$100

Last night I walked to the library from my apartment, planning to stop right after at the bank to deposit a $100 bill. I spent about an hour browsing books, checked two out, and walked home forgetting to deposit the money. Right before I went to sleep I remembered that I forgot to deposit the money but couldn't find it anywhere--I had dropped the money somewhere. I searched all over my apartment, my room, and backtracked my steps. Nothing. $100 gone.

Losing $100 ruined my fucking week.

This is the life I've created for myself. I can not blame anyone. I've made a series of decisions that has me in a situation where a C-note is make or break. Obviously, I have to make some changes. "Tighten the belt" as everyone is saying. My hope is that this is rock bottom and that I can begin my new journey into progress.

Mixed Martial Arts

I love watching MMA, and I'm fascinated by the lives of the athletes and the business decisions being made around the sport. I'm still waiting for mainstream acceptance of MMA, and here's a start: Georges St. Pierre in a Gatorade commercial. Granted, it's for air in Canada (St. Pierre's home country), but I think this is a good sign. MMA is approaching critical mass. There's a reality show, a video game, corporate sponsors, a million viewers per pay-per-view event, action figures, modest coverage on ESPN, and even CBS tried to get in the game for a bit. We'll see what happens.

Friendster

I still get emails from Friendster. I opened an account maybe 4 years ago, didn't use it at all. I'm sure it made someone a ton of money, but who uses it? I mean, even MySpace is old hat.

I'm curious about the resources necessary to keep Friendster functioning. Shouldn't we just delete the whole thing, make room for better technology? Is it the tech equivalent of a deserted suburban street in California with rows of foreclosed homes?

*UPDATE: Apparently, Friendster is huge in Asia.

Twitter

Right now (Thursday Night @ 10:34 PM) I can hear a loud helicopter hovering near my apartment. It's been going on for like ten minutes. I updated my Twitter status to:

@mikerevolution helicopter hovering near apartment; annoyed and nervous.

After I did that, I got curious and entered the term "santa monica" in the search bar and saw the following Tweets:

@BradFranklin @MM73 are you in Santa monica by chance. can you here a helicopter. any idea what's going on? police helicopter maybe?? I'm at Montana & 2nd

@joey1980 : there are several helicopters hovering in the same area towards the beach in Santa Monica. mysterious!

tonychen 3-4 choppers flying over santa monica beach or off the coast - what's going on??

@ButtercupD ahhhh, huge multiple car crash on PCH in santa monica. that's why the g-bird is out!! hovering over PCH.

The same search on Google couldn't give me up to the minute updates or news. This is why I think there's chatter that "Twitter is the new Google." Within seconds I got useful information. I experienced first hand the power of social media, and the marvelous utility of Twitter-like technology. Hopefully this tool is put to great use. It allows for instant feedback and communication while taking advantage of a network. Michael likes this.

Walmart

Earlier this week, I was on Walmart.com shopping for an item. I added it to my shopping cart, but ultimately decided not to buy it. I got an email today with the subject line: You left something in your shopping cart at Walmart.com.

I had forgotten all about it. They reminded me, and the idea of buying this thing crossed my mind again. This is brilliant. I don't necessarily want every company to copy this technique, but this is the kind of thinking I want in retailers.

Well Done

I applaud the AP and espn.com for running this story on graduation rates. I know it's tough when kids aren't staying in school very long, especially basketball players, but I like the media paying attention to this. Let's continue to hold colleges accountable.

It's F***ing Distracting

Until your home computer breaks you'll have no idea how much time you waste on it.

My computer hasn't been able to connect to the Internet for two weeks. In those two weeks, I've gone to the gym regularly, read 3 books, reworked my resume & cover letter, donated clothes to Goodwill, enrolled in a class at UCLA, watched less TV, and gotten more sleep. The Internet isn't a bad thing, it just makes it easier to get side-tracked.

I sit at a computer all day at work. It's nice to come home and do things like prepare my own dinner, enjoy a glass of wine, and go for a stroll. I'm sure I'll have my machine fixed soon enough, but I'm gonna try to keep this thing going for a while. My goal: be happier with less. It's nice to disconnect.

iMad

I'm not upset that technology is progressing rapidly, but I just bought that iPod shuffle two weeks ago. Today I found out there's a new, even more badass iPod shuffle with more capacity and VoiceOver. No one is at fault here, I'm just mad at Apple for dishing out new and improved products every 3-4 months. Financially, it's impossible for me to keep up.

In a recent article by Chris Anderson (The Long Tail), he states, "the marginal cost of anything digital falls by 50% every year, making pricing a race to the bottom..." How long before iPods are given away for free and we just pay for the content? Let me know so I can stop wasting my money on the damn things.

Book Rant

I can't stand books that include a "How to use this book" section. Quit stalling and present your ideas. If readers don't have the good sense to take notes or take time to answer questions presented in the text, then your writing sucks. I know you get paid by the page or by the word, but I'm not fooled. Don't waste our time. I say "our time" because when I read your book, I'm sharing my time with you, the author. Don't be frivolous with your customer's most important commodity: their attention.

The End.

Where Is This Going?

Headline from ESPN.com: "Facebook post gets worker fired"

Should you be held accountable for content found on your Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/Blogs?

It depends on what you post. However, I'd like some protection to speak freely using social media. I have a blog and I use Twitter & Facebook. I'm sure that if you dig you can find something questionable, but when does something warrant action by my employer (or yours)? I see this playing out in court.

Quick Rant

I'm driving to work down a busy city street and there's a fire truck with horns blazing coming in the other direction. As expected, everyone pulls over to the side of the road to clear a path. After the truck passes, a guy in front of me uses this opportunity to pass a few cars in front of him.

This is a foul.

You are not supposed to pass in this situation. An emergency vehicle is like the yellow caution flag in NASCAR, you are not allowed to pass. You slow down, wait for the hazard to clear, then you resume in the same order. You are not allowed to benefit when someone is in peril.

Power to the People

Tropicana paid an S-load of money to redesign their packaging, and everyone hated it. Customers got pissed and let Tropicana know it. The result: Tropicana is changing the packaging back to the original carton.

I'm amazed by 2 things:

1. How much Tropicana paid for the redesign ($35 Million)
2. The power that customers now have

I won't get into the reasons this packaging sucks. You can see that for yourself. I'm most impressed with how quickly consumers were able to respond, and how quickly they enacted change on behalf of Tropicana (Pepsi).

People and companies are becoming more interconnected through the Internet and social media. Therefore, if you disappoint customers, they now have a forum to tell thousands of people instantly how they feel. Companies won't be able to pull their shit anymore. If I have a bad experience at a restaurant, I can spread the word through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, a blog, whatever I want.

If you suck as a company, you're going to hear about it quickly. Dialogue between sellers and buyers is getting kicked up a notch.

*UPDATE: Sales plunged 20% after the redesign. Good thing they changed it so quickly.

Manny

From espn.com:

Ramirez gets $10 million this year, and $15 million in deferred money with no interest. A plan the sides discussed would have it payable in $5 million installments each from 2010 through 2012. If it winds up as a two-year deal, the plan called for $10 million each season, with three payments of $8,333,333 each from 2011-13.

I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds pretty awesome.

LA sports fans get shit on, particularly from the East Coast-centric media. LA fans are no different than any other group of passionate fans around the country, except for those flags we have on our cars. There is no excuse for that. What I mean is that we go through the same emotional roller coaster as any other group of sports fans. If you think we're not passionate, come to LA when the Lakers are in the playoffs.

I can't complain about the Dodgers, because they've won titles. I remember when Kirk Gibson hit his home run. I was in my family room with my parents and all my siblings. We went nuts and I didn't even know what was going on. Dodger fans are just waiting to feel that feeling again, and we think that Manny will help get us back to the promised land. So make fun all you want. We're just like you. We feel things like hope and sorrow and joy all the same. We want to win (now).