Various and Sundry Links for Tuesday

Montage of awesome movie death scenes.

Top ten best celebrity-impersonations from SNL Jeopardy sketches.

And back to the news:
A new site is basically HotOrNot for (Silicon) Valley Girls. Not terribly interesting but nice to see that there are some attractive women working in tech. My vote goes to Morgan Webb - I believe my crush on her has been covered here to an adequate extent.

FedEx is expecting a huge quarter.

Maybe this is why they are basically giving away pot in California, to anyone with a headache.

Natali Del Conte is insanely attractive, especially for a tech vlogger, from Valleywag:



Parents are buying their children slutty Halloween costumes. Which explains why there are so many slutty Halloween costumes out there.

Something about Bard College and hipsters and drugs. I believe I have mentioned before that I visited Bard on my East Coast visiting-colleges trip. It was dirty and everyone there looked like really, really high dirty hippies. I guess the hippies have been replaced with really, really high hipsters now (or PoMo's as we used to call them back in the 90s).

Some Movie Reviews

Idiocracy - I had heard good things about this movie and I am a big fan of Mike Judge so I had pretty high expectations. These expectations were made even higher by the first 10 or 15 minutes of the movie, which were hilarious. But the rest of it totally sucked. Good idea, bad execution. It turned into a one joke movie.


Match Point - This film was absolutely brilliant. I am a big fan of Woody Allen and love most of his films. They have been getting kind of stale lately, but I guess London suits him because this, the first Woody Allen film I have ever seen that is not set in NYC, is absolutely brilliant. I can't say enough good things about this movie. Thank you, Woody, for doing something totally awesome to shut up your critics.

Inland Empire - Weird. I love David Lynch so I had high expectations for this movie. It took me about a year to figure out what Mulholland Drive meant so I wasn't expecting too much immediate logic. I loved the movie, but I'm not sure if there is an explanation. Lynch has said that he wrote it basically scene-by-scene as he was filming. The actors claim to not know the meaning. So either this has a meaning buried very, very deep or it has no meaning. Lynch says it is about "a woman in trouble." And Laura Dern is incredible as that woman. But as for the rest of this film I don't know whether it's just surrealism for its own sake or if there is anything underneath it all.

Last Minute Stuff on a Friday Afternoon

EW list of memorable movie satans.

Think you can drink a lot? Think again...

Here is a clip from another show I have never seen, but after watching this clip I think I might start watching it. Probably not but I will think about it. Alec Baldwin is awesome. "Coffee is for closers!"

Evil Characters from South Park (and Facebook)

Imaginary evil characters on South Park:



Self-help books that will never sell, from Radar.

How to kill yourself in a totally awesome way.

Interview with David Lynch about Twin Peaks. Lynch is apparently some sort of boy scout with a really twisted imagination and I love it! The next movie I am going to watch is Inland Empire. Without cows there would be no cheese in the Inland Empire.

The Microsoft Facebook deal in 15 seconds or less. A reasonable person's view on this matter. And a rather non-committal viewpoint.

Google was named by a typo. By someone who know works at Microsoft.

Best. Headline. Ever: Pit Bulls Kill Miniature Horse Donated To Cancer-Stricken Child

The Hills is staged? Really? (I've never seen it, nor do I have plans to)

NPR's Daily News Quiz.

Valleywag lists some websites that used to be funny or useful but are no longer. The Onion is #1 on the list.

Financial Tips for those of us who don't reportedly own 30% of Facebook

Some common-sense financial tips, from theStreet.com.

Some thoughts on the Microsoft Facebook deal that is making huge waves today:

• Did Zuckerberg not want this deal?
  
• Microsoft took a 1-2% stake in Facebook for $240 million... Some tidbits of info about this.
• What exactly does a poke mean? Not being a regular Facebook user I am not exactly sure.
• Facebook downgrades its growth rate.
• If Zuckerberg does, in fact, own 30% of Facebook as has been reported, on paper he is now worth $5 billion. That must feel nice, but I can say from experience, it's horrible when you are worth a lot of money on paper and you don't cash out and end up with nothing. See an older post of mine for more details on this.
• I still hold by my belief that Facebook is going to crash when and burn when they are unable to turn their large user base into a large money base. While Apple reported such a good quarter last week, I think the stock is pretty much done with it's run. It's been down for the last two days. Want to hear something that will make you sick? I bought AAPL at $18 and sold it at $30 a few years back. Makes me sick to think about it, but not as sick as the above mentioned paper loss of 99% of my net worth.
• All of the above that is not from me is from Valleywag.
• And just in - Facebook is getting another $500 million from two hedge funds, bringing their take over the last two days to a hefty $750 million!
• And something about Facebook's value and growth... As a note, Facebook's users are growing at 2% a week - not active users, registered users. And as far as I know the revenue growth is pretty much non-existent.
• Some guy from Intel agrees with me.

In non-Facebook news:

• Google is once again being a little bit evil. Only like 2% evil or so but still...
• Sergey Brin tries to pass off the Facebook mess as something positive for Google. I don't think its positive for anyone except Mark Zuckerberg and the other early investors.
• Montage of Mark Cuban's all-too-brief stint on dancing with the stars.
  

XXX Songs

EW has a list of 25 x-rated songs... A couple caught my eye:

• Lords of Acid - I Sit on Acid - Lords of Acid were my introduction to "techno" (because they weren't really what I would call proper techno). I have fond memories of "I Must Increase My Bust" - especially the Hawtin remix.
• Liz Phair - Flower - Because she went to Oberlin and graduated the year before I got there. That's the only reason.
  
• Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin - Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus - This is a very bizarre song if you understand French and the lyrics. The title translates to "I Love You... Me Neither" which Serge has said refers to the way women say "I love you" during sex but they don't really mean it. Beautiful song though.
• Peaches - AA XXX - Because this reminds me of the Larry Tee days when electro was the cool new thing. With all of my music choices I've been a couple years ahead of the trends. If I'd been a little bit later I could have caught many, many trends as they were starting to get popular, instead of 5 years before.
  

Mahalo, Wuala, and GMail

Mahalo sucks and is a stupid idea. To be more precise it is NOT a search engine, it is a curated list of links. Much like this blog. Mahalo is basically a giant link farm blog, only we hope not intentionally spam.

Wuala is a company that is doing some free thing. I don't really know or care what they are doing, but they are based in Switzerland aka the Greatest Country In the World. Sign up now and get an alpha account, via TechCrunch. I'm thinking of applying for a job there just so I can go back home to Switzerland, even though my wife would hate me for that.

GMail now has IMAP support, or they will soon.

DB Cooper

Has he been identified? Or is it just some crazy old guy...

Yahoo 360?

• Jerry Yang shuts down Yahoo 360 and the world lets out a collective "meh."
• Translation of Yangs latest conference.
  
• Google finally does something about all of those horrible link farm sites that clog up its results. But they lower most blogs in the process. And another blog on the same.
  
• Some ibanker on "nanny arbitrage," which is where a spouse makes more money than they pay the nanny, and on how enforcing labor laws and eliminating the illegal, off-the-books, underpaid majority of nannies would have a negative impact on the legal NY labor market. From Gawker.
• iTunes removes a video starring a nude Natalie Portman. No one is sure why.
  
• Monetize your thirst with Facefuel. Heh.
• NY Times online meta-data.
• MySpace is still the social networking leader, although others are catching up.
• Porn may save Google $1 billion? I'm not sure how but interesting anyway. Apparently has something to do with the 2257 laws.
  
• Anna Nicole Smith tape. A brief exception to my ban of celebrity gossip.
• Mark Cuban finally gets the boot on the dancing show he is on. Video from Valleywag.
• Sounds like Microsoft and Facebook are finally close to closing a deal.
  
• Facebook is going to be rolling out "SocialAds" soon which I assume they are hoping will finally make them some money from all these eyeballs they have.
  
  

YouTube

Is it just me or did YouTube take like everything down last night? About 75% of the videos I try to look at are no longer available. I knew this was going to happen and if Google keeps taking stuff down like this some other video site will rapidly overtake YouTube. Big corporations and grass roots stuff tends not to mix too well.

Here is one video that is still up:

Rich vs. Super rich

An article on how it's not so great to be super rich. I would have to beg to differ, but I wouldn't fit in with the people he is describing because I wouldn't spend my money on cars and jewels and mansions and such.

More Crap

Some more commentary on the Apple iPhone numbers from last night.

From the NYT special on sleep today, a bunch of articles:

• Should kids sleep with their parents? My kid says yes, but I say no.
• The effects of sleep deprivation, which I know all too well, which is why I go to bed at 8:30pm every night. (Yes, I am old and boring and I am aware of that.)
• Do the elderly sleep worse? I say maybe not, but they sure sleep less. Getting up at 4am everyday... Insanity!
• Something about birds.
• Something about how sleep helps your memory.
• About how sleeping pills are huge rip-offs.
• About nightmares, what dreams mean, why we dream, etc.
  

Tom, everyone's favorite MySpace friend, is apparently doing a pretty common MySpace thing to do - lying about his age.

Natali del Conte - a somewhat cute tech vlogger, in a bloopers reel that really has no point, other than looking at her.

Some crazy Christian televangelist cursing up a storm:



Startup to kill junk mail.
An article about StumbleUpon, which apparently is a better version of Digg or one of those types of sites. And by article I mean half-assed weak attempt at a blog post.

Netflix profits are up... Which is odd because, while I still am a subscriber, I am strongly thinking of switching to Blockbuster. I love Netflix and I will feel like a traitor if/when I do switch; and I hate Blockbuster for being the Starbucks of movie rentals. But with Netflix if I want to watch a movie I have to put it on a list, wait weeks for it to come, and by the time it comes I don't want to watch it anymore, so it sits there for months delaying the next movie I really do want to see.

With Blockbuster I can exchange the movie in the store, and get the next one on my list. I'm doing a two week trial of Blockbuster and I've watched more movies than I have watched from Netflix in the last 3 or 4 months, maybe even longer.

Apple blows me out of the water

I've been saying how I don't see a big, bright future for Apple (AAPL) for quite a while now. Their earnings last night pretty much blew my theories out of the water. Honestly, I am very surprised. A few years ago no one had iPods and everyone wanted them. Today, everyone has one that wants one, or so I thought.

I thought that the iPhone would not sell as many units as projected and would be a disappointment, I guess I was wrong on that count as well - though the huge price cut very likely was what screwed me over on this call.

I stand by my position that AAPL is going to go down at some point, but just maybe Steve Jobs can keep pulling nifty little design tricks out of his bag and keep the customers fooled and the stock price high. Once Steve goes, forget it, Apple is as good as bankrupt.

But I have to hand it to (Real) Steve Jobs... Well played.

Update - Some articles from Valleywag on the Apple quarter:

• How well is the iPhone really selling?
• How many iPhones were sold with the intent to be bricked unlocked?

And unrelated, Wozniak on homeless cats... Poor kitties!

Still not ready for the week

Rare out-of-characters interview with Stephen Colbert, following his bewildering spot on Meet the Press this Sunday. Half the show dedicated to an actor playing a character who is fake running for president? And another article acting as if Colbert were a real, serious candidate. People - Colbert's got a monopoly on the fake real journalist thing. Give up. Please.


Take two: Colbert on comedy

Slide, a start-up that makes some sort of widget, is trying to raise money. Apparently they have a burn rate of about $1 million per month. For widgets. Seriously.

Weird video that has something to do with AOL. I'm really not sure.

I detest Julia Allison and everything she does and stands for... Yet I have a bizarre attraction to her. I'm not sure why but I think she is absolutely adorable and incredibly sexy.

I agree with the statement being critiqued here, but it's still not very nice to say.

Article on how Larry David, the comic genius behind Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, may have some undiagnosed mental illness that makes him act like he does.

Article on Britney's new album and how it is really made by computers or robots or something. I love electronic music and find live instruments to be at times vulgar, so I have no comment on this, other than even as electronic music, her's sucks.

Article from NY Magazine

Article on the Gawker site and other, related sites from New York magazine. Pretty dead on, and while it does steal some of Gawkers "snark" for its tone, I have to agree with the author on most points.

Back to Work on a Monday

A Seinfeld quiz. I got 46 out of 50. And a bonus interview with Jerry.

Andy Kessler on how schools are putting lectures on YouTube.

Excepts from Options, the new real book by Fake Steve Jobs.

Seth Godin on logos. And on Radiohead's new album sales strategy.

Some idiot on how we should sell two kinds of cigarettes, as if the one kind isn't bad enough already. He's got some good ideas but it's a terrible, terrible idea.

I visited Bard College many, many years ago as a prospective student. Everyone there looked completely high. This just supports my opinion of that school.

Facebook is trying to do some ads that might actually be worth something to someone. Good luck to them.

Some Domains I Own

I own all of the following and I'd be willing to sell any of them for the right price. At the moment they are hosting ads which are making a few dollars a month. If I had them crosslinked or were promoting these sites they would make a bit more money, I would think:

ADRIANAZARCOVA.COM - Nude model, has site registered under a different name
AKARIHOSHINO.COM - Model, no site as far as I know
BEAUTYSCHOOLPRINCESS.COM
BEAUTYSCHOOLREJECT.COM
BUBBLEVERSE.COM - Web 2.0 site from random web 2.0 name generator
BUY-OXYCONTINONLINE.COM
CHATTERBEAT.COM - Web 2.0 site from random web 2.0 name generator
CINDYCHANCE.COM - Nude model. No site as far as I know.
GENUINELEATHERONLINE.COM
I-HATE-MY-HUSBAND.COM
I-HATE-MY-WIFE.COM
IAMSOMADATYOU.COM
MYWIFESPENDSTOOMUCH.COM
JABBERPOINT.COM - Web 2.0 site from random web 2.0 name generator
JENNIFERHAASE.COM - Playmate and NYC singer. Why one of them didn't buy this name I have no idea.
MARITAL-DISCORD.COM
MILLSTRADINGLLC.COM - One of my biggest moneymakers. It was originally for a B2C site I worked on but now it's showing ads for brokerages.
MUSICIAN-SPACE.COM - Seemed like a good idea at the time.
MUZIK-SPACE.COM - See above.
RIFFCHAT.COM - Web 2.0 site from random web 2.0 name generator
SAVEERIC.COM - Was originally a copy of save [whatever her name was] who made all that money moaning about how in debt she was. SaveEric.org I believe is a real site to try to save some legislation called ERIC.
SKIPCHAT.COM - Web 2.0 site from random web 2.0 name generator
TASERFETISH.COM
TASERSEX.COM - These two are from inside jokes I made with friends one drunken evening.
TEKBLAB.COM - Web 2.0 site from random web 2.0 name generator
TORIPRAVOR.COM - Model or playmate or something.
VLLEYWAG.COM - Misspelling of the popular silicon valley gossip site
WHATBARBIEAMI.COM - Seemed like a good idea one day
WORDBLAB.COM - Web 2.0 site from random web 2.0 name generator
WRTNFM.COM - An actual radio station in NY. They used to announce this as their site but they didn't own it so I bought it.

While you are here please click on a few of these and click on a few ads. I get a few cents to a few dollars for each and every click. If you are interested in taking any of these off of my hands let me know.

Last Minute Stuff for the Weekend

NewsCorp is lowering it's MySpace revenue estimates. How many times do I have to say that social networking is not a good revenue generator before someone listens?

This may also be because they are paying those idiots who started MySpace huge salaries.

Google is working on a Facebook deal of some sort. Distention in the ranks!

Some NYC VC named Fred Wilson who seems like a total jackass.

Walter Mossberg of the WSJ gives his annual fall computer buying guide.

And apparently these days the mob is more like high school girls than anything else.

Random Junk for Friday

• A blog dedicated to unnecessary quotation marks.
• Something about Google and advertising, from Valleywag
• Heath Ledger to star in Brokeback Mountain 2? I'm fresh out of Brokeback jokes.
• 11 Most Unintentionally Poignant Drunken Moments Caught on Camera, from Cracked.
• Worst Halloween costumes.
  

Final Thoughts for Thursday

• My wife came up with this idea and I said that someone must already be doing it, and I may have been a bit early but here it is. I should have jumped on it the second it came out of her mouth.
• More blabbing from Zuckerberg.
• Patent court strikes down at least part of Amazon's claim to have a patent on one-click shopping.
• A non-software way to block porn. So your kids can't see it, I assume.
• 
  

Kids Start Becoming Gamers at Age 6

I am not a gamer so I don't really understand all the fuss. But apparently young kids are turning into serious gamers. From Advertising Age.

Seth Godin on using Wikipedia for homework. He thinks its a good idea, as do I, a lot of other people apparently do not.

Debbie Harry is 62 years old? Other stuff in the article as well.

A list of 66 celebrities that blog. Just because we have nothing better to do.

Zuckerberg is a smug little asshole as usual.

Man given vodka after he drank antifreeze or something. Apparently he needed it for medical purposes.

Man arrested for standing on a sidewalk in Time Square.

Apparently eBay's acquisition of Skype contributed quite a bit to the not so good numbers eBay reported last night.

Google's ridiculous 411 idea is apparently being copied/rivaled by Microsoft. Two companies with huge amounts of money now battling it out over the same stupid idea.

Some crappy web apps that everyone uses and some better replacements that not too many people use. I haven't used any of the replacements so I have nothing to say about them, other than that I dislike Vimeo for personal reasons.

Wednesday Round-up

• Francis Ford Coppola on Pacino, DeNiro and Nicholson and why they suck now.
• Article on why Gen Y'ers are still living with their parents instead of getting off their butts and getting a job.
• Article on the current tech bubble is-it-or-isn't-it situation.
• Clip from the TV show Kid Nation, which I have never seen. This must be fake.
• Little Flash thing that randomly generates Web 2.0 Press Releases.
• Do you know your movie props? Probably not and neither do I.
  
• MTV rips off Hot Or Not with Next Or Not. Sounds dumb and I hate MTV and everything they do, so...
• Someone finally came up with a way to have people not be confused when they get off the subway in NY!
• This lucky bastard got a question about Office Space on the Millionaire game show. Bastard.
• And another video from the Onion News, about the upcoming election:
  
  
  Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
  

Tuesday Round-up

New York Magazine article on blogs such as Gawker.

Brooklyn girl is fined for drawing with chalk on her stoop. Where I live the same thing would happen.

A very bizarre idea for a TV show. It could have been good or it could have been ridiculously bad. Unfortunately it does not seem like we will ever know.

Chad Vader - the newest YouTube thing. It is funny:

How to Pretend You Have an iPhone

From Cory Arcangel comes this easy way to make everyone think you have an iPhone.

I know a lot of people dislike Cory but I went to school with him and I like him. Yes, his parents do live in a big, huge McMansion in Buffalo (or at least they did about 12 years ago); and for all I know they may pay his Williamsburg rent. But he actually has talent and he is a genuinely nice guy. He and Paul Davis did a stop-motion animation video with Legos set to one of Paul's songs that was genius. The song was brilliant and the video was awesome.

The Bruce Springsteen Born to Run glockenspiel addendum was brilliant and I still want a copy of it.

And... Apparently one of the other Rolling Stones has done even more drugs than Keith Richards. If that is even possible.

Apparently some old people use Facebook. This deserves a whole article in the NYT. I don't understand why anyone uses Facebook. And neither do a lot of other tech people.

Lastly, a woman who charges parents obscene amounts to get their kids into their prestigious schools where they can pay out the nose for their child to drink and get A's for doing nothing. A roommate of mine's father was a professor at Princeton and he refused to let his son go there because he said the undergraduate education was so shoddy.

Update on Lars and the Real Girl

Apparently EW hated it. They gave it a C. It wasn't a great work of art or anything but I found it enjoyable, and stick by my earlier opinion.

More from Friday

Google is apparently getting kind of desperate to get it's radio advertising program, Google Audio, adopted. They are now offering $2,000 free to anyone who spends $1,000. Tech Crunch reports.

This is but the latest piece of evidence that, while Google may be golden in online advertising, its forays into off-line advertising have yet to catch on. Google must be having a real hard time selling those radio ads to have to resort to such a blatant attempt to buy market share. It’s not the first time it’s tried such tactics either. Last year, in an effort to jumpstart Google Checkout, for instance, Google paid $10 for every $30 in sales that merchants directed through its PayPal competitor. I’m not sure how well that went. But last time I checked, PayPal was still around.

Just because Google has cash to burn doesn’t mean it should use that cash to try to buy market share. If it truly has a better way of buying and selling radio ads, advertisers and radio stations will quickly figure that out on their own. It is not a good sign when Google has to resort to paying customers to try out a new product.

And for some bizarre reason Google is placing ads for rehab centers and drug addiction treatment on this blog. There is only one mention of drugs, which is yesterdays post about Count Bismarck's OD. So that is odd.

My wife just called me having seen a commercial for a drug for restless leg syndrome, that mentioned side effects including the urge to gamble or have sex. So I looked it up and there it is. At least it doesn't make your arms turn purple and fall off, or cause instant death like some other medications we see advertised.

And, from Valleywag, Jason Calacanis finally says something that makes sense!

An interesting chart from the WSJ about P/E and dividend yields.

Friday is Finally Here!

From the Onion, classified flesh-eating classified:


Proposed (Classified) Bill Will Defend Against Flesh-Eating (Classified)

An all-cat version of the movie 300 (which I have not seen):

More Junk for Thursday

Excuses people give to the cops when they are busted for speeding. I was once in a car with someone who was doing about 90 mph in a 65 mph zone and when she got pulled over she was shocked. She thought people didn't get pulled over unless they were going 100 mph or faster. She told the cop this. He gave her a ticket.

Count Bismarck died the way I hope to die (and almost did in the past).

And finally! Someone puts a name to something I've been experiencing for years. Phantom vibration of your cell phone. Via Valleywag.

Also from Valleywag, some insight on the Facebook/Microsoft/insane-valuation stuff. Pretty good insight, at that.

And an utterly bizarre and random video of some girl in the 80s doing a really bad job of playing Star Wars on the trumpet. Much funnier than it sounds. Or, not really, actually.

Almost Friday

• Google buys Jaiku, which is a Scandinavian version of Twitter. Some people speculate that this is related to the alleged gPhone, others are made that Google didn't buy Twitter. I've been playing with Twitter for a couple months now and it seems pretty useless to me.
• Google is adding YouTube videos to its Adsense results.
• Q&A with Craig and Jim of Craigslist. They refuse to admit they made money when eBay gave them however many millions of dollars they gave.
• Sprint begins to question it's WiMax plans.
  
• If anyone knows anything about who is leaving AOL, let Valleywag know.
  

How to Trade More Effeminately

Some hedge fund trader started taking female hormones, allegedly at his boss's request, so he could be a more "effeminate" trader.

Wednesday Round-up

An article on rehab, Malibu style.

Don't try to time the market. It almost never works.

Article on Yahoo, Google and paid search results. From Valleywag.

And an article on how Google screwed people over when buying Urchin, which its analytic software is baded on.

Some other people's opinions of Facebook "Platform" and apps.

Ten questions for the guy who does the PostSecret.com web site. From Guy Kawasaki.

Jeff Jensen's latest Lost article for EW.

And I leave you with a long, nonsensical interview with Bob Dylan for Playboy, from this list of his top ten most nonsensical interviews. The Playboy one is #1.

Not Feeling so Hot on a Tuesday

A great scene from a great movie, apropos of nothing:



A nerdy Flash game which involves breasts.

Some music industry people apparently are finally waking up to the new paradigm, rather than sticking their heads in the sand like the labels are doing.

More on the much ballyhooed alleged gPhone. And Google is teaming up with IBM.

Long article on a NY plastic surgeon. I didn't get all the way through it.

Article on tattoos in America. Take that, person I was arguing with about this last night. You were kind of right, actually, you just forgot to specify the age bracket.

Possibly the stupidest web site I have EVER seen, courtesy of TechCrunch.

WSJ article on the alleged Bubble 2.0. I tend to agree that things are getting silly again but I don't think it is a bubble yet because 1) the public is not heavily involved via the stock market, 2) history indicates that new technologies will initially cause a bubble which will burst and allow the survivors to build themselves up. See railroads in the 1800s for an example.

And finally, a Silicon Valley version of that Craiglist gold-digger post that's been going around.

Monday Morning Round-up

• An article on usage of Facebook apps. People probably shouldn't bank their futures on their Facebook apps. If they have any.
• Marc Andreesen on the web 2.0 bubble or something.
• 2007 Douchebag awards. None of my nominees were there and the skit isn't even really funny, but it could have been.
• An outsiders opinion of the NY Google office. Full disclosure - I have considered applying to Google in the past.
• Speaking of Google the NY Times has an article about the rumored gPhone. And a timeline of the gPhone rumors.
  

From the Obvious Files

An article about rent in NYC. Apparently its really expensive and hard to find apartments. Um... Duh?

And the newest, hottest Facebook app - dramatic whitespace! Awesome! Someone should buy this for at least $3 million.

Vaguely interesting article about the gentrification of Manhattan. Note the part about the number of Starbucks. Color me confused.

Lars and the Real Girl

Saw a screening of this movie last night and it was actually pretty good. Plot summary from some site:

Lars is a young man who spent much of his life alone with his widower father. When his dad finally passed on, his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), moved home with his wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer). With his brother back and his father gone, Lars retreated not only to the garage, but further into himself. Karin, however, is determined to break Lars out of his shell and get him involved in the family. It is obvious that he cares about them, but at the same time, he uses any excuse possible to avoid Karin's invitations.

I always say that in good movies the plots are largely irrelevant to what the movie is about, and this movie is really about loneliness and community. Lars is extremely shy and socially awkward and also has a problem with being touched by others. He orders a sex doll off of the internet and is absolutely 100% convinced she is real, and the whole town plays along because they all care about Lars.

The film is very funny, largely due to the reactions of people to having this doll presented and addressed as a real live person, but it is not a comedy. It never plays for laughs - they are incidental. At its core the film is about loneliness, how one escapes loneliness, and how people can come together when you least expect it. In this case the whole town comes together for Lars as he works out some of his issues through his delusion of Bianca.

Ryan Gosling plays the part brilliantly. He and director Craig Gillespie were at the screening to discuss the film but didn't really have anything terribly profound to add. And Gosling, while a fabulous actor, came off as a bit of an ass. Gillespie did not.

This film opened at the TIFF earlier this year and I don't know if it is slated for theatrical release and, if so, when. If it is I highly encourage people to see it. And I smell an Oscar nom for Gosling. His performance is so incredible - he really drives and carries the whole movie. He was nominated last year for Half Nelson, which I still haven't seen but have heard nothing but raves about, and I expect he will be nominated again this year. The supporting performers also do a very good job. All of the acting is very understated for the most part.

Advertising Apartments in NYC

Some advertising people came up with this gem...

Financial Modelling for Start-ups

Guy Kawasaki's blog has some info from a guy at Redfin on how they did the financial modeling for their startup. Back when I was an Apple junkie I loved Guy Kawasaki. But regardless of that, this is a very interesting and informative article.

This is what my company did not do:

At least in the financial model, give yourself as much time to grow as you can.

Or this:

Since there's a natural limit on growth, be ready for the question: "What would your market-share be in year five?" If it's over 20%, take the jillion-dollar projection down a notch. Even a hit like iPod doesn't have 20% market-share. You'll be lucky to come close to 20% of any market.

But we just might do this, although revenues don't necessarily mean profit:

Hit $100 million in revenues within five years.

Trying to Marry Rich

This Craiglist post (since expired or deleted) is from a woman who wants to know why she can't find a man who makes more than $500k a year. She's stuck at $250k and that won't get her an apartment on the UWS. She's pretty, just moved to NY probably for the purpose of finding a rich man and wants to know how to find a very rich man. One of those men responds to her.

On a related note to gold digging sluts, Disney characters explain chlamydia.

And strippers, if you want to make money, stay off the pill and don't get knocked up.

Marriage in Taiwan

A man in Taiwan was granted a divorce because his wife kept threatening to cut off his penis.

VCs are living in the 90s

Someone else agrees with me that VCs these days are not making very good investments and they are still living in 1999. It seems like the easy money web 2.0 bubble may be coming to a close, though not as disastrous a close as the last bubble. Hedge funds and Private Equity firms are not doing so well this year and valuations are going up without revenues to justify them.

I don't think we are going to have a crash but I think this round of easy money being available to any entrepreneur with a half-baked idea is coming to a close. Which is unfortunate because I have a lot of half-baked ideas and haven't raised any money yet.

Round-up for Wednesday Morning

I am busy working on the Gawker contest (only missing one face) but I have managed to find some time to do other stuff - like work, etc.

In the news today:

• Noted dumbass Henry Blodget says that Google will go to $2,000 a share. This would make it worth $750 billion, or like the top 5 biggest companies today combined. Blodget did so well with his tech calls a few years ago, who could doubt him now?
• A new site will buy your old crappy cell phones for pennies. I really want a new Treo but the prices on the 700p's won't come down and Verizon won't upgrade me.
• Despite the fact that Microsoft is reportedly in talks to invest in Facebook at a $10b to $15b valuation, Steve Balmer thinks its a fad. "Mr Ballmer also noted that sites such as Geocities, an online community that was bought for $3 billion by Yahoo! in 1999, at the height of the dot-com boom, 'had most of what Facebook has.'" Thank you Steve Ballmer for being the only sane person in this whole frenzy. Marc Andreesen, on the other hand, disagrees with Steve.
  
• Apparently a lot of Google employees who's options are vesting soon are leaving for Facebook. Cash in, and then move on to the next "big score." I don't have a source for this one, but it's all purely speculation anyway. Someone is going to buy Facebook for billions of dollars and then it's going to... I think you all know my opinion of Facebook.

In non-tech news:

• Friends with benefits relationships don't work, and often end both the friendship and the relationship. Um... Duh.

And I leave you with a mildly amusing spoof of the Paris Hilton sex tape:

How to Kill Yourself While in Police Custody

Contrary to popular opinion, it is possible, as this Slate article describes.

According to escape artists, here's how you slip handcuffs from behind over your head (don't try this at home): First, push the left arm as far to the right as possible, or dislocate the shoulder altogether. Rotate the right wrist clockwise within the handcuff until the inside of the wrist faces outward, then bring up the right wrist as if in a bicep curl; the left arm will be tugged upward at the same time. Next, the right arm moves up, scraping up the shoulder blade, until both hands are basically behind the neck and the right elbow points up above your head. Then, tucking your chin into the chest, bring the crook of your right arm over your head. To finish the maneuver, pop the handcuffs around the left forearm, dislocate the left shoulder (if you haven't already), and bring the left arm down in front.

And I leave you with a completely unrelated quote which I found rather brilliant, from the book "The Frenzy of Renown" about the history of fame from the Greeks through the 80s. Jack London on why he wanted to be famous:

I am writing for money. If I can procure fame, that means more money. More money means more life to me.

My boy Jack tells it like it is. Very interesting book actually. The first 500 pages or so are about Greece, Roman and Medieval times which is rather dull. The next 100 are about Revolutionary times, and the last 30 or so are about modern times. I should have just skipped to page 600. Though reading about Rome and Chaucher and all of that was interesting.

And, another completely unrelated tidbit, a handy guide from Gawker on what women you should marry and which you shouldn't:

A Really Bad Mother

A new low in bad parenting. Britney must feel a bit better about herself.

Really Bad Ideas

From Valleywag, comes a really bad idea. A mashup of Google Maps, the sex offender registry (already done) and the new part - Penguin Club, which apparently is some sort of Facebook for kids.

Also from Valleywag, the new annoying Google 411 thing I haven't tried yet.

I Hate Mondays

My thoughts on parenting are summed here pretty concisely...

In every high school there are one or two kids who have parents who are "cool" with them drinking and smoking weed and they rationalize this with the argument that "Since they're going to do it anyway I'd rather they do it at home where I can keep an eye on them" which is a hilarious way of saying "I've got no fucking clue what I'm doing as a parent and I just want the juvenile respect of my teenage children because even after all of these years as a parent I still can't quite summon the maturity to be an authority figure who sometimes earns the ire of my child by doing something that is in their best interest so I just hope they accept my Facebook request soon"