Friday, October 31, 2008

Friday Chill Music (October 31, 2008)

I'll be in Vegas this weekend but jetting back to SF for Scott Barrett's wedding, so I wanted the music to be a little more upbeat.

First up is "Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands (linked by Fred Wilson). I've loved Clap Your Hands for a while. It's especially great road trip music. Phil Preuss and I drove back to California from Vail, CO.

Next is The Rosebuds on "When the Lights Dim" from the wonderful women of "I'm All Ears," a music club I'm in. I've missed the last two meetings but these ladies are always on the cutting edge and consistently surface good music.

Beth Stevens of Gonzo Gal brought Adele to my attention. I've heard the "Chasing Pavements" song a couple of times and really like it. Nice to put a face with the voice. You have to click through and launch the NPR player.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

SF Music Venues

The ladies of I'm All Ears have put together a nice, quick scouting report on the best music venues in SF. My favorites are the Fillmore, Herbst Theatre and the Great American Music Hall, but you can't go wrong in this city of ours. Maybe they'll write a few bullet points on each venue.
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Pearl Jam's Documentary

Pearl Jam is releasing a documentary that the band and friends made around the 2004 Vote for a Change tour. Here is the trailer below, along with a great cover I hadn't heard yet. The gist of the tour was to try to get young people engaged in the political process. PJ was also pushing the change initiative and Eddie would do an anti-Bush monologue for a while. He took a lot of flack for it and at the time, I thought he was being a drag. However, things hadn't gotten that bad yet and now I look back on it and wish I would have listened more.

One thing I want to get better at is listening to people who have an unpopular message, whether it's political, financial, or anything else. At times, I've had an unpopular message with the economic problems facing the country. I wish I would have been a little more vocal cause I could have saved my friends some money. Nobody's perfect but I'm happier than ever that people can express themselves in the old US of A.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Jeremy Grantham's 3Q Letter

Jeremy Hartman, making his long awaited Kenny K debut, writes in about the economic crisis and attached Jeremy Grantham's 3Q letter to investors. It's a fantastic read because it walks through the issues we have and he's fairly optimistic at the end of it. He's long term optimistic, which mirros my thoughts (maybe that's why I like it). Some cool facts that I pulled out of it.

  • Great rif on the type of people who can spot a Bubble like we have had vs. the Fortune 500 CEO who can't spot it, but is probably the right type of person to navigate it.
  • Chinese Economy has Capital spending make up 39% of its GDP. That is just staggering. The US is  at 19%, which is staggerlingly low. In my opinion, these numbers need to converge. Investment in capex can make our workers far more productive. They should be made.
  • A great point on how the misallocation of capital (bubble) can get people to postpone necessary investments -- like in education. What a great point. How many people didn't get their graduate degree because they were making coin in the mortgage industry? How many PhD went into Finance instead of Biotech?
  • The financial industry's share of all corporate profits went from 10% in 1982 to 27% last year. Wow.
  • Finally, he advocates a Marshall Plan-like effort to make the US the world leader in alternative energy and infrastructure. I completely agree with him and would love the see the resulting boom in technology and jobs an effort like that would bring.
The full article is below. Big thanks to Jeremy Hartman for his thoughtful submission.

                                                                                                               

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

New Blogger: Mollycoddled

Introducing a new blogger, Mollycoddled Mutterings, written by Molly Mundt. Molly is a friend of mine and also a great designer. She designed my epic Sunday Morning background on my Twitter. Her new blog is really visual, which I really like.

She does things like find furniture left on the street, and fixes it up. Makes great Mix tapes, and draws cool aliens.

She's also launching a set of products for pets soon (that's her day job), so keep an eye on her and her blog.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Seth Godin's Tribes

Book cover of Book cover via AmazonJust finished Seth Godin's new book called Tribes. He's one of my favorite bloggers and has had a huge impact on me in the last year. I loved this piece of advice:

"The first rule the music business failed to understand is that, at least at first, the new thing is rarely as good as the old thing was. if you need the alternative to be better than the status quo frmo the very start, you'll never begin."

Loved the book and love his daily work on the blog. Definitely check it out. I think you can download a audio version on iTunes for 99 cents.
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Sunday, October 26, 2008

Pearl Jam & Body of War

Pearl Jam's fan club, the Ten Club, is promoting this movie called Body of War. Eddie wrote an awesome song about Tomas Young, the subject of the movie, called No More War. Check out this YouTube clip.

Nauseating but Cool

Todd Melby of Loose Lips Sink Ships posted perhaps the most nauseating Internet video of all time. Good news though, he's engaged! Congrats.

Kellogg & Twitter

People always ask me why I use Twitter instead of Facebook Status Updates. Twitter is much more flexible and "mine-able," meaning my twitter post goes into a data set - all twitters - and is then searchable. This is important because among other things, via this search function, you can see what subjects people are talking about. You can gauge word of mouth on something.

For example, a lot of people in the Kellogg community are pissed about the Field Museum party. I'm mildly pissed. More like disappointed because I can see how something like this could happen in this day and age.

Regardless of feelings, if you do a Twitter search you can see how lite the comments are. This hasn't crossed over into the mainstream (yet).

Search Terms "Kellogg" & "Field" - http://search.twitter.com/search?q=kellogg+field

Search Terms "Kellogg" & "Party" - http://search.twitter.com/search?q=kellogg+party

Search Terms "Kellogg" & "School" - http://search.twitter.com/search?q=kellogg+school

Vs. something about Prop 8 (the Gay Marriage initiative on the California Ballot):

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=prop+8

Friday, October 24, 2008

Friday Chill Music (October 24, 2008)

Sorry for the late post.

I'm on a huge Ryan Adams kick and loved this song that Bijansabet linked to.

Great cheesy video from Vampire Weekend.


Stars - Alternative, Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
I saw Stars a few weeks ago. they vacilated between epic and terrible. this one was epic.

Have a great weekend.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Amazing

Another New Blogger: Loose Lips Sink Ships

There's a bunch of new content coming online from the Kellogg crew. First it was Beth Stevens on Sunday, then John Hamilton on Tuesday and today, it's Todd Melby, with his Loose Lips Sink Ships blog. First, I love the title. Second, I really admire Todd because he had the guts to work at a startup right out of Kellogg. I remember him explaining the technology behind his company's "gene snipping" technology and being challenged intellectually while being envious emotionally because he had found something he really cared about. Todd went on to present the company's story in the Kellogg Business Plan contest, and eventually go work there after school. We've stayed in touch.

Todd is a very thoughtful guy and I enjoyed the conversations at many a Kellogg Healthcare Club open bar event (he's not afraid of a pint or two either). I think you'll find his blog just like Todd - solid, direct and thoughtful.

Start with these two posts:

1) Thoughts on the Financial Crisis: "The most tragic outcome of this entire episode is that government, Wall Street and individual consumers have managed to destroy the trust that’s necessary for a capitalist society to function...."

Like all good entrepreneurs, Todd knows that the most important factor is trust. He goes onto connect the dots, but I think the trust issue is his central point.

2) Todd is already invoking the power of commenting by asking an existential question about Fairness and soliciting comments.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

New Gomez Album

One of my favorite bands, Gomez, announced a new album on their blog today. can't wait for it. Read more here.

In honor of the news, here is one of my favorite Gomez b-sides.

Gomez 2006 09 05d1t12 - Ruff Stuff

New Blogger: 33 Forever

John Hamilton, another friend, has started blogging. John's a friend from Chicago that I met through his wife, Joanna, who was a Kellogg classmate of mine. John claims Kellogg too (05') and is a humongous music fan. We went to a bunch of shows while I was out there. He's a smart dude as well, so I'm looking forward to his music recs along with his daily observations.

To get you started, check out his posts on two cool companies he has surfaced:

1) The Next Big Sound,

2) Babbaco

Check him out at 33 Forever.

P.S. What does that mean John?

Innovating Through a Recession

Professor Andrew Razeghi was one of the best teachers I had at Kellogg. He teaches New Products and has a knack for providing just the right amount of encouragement while sprinkling in a pinch of tough criticism. The result is students that are empowered but know they have a long way to go before their idea turns into a real product.

Professor Razeghi was instrumental in helping a group of us develop our Hangover Drink, which went on to win the Kellogg Business Plan contest. He didn't stop there though. He called a meeting and asked to fund us. Pretty impressive stuff. You don't hear about many business school professors backing students.

Since then, we've kept in touch and he hit me with this interesting article he put together on the current recession. I enjoyed the read and I hope you will too.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Buffet & Rockefeller

Interesting little tidbit of financial history from Bill Fleckenstein this week. One of his readers pointed out the parallels between Warren Buffet's editorial on Friday that he was buying American, and this little gem by John Rockefeller in Nov 1929, that he was bullish on the market (a month after the first part of the crash) and supposedly had pegged Standard Oils stock price at $50. You need to read a few pages, beginning with page 135.

Before you get all mad at me, Warren Buffet is the greatest, so there is a pretty good chance he is right. However, we all make mistakes, like Rockefeller did. Just something to ponder.

My opinion: I'm not sure either way, that's why I haven't bought any stock yet.

This is why Google Books is so great by the way. A specific page in a very old book is suddenly significant and we can all read it and reflect on it. Way to go Google!

Thanks to Andrew Miller who forwarded the Buffet editorial to me last week.

August and Everything After

Great find by I Am Fuel...

This song reminds me of Fall and it's a great Counting Crows b-side. As Fuel points out, the song never made the album but the lyrics are all over the cover.

A11 in the NY Times

It's not everyday that your old roommate is featured in the NY Times. Steve Humphries and his A11 Offense got the nod this week. Steve and I lived together when I first moved to SF in 99' and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Best of luck Steve.

Thanks to Becker for sending this in.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

New Blogger: Gonzo Gal

My friend Beth Stevens is now blogging under the name "Gonzo Gal" and we are all better for it. She's a great writer and really witty, plus she has a knack for finding great bands early on. She's been the referrer of many a great Kenny Kellogg Friday Chill Songs.

Here are a couple good posts to check out but I recommend reading her daily.

Uploading pics...

Google saves us from drunk emailing...

Solo works...

Deficit of Confidence

Great editorial by Jim Grant in this morning's Wall Street Journal.

But it wasn't the vigilance of monetary policy that facilitated the construction of the tree house of leverage that is falling down on our heads today. On the contrary: Artificially low interest rates, imposed by the Federal Reserve itself, were one cause of the trouble. America's privileged place in the monetary world was -- oddly enough -- another. No gold standard checked the emission of new dollar bills during the quarter-century on which the central bankers so pride themselves. And partly because there was no external check on monetary expansion, debt grew much faster than the income with which to service it. Since 1983, debt has expanded by 8.9% a year, GDP by 5.9%. The disparity in growth rates may not look like much, but it generated a powerful result over time. Over the 25 years, total debt -- private and public, financial and non-financial -- has risen by $45.1 trillion, GDP by only $10.9 trillion. You can almost infer the size of the gulf by the lopsided prosperity of the purveyors of debt. In 1983, banks, brokerage houses and other financial businesses contributed 15.8% to domestic corporate profits. It's double that today.

That's one little part describing the problem but this is a great essay that should be read because it's proscriptive too. Cheers

Friday, October 17, 2008

Bonus Song

This is just an song when Eddie sings it. Not great sound but it will do. Apparently Eddie is playing it again.

Pearl Jam - Ship Song (Nick Cave cover)

Comments are the Best

Some very insightful comments this morning on the last Palin post by Alex Bain. I love all the comments I get via Disqus (the comment engine below), and all the emails I get. Actually, I just wish people would comment and not send emails. There are way too many great point of views, like Alex's, that go unseen by the other people who read this blog, because they aren't posted.

He also linked to this video, which was great.

Friday Chill Music (October 17, 2008)

Andrew BirdImage by spatulated via FlickrAndrew Bird via the wonderful A Captains Dead Joint is this weeks chill music. Bird is one of my favorites and I caught him a couple of times while living in Chicago. He's right behind Wilco as Chicago's unofficial official best band/musician.

Fiery Crash is my favorite but listen to them all.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

More Palin

via Andrea Gouw. No matter who you are voting for, this is funny.

http://palinaspresident.com/

Vega on Tom's Diner

“Tom's Diner” coverImage via WikipediaJust an outstanding essay by Suzanne Vega on the origin of her song Tom's Diner. Not only do you hear about her inspiration for the song, how it was remixed without her evening knowing about it and how she is the "mother of the MP3," but you get great little tidbits like this.

I noticed right away, at my shows, that whenever I opened my mouth and sang, “I am sitting, in the morning…”, people would stop drinking and talking, and immediately whirl around and stare at the stage. So I used it as an opening song. I can’t think of a single time that this didn’t work. Even at the Prince’s Trust concert in 1986, in front of 10,000 people, I went onstage as the opening act and began the entire concert with that song — and it worked!

Susan Vega - Tom's Diner (Acoustic)

Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner (Remix)

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Palin's Facebook Account

Whatever you think of Sarah Palin, this mockup of her Facebook page is pretty funny.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

BUILD

I had the pleasure of meeting with Barbara Bellissimo of BUILD recently. I identify with BUILD's mission of helping teen-agers learn how to start a business because I was fortunate enough to grow up in an entrepreneurial household and could bounce any business question off of my mother at dinner. I've seen how great it feels to take ownership of something, to build something from the ground up and it's one of the great confidence and character builders available to us.

BUILD provides the infrastructure that allows "at risk" kids to experience these challenges and joys. The difference in high school grades, graduation rates and college attendance between average kids in these schools and the kids who enroll in BUILD is off the charts. If you are looking for something to volunteer at, please reach out to Barbarra at BUILD.

Gladwell on Genius

If you haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's article on the different kinds of genius, definitely check it out. I found this article inspiring in a weird way because I realized I'm more in the trial and error category. I fit more into Gladwell's Cezanne model, while there are other people I've worked with or went to school with who fit the Picasso model. This framework makes a lot of sense to me and hopefully you'll check it out.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Listen

Image representing Paul Buchheit as depicted i...Image via CrunchBaseMy friend Andrea Perez who works at TripIt passed on this video of Paul Buchheit, founder of FriendFeed and creator of Gmail, to me. Andrea said it reminded me of a conversation her and I had about a side project of mine. After listening to the video, I took that as a compliment. I really enjoyed this presentation. One of my favorite quotes went something like this:

Eric Schmidt told him to find 100 happy users for Gmail. Paul tried that and said it turns out that it's surprisngly hard to find 100 happy users. People would ask for really complicated stuff, so then he just went around finding people who wanted easy stuff, and then they would be happy.

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The Economist: Attack of the Naked Longs

Aaron Schweifler passed on this tongue and cheek article from the Economist titled Attack of the Naked Longs. It's a satire on the SEC's ban on Shortsellers, which me now know, were not the real problem.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Reblog: Edwin - Building a Windmill

Cool Ted video. I'm reblogging this from a guy named Edwin, whose blog I really enjoy. The message is entrepreneurship will continue to thrive.

Great Band of Horses

tip of the cap to "A Captain's Dead Joint" for their recent Band of Horses post. Some great live cuts.
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New Yorker: All the Answers

Great New Yorker article on the Quiz Show controversy from many years back. Great personal account from the author.

Also, thought this was a cool Letter to the Editor on this article a few weeks later.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Angel Island on Fire

Just found out through Renee on Facebook that Angel Island is on fire. Holy Cow.

Reblog: Yeadon's NASA Pic Recs

Dutch Evan highlights some really cool NASA photos of the cosmos.

Amazing Nasa Photos:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

Dutch, Dutch Evans, Oct 2008

Netflix

Image representing Netflix as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBaseExcellent analysis of NetFlix in the NYTimes. My friends David Hegarty, The Walm and I have been discussing this thesis for over a year. I iintend to buy NetFlix at some point during this market meltdown.
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EZ New Web & Laundromat

I do my best work in cafes and found a beauty this weekend in Culver City, CA. EZ New Web & Laundromat is 1 part Internet Cafe with wonderful food, and another part Laundromat. I didn't do any laundry but I enjoyed interacting with the staff at EZ and the food was great. If you are trying to get some stuff done in Culver City, it's a great choice.

P.S. They had a really unique Tip Jar thing set up. Here's a quick pic.

Reblog: Kedrosky on Jeremy Grantham

Another guy who saw the whole credit mess coming was Jeremy Grantham. I used to read his stuff all the time and loved it. Paul Kedrosky highlights an article about him in Barron's this week. Here is an excerpt that I really liked.

Do you have any closing thoughts about how we got into this financial state?

I ask myself, "Why is it that several dozen people saw this crisis coming for years?" I described it as being like watching a train wreck in very slow motion. It seemed so inevitable and so merciless, and yet the bosses of Merrill Lynch and Citi and even [U.S. Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson and [Fed Chairman Ben] Bernanke -- none of them seemed to see it coming.

I have a theory that people who find themselves running major-league companies are real organization-management types who focus on what they are doing this quarter or this annual budget. They are somewhat impatient, and focused on the present. Seeing these things requires more people with a historical perspective who are more thoughtful and more right-brained -- but we end up with an army of left-brained immediate doers.

So it's more or less guaranteed that every time we get an outlying, obscure event that has never happened before in history, they are always going to miss it. And the three or four-dozen-odd characters screaming about it are always going to be ignored.

If you look at the people who have been screaming about impending doom, and you added all of those several dozen people together, I don't suppose that collectively they could run a single firm without dragging it into bankruptcy in two weeks. They are just a different kind of person.

So we kept putting organization people -- people who can influence and persuade and cajole -- into top jobs that once-in-a-blue-moon take great creativity and historical insight. But they don't have those skills.

Where do you see all of this going?

I want to emphasize how little I understand all of the intricate workings of the global financial system. I hope that someone else gets it, because I don't. And I have no idea, really, how this will work out. I certainly wish it hadn't happened. It is just so intricate that all I can conclude, by instinct and by reading the history books, is that it will be longer, harder and more complicated than we expect.

Good Advice

Some good advice by Seth Godin on how to increase effort. I've been doing many of the things on this list lately and it seems to be working. Certainly it's made me much happier, especially the regular exercise.

Btw, if you are going to start sending more thank you cards, buy them at Sugar Paper. That is where mine are from and they are awesome.

Friday, October 10, 2008

1st Step: Early Warning Signs

I'm traveling this weekend but I'm writing a quick series of post about what's going on in the market. Since I'm pressed today, there will be less commentary and more links and things to read.

One of the things that is still discouraging to me is that the people who are most vocal about what we need to do, are the ones who didn't see this coming. Greenspan is the worst at this and most of the policy makers can be lumped into that bucket. I think Paulsen is giving it his best but this is a horrible problem. Chris Cox, head of SEC, and his pathetic ban of shortsellers doesn't look so smart now, does it. Anyways, I thought it would be helpful to post some articles that helped alert me to what was going on.

1st: Matt McCall, a MD at Portage Ventures. Matt came to speak at Kellogg a few times while I was there. He seemed like a nice guy and I was impressed about how realistic he seemed. I started reading his blog and I was rewarded when he posted this little gem about how he expected advertising revenue to start going down quickly. A little alarm bell went off in my head when I read this. He's the first guy I heard talking about an ad recession.

2nd: Marc Andreessens comments embedded in Ning's Series D financing. Andreessen is a founder of Netscape and Opsware and Ning. He's one of the most important people of the last 20 years and makes outrageously good points. When he says something, I pay attention. His final bullet point in this announcement read:

We raised the money to enable us to keep scaling given our accelerating growth (over 230,000 networks on Ning now, growing at over 1,000 per day) and to make sure we have plenty of firepower to survive the oncoming nuclear winter. At current growth rates, we don't need it to get to cash flow positive, but having lived through the last crunch, it's good to be conservative with these things.

That was March 2008 ladies and gentleman and it's as close as a tech luminary will get to giving advice. When I saw that, I got really scared.

3rd: Bill Fleckenstein. I've been reading Bill for about 8-9 years. He runs a pay site that is the best $100 you can spend in a year. Those $900 I've paid have saved me thousands. Plus, he's a great writer. You can read his weekend summary for free on MSN. I highly recommend you do this. He saw the credit crisis coming from 2001 and detailed the bad decisions and recklessness along the way. That's when I first started to understand what was happening and when I bought my first Gold and Short S&P500. Fleck has a book out taking Greenspan to task if you are interested.

4th: Three Authors: 1) Jim Grant, who writes the incredible Grant's Interest Rate Observer, 2) David Einhorn - MD of Greenlight Capital and author of Fooling Some of the People (thanks Walmsley), and Marc Faber, author of among things, Tomorrow's Gold. These people were all great sources of information. Grant and Faber saw this coming a mile away, and Einhorn exposed Lehman which we should be eternally grateful for.

5th: This American Life's team did an amazing public service when they produced Big Pools of Money. Listen to this podcast and you'll have a good idea how we got here.

Tomorrow will be the ramifications of the last few weeks.

Friday Chill Music (October 10, 2008)

This week's Friday Chill Music is coming to you from the Gust Funnel blog. A few weeks back, he highlighted some really awesome songs. Thought I would send you his way for a little Conor Oberst, M. Ward, Spoon and more.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Sad Traders

Kind of a perversely funny site from Molly Mundt - Sad Guys on Trading Floors. I still like Fail Dogs better. This is funny though.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Painted Turtle Benefit

I twittered this and sent a few emails out, but here's a quick plug for the Painted Turtle Benefit at Bimbos on November 15, 2008. My friends Seth Miller and Ken Ebbitt host this and I have had the pleasure of going many times. Plus, I volunteered at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in 01' and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

For those of you who don't know, Hole in the Wall and Painted Turtle (sister camps) are week long camps devoted to letting kids with cancer and their siblings (different weeks), have a good time, find camaraderie amongst each other and rid them of their sense of isolation. It's an incredibly powerful week.

I've already bought my ticket.

Here is a link with information.

Here is a link for tickets at TicketWeb.

Tina Fey

I'm late on this but loved everyone moment of it.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Making a List

I know the world is falling apart in finance but in a perverse way, I think this is really positive for our future. Risk is being repriced so that there are consequences for bad decisions. The Government is learning you just can't keep throwing liquidity (interest rate cuts, bailouts, etc) at problems. There will need to be structural change. Policies are going to matter now. I think this is incredibly bullish for the future and it's making me really optimistic. Today, people who have cash can start to buy into the future at very attractive prices.

I was starting to feel this way and then came into work today and saw Fred Wilson's post today about looking forward. He covers a bunch of great companies that are getting relatively cheap, have a lot of cash and should be able to weather the storm. Can you imagine how many cheap startups Microsoft and Google will be able to pick up? They'll have their pick of the litter and these acquisitions will make them stronger. They'll also be able to issue slugs of stock options at far more attractive prices, thereby giving their employees a lot of upside.

I think this time period is going to be really bullish for a few companies and I've started making my list: Google, Microsoft, Enernoc (smaller company but interesting). What other companies should I be thinking about buying?

Monday, October 6, 2008

Kardashian & Spaghetti Cat Vader

I'm not usually one for celebrity gossip, but found this on the Superficial today and felt like the world needed to see this about Kim Kardashian. Amazing on about 5 different levels.

Furthermore, the Internet just keeps giving today. Kelli Aitchison forwarded this on.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Reblog: True Stories in One Sentence

Really enjoyed this post from Hegarty. If you click through to the site, there are a lot of great one sentence stories.

Litquake: Suckered - Writer's Profess Bad Judgement

My friend Ariel is a regular literary connoisseur and she invited me to the first night of Litquake last night. I don't know much, but I know I love it (channeling Aaron Neville & Linda Ronstadt).

We went to Suckered: Writers Confess a Profound Lack of Judgment. Basically, 8 different authors got up there and told ten minute stories. They vacillated between amazing and not so much. My two favorites were April Sinclair and Jonathan Ames. Sinclair told a story about Whoopi Goldberg but peppered it with lot's of good Southside Chicago-isms. Ames brought the freaking house down with a story about his passage to manhood. If anyone knows him and can reccomend some of his pieces, I'd really like to read his stuff. Post in the comments.

Litquake will be going for a few more weeks. Check it out.

Just for fun, enjoy this YouTube clip. :)


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Friday, October 3, 2008

Deplorable / Beautiful

One of the great things about Facebook and blogging in general is that you can reconnect with a lot of people from your past. A few months back I stumbled upon Jeremy Sampson's blog, Deplorable/Beautiful. Jeremy is a professional writer nowadays but I met him at CAL, back in the day. He was in my fraternity and I used to enjoy his coverage of CAL sports. I've bumped into him at a few concerts over the year but had lost touch.

Well the magic of the Internets brought us together via his blog. He wrote a nice note on the Fleet Foxes recently. The gist was that this is a scary time but there are plenty of little gems out there, you just need to look for them. Deplorable / Beautiful fits into that category too. Know that it's edgy and adult, check it out.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Crowdsourcing Your Wedding Playlist

Aaron Schweifler and Ananda Baron are a creative couple, and they've taken it a step further by deciding to Crowdsource their wedding playlist. They have a neat little list they are compiling and when the big day comes, the guests will be able to hear their

For Friday Chill Music, I'll include my picks below.

Here are my two suggestions:

You've Got the Love - The Source


Wilco - california stars

Bonus: A couple extra songs to fill out the list this week's list that have no relation to the wedding.

Jenny Lewis - Pretty Bird

Pearl Jam - Fatal (rough mix, Binaural outtake, 1999)

Graham's Search for a Cause

My friend, Graham Mudd, works at Yahoo and has developed a really neat application that sits on top of Yahoo Search. Graham wrote about it on his blog here, but essentially it's a little Add In that recognizes when you search for a product and then gives you an option of clicking through a link to Amazon, or other large retailers. If you buy something through that link, a % of your transaction goes to Breast Cancer Foundations. Cool stuff with a social impact.

Nice work Graham.