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Showing posts from 2008

Sukhjit.me - Nerd Stalker #25

(6 mins) Nerd Stalker interviews online personality Sukhjit Ghag at a Mashable monthly party in San Francisco. Sukhjit has extensive traditional and new media experience and has a new vlog called Sukhjit.me , a contributer to the Android mobile application Cooking Capsules, and works with PeopleBrowsr. For any of you social media vets or newbs, you could learn a thing or two from Sukhjit she seems to create or enhance community with each footstep, and it's quite inspirational.

Oosah - Nerd Stalker #24

(5 mins) Oosah is a simple, easy-to-use, but feature rich "Web 2.0" content hosting site. They give you one spot on the Web where you can manage all of your digital media content - photos, videos, and music/audio files. It is designed to be easy enough for novice users to use, while at the same time providing features that even the advanced user can appreciate. Oosah is a fully Web-based application, there is no Oosah application or code that you need to download or install on your Mac or PC (minus the optional screen grab application). Dan Khasis (CTO) demoed the application for us at a mashable monthly party in San Francisco. I was really impressed how once you had assets uploaded you could drag and drop media from service to service. Unfortunately Flickr connectivity has been removed since Sept. 08 and I would strongly urge them to get that back in the feature set asap. A fantastic fact is that they give

Lefora - Nerd Stalker #23

Nerd Stalker speaks to the "Top Dog" at Lefora, Vinnie Lauria. The Lefora Team got fed up with the lack of features available in message boards, such as vbulletin and phpbb forums. We use them everyday, from art forums, to game forums, to tech forums - they couldn't get over just how old school they were. Something needed to be done. So they created a free forum hosting service. Nerd Stalker ONLY special! Email vinnie@lefora.com that you saw him on Nerd Stalker and get what is usually a premium feature, custom domain name hosting for FREE. At first I thought forums would be the dullest of all topics (personal bias based on dealing with outdated forum applications see above), but Lefora has some really great stuff happening. FREE - No limit on the amount of posts or members in your forum. Quick & Easy - With just a click your free forum will be created - it's that simple. Forum Hosting - No downloads, no setup - you don't have to do any work. C

MixMatchMusic - Nerd Stalker #22

(Duration 7 mins) Nerd Stalker (in partnership with SF New Tech) sits down and speaks with CEO Charles Feinn and CFO/Director of A&R Alan Khalfin of MixMatchMusic . MixMatchMusic is the new music community created by musicians, for and about musicians. They have created an environment where musicians easily collaborate online and profit from their art. They built tools musicians need to engage with and involve fans. And they put shape to a place where fans discover new music and new musicians. Of particular interest to me is the web based GarageBand like application for creating/editing music, very slick. The music creators cut of sales was impressive, and the fact that you can both upload and download large very high quality audio files in various formats was key. I believe we will see musicians flocking to this service, if they can get the word out.

23andMe - Nerd Stalker #21

Nerd Stalker partners with SFNewTech to interview Alex Wong, Director of Products for 23andMe . 23andMe's mission is to be the world's trusted source of personal genetic information. For a mere $399 they send you a kit with a tube to spit in then send back. In about 4 weeks you get a ton of in depth genetic information. You will learn health traits/issues you may be prone to, get ancestral information, compare your results with the community, and you can submit your information for research if you choose. Privacy is the huge issue just see the in depth privacy policy they have to protect it's customers. Of note 23andMe was featured on Oprah and had the distinct huge honor of being named invention of the year by TIME magazine.

Offerpal Media - Nerd Stalker #20

We attend the Snap Summit in San Francisco and get a chance to speak with Offerpal Media Director Julie Craft. Offerpal handles a massive virtual currency platform which can make developers some seriously good money. The CPA rate is very inpressive, see the video for details. Offerpal is used in several social media games and virtual worlds, it's a fascinating business model and very successful. Offerpal's full-service platform enables Facebook, Bebo, and MySpace publishers to monetize their social applications, online merchants to generate new leads and increase conversions, and advertisers to reach their target consumers. They have one of the largest networks of premium advertisers and over 500 uniquely engineered offers.

GoldMail - Nerd Stalker #19

Tom Hakel CEO of GoldMail speaks to Nerd Stalker, GoldMail demos incredibly well . GoldMail seems to bring together voice mail, visual presentation and email into one simple to use experience. The client side needs nothing more than a flash enabled web browser, and the author uses a windows desktop application to create these slick goldmails. GoldMail has taken an interesting approach to the business, they have conquered the enterprise space and now make the application available to individuals. The challenge I see is that there is no freemium model (to avoid advertising in the experience), instead they choose a monthly subscription approach.

SF New Tech and Nerd Stalker Partnership Announcement

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SF New Tech & Nerd Stalker Partners http://www.sfnewtech.com

Liveblogging from the NewTeeVee conf in SF

Nerd Stalker selected to cover NewTeeVee conference today.

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NewTeeVee conference Nerd Stalker aka Adolfo will be covering and liveblogging from the NewTeeVee conference in SF today around 12pm pst. http://www.nerdstalker.com

chi.mp - Nerd Stalker #18

I asked Anthony Eden (CTO of Hawaii based chi.mp) to help me with the dilemma so many of us had, that is, explaining just what chi.mp is and why we should care. I originally thought it was nothing more that a life streaming web application but nothing could be further from the truth. chi.mps current strengths lie in it's many features (they have many more on the way): OpenID Giving away it's top level .mp domain for FREE Ability to stream any feed you want Cool tagging system that allows you to display all your info in customized ways to different people chi.mp's features traditionally have been seen as very different, awesome but typically very disparate things. So the challenge posed to them is to somehow articulate and educate this to existing and prospective users. If they get that right than the future for identity management and chi.mp is very bright. See a live chi.mp demo here .

PBwiki - Nerd Stalker #17

Nerd Stalker attends the SF New Tech meetup where we got a chance to speak with Mark Christian, Software engineer at PBwiki . PBwiki was there to announce their new API with the hopes that developers will see it as a rich platform for wiki data pulls, push's, and more. PBwiki is the world's largest provider of hosted business and educational wikis. They host over 550,000 wikis, serve millions of users per month. They are making a push into the enterprise with Sharepoint squarely in their sites. See a live PBwiki demo .

Spot.us - Nerd Stalker #16

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We were one of the lucky few who got word that the Spot.us web application goes live today. We speak to Founder David Cohn at Project One in San Francisco about the breaking announcement. David was conducting research for Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business, when he thought that this concept could apply to journalism. Spot.us empowers both the general public and journalist to cover (and contribute to) the stories that they want, while circumventing the possible exclusion by traditional editors. This could very well be the new face of traditional news and we will be watching closely. See a demo of Spot.us .

Apture - Nerd Stalker #15

We interview Tristan Harris CEO of Apture in San Francisco. Tristan is an incredibly bright guy, you talk to him for a bit and your eager to go try Apture out. They have created an incredibly easy to use web based editor for sites to add a rich multimedia type of experience. You do all this by highlighting or selecting areas of your site and Apture literally does the rest. Tristan compares the Apture process to painting a story in a much deeper enriching way. A great point he makes in the interview is the comparison of remembering Microsoft Encarta and what a rich "multimedia" like experience cdroms gave us back in the day, an experience we have been missing on the web. Tristan says that Apture is delivering this rich experience for the web now and I have to say that I agree with him.

Yahoo! Open Strategy Developer Launch - Nerd Stalker #14

Nerd Stalker attends the great Snap Summit in San Francisco to cover the breaking Yahoo! Open Strategy Developer Launch. We speak with Senior Product Manager Cody Simms who unveils some very powerful tools for developers. It's obvious that Yahoo is serious about creating an open platform and finally unifying the various Yahoo properties. Key components of the Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) are now open to you. Build applications on Yahoo! using the Yahoo! Application Platform. Make your sites more social with the Yahoo! Social Platform. Query, filter, and combine data with Yahoo! Query Language (YQL)..

Snap Summit Live Blog

Baynote - Nerd Stalker #13

Another quick video interview (2:30 mins) from the Mashable Monthly SF party, we speak with Baynote Sales Development rep Krystel Ariel. The Baynote Collective Intelligence Platform™ delivers on-demand recommendations and social search for websites. Businesses use Baynote to automatically display the best content and products to website visitors.

Rudder - Nerd Stalker #12

Nerd Stalker short (3 mins) interview with the CEO of Rudder Nikhil Roy, rudder sends custom financial info to you via email. Rudder is designed to minimize the effort required in managing your money. Whether you pay all your bills systematically from one checking account or have more credit cards than your wallet/ purse can fit, Rudder helps you stay on top of your finances.

WeAre.Us - Nerd Stalker #11

We meet the head of community management for WeAre.Us Stephen Doogan . They are a social support network, patient-led, positive, and private health communities dedicated to patients, family, friends, and caregivers of those coping with chronic, life-shaping illnesses and conditions. They come across very sincere and passionate about the mission, very inspirational.

Pete Cashmore - Mashable - Nerd Stalker #10

Nerd Stalker attends the Mashable Monthly SF and was lucky enough to get a really great sit down with a surprisingly accessible Mashable founder Pete Cashmore . This was another one of those interviews that was packed full of awesome content, it was brutal to make any edits. Pete gives us the rundown on several topics like: The state of Mashable His beginnings The Mashable roadmap The economy and how it will effect start ups What is Mashable Monthly and more...

BlueHaze - Nerd Stalker #9

The music theme continues, we interview founder of BlueHaze Mark Shedletsky. At first glance I thought BlueHaze was a simple company that sends you concert notifications, but that was a gross underestimation. BlueHaze gives the concert goer a 360 degree beginning, during, and after experience. BlueHaze is getting quite a bit of buzz as of late, with an iPhone, Facebook, and web solution to: Find local concerts. Get tour alerts from your favorite artists. See what shows your friends are seeing. Post your concert photos and reviews Keep track of your own personal Tour History. Discover new music.

Jam Legend - Nerd Stalker #8

Jam Legend seems like a web application that has massive potential, gaming + music + social+ internet = lots of $'s in my opinion. I can't remember the last time I've been this impressed with a web application, seriously. Nerd Stalker tracks down CEO Andrew Lee and Co-founder Arjun Lall. The give us their take on where the company is now and where it's going, very exciting stuff. BONUS, Jam Legend private beta invites available for Nerd Stalker viewers here .

Blip.fm - Nerd Stalker #7

Recently wherever I go in the tech community, I keep hearing about Blip.fm, and how everyone seems to love the service. I knew we had to stalk Blip immediately, I contacted CEO Jeff Yasuda who graciously agreed to a sit down. Jeff turned out to be a very cool down to earth guy who has all the right qualities to take his company to success.

Alternageek - Nerd Stalker #6 Part 3

The last part in a 3 part conversation with the Linux podcast team Alternageek. Phew that was alot of info! In this final installment we talk more about cloud computing, linux in the home, school, and enterprise.

Alternageek - Nerd Stalker #6 Part 2

Alternageek - Nerd Stalker #6 Part 1

We talk to the hottest Linux podcast Alternageek and it's hosts Linuxchic and Techmonkey. If your a Linux fan or just like to listen to two interesting perspectives Alternageek is a must. Big ups to those two for sitting through a lengthy interview on a cold San Francisco day. Oh and Part 2 is the best part so make sure to catch it when it's released.

Widgetbox - Nerd Stalker #5 Part 5

Nerd Stalker interview with CTO & Co-founder of Widgetbox Giles Goodwin. Sorry bout the lighting going strange midway we ran out of juice and had to move to a less desirable spot but alas. Giles is scary smart and is a vet of the tech industry another one of those guys we could just go on and on with if it wasn't for time constraints. Widgetbox helps people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Their community of tens of thousands of widget makers and over 56 million widget users is growing every day. Widgetbox widgets have been on hundreds of thousands of websites. And, best of all, Widgetbox is free.

iWidgets - Nerd Stalker #5 Part 4

Nerd Stalker interview with iWidgets CEO Peter Yared. Peters demo of the iWidget appliction was very cool, a really nice feature was the yahoo pipes type of drag and drop builder. Widgetbox helps people express, connect, create and inform using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. http://www.widgetbox.com

Traditional Business Cards Are Dying

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Business Cards Will Die http://www.mydropcard.com http://www.retaggr.com http://www.rmbrme.com/

Glam - Nerd Stalker #5 Part 3

Nerd Stalker interview with Glam product manager Sasha Cagen. Sasha talks to us about the Glam Apps Platform. Sasha was another great guest, smart, super articulate, and as an added bonus she was our first female guest. After speaking with Sasha I was impressed with the value proposition of developing widgets for the Glam network. Glam seems to have a laser focus on their audience and how best to cater to them. Glam Media is number one in reach for women online. Glam Media’s vertical content network, with a reach of 77M unique visitors, is effectively changing the very definition of what a media company is in the 21st Century. Glam Media leverages the increasing fragmentation of the Internet —bringing together owned-and-operated websites, including flagship Glam.com, with the Glam Publisher Network of more than 600 popular lifestyle websites and blogs and syndicated content from leading media companies.

zembly - Nerd Stalker #5 Part2

Nerd Stalker interview with Todd Fast , CTO of zembly . This was a really fun interview for us, zembly is really lucky to have him as a rep of the company. It pained us to make any edits as all of his content was really insightful. Zembly helps you easily create and host social applications of all shapes and sizes, on the most popular social platforms on the web.

Gigya - Nerd Stalker #5 Part 1

Gigya Eyal Magen, Co-founder & CEO #1 widget company Gigya helps publishers and advertisers increase reach and engagement, distributing widgets to any platform and providing powerful social features to any website. http://www.gigya.com

Mashable SummerMash Nerd Stalker #4

Mashable SummerMash yoono Kevin Cuneo Community Evangelist speakTECH President & CEO Aaron Sloman MySites CEO Ramine Darabiha

Nerd Stalker #4 Preview Mashable

The Nerd Stalker crew hits the Mashable SummerMash San Francisco Party at Mighty in San Francisco 7/15/08. This is the preview for the soon to be released episode 4. Saw/met tons of people, Will Pate of CommandN fame there but scurried away with his beer before I could say hello. We had a blast and consumed mass quantities.

Nerd Stalker Episode 3

Part 1 Backblaze Gleb Budman, CEO/Co-Founder Backblaze provides the "easiest" online backup service to enable everyone to backup. TechCrunch says Backblaze provides “Online Backup With Time Machine’s Finesse” and Ars Technica writes the company is “Making off-site backups brainless." http://www.backblaze.com Part 2 Snappy Stuff Brook Eaton, Founder/CEO SnappyStuff provides a snap shot of what you own and a system to help sell, trade and share it. http://www.snappystuff.com Part 3 Govit Taylor Norris, Founder/CEO Govit brings direct democracy to US citizens, helping voters learn about, discuss, and vote on active legislation. Members can vote on active legislation and have their vote sent instantly to their elected representatives. http://www.govit.com Part 4 Tipjoy Ivan Kirigin, Co-Founder/CTO of Tipjoy. Tipjoy is a micropayments service that makes it easy to leave tips for stuff you love online. http://www.tipjoy.com

Nerd Stalker #2 Vertigo CEO Scott Stanfield

PART 1 PART 2 This two part interview took place at Microsoft in San Francisco Bay Area .Net users group meeting. Vertigo CEO Scott Stanfield gave yet another awesome demo of what his development company has done with Silverlight. We talk about the amazing Hard Rock deep zoom project, photo display application slide.show , video application video.show , the state of rich internet application development, advertising, and more. I keep a close eye on Vertigo as I believe they are on the front lines of innovative web development, I would suggest you do the same.

Widget company interviews part 4 Clearspring

I speak with Mike Harkey (Dirctor of Business Development) from Clearspring. We talk widgets, advertising, analytics and sharing. Clearspring looked to be a candidate for a large company type solution for certain type of marketing/advertising campaigns.

Widget company interviews part 3 DISQUS

Despite initially butchering the name "Disqus" pronounced "discuss" co-founder/ceo Daniel Ha was kind enough to speak with the Nerd Stalker crew. Daniels tells us what Disqus is, what happened during a brief down time and where this company is going. I expect this "widget" to do quite well.

Nerd Stalker Episode 1 Part 2 Add To Any

This demo is way better on a computer, but it's pretty impressive that it could be done on an iPhone as well. I was really impressed with the simplicity and amount of services that Add to Any works with. Add to Any Pat Diven II, Founder & CEO Add to Any’s "Share/Save" and "Subscribe" widgets help your website visitors share, save and subscribe to your content using any service. http://www.addtoany.com

Nerd Stalker Episode 1 Part 1 Triggit

Welcome to the first episode of what I'm calling Nerd Stalker, in this episode we are at The San Francisco New Tech meeting held at Mighty . We start the first interview with a really great guy/CEO of Triggit Zach Coelius. In the following posts we get 4 of the companies that night on tape. Sorry Mike (Seeqpod) you were pitching some VC or something when it was your turn, next time. Widget demos that night (6/11/08) were: Seeqpod Mike Muldoon, CTO SeeqPod helps people find, discover, play, and enjoy "Playable Search" with an array of easy-to-use tools to make playlists, share, embed, and purchase results. From video to audio, slideshows, and Adobe Flash, SeeqPod accesses the vast multitude of rich media files and applications that exist online. http://www.seeqpod.com Clearspring Mike Harkey, Director, Business Development Clearspring offers a media platform that provides widget distribution, analytics, monetization and advertising solutions. http://www.clearspring.com Gy

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

“From Oscar-wining director Alex Gibney and producer Graydon Carter comes a probing look into the uncanny life of national treasure and gonzo journalism inventor Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. A fast moving, wildly entertaining documentary with an iconic soundtrack, the film addresses the major touchstones in Thompson’s life-his intense and ill fated relationship with the Hell’s Angels, his near-successful bid for the office of sheriff in Aspen in 1970, the notorious story behind the landmark Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his deep involvement in Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, and much more. Narrated by Johnny Depp.”

Give me a damn Sliderocket invite!!

Been trying to get a Sliderocket invite since day 1, killing me.

Dark Dining

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Arriving in California on the crest of the latest dining trend sweeping through Europe, based on an ingenious European concept that has enjoyed great popularity in cities like Berlin, Paris, and Vienna the first ever “Dining in the Dark” experience is now available in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco Just imagine, that you can not see for an hour or two, that you are abandoning vision in exchange for a new, multi-sensual dining experience.Opaque is enhancing our senses of taste, smell, touch, and hearing by abandoning one that we often take for granted – this is “Dining in the Dark”.

70 Amazing Business Cards

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Theres no way i'm kicking meat but...

New Coen Brothers Trailer

Gary Vaynerchuk Borders Book Signing

Me and Gary Vaynerchuk

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I asked Gary if he's always that filled with energy and how he does all this social media stuff along with his wine business.

New Start Ups

I had the honor of attending a New Tech meetup at Mighty a few nights ago, it was a blast and had the opportunity to discover some exciting new companies. Nirvino Christian Schroeder, Founder Nirvino is a free, website and mobile wine resource that aggregates wine critic reviews into a single score. Users can quickly find or confirm great bottles of wine when they are on the go as well as receive food pairing tips specific to that wine. http://nirvino.com/ Zivity Cameo Wood, Product Manager Zivity is a community-powered showcase of female beauty. http://zivity.com/ Razz Jeff Malkin, Co-Founder Razz is creating and leading a new category in photo enhancement called "audio-enriched photos." Users can mash well-known pop-culture audio clips and user-recorded voice with their favorite photos. With simple-to-use creatiion and consumption tools, Razz aims to be the YouTube of Talking Photos. http://razz.com/ MyMeemz/Skollar Alex Trolley, CEO / Founder Skollar is a Web 2.0 tool th

CondeWiredTechnica?

Conde Nast and Wired have bought Ars Technica for 25 million, rumor is that official word is coming on Monday.

China outsourcing the the USA?!

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I so knew this was coming. DONGGUAN, CHINA -- Liu Keli couldn't tell you much about South Carolina, not even where it is in the United States. It's as obscure to him as his home region, Shanxi province, is to most Americans. But Liu is investing $10 million in the Palmetto State, building a printing-plate factory that will open this fall and hire 120 workers. His main aim is to tap the large American market, but when his finance staff penciled out the costs, he was stunned to learn how they compared with those in China. Liu spent about $500,000 for seven acres in Spartanburg -- less than one-fourth what it would cost to buy the same amount of land in Dongguan, a city in southeast China where he runs three plants. U.S. electricity rates are about 75% lower, and in South Carolina, Liu doesn't have to put up with frequent blackouts. About the only major thing that's more expensive in Spartanburg is labor. Liu is looking to offer $12 to $13 an hour there, versus about $2 an

The Art of Innovation

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Guy Kawasaki - The Art of Innovation 55:38 Guy Kawasaki at the 2007 Event Marketer Conference

I usually hate lists but not this time

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Interwoven GearUp SF conference day 3

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Mobile post sent by Adolfo using Utterz . Replies . mp3

Interwoven GearUp SF conference day 1

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Mobile post sent by Adolfo using Utterz . Replies . mp3

New Thinking on Climate Crisis

All your problems can be solved by a garden.

Amy Stein: Domesticated

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Amy Stein creates amazing dioramas that explore her own version of natural history in her photographic series called "Domesticated." The photographs in this series were inspired after meeting a number of taxidermists and becoming interested in the psychology behind venturing into the wild to kill an animal and then paying a considerable amount of money to reanimate it and make it a permanent fixture in the living room. "To me this practice came to perfectly symbolize our schizophrenic relationship with the natural world. We consciously insulate ourselves from the wild around us and the wild within us, and then we subconsciously long to reconnect with the natural world. The images often involve re-creations of real stories of human and animal encounters in a small town in Pennsylvania that borders a forest. Once she has a story that she finds interesting, she researches the behavior of the animal involved, scouts locations, casts people and secures the appropriate taxide

The future of presentations.

Nancy Duarte Keynote 2007 (Part 1 of 8) from Duarte Design on Vimeo . See the rest of this presentation here .

Scary A$$ Robot

Again props to John for the link.

Questions

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As you may or may not know I'm a web analytics nut, I devour anything WA. Anyhow it seems that the great Avinash Kaushik is on the move again. If Google Analytics wasn't enough we now have 4Q and it's FREE! Getting voice of customer info like this is clutch, I was about to build out an app to do this but there's no need now.

Guy Kawasaki interviews Steve Ballmer at Mix08

I was a few rows in front of them, very cool of Ballmer to be a sport.

Did I say 22 thousand hours?

Quicky on Deep Zoom at Mix08 in Vegas

Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia Site with Deep Zoom

U laptop d-bag

Do schools kill creativity?

Northern California Music Scene The Neglected History

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I'm always disappointed when I see things like mid to late punk music scene movies, dvd's and notice that they never seem to cover northern california bands. It always seems to stop at the Dead Kennedy's, but the thing is there was a thriving music scene in Northern California (hint hint movie makers and authors!). Ignoring the importance of one of the most overlooked bands of that area Victims Family can never be forgiven. Fortunately Gabe Meline does a really nice job with the limited amount of space he has of covering some of that treasured history . I've got (almost) nothing but fond memories of that era and everyone that participated in stoking that artistic fire. I feel so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to be a part of it. Now go read Gabe's article and then create something, anything.

What were your top concerts in your life so far?

Off the top of my head: Janes Addiction at the Fillmore SF for the Nothings Shocking tour. Pixies at the Warfield, think it was the Debaser tour. Youth of Today at Gilman St. Berkeley.

The Happening

My Last Night In Portland

Portland Day 2

Have em spray it for you

Let him write your text on this Wall 1) You pay (€ 30), Palestinians spray 2) You get 3 digital pictures by e-mail 3) Pictures can also be sent to a friend

San Mateo Cops Waste Tax Payer Money

A friendly group of regular folk who I occasionally played poker with got raided by gun wielding San Mateo cops in a huge exercise in wasting tax payer money. Read this totally biased and jaded news story , I hear a more accurate one is coming out in the sf press tomorrow.

Wow

5 Dangerous things you should let your kid do