but the more salient focus should be on helping existing (read: more localized) portfolio companies leverage the global market. This isn’t to say that certain firms won’t make millions on Chinese software companies and Indian drugmakers, but rather that most firms can not reasonably expand their investment bandwidth to global limits. In other words, Sequoia and DFJ are the exceptions rather than the rules.

More of Dan's "blog" here...

And just enough news to actually inform me of something....

Toodou.com, a

Shanghai

Tuesday night, nextNY will be gathering after work at Slainte at 304 Bowery between Houston and Bleeker.   

You should come...  In fact, if you come to any of our events, I'll put it out there that this is the single most important event to be at in the short history of this burgeoning group.

Why?

Because, now, we're over the hump of trying to come into existance.  We exist.  We're 140 on our listserv.  We have a real website.  Now its not about, "Will this work?" as it is about "Now that this works, what do you want to do with it?"

So some of us will be meeting at 6PM on the dot to go over some ideas we have for public discussions, like a Startup 101 with some of the most successful area entrepreneurs.  But really, everybody there should be talking about "what next" because the larger this group gets, the less its about nextNY and the more its about the up and coming members of the NYC digitial community.   What do we want to be as a whole? What's the message we want to broadcast? 

In my mind, its that NYC is the best place for ambitious and creative people to build their best ideas into reality.  But that doesn't happen if we're all onesies and twosies drowned out by the noise of the finance crowd of Wall St., the advertising people of Madison Ave., the actors on Broadway, and all the other industries are huge in NYC.  I'd love for this group to have a show of force in numbers tomorrow... over 100...  and not just attending... but going home to post Flickr photos, to blog, to invite others to join, to really turn the volume up on the buzz...     because our future content needs to be reflective of what the larger community is interested.  Because if we're to get the large tech firms like Google and AOL to engage us at all... they've got to hear the buzz loud and clear. 

I hope you all can make it tomorrow, and please don't hesitate to bring friends.

Thanks for all of your time and effort to make this great.

In everything I do, I try to surround myself with hardworking, positive people who will go the extra mile--and do so in a way that really makes things a good experience for everyone around them.  That's important to me as I tend to feed off the energy of others.  That's why, when I think about travelling, my first question is always about who I'm going with, because the people I go with are going to make or break the trip for me, regardless of who I'm going with.

That goes for sports, too... especially at this age.  I'm 26 and I'm not going to make the major leagues...   at least it seems highly unlikely.  I play softball to have fun.  I hustle and try to win of course, but I'm not going to lose sleep if I don't, because I've got other things in my life.

So, today, I did something I've never done before.  I walked off the field in the middle of a game.  I play in a men's fastpitch league in Brooklyn and we're not doing well.  Last week we didn't field... this week we weren't hitting.   I show up.  I hustle.  I play and bat where I'm told. 

So, in our first inning of the second game, I missed two fly balls, which I really never do.  The first one, I got distracted because the first baseman ran out to me and, even though I called it, I wasn't sure if we were going to run into each other.  I looked down at him for a split second and it was just the wrong split second to look down. 

The inning wasn't really going well for anyone in the outfield.  Before that, the centerfielder showboated one with one hand, tried to do one of these Barry Bonds catch off to the side of the head things... and it bounced right off his glove.  At least I wasn't showboating.

The second play, I realy didn't think it was going to me, so I hesitated, but I still had it tracked down.  I ran over to catch it... and it just didn't happen... bounced off my glove.  Bad play.. it happens.   Smacked my glove and just resided to get it next time.  That's all I can do.  Get it next time.

Then all of the sudden, the kid who manages the team called to me to come out...  he was going to replace me in the field right in the middle of the inning.  I really couldn't believe what I was hearing until I saw this guy come off the bench with his glove.  I was totally stunned.  I mean, you take people out for not hustling, for arguing, but dropping the ball?  We're not major leaguers...   especially not our team.  Stunned.

So I ran off, letting the manager, a guy my age, know that this just wasn't right.  And, without hesitation, I grabbed my bag, said, "See you later" and walked off.  I didn't throw anything.  I didn't get angry... I just walked off.  You just don't make an example of someone who is trying their best...  it doesn't really solve anything, and its absolutely not the kind of team I have any interest in playing for.  I love baseball and I'd play everyday if I could, but not with people who take the fun out of it, because then what am I really playing for?

What would have been the best thing to do?  I dunno...  maybe let my bat do the talking and get my hits while I was the DH and not worry about what happened in the field.  But, sometimes, you just have to take yourself out of a situation where you're not being treated right if you don't have something worthwhile to sacrifice for.  My Zog team plays for charity... the Fordham team carries the name of  an institution I believe in and I'm proud to be associated with.  This team, if its going to play favorites, point fingers and make examples of people when its 3-6, stands for nothing.

Andrew at Phanfare was answering a completely seperate question when he noted what I think is a really interesting consideration.

"What Skype sells, mostly, is the ability to call in and out of the traditional phone network (SkypeIn and SkypeOut). That makes strategic sense. The free users don’t cannibalize the sale of the SkypeIn and SkypeOut (well maybe to a very small degree since the more Skype users there are, the fewer people outside of Skype there are to call), and in fact increase the pool of people who might buy the upsell."

So, when we all have free Wifi or WiMax or WiWhatever and we're all using Skype to call each other...

...  How does Skype make money?

I mean, the whole business of Skype is based on the concept that there are people not on Skype, because you only pay to receive or make calls from outside the Skype network to regular phonelines.

Can you think of another example of a business where converting every last human being on the face of the earth to customers would drive revenues to zero?

I really like your little Spam Catcher thing on my desktop.  Catching all the IMs from people not on my buddy list is smart and a much needed product.

Unfortunately, you made it a client side tool rather than a server side tool.  Therefore, it doesn't work when I forward IMs to my phone when I'm idle, because the forwarding happens before the spam catching. 

Also, screenames caught in my Spam Catcher should never show up in my Recent Buddies list.  I do not need to know when spammers have signed in. 

Thank you.

Recently, an entreprenuer e-mailed us with an pretty good beta version of his site on a development server.  I asked him why he didn't just release it and see what people did with it.

He was waiting to hear back from TechCrunch to get it reviewed and then launch it.

Here's what I wrote back:

"TechCrunch is the hottest girl in the class in junior high.  You felt compelled to ask her out because it was widely accepted that she was the most desireable date.  That says nothing about whether or not the two of you would make a good match.  Find the right girl not the hot girl.  I'd say to hit up [Meetup groups of people into the kind of activity relevent to your site]...if you can't gain traction with them first then no amount of techcrunch buzz will help.  (might even be distracting noise)..."

Josh Kopelman seems to be echoing these sentiments.  Too many people are focused on building things for a really small audience, and in this case, perhaps not even the most relevent audience.

I would imagine that Mike Arrington would probably agree... that you don't build for TechCrunch or wait for TechCrunch...  you go out and try to build the best service that could gain wide adoption with a large audience... and he'll provide some smart insight and feedback, and spotlight when people are doing something really right or really wrong.

And that goes for DEMO, the Wall Street Journal, or any other site.  Its cool to have a big press "launch", but don't actually wait to release something just to time it with a big PR splash.  Just get it out there!

So when it comes down to it, I really had no business trying to ask Dawn out on the 5th grade, but I understood why I did it.  Prettiest girl in the class... you feel compelled to take a shot because you think that's going to make life wonderful...  and that might get you 10,000 users if you get 20% penetration (with Techcrunch, not with the date... get your mind out of the gutter), but then what? 

Pretty sure this isn't legal, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

I wonder what their outlet for used CDs is. What's the going rate for a used CD? $1? $2?

Finally, kayaking is back!

Click my SitePal (the little bald guy in my sidebar) for the details on this weekend's free kayaking, brought to you by the Downtown Boathouse.

I'll be up at the Pier 96 location all day Saturday, pretty much from 9-4ish...  Sunday I won't be around b/c I have softball games and then dinner with mom, of course!

Niki Scevak posted a comment on Fred's blog that included the fact that Monster has more than doubled in share price in the last year.  In fact, the stock is up about 6X from March '03.

How's that even possible?

It blows my mind that, somehow, paying $300 to post a job on a job board is still a valuable proposition to someone.  You could get absolutely no resumes, not even any views and still have to fork over the money.

Job postings are really just

There are a lot of great things I can say about the two jobs I've held so far.  I've worked with really smart people.  I've been compensated fairly.  They've been flexible about my need to leave a little early once a week for the occasional early softball game.

But the most rewarding aspect of my job has been that my employers have been sincerely interested in my own growth and personal development.  We've been able to maintain an open dialogue about what I was interested in doing, the skills they thought I needed to develop, and the balance between those things and the job at hand.  They've also treated my ideas with respect and allowed me to maintain a relatively public presence. 

Salary and benefits are always nice, but not feeling like your company is trying to hide you and keep you chained in the basement like some bastard stepchild...well that's pretty irreplaceable.  I can't tell you how many stories I've heard of my friends who do all the work for the client, but don't get to go to the client dinners, because that's a "partner thing".  Another great example is the PR person who writes his company's blog under his CEO's name, but isn't  allowed to post on his own and create a name for himself, or respond to any comments.

That kind of treatment creates a bad relationship with your employee.  It signals a lack of confidence.  Its the kind of thing that causes people to leave without warning, because you've built up this underlying resentment growing within your firm.

So put yourself in every last employees shoes if you run a company and ask yourself if you would feel like your company was passionate about you.  If not, is that because you don't believe in them or is it because you've been asking for passion from them for your company but not returning it.

Passion is definitely a two way street...otherwise is just kind of an unhealthy obsession.

Sachi from Centerpoint wrote a while back about conversation in the blogosphere:

• "There are way too many monologues, and not enough dialogues, in the blogosphere.
• Likewise, there is too much talking and not enough listening.
• Comments and trackbacks are not good metrics of which blogs are being read."

Part of the problem?   Comments suck.

And I'm not the only one that thinks so.

I'm working on a few bigger posts and today is busy at work, so all you get is some funny pics that I took in the city over the past week or so...

Now that Victor Zambrano has done us all a favor and injured his arm, ending his season, it makes you think of how awful some of the Mets trades have been over the last few years.  Certainly Scott Kazmir has a bright future and has looked brilliant at times, but he has yet to win his first Cy Young, so, while its hard to imagine the Zambrano trade not being a waste, its still too early to tell.

So what is the worst Mets trade ever?

How about Jason Isringhausen for Billy Taylor?  We traded a live young arm with a big 12-6 curve for a 38 year old washed up closer.  Isringhausen would go on to post 215 saves and counting since his 7/99 trade, posting ERAs under 3.00 over the last 5 years straight.  Billy Taylor would go on to throw 29 more innings of Major League ball before taking his rightful place at the top of the scrap heap.