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You’ve been so kind and generous, I don’t know how you keep on giving. For your kindness, I’m in debt to you. For your selflessness, my admiration. For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound, I’m bound to thank you for it.

Kind and Generous – Natalie Merchant

You’ve been so kind and generous, I don’t know how you keep on giving. For your kindness, I’m in debt to you. And I never could have come this far without you. For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound, I’m bound to thank you for it.

Oh, I want to thank you for so many gifts you gave with love and tenderness. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for your generosity, the love and the honesty that you gave me. I want to thank you, show my gratitude, my love and my respect for you. I want to thank you.

Thank you, thank you…

SF Fleet Week |  Blue Angels photos

SF Fleet Week |  Blue Angels photos

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

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.

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.

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.

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

“Mr Brightside” at the DNA Lounge

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

Here in Your Arms

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?

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

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.

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

These geeky gadget girls ROCK!

Original photo

Cartoonizer

Warholizer

Stenciler

Inkify

Go ahead… be funky.

www.BeFunky.com

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

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.

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?

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

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

]]> http://poundit.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/this-american-life-podcasts-perfect-for-rainy-days/feed/ 0 Darius Miranda this_american_life_promo Foreskin's Lament http://poundit.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/did-somebody-say-pillow-fight/ http://poundit.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/did-somebody-say-pillow-fight/#comments Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:27:25 +0000 Darius Miranda http://poundit.wordpress.com/?p=782 ]]>

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

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 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.

These Common Craft vids are awesome. Saving Money in Plain English is awesome. Just plain awesome.

If I were to make my own CC vid that represents how I manage my money, it would be… If I Have Cash in My Wallet, I Will Spend It… In Plain Engkish.

Jake’s dog-walking service

For all of us still stuck in the 80’s, here’s a rage gem. Robert Seidler’s “Christian Boy” features that hard to forget chorus haunt “No more scooter rides in the cemetery.”

The actually content doesn’t start until 30+ seconds into the clip. And towards the end he breaks out those signature 80’s moves. Even better than Molly Ringwald in “The Breakfast Club” - See below.

]]> http://poundit.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/youre-a-christian-boy-and-you-cant-say-no/feed/ 0 Darius Miranda KQAK FM99 http://poundit.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/trim-then-tweet/ http://poundit.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/trim-then-tweet/#comments Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:07:28 +0000 Darius Miranda http://poundit.wordpress.com/?p=715 ]]>

Better than TINYURL and IS.GD, TR.IM lets you shorten URLs and tweet all at once.

Try it… http://tr.im.

Follow me on twittert @poundit

Orthodox rapper Y-Love and beatbox superstar Yuri Lane create all their music non-instrumentally. Here is a clip from an improvised piece filmed on a handheld at their CD release party for Count It, their Sefira album. (From youtube channel – http://www.youtube.com/user/modular)

I’ve noticed search engines have been updating UI and functionality, and our experience searching for (or finding) things online is ever-changing.

Check out Common Craft’s “Web Search Strategies in Plain English.” The entire Plain English series is a great way to educate yourself, friends, family and peers in the evolving world of online computing.

I will soon post some observations describing how the top search engines are making it easier for us to FIND things online.

Great Highway across from the Beach Chalet

At Great Highway and Sloat Blvd

Great Highway on the way up to Skyline Blvd

Notes to follow…

Watch all UNCUT video clips

Social Money is bubbling up all around us. Twitpay.me is a new model that lets you tweet an IOU to someone you follow (stalk) on twitter. Would be better if functionality included ways to tweet UOMe, and through some back-end system, link bank or paypal accounts for actual paybacks.

For firends like Sarah Thompson, a model like this would be great to track sponsorships or pledges to fundraisers, like the AIDS Life Cycle.

Which of these social media sites are you currently registered?

1. Of those, how often do you visit them?

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Quarterly
• Annually
• Only when someone emails a link to me
• Never

2. Which 2 or 3 sites do you consider your favorite sites? Why?

3. What other social media sites NOT on the list above do you visit regularly?

Move over tinyurl, now there’s something even more teeny-weeny.

http://IS.GD

What is it?

is.gd is a service that shortens URLs. Short URLs come in handy when you have a super-long URL and you want to include them in documents or email, like a complex and deep-rooted SharePoint link. Short URLs also come in handy when posting on micro-sharing sites like twitter where you’re limited to 140 characters per post.

How does it work?
Simply type (or copy/paste from your browser’s address bar) the URL which you’d like to make smaller into the text box on the main page. Push the “Compress That Address!” button, and is.gd will make the address smaller for you, and give you a new link. You can then copy this new URL wherever you’d like to use it.

Best practices (taken from http://is.gd/description.php)
Here are a few…

• Shorten web addresses for emails, forum posts, blogs etc. which cannot handle long URLs and might wrap them, making them unclickable
• Lower the character count when texting web addresses to a mobile phone
• Hide the real URLs of affiliate links from visitors to your site
• Obscure your real email address from bots which harvest them to spam (enter an address like mailto:myaddress@myisp.com)
• Circumvent protections on sites which don’t allow direct links to a competitor’s site (if you are violating a site’s terms you do so at your own risk)
• Clean up bookmarks for social bookmarking sites or sites with low character limits like Twitter
• If you dislike a website and have to mention it (e.g. when complaining about it), link via is.gd so that your link does not help the site’s search engine positioning

100% of Jeep Wrangler owners all agree—it’s fun to ride with the top down. Let’s talk about ragtops only for now, not hard tops… Putting the ragtop down is a snap! Putting the top back up… BUZZ KILL. There’s a price to pay for everything.

Instructions for putting your Wrangler ragtop up:

1. Procrastinate for 3 weeks to 3 months. Day, night, sunny, chilly, clear, foggy… it’s more fun to ride with the top down. If you don’t think so, you should not own a Wrangler. Go buy a Cherokee.
2. When you feel the first drops of rain, or wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of a torrential downpour, don’t panic. Think for a minute… Where did you stash the rear side window panels?
3. Grab your emergency Power Bar or Cliff Bar from the glove box. Eat it. You will need some extra energy. For some motivation, turn up your favorite Prodigy song, to help you keep a good pace.
4. Starting at the back, raise the soft-top and secure the two main roof latches at the top of the windshield. Leave the soft-top’s side tabs above the door unclipped for now. If needed, push on the frame, from the back and then the middle, towards the front of your vehicle. Do this on both sides and you should be able to clip the main latches.
5. Open the tail gate, unroll the back window, zip the sides, shut the gate and fasten the clips. Yep, this is one step. Easy breezy. Don’t get comfortable, the hard part’s coming.
6. This next step is pivotal. It’s what 4 out of 5 Wrangler owners refer to as “the biggest bitch ever.” Take a few deep breaths and crack your knuckles. Ready? … Take the driver’s side rear window, connect the zipper and zip it about one to two inches. Now, insert the window’s tab into the catch by the door. Keep it in place by providing tension in the far upper corner with your right hand and then zip it the rest of the way. Start at the rear and insert the bottom window tab with your left hand and compress it in with your right palm, working toward the door. Secure the velcro seam. Then wipe the sweat off your brow. Now breathe. Exhale.
7. Now repeat step 6 on the passenger side rear window. After doing one side, you’d think it would get easier. It doesn’t. Hang in there.
8. Clip the soft-top’s side tabs which are above the door. Getting these tabs to snap in is also a bitch. A medium bitch compared to zipper hell. Just take your time and try not to bust a finger or knuckle.
9. Ta da! You’re done. Finally, drive down to the nearest pub and have yourself an ice cold beer. You deserve it.

This is how California voted

Many voted Yes on H8, some rejoiced.
Bob Knoke, of Mission Viejo, Amanda Stanfield, of Monrovia,
Jim Domen, of Yorba Linda, and J.D. Gaddis, of Yorba Linda,
celebrate returns for Proposition 8 at an Irvine hotel.
(Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) November 4, 2008

Keith Olbermann’s perspective

Drew Barrymore shows support at a LA rally

Kyle 7, Marc 12, Brit 11, Jake 1.75

Witchy-poo was featuring a little too hard.

These kids up in Sacramento came up with code and tagged houses so they can get what they want or at least know what they’re getting themselves into.

No one’s home

Resses Peanut Butter Cups

Twix

Fruit

Keep knocking

Drunk

Let’s fast forward 1 year… Kids ditch the chalk. Instead they Yelp! every house in the ‘hood and use their nextGen iPhones to map their route in advance… Who wants to help build the new iCandy mashup site? We can sell iPhone apps in the AppStore for $4.99 a pop!

Note: This was shamelessly stolen and repurposed. See the entire set of candy code at CockEyed.com

twitter feed – http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23sms08

#sms08 wall of shame

Sept. 19, 2008 / The Warfield San Francisco CA

1. Night of the Lotus Eaters
2. Dig, Lazarus, Dig
3. Tupelo
4. Today’s Lesson
5. Red Right Hand
6. I Let Love In
7. When Numbers Get Serious
8. Mercy Seat
9. Deanna
10. Moonlight
11. The Ship Song
12. We Call Upon the Author
13. Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry (my favorite song of the night)
14. More News From Nowhere

Encore:

1. The Lyre of Orpheus
2. Into My Arms
3. Get Ready For Love
4. Hard On for LoveGod is in the House
5. Stagger Lee

Some of you may know I studied the Classics at UCLA—ancient Greek art, architecture and literature. One of my favorite stories is told in Plato’s Symposium. The comic playwright Aristophanes tells the story of the Origin of Love.

In John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig & the Angry Inch, they put it to music and animate it. It’s pretty awesome. I also found a video where someone illustrates the story on the actual pages of a Penguin paperback.

The Origin of Love

Clip from the film Hedwig & the Angry Inch

Video that illustrates the story

Any SF natives recognize these puppies? There were three giant Doggie Diner heads in a big red wagon parked across from Java Beach over the weekend.

I’m coming out of my cage
And I’ve been doing just fine
Gotta gotta gotta be down
Because I WANT IT ALL …

I just can’t look its killing me
And taking control
Jealousy, turning saints into the sea
Swimming through sick lullabies
Choking on your alibi
But it’s just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes …

They painted this wall mural on the outside wall of this new restaurant opening up where vegan Feel Real used to be on the corner of 45th & Judah. It’s at least 8 or 9 feet tall.

According to Wii Fit… Mii Fat.

One day I was driving my yellow jeep down Great Highway chasing another yellow jeep…