The Best Wager Ever...

This afternoon I learned that my dear friend and college Fraternity brother Matt Wager passed away over the weekend. This is terrible and upsetting news. Shocking, as I just spoke to Matty on Thursday and Friday. I have lost a dear friend and a true brother. No one epitomized the meaning of "Fraternity" more than Matt. We joined Fraternities to have the good fortune to meet and befriend a guy like Matt Wager. Someone who always was there to be counted on... for a laugh, for words of wisdom, for an obnoxious comment... no matter when, no matter how much time had passed since the last laugh, bit of wisdom or obnoxious comment. I have so many great memories and great stories, so much of Matt that is part of my personal history. He was a real friend, a best friend. Matt will remain with me always, and Matt will always be my brother. My heart goes out to Carol, Danielle, Stephanie and the rest of the family. I shared so many great times, formative times, with Matt, that a part of me will never be the same, knowing that I can't just pick up the phone and give him a call. Matt was always happy, upbeat, successful, and lived life his way... let that be one more thing we can learn from Matt... We are not the goofy, idealistic yutzes we were 25 years ago. Life happens. Make every day count. Enjoy every day like Matt did. I loved Matt, and will miss him a great, great deal.

Twitter + MyxerTones = TwitTones!

I recently joined a new company, mVisible Technologies. We have built a very cool and powerful mobile content delivery platform called Myxer. The Myxer Platform can ingest any digital file, and spit it out in the proper format for any mobile phone, regardless of carrier. Through our MyxerTones website we are empowering thousands of content creators and independent artists to play in the mobile sandbox, enabling them to create, share and sell their own ringtones and other mobile content without having to worry about all the heavy lifting. We have radically simplified the process to the point where anyone can create mobile content and send it to any phone, right from their own website, blog, MySpace page, etc. But I digress... The real point of this post is to introduce my entry into our corporate mashup competition. Everyone in the company was challenged to dive head first into "Web 2.0" and "Social Networking" and create a mashup of Myxer and another platform or online community.

As you may know if you have stumbled upon this little blog before, I am a fan of Twitter, and Twitter even made a monkey of me... I also believe Twitter is a wonderful discovery channel - a great way to be exposed to new and cool products, services, and websites you might otherwise never have encountered. With that in mind, my entry into the Myxer Mashup Competition was a no-brainer: Twitter + MyxerTones = TwitTones. TwitTones uses Twitter to deliver FREE Indy Music Ringtones. Many people are already receiving their Twitter updates on their phones...so it is a perfect platform to use to deliver mobile content. I am not a developer (and I don't even play one on TV,) but I leveraged the ease of use of GoDaddy, Blogger, Twitter, and of course MyxerTones to set up TwitTones. If you are on Twitter and you like Indy Music and personalizing your phone with Ringtones, then TwitTones is for you. Follow or Friend MyxerTones and start getting your daily TwitTone today!

Ok, I Was WRONG...

I predicted Paulie would go after Tony... Instead, he went after a CAT! Clearly, I am not the only one who was surprised by the Sopranos Finale...

Lots of comments and discussion on Mahalo.

Aloha, Shalom, Adios Sopranos...

My SOPRANOS Prediction...

Ok, I don't usually do this, but I couldn't resist. Here is my prediction for the FINAL episode of THE SOPRANOS...

PAULIE is working for Phil Leotardo and he will be the one to whack Tony (or at least try). My reasons for drawing this conclusion stem from Paulie's displeasure with Tony all season long as related to Tony's continued support of Christopher over him...

...and specific things in last night's episode...

• The odd shot of Paulie in his car, driving up outside the Bing, noticing the "cousins" and speeding off...

• I believe Paulie was the one who provided the (ultimately false) info about Phil's rendezvous with his mistress.

• Phil specifically took Paulie off the "hit list" when planning the whacking of Tony and his lieutenants...

We'll see how well I did next week...

Global Warming is Hot, but Humans are Toast!

With "EARTH DAY" approaching and all the heat about Global Warming, I am reminded of the prologue I wrote for a "blast from the past" sci-fi story I have been working on for more years than I care to admit. In any event, as one take on the Global Warming controversy, here is the prologue to my Novella in progress, "Getting A Head.":

The future is the past...

Save the earth! Save the earth! Everyone is screaming save the earth. But the earth doesn't need saving. Face it; the earth is not going anywhere. How old is the earth? A billion years? Billions of years? Or, as the late Dr. Carl Sagan would have said, "billions and billions" of years? The earth does not need saving. The earth is a survivor. It survived the dinosaurs. It survived the ice age. It Survived the Romans, the Inquisition... Survived volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, the holocaust, Hiroshima... Hell, the earth even survived the sixties!

The notion that man is capable of destroying the earth is absurd. Man's entire existence, from the first cave person (or Adam and Eve, if you prefer) to today is barely a moment, barely a blink, a single breath in the lifetime of the earth. To think that we, human beings, are strong enough or significant enough to wipe out that which has survived, even thrived, for so long without us harkens back to the days when astronomers believed that man was the center of the universe. Well, we are not the center of the universe. We never were and we never will be.

The so-called "environmentalists" have it all wrong. Their passionate cries should not be to "save the earth", but rather, to "save the people!" or "save the humans!" for we are the ones at risk. In truth, there should be no "environmentalists." Instead, there should be "humanists," dedicated to the preservation of the human race. The pollution, waste, crime, hate, carcinogens, terrorism and civil unrest that plague our modern lives do not put us on a course that will destroy the planet. They do put us on the path to imminent self-destruction. The earth needs no savior. The earth will be here long after every trace of man's very existence is gone...

For all we know, it has happened before (history is doomed to repeat itself, is it not?) For all we know, our species of Homo sapiens is not the first to inhabit this planet we call Earth... Perhaps we are not the first examples of intelligent life, but rather, the second, or even third attempt. Perhaps we are only one of many creatures who, like the Jurassic aged dinosaurs before us, inhabited this planet, thrived upon it, and then faced extinction.

Perhaps...

TWITTER is the new "discovery channel"

I have mentioned how Twitter Made a Monkey of Me and Twitter Made a Comic Strip of Me but the real thing Twitter has done for me is to become my primary "discovery channel." It may be R.I.P. for my RSS reader! Why scour scores of subscriptions when I can have the latest and greatest pushed to me live and on the fly? Twitter has become my best way to discover. Discover cool websites....discover blogs, podcasts, even breaking news... It has been an amazing and inspiring resource. A fleeting glance at Twittervision told me we had lost Kurt Vonnegut. An early morning Tweet on my Treo from the Scobleizer told me of a yet to be reported earthquake in Mexico. A few minutes later, again courtesy of Mr. Scoble, I was watching a live streaming discussion with Chris Pirillo on a slick website, Ustream, that I had never visited before... Another discovery!

Why is this 24/7 "discovery channel" that follows me from my pocket to my desktop so appealing? Perhaps it is innate... perhaps Twitter is the modern way our "tribe" bangs the drum so others can hear us... I know I will continue to beat the Twitter drum (as long as Sprint continues to offer my unlimited data plan!)