I'm not going to post about last night without explaining why there were 30 of my friends at Bar 515 celebrating.  While I can't say yet where I'm going (not until Monday anyway), the big news is that Friday, February 11, 2005 will be my last day at General Motors Asset Management.  After a little over eight years, I will be moving on for a really fantastic opportunity.  It has been a great experience, which I will write lots about when I make my official announcement on Monday.  For now, I'll just be concentrating on the party last night. 

I think Tim really captured the significance of the occasion when he asked, "What else have you done in your life for eight years so far?  Nothing."  He was totally right.  GM had been the longest continuous association/presense I've ever had.  Talk about an era.  Anyway...  more on Monday.  On to the party.

First of all, the turnout was amazing.  I really didn't expect so many people to show.  One of Dorean's friends said to me, "Wow, you have a lot of friends."   I guess I do.  I just don't like losing touch with people, especially when I've met quality people.  My life, in spite of the fact that it hasn't taken me too far geographically, has taken me through a lot of different groups of people and so I've met a lot of people that I would like to keep around.  Last night, people from so many different parts of my life were represented.  It was a little overwhelming to see them all there at once, and to feel like you're responsible for them having a good time.  I suppose that's what the alcohol is there for... its like a babysitter.  "Mr. Beer, could you watch Brian for a little while while I go greet some guests?"  Anyway, there were people from home, from Genesis, Regis/Marymount days, Fordham, GM, kayaking, baseball.  I thought it would be interesting to plot the entrance of selected people into my life on a timeline. 

No, I'm serious, I actually did it:

It will be interesting to see how that plays out over time.  Maybe I'll do another one for my grad school going away party.  :)

Anyway, I know you're all dying to see the pictures.  To be honest, I didn't get as many people as I would have liked to.  I was pretty busy hanging out with everyone, but I did get a few.  Perhaps I should have deputized some people at the bar with the Powershot.  That always seems to get the volume up and the quality down.

The bats finally came alive for Fordham's home debut at DeWitt Clinton Field at 52nd Street and 11th Avenue.

Temporarily displaced for a season while Hecksher Field is being renovated, the Fordham Rams came alive in the 2nd inning, sparked by shortstop Alex Pakla's solo blast to left.  Fordham would notch 5 in that inning, and the scoreboard would show 10-0 before Calarendon Insurance even had their first hit...  in the 4th inning.

The wheels almost came off the train in the fourth for Trever Freeman, making his first career start.  After keeping Carendon hitless, whiffing three through the first three frames, hard hits, dropped balls, and poor throws opened the door for the vistors to come within 2 runs, making the game 10-8.  However, with four more runs in the 5th and another blank frame on the mound, Freeman and the Rams made sure that was all they heard of their first victims.  The carnage ended when the Mercy Rule kicked in during the 6th after Fordham went up 20-8.

The game also featured the Fordham debut of Kristin Schwab, whose four hit splash set a record for Fordham first appearances.  Ryan St. Germain, Charlie O'Donnell, Ron Zapata and Jason Gianitti also had multi-RBI games.  Antoinette Mirsberger chipped in with two hits as well, while Chrissy Guerrero played a solid game defensively at second.

So, in addition to getting El Duque, which will probably turn out ok, the Mets pulled this off today:

The Mets acquired left-hander Dave Williams from the Reds in exchange for Class A right-hander Robert Manuel.

In eight starts with Cincinnati this season, Williams, 27, was 2-3 with a 7.20 ERA. In 40 innings, he allowed 54 hits, 34 runs, 32 earned, with 16 walks and 16 strikeouts.

Manuel, 22, was signed as a non-drafted free agent June 17, 2005. He went 8-1 with a 2.06 ERA in 12 games (five starts) for the Gulf Coast League Mets (low Class A) in 2005. In 56 2/3 innings, he allowed 55 hits, 19 runs, 13 earned, with four walks and 49 strikeouts. Manuel tied for the GCL lead in wins, was second in ERA, and fourth in strikeouts. Robert also appeared in two contests for the Brooklyn Cyclones (low Class) of the N.Y.-Penn League, going 0-0 with a 1.80 ERA. He pitched 5 innings in two relief appearances, permitting five hits, one earned run, with five strikeouts.

So we gained five years and five times the suckiness.   Great.

If I had a Cliche of the Week, I think it would have to be "Flickr for Video"...  at least this week anyway.  It seems like in the last few months or so, we've seen a lot of new focus on video, whether its user generated or Apple-repurposed.  YouTube got funding, the CollegeHumor guys refocused on Vimeo, and Alex Vitaki is working hard to build Castpost, to name a few.

People are going to keep their videos somewhere, don't get me wrong, and they're going to want to share, discover, etc.  So, there probably is a Flickr type business model there somewhere, but that's not so interesting to me.

I was speaking with an entrepreneur about this the other day and they told me that they were experimenting with ads inserted in the videos.  Ugh...    I just had a bad reaction to that... the same bad reaction I had when CNN was showing mortgage ad clips everytime I wanted to watch a Hurricane Katrina video.  I'm glad they stopped doing that after a while.

Around the same time, I saw the new Dunkin Donuts commercial where the the CEO gets some cornrows in addition to his new vanilla spice latte, prompting a lackey to say, "That's kind of a new thing for you sir, isn't it?"   Its hilarious.

Then it hit me.   That commercial is so funny, I'd love to run the clip on my blog.  In fact, there are a lot of good commercials that I'd love to run on my blog.  (My favorite all time commercial is the Outpost.com one where they shoot the hamster through the O in outpost... or at least attempt to, and they miss, smacking the poor things against the other letters.)

If I did that, though, why shouldn't I get paid for that? 

In fact, Dunkin Donuts probably would pay me for that if they could.  Advertisors have come up with all sorts of stupid little ways to steal desktop space from me... to get in front of my face in annoying ways with clips, sound, etc.  What if we could just choose commercials to view...   to go to a site, pick the best video clip commercials we can find, and get paid to have our audiences glue their little eyeballs to your 30 second clip.  Some of them are pure entertainment.  I think that would be a great use for some of these video clip services... and a good business model for them.

Even better would be if you let the audience create their own.  What if Dunkin Donuts said, "Ok, we're looking for commercials that have the product in it the whole time, no profanity, nudity, whatever, and are funny as hell."   How many college kids would probably make really fantastic Dunkin Donuts commercials worth watching, displaying on blogs, and e-mailing it to others?  Remember when someone made a Tiger Woods/Nike ad?   Someone else made their own iPod ads.

For companies, it would create cheap advertising, brand awareness, and really capture the attention their looking for.  For bloggers and other publishers, they would be getting paid to display the most entertaining content.  For video creators, they could get a cut, too, and get their name out, and, if nothing else, the pure satisfaction of starring in their own commercials or having the most popular one.

So instead of trying to sneak your way into my attention, why not let the community create something worthy of my attention for the brands they're passionate about, and then pay them for it?

Makes me think of when I was in the fifth grade and Sal Auteri, a tough, bruising little guido if you ever saw one, was doing a class presentation.  It was supposed to be a "TV Newscast" about the state of Missouri or something.  His group couldn't get his act together and all of the sudden, he just turns to the class , rubs his cheek and goes, "Use Dove soap.  It doesn't try your face like other soaps..."   Pure humor.   User generated commercial clips on the web.  I'd click on that and I think advertisers would be to have me watch it.

Just ONCE, I'd like someone to write a story about how students can actually use the internet, blogging and social networks in particular, for good.

The NYT has story today about "outed" anonymous blogging interns....   

I thought we were supposed to be teaching our students how to take advantage of new technologies, not make them afraid.

Companies should be encouraging their interns to blog...  so that they can promote all the great things about their internship programs, the cool things going on at their companies, etc.   They should also be reviewing privacy policies and making clear what's ok to post and what's not.  As long as its done in a responsible way, why would you want to crush your employee's interest in voluntarily associating themselves with their company?  And if one of them is disgruntled... you should work with them to right the wrongs...   not silence their voice.

So, I'll admit that I never read the book.  I'm not a big fiction book reader, and it always kind of turns me off when everyone is reading something.

But I feel like seeing the movie gave me a good synopsys of what the story was and I have to say...  it wasn't nearly as interesting or controversal as people said.

Perhaps its the fact that I've actually taken three or four real Theology courses.  I knew that there were other books of the Bible floating around that a council of scholars voted out.  Stories of Jesus' life between the age of like 8 and 30, are also not new to me.   So, while more fundamentalist Catholics who believe that the Bible was a book handed down from the clouds are up in arms from this movie, nothing that was proposed really shocked me.

There's also a huge gaping hole in the story.  [SPOILER ALERT]  Why does finding a direct bloodline to Mary Magdaline necessarily prove that Jesus had children??  Now, I actually believe that he probably did... not sure why he wouldn't...   but nothing about the story proves that she didn't have children with someone else, even after the crucifiction.  These other Bible stories say they were married, but its not like people only had kids with the people they were married to, especially when their spouses die early.  Just doesn't prove much of anything as far as I can tell.

Also, everyone in the movie is pretty good, except for, and I hate to say it, Tom Hanks.  He's horribly miscast in the movie.  We just don't believe him as the smart guy.  Tom Hanks is everyman.  He's the modern day Jimmy Stewart.  He's Forrest Gump...  the Fedex guy from Castaway...   the foreign diplomat from the Terminal.   He's no religious scholar with a PhD. 

Other people could have played the smart guy.  Harrison Ford... well, I guess he's already search for the grail once, so that's out.  How about Russell Crowe.  No, not the bruiser from Gladiator, but the dork from a Beautiful Mind.  Hell, even Bill Pullman could have been more believable in this role.  Any other ideas?

I'm not going out to Fire Island or the Hamptons.

No Jersey Shore either.

Nope....  I'm not making any plans, b/c I need a weekend off...  not a vacation.. but a weekend around NYC...   a few hours in my apartment wouldn't be bad either.  I could finally get my ceiling fans, hook up my TV to my media center (nope, still haven't done that either.)  Maybe I'll make a pizza, too.

I'll definately be spending a disproportionate amount of time at Pier 96 at the boathouse, too.  I'm set on being there Sunday and Monday, since the weather is going to be good.  Saturday might be my day in Brooklyn, especially if it rains.

I'm not big into vacations, but catch-up time is always welcome.

Places to play in this city are few and far between as it is...   and now one of the only three full-size fields in Manhattan with lights is going to be demolished this summer to make room for science buildings.

I just got this note from ZogSports:

Goldman Field at City College is one of ZogSports’ most heavily used fields (City College is one of five full size fields in Manhattan and one of only three with lights). You also know that thanks to you, all of our leagues have become popular. The reason why each of our leagues sells out quickly is that we currently don’t have enough field space to accommodate the demand.

 

It has come to our attention that City College and CUNY plan to demolish the field at City College starting this summer in order to build new science buildings. This would adversely affect all of our leagues, not just those currently using City College as a venue.

 

ZogSports is taking a lead role to avoid the demolition of the field and we need your help. It is important to get as many people as possible to sign the petition to save the field.

The       

      Goldman

      

      Center

      not only serves as the home for       

      City

      

      College's NCAA athletic teams and intramural programs, but also

      

      A.P.

      

      Randolph

      

      High School

      

      (NYC public school) and countless community groups including:

 

        

      

                                               

	Harlem           Little League
	Harlem           Youth Soccer
	Doc’s           NYC Youth Lacrosse League
	ZogSports           (charity-focused, co-ed sports league for young professionals)
	N.Y.C. Metro Sports
	And           many other youth and community organizations

Sign this petition to help preserve this field.

Are there seriously no old buidings up at 133rd. that they city can't refurbish and use for a science building?  Why is recreational space the first target?

Ok, so the first pitch has been thrown and the 2005 Baseball Playoffs are underway.

Here are my predictions:

Padres vs. Cardinals:  Cardinals in 1.

The Cardinals are going to win the first game 23-1.  The Padres will concede the rest of the series and apoligize for even being in the playoffs with an 82-80 record. 

Astros and Braves:  Astros in 4.

The Braves, too, will apoligize for continuing to win the National League East.  Roger Clemens will nail Chipper Jones in the face intentially, ruining a division series perfect game but then get the next guy to preserve the no-hitter.  Clemens will use age and dementia as an excuse for the wayward 97MPH fastball.  Nobody buys it.  Doesn't matter...  everyone's tired of the Braves anyway.

Yanks and Angels:  Angels in 5. 

Garret Anderson will drive in 10 runs.  Still, he will be drafted in the 12th round of most fantasy leagues next year.  He will legally change his name to "No respect."  Arod will go another year without a ring.  Yankee stadium will be packed with fans who got corporate seats and have never been to a baseball game before.  They'll wonder why that Ruth fellow isn't playing.  Mariano Rivera will not give up a run in his 5 appearences.  Neither will K-Rod.

Sox vs. Sox:  Red Sox in 4.

Podsednick will steal 8 bases in the series.  Both teams will combine for more than 8 runs in every game.  Red Sox fans won't even watch or attend, because, after last year, everything else is gravy.  I can't seriously pick the White Sox here, mostly because, as Brian pointed out, they're throwing out Jose Contraras in the first game.

League Championship Series:

Cards and Astros:  Astros in 6.

Pitching wins games.  Clemens will give up four hits in his two shutouts... 3 in the first game, 1 in his second appearence.  Craig Biggio will also pitch, catch and play SS, and be solid all around.  He'll also get his helmet dirty.  As good as the Cards are, the three headed pitching monster will just be too much to take.  Rocket, Pettitte and Oswalt...   bye bye Birds.

Red Sox and Angels:   Red Sox in 7.

This will be the most dramatic series of the post season.  Garrett Anderson will win MVP in spite of the Angels loss.  These games are going to be slugfests.  I'm not too keen on either team's pitching.  Look out for Earvin Santana, though...   he could be a pleasent surprise for the Angels.

World Series:

Red Sox and Astros:   Astros in 6.

The Red Sox just aren't as good as they were last year.  No Pedro.  Shilling has been hurt.  Keith Foulke is gone.  They're still a fun bunch and probably going to be the best playoff team in the AL, but the best teams this year are the Cards and the Astros and either one could beat them.  I'm a fan of Craig Biggio because he's not flashy and he plays wherever they want him to... and just hits.   I'd like to see him win a Series MVP, but I feel like Lidge is going to factor in here at some point.  Roger Clemens will retire after this season, then come back in the spring and pitch seven more seasons, breaking Ryan's K record.

According to Susan Wojcicki, Google VP of Product Management:

• Focused on a product designed for real users
• Set a strong vision about information access
• Took hiring very seriously; lots of energy into trying to hire the right people. Most of the early hires are now VPs of major areas (of the first 35, 6 are VPs)
• Performed scientific-level analysis of what worked

From Christine Herron.

I think the most important two are product and people.   Get the product right and get the right people behind it.  (Often, getting the product right means having the right people to define and create it.. so its a virtuous circle.)

Being at a VC firm, you get to see a lot of little bits of cool stuff that come together to form a trend or a realization... insight into the big picture.   

Last week, Dice ran an ad in Fred's blog with the words, "Does your tech job suck?"  In the ad itself was a search box and an action button to generate a job query.  They could have created a job search widget and asked Fred to place it on his blog, but instead they just found it easier to figure out what they could monetize a search at, and pay their way into Fred's blog through a functional ad banner.

In the same vein, Brad and I were on a call the other day where we were talking to a VC behind a popular social network making an intro to one of our companies for a business development relationship.  However, the company didn't really have a lot of bandwidth to spare for integration, joint development, etc...    so the VC just suggested we try and do something in the ad banner space.

Brad called it "self serve business development."

I think as smaller and smaller pieces of code can generate more and more functionality, and sites open up more of their data to powering advertising, you're going to see a lot more functional and interactive advertising show up on websites to the point where you think they're actually part of the site or doing some kind of joint development.  The lines between what's a service and what is an ad are definitely blurring.

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!