Tiger the Brand

Interesting discussion of Tiger the Brand on Tim Calkin's blog. Tim, or as I would call him, Professor Calkins, was one of the best Kellogg professors I had. I read his blog religously. Definitely add it to your RSS Reader.

Sunday Football in NorCal

Wow

This is cool & spooky at the same time. Via Kedrosky

Reblogging John Hamilton

Excellent mix from John Hamilton. I love almost every song on this list. Btw - John & I went to see the XX last week and they were awesome.

Friday Chill Music (November 27, 2009)

Pearl Jam on Austin City Limits. If you are not sure how you feel about Pearl Jam these days, please watch this video. All around great set, but Inside Job, Lukin, Red Mosquito and Porch took the cake for me.

A Cautionary Tale of Too Much Turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!

Muzzle of Bees

This song goes out to my friend Mare on AVMSurvivors.org who is having surgery this week.

I find the song soothing, hopeful and the lyrics are beautiful.

Kati's Story on Living With Ataxia

Please take a few moments to read Kati's story about struggling to overcome limitations brought on by Ataxia. It's inspirational and brought a tear to my eye, but a tear of joy, seeing how amazing Kati and folks coping with Ataxia are everyday.

Please join us at www.LivingWithAtaxia.org.

My Communication Story - Kate Norton - Living With Ataxia

Jason Segel & Swell Season

via Scotty. This is hilarious.

SNL on China & US

John Hamilton told me about this:

The XX at the Independent

Genius

via Taylor Meyer

Best of the Wire

Best quotes from the Wire via Mark Lisanti. This is amazing.

Friday Bonus Music

I highly reccomend you go listen to this song right now.

Chatter from Salesforce

Interesting new service from Salesforce called Chatter that allows you to make a social network for your business. It's like a portal on steroids but is much more social. Scott Holden, one of my buddies, was one of the guys who put this together.

I also found it interesting cause I pitched this to Ning two years ago. They were not big fans. Here's my presentation via Scribd (btw - how cool is Scribd, that I can embed this for the world to see?)

Ning Brainstorming

Friday Chill Music: November 20, 2009

A little eclectic this week. Just stuff I felt like listening to. Have a great weekend.

Customized Santa Video

My buddy Eric Kroll has built a pretty cool customized Santa Video for children. The best part is that the characters in the video say the child's name a bunch of times. I bought something like this for my godson a while back and he was mesmerized. He couldn't figure out how the cartoon knew that he was watching. I looked like a hero and he had a great time. The Santa Video is another opportunity for that.

Carrie Brownstein on Rock & Beards

Cool article by Carrie Brownstein, former guitarist for Sleater Kinney, on how Rock & Roll has gone the way of the beard. I found this at I'm All Ears. It's a great perspective that mirrors my own listening tastes.

I think it's symptomatic of something that has been going on in our culture since 9/11 though. I think people sought comfort and understanding and found it in the gentleness of Bon Iver & the Fleet Foxes. The rebellion that Brownstein talks about in traditional Rock & Roll is real, but when compared against things like 9/11 and terrifying stock market crashes, it can seem self indulgent. I expect to see a lot more music rooted in rebellion in the coming years as we buck up a little, and feel more secure. Because when we feel safe and confident though, now that is the time for adventure...and Rock & Roll.

Comcastic

Funny back and forth with a Comcast chat rep the other day.

Only at Cal...

...do the Offensive Lineman assign junior members of the team a writing assignment about the history of the Stanford vs. CAL rivalry.

Research project: Tepper wants to make sure Cal's young players understand the history and tradition of the Big Game. So he "assigned" freshman center Mark Brazinski to write a six- to eight-page paper on the history of the Stanford Axe, due Tuesday.

"We send him on periodic research assignments," Tepper said. "I told him no Wikipedia quotations, either - we need good, reasonable sources."

Why Blog?

One of the reasons I blog is because it gives me a chance to promote things I believe in. I do this a lot with the patient networks Ben and I run. Here's a screen shot of the recent Internet searches that have resulted in traffic on my blog. You'll notice that the Painted Turtle Benefit search term resulted in a bunch of people landing on my blog. I'm very proud of this because it means that people who wanted to support this amazing organization could get the ticket & date info they needed really easily. It's an example of helping a charity and friends out in a small way, but every little bit on the Internet helps.

M. Ward in Concert

I'm a huge fan of M. Ward and stumbled upon this NPR live recording of his September concert in Washington D.C. I'm sure the Gonzo Gal was there.

It was great weekend chill music as I celebrated the end of a busy travel and wedding schedule.

Sweet Visual on Powers of Ten

via Kedrosky. Definitely click through and play with the graphic.

Been There...

another Molly Mutt

Miracle Whip

via the Himmelsblog. Miracle Whip vs. Colbert.

Btw - I support mayo & miracle whip. Both are delicious.

Friday Chill Music (November 13, 2009)

I made the attached playlist for a friend recently when she asked what I was listening to lately. It's a hodge podge, but a good hodge podge. I hope you enjoy it.

Niners win!

Simmons on Deadspin

Bill Simmons is one of my favorite writers and podcasters. I'm not sure I could maintain my commute without that podcast. Deadspin wrote an awesome article about him. Alex Bain weighed in on it already. The article is well worth the read because I think Simmons is one of the leaders in building a community around himself, something that we are all discovering, large or small. My favorite quote:

"Now there he is, atop the New York Times Bestseller list, as establishment a pedestal as one can imagine. Simmons did something incredibly rare, particularly in our fractured, niche media world: He made the culture come to him. His triumph is his own, but, in a strange way, it feels like a victory for all of us. The sports culture needed changing, and Simmons is walking evidence that it can, and did."

Funny

via MollyMutt

Fake Steve on Blogs vs. Newspapers

Great post by Fake Steve on the difference between blogs and newspapers...

"Because time after time, blogs are simply beating the shit out of the newspapers. They're the ones who still dare to go for the throat, while their counterparts at big newspapers just keep reaching for the shrimp cocktail." -- Fake Steve

Unemployment Rate for People Like Me

Really cool interactive graphic from the New York Times showing what the unemployment rate is for people with your demographics and education level. As always, it pays to be a White Male American...

Dive Bar During Becker's Bachelor Party

Bachelor Party Rowdiness

Friday Chill Music (November 6, 2009)

I discovered "Genius Mixes", a cool new feature in iTunes this week. You click on the Genius Mixes in the left scroll bar and it gives you a bunch of different mixes mapped by song type. It's a pretty awesome way of enjoying "Shuffle" and I have to believe they are piggybacking on the huge user database that shows correlations between songs played by other users. I also like the layout with the album covers on the front to show what the mix is all about. Next stop is to let me publish the mix to the web so my friends can hear it. Since we can't do that yet, I made a quick 8Tracks.com mix to give you a sample of one of my mixes. Only drawback is that 8tracks doesn't have all the songs that were on the mix.

SavantMD: Advice from a Trusted Doctor

I have an amazing doctor in San Francisco named Mark Savant. He's super responsive, listens to his patients and is a great communicator. When I came back from Chicago I looked him up on Yelp and found he had a ton of recommendations. When I went in for a checkup we talked about the power of the Internet to connect Physicians and Patients, as well as the huge impact reviews like Yelp (and someday Angie's List) have on a doctor's practice. I had my own stories to share from the patient networks I've been building with Ben Munoz (newest networks are www.ALDSupport.org & www.LivingWithFibro.org). Dr. Savant was very supportive and wanted to find a way to work together.

Last time I visited him he told me about the new site he was launching called SavantMD. Together with his partner, Brian Colbert, they are building an information portal for patients to connect with doctors. He's assembled a very impressive group of experts and early this week, the site launched. It's full of great content and I encourage you to explore it. As part of SavantMD's launch, Dr. Savant will be taping informational video segments that we will be embedding on our patient networks. This is truly a new era in medicine and I can't wait to hear of all the benefits that patients get from it.

My Favorite Line

via David Hegarty via the Daily What. He knows my favorite joke well.

AVM Survivors Thank You

Ben and I got a nice thank you from Margaret, a member of AVMSurvivors.org. Ben started the site a couple years ago and I've been helping him build it. I can't believe we're hitting the 1,200 member mark. These messages are so inspirational. Thanks Margaret!

My hotel room came with a yoga mat

Phone Karma

I lost my phone last week at the SFO United Terminal. I was leaving for 4 days in NYC and that would have been a disaster. I realized just before takeoff, ran outside to the terminal and the United person handed it back to me, saying someone had just turned it in. I sent this Twitter message our but never heard from the nice person.

I logged into Facebook a day later and got this nice message from a friend that I met last year while returning her dad's lost phone. Pretty cool. Made my day and reminded me how important Karma is. :)