Jetfighter man – that’s what I am…

SF Fleet Week |  Blue Angels photos

SF Fleet Week |  Blue Angels photos

JETFIGHTER – cover by Bart Davenport
Original song by The Three O’Clock

Crop and retouch on the go

How many photos do you have saved on your iPhone camera roll?

10+ | 100+ | 1000+ photos?

I’m surrised every time I ask people that question. iPhones make it easy to click away. Carefree. And now thanks to Adobe, you can edit right on your iPhone and save your edited pics to an oline account.

Click > Edit > Save > Share.  Learn how easy it is.

Click > Edit > Save > Share.  Learn how easy it is.

Show me where it hurts…

Web MD has a free iPhone app that gives you hours of fun-filled self-diagnosing. It’s a hypochondriac’s dream-come-true. The WebMD UI is actually pretty slick. Check it out.

The WebMD UI is actually pretty slick. Check it out.

CalTrans working over Labor Day weekend

Blockbuster weekend

I am the first to admit, I prefer indie films over blockbusters. So what possessed me to step outside my comfort zone? Not sure. Yesterday I saw two blockbusters: G.I. Joe and District 9.

Weeks ago I promised to take my 7-year old nephew to see G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra, and he incessantly reminded me of my promise until I finally caved in. Yesterday morning, I kept my word. Two hours of military crafts and spies and ships and guns and muscles and rockets and bullets and armored suits and submarines and explosions and martial arts and enough already! The theatre was less than 10% full, and after 10-minutes into the film, I leaned over to the kid and said, “You know what… I think this movie is too violent.” And he said, “I know it’s all fake. Just like the cartoon.”

Fair enough. Best 90 minute nap I’ve taken in a long time. My favorite part of the movie… the preview for Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.

Later that night, I went with Jenny and George Michael to see another film at the SAME theater – District 9. Sold out show. As I walked into the theatre, I was expecting “Starship Troopers on Earth” — don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Starship Troopers. Peter Jackson proved my wrong. Two hours of robot-like aliens and guns and mutant regeneration and alien blood and human puke and weapons blowing off heads and and a gigantic space craft hovering over a ghetto… No napping through this one. And it looked like it was shot with three cameras and no tripods. Loved it.

To round off the weekend of sloth, I think I’ll throw on a baseball cap and flip flops and go see Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards.

PCE Release Party

Porkchop Express’s Fault Lines & Good Times just dropped, and Thursday night’s CD release party was a rockin’ good time. Rumor has it they will be the first opening band for Def Leppard’s SF/Mtn View show, along with Cheap Trick and Poison. THAT would be HUGE.

www.PorkchopExpress.net

It's HUGE!

www.PorkchopExpress.net

ELEW = Eric Lewis

“Mr Brightside” at the DNA Lounge

Eric Lewis (aka ELEW). Mir Brightside. Sick.

Here in Your Arms

The 2010 web

According to Scobel …
http://scobleizer.com/2009/05/16/exploring-the-2010-web/

1. It’s real time.
Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed are all moving toward architectures and displays that refresh in real time, or let you see what’s happening right now. We are at the extreme beginnings of that trend. You really should watch the video of the panel discussion I moderated on the state of real time search to get a sense of where this is going. That panel discussion will be remembered for years as a key point. One of the panel members runs Facebook search team. Yes, Facebook is working on real time search. (That video is in two parts since the meeting ran almost two hours long. I really do recommend watching it. Part I is here. Part II is here.).

2. It’s mobile.
You’ll see this more next week when the Where 2.0 conference rolls into town, but if 40,000 iPhone apps hasn’t convinced you yet, nothing will. On Monday I’m meeting with Nokia to find out the latest.

3. It’s decentralized.
Look at my behaviors. I’m all over the place. Six years ago I did only one thing: blog. Now I Flickr. YouTube. Seesmic. Friendfeed. Facebook. Twitter. And many more. Go to Retaggr and see all the places I’m at.

4. Pages now built out of premade blocks. (widgets)
You build these pages by copying a line of Javascript code to your template. This is very simple once you see how to do it, but for someone who doesn’t know code, or where in the template to go, this is VERY daunting. Silicon Valley has NOT made it simple enough yet for the mainstream to build highly useful pages. See the friendfeed block to the right of my words? I added that by copying and pasting from the friendfeed widget page. If you know where to look a TON of cool pre-built blocks like this are available for you to put on your website or blog.

5. It’s social.
This seems obvious to anyone on Twitter or Facebook, but how many businesses add their customers to their pages? Not many. Silicon Valley has done a horrible job so far of explaining why adding people to your websites matters.

6. It’s smart.
We’re seeing more and more smarts added to the web every day. Tonight Wolfram’s new search engine turned on. Have you played with it? That’s the 2010 web and check out what you can do with it.

7. Hybrid infrastructure.
When I visited 12seconds.tv in Santa Cruz they told me they were using a hybrid approach: they own a rack of servers but they also use Amazon’s S3 to “cloud burst” or take up the slack for files that are popular. My employer Rackspace will have more to say about that trend too over the next few months.

View Scobel’s entire blog post

- – - – - – - – - – -

My initial thoughts…

Watching the social web evolved over the past few years, I think Scobel is right on. Other things I’ve noticed:

• Brian Solis sums it up well when he said, “There’s too much ME in Social MEdia.” Too much focus on “What are you doing?” and “What’s on your mind?” We’re so busying trying to create our identities, we sometimes forget how to make meaningful connections. What about asking “What inspires you? or “Who do you want to thank?”
• Social Media is sociology, not just technology. Tools alone don’t make it social. You need people to make it social.
• The target audience is getting younger and younger. Kids today as young as 5 years on on Club Penguin on Webkinz. Is that too young? Do they actually get what they’re doing?
• One of my favorite quotes – “MySpace and Facebook were cool until old people jumped on and ruined it.” So tell me, what age is considered old? (Don’t answer  that.) One thing I can say about about this… Facebook has trained a good percentage of new online users how to upload photos, embed links, leave comments, rank content and share stuff. My mom sends less spam email now because of it.
• People are no longer afraid to blend personal with professional. In fact, it adds a human element to business, which can easily get lost in the process of institutionalization.
• What’s next? Enterprise 2.0 – Doing more meaningful business. The SHARE economy. Connecting dots faster internally and doing business differently.

What other trends have you noticed?

Mr Brightside – remixed

Great remix of The Killers “Mr Brightside” …
I know the intro is long, wait for it. You’ll love it.

What’s next?

Sitting in a single seat facing backwards on a 100 mph ICE train from Hamburg to Berlin… panoramic view of brick buildings, trees, bridges, farms. Traveling with my back to my destination,  I have two quality hours to look back and reflect on the next09 Conference—Share Economy, featuring 100+ EU and US speakers in four accelerated unstructured tracks, everyone eager to share and learn.

What would google do? – Institutions dehumanize – Social Media is sociology, not technology – What are you doing? What did you learn? – What’s on your mind? What inspires you? – There’s too much ME in Social MEdia – Stop trying to define yourself and start creating yourself – Web 2.0 – Friend me, Add me, Follow me, Like me RT me – Billions of tweets in the new statusphere – Seven Rules of the Chief Meaning Officer – Customer service is the new marketing – Customers talking – Enterprise 2.0 – Open enterprise – Companies don’t blog, people do – Watch this Live this…

We are what we share.

iPhone MADNESS

Live iPhone musical performance — “Kids”
by MGMT played on iPhones and iPod Touches

These geeky gadget girls ROCK!

Funkify yourself in 30 seconds

Original photo

Cartoonizer

Warholizer

Stenciler

Inkify

Go ahead… be funky.

www.BeFunky.com

Radiohead’s NUDE remixed by AMP_LIVE

Download RA DIOHEA_D RAINYDAYZ REMIXES

Nude(z)
Radiohead remix by AMP_LIVE ft. Too $hort & MC Zumbi
Video footage from the Radiohead film Scotch Mist

Radiohead & Apm_Live

UCLA Alumni Association Scholarship Program

The UCLA Alumni Association awards close to $1MM in scholarships each year. The high school seniors that apply represent some of the most talented future leaders. After volunteering for several years as a selection committee member, I jumped at the opportunity to chair the SF district… for several reasons:

• Most of these kids apply to at least a dozen colleges and  have been admitted to most, if not all, of the schools. I want to genuinely help each student choose the right school, whether that’s UCLA or CAL or Stanford… I believe it’s best to ask students the right questions and let them choose which school is truly right for them rather than shoving “we’re the best” rhetoric at them til their heads spin.
• Most Alumni tend to bash the Greek system, even at these interviews. Not if  I can help it. (I was a Pike at UCLA… Pi Kappa Alpha)
• Volunteering keeps me close to UCLA while living up in NorCal.
• Learn more about UCLA’s Alumni Assocation Scholarship Program.

If you have the chance to volunteer at a program at your alma mater, look into it. If you’re a UCLA alum in SF and want to participate in this season’s Alumni Scholarship program, email me. If you want to participate in your city’s local committee, I can put you in touch with your local district chair.

Do you BAMBOO?

My grandmother lived in a BAMBOO nipa hut

My dad is the youngest of 10 kids. My grandmother survived her husband more than 40 years. She never remarried. While she rolled her own cigarettes and drank dark beer every day, she lived for more than a century. She loved life. On her 102nd birthday, she insisted she was 110 and that no one can prove her wrong. She lived most of her life in a provincial town in the Philippines. Even when a 3 bedroom house was built on her land, she insisted on spending most of her indoor time in her bamboo nipa hut built on stilts. I will write more about her in the future.

BAMBOO is not a tree, it’s grass

Bamboo is fast-growing and durable. Some can grow up to 24 inches per day. It can be harvested in 3 years to make hardwood, unlike 15 years for most trees. There are close to 1,000 species of bamboo that can be found around the world in diverse regions – from cold mountains to hot tropics.  Many of us may see bamboo as garden decor, but it’s also extensively used as building material and a food source.

CNN recently published a video that highlights bamboo.

Watch the CNN video – http://tr.im/bamboovideo

More BAMBOO

The ASUS Ecobook BAMBOO Laptop

BAMBOO – the rock band

Do you BAMBOO?

7 x 7 = 100

100 good eats, that is… The Big Eat SF: 100 things to try before you die

From this list, these are the things I have experienced first-hand. I look forward to trying more from this list. Hopefully sooner than later.

1. Roast chicken and bread salad at Zuni
7. Shaking beef at the Slanted Door
10. Baja-style fish tacos at Nick’s Crispy Tacos
11. Pork sugo with pappardelle at Delfina
14. Beef brisket at Memphis Minnie’s
18. Salumi misti plate at Perbacco
21. Pizza margherita at Pizzeria Delfina
33. Prime rib at House of Prime Rib
40. Cheeseburger at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher
43. Mint julep at Alembic
49. Ginger snaps at Miette
87. Fresh spring rolls at Out the Door
88. Buckwheat crepe and a French cider at Ti Couz
91. Albondigas soup at Mijita
92. Bacon-wrapped hot dog from a cart in the Mission
96. Baby-coconut (Macapuno) ice cream from Mitchell’s
98. Basil gimlet at Rye

Read 7×7’s complete list |  Add your own must try’s, in SF or elsewhere

This American Life… perfect for rainy days

Rainy days are perfect for catching up on podcasts. Familiar voices can be like comfort food. Such is the case with Ira Glass, host of This American Life. Some rainy days I go back and re-listen to old favorites.

Today I went back a few years to Episode 281: My Big Break.

Skip to Act Three: Oedipus Hex – Shalom Auslander reads his true story, “The Blessing Bee.” It’s like a spelling bee, but instead of words, kids compete reciting complicated Hebrew blessings said before eating certain foods.

It tickles me every time Auslandert gratuitously throws in quick admissions of all the sins he committed as a kid. Watch Auslander’s video – Foreskin’s Lament.

What are your favorite podcasts? Leave a comment

Did somebody say, “PILLOW FIGHT?”

The Great San Francisco Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight started not too many years ago with just a handful of friends who told a handful of friends. Today it’s grown into a tradition for thousands of kids of all ages from all over the SF Bay Area as an alternative to the commercial lovefest honoring St. Valentine, or “foreplay” for the romance (or debauchery) that lies ahead for many couples who want to let off some steam before a big night out (or in).

Pillow Fight for Peace 2009 will take place in San Francisco at Justin Herman Plaza  (Market St & the Embarcadero). The official whistle will blow at 6pm. There are a few rules, like BYOP. There is no official dress code. Some come out in pajamas, others dress formal, and some brave few wear next to nothing.

Just looking? You may want to head over to Sens restaurant/bar for an awesome view of all the action. After the action, head over to 83 Proof for their Valentines Schmalentines party.

• Join the Facebook Group
• Read Yelp reviews
• Tag your Flickr photos: san francisco pillow fight
• Photo courtesy of www.pillowfight.info

More on Kurt Vonnegut…

From channel — http://www.youtube.com/GottfriedGeist. There’s a playlist of 8 Vonnegut videos. Amazing!

( Reposting some previous Vonnegut… )

Slaughterhouse Five is the first book I read by Kurt Vonnegut, an definitely not the last. It’s the story of Billy Pilgrim. My initial thoughts about this name—BILLY is the name of someone fun and approachable. I never met a Billy who was a jerk. PILGRIM is a someone on a religious journey or an a quest to find something new or sacred, like the pilgrims on the Mayflower. Well, this Billy Pilgrim is an eye doctor who is sent to fight in World War II. He becomes unstuck in time and travels to and from different stages of his life and the far far off planet of Tralfamadore, where he is caged with a Hollywood pornstar for observation and on display in a Tralfamadorian zoo.

Read the full post

So it goes. Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut, for challenging me to think for myself and encouraging me to occasionally go “elsewhere.” You are one of the main reasons I enjoy reading.

Read the full post

Borrowing Money

Borrowing Money in Plain English… the latest from our friends at Common Craft. Perhaps this should be included with every loan application, so people understand the concept of loans, term benefits, flexibility (if any), and consequences if they fail their commitment.