[chrisbrogan.com] - Off-Topic

Harold is Here

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 16:16:55 +0100

Harold Brogan joined the world early on January 22, 2006. You can see a photo shoot by CLICKING HERE.

For any relatives or friends who have trouble, either call or email or click COMMENTS and fill out the form.

Programming Note: Spotty Posting Ahead

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:36:03 +0100

So, this weekend we'll be having our second child. Or rather, we'll be flushing the kid out from his hiding place (He's a little overdue). As such, I imagine there will be a slight lull in posting (I'd get PUNCHED if I decided to run home and blog something instead of saying, "Breath, honey!").

Coming up this evening: an interview with Dave Gray, CEO and Founder of XPLANE, and headmaster of the Visual Thinking School, a top 10 lens at Squidoo. This will be great!

People looking for kid updates: this site is not the place. However, you can go HERE and get those kinds of updates, links to the new kid pictures, etc. (When he shows up).

Stay tuned, but please be patient if I get a little quiet over the next several days.

Shirt Fun

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 21:41:20 +0100

For my running friends, a shirt design:

I hope this works

Quick RSS Question

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 06:49:44 +0100

Does anyone know how to track how many people (and WHO) are subscribing to your RSS feed? If it's obvious, I still haven't found it yet.

My Ride To Work

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 22:23:00 +0100

And here is why I'll be working remotely for 2/3 of my days in 2006. (link).

Freaky/Interesting Art

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:01:32 +0100

This relates to nothing. But, this site shows someone's artwork as they fall into mental disarray.

School Photo

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 10:07:29 +0100

This is my kid at 3 1/3 years old. She is SO damned original. Look at that Mona Lisa look. (Full sized at violette.biz).

Freakish Wish List / Scavenger Hunt

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 21:43:55 +0100

I want the following things sent to me:

Your paperback copy of Neal Stephenson's CRYTONOMICON (mass market better than trade). You will not see it back.
Tom Peters' Professional Services Firm 50 *or* Re-Imagine! in ~~eBook~~ pdf format.
A ProxFlyer BladeRunner helicopter. (okay... but a guy could dream, right?).
An invitation to teach self-improvement material at your place of business or educational establishment in Q1 2006, free of charge except for a meal. (Will present for food.)

I just posted at Diskette Roulette about a neat robotics program using a swarm of the helicopters at the top of this post. The Bladerunner is the only commercially available one (that I know of).

REAL new music

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:27:44 +0100

Why WOULDN'T you try out all kinds of the latest and most interesting new music from unsigned bands? If you like music, this site is just teeming with fascinating tracks you've never heard. (Okay, some probably shouldn't be heard, but it's the beauty of this. Right?)

Great Presentations

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:19:15 +0100

I worship the folks at Presentation Zen for their insight on presentations, I am equally happy, however, that someone has bothered to write down the basics. This little piece by Jeffrey Veen is nice because it's short, concise, and sums up a lot of useful points in a really short bit. To me, using the essay by Veen as a starting point helps one better understand the folks at PZ.

LINKS: Sites I Like

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 21:42:11 +0100

I do a lot of research and reading online. I am also recently fanatical about podcasts (mostly business and technology shows). Here's a sampling of some of the places I like to visit:

Lifehacker- This site has lots of great ideas and software, generally based around the topics of improving how you get through life.
37 Signals: Signal vs. Noise- An often provacative blog around technology and software design.
Fake Movie Critic- A swell site where a friend of mine rates deliciously B movies.
IT Conversations- A great podcast site with lots of good technology shows. Usually with big names like Jonathan Schwartz of Sun, etc.
Business 2.0- A forward thinking business magazine, and a good complement to Fast Company.
Presentation Zen- A great site about making good presentations.

Mind you, I have lots of site for friends that I like and read. In fact, now that I've gone through the effort of hand-coding all those links, I should've just thrown a blogrolling snip on the sidebar. Whatever. GO check those sites out and report back. : )

Fitness on Demand

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:05:25 +0100

After almost a year without doing any significant running, my daughter yesterday got it into her head to want to do sprints in the long hallways of our building. Well, sprints after hardly doing anything significant for fitness really give you a quick read on how you're doing.

Not well.

So, just like every skill or ability, if you don't use it, you lose it. I'm back on the wagon. Give me a bunch of days to prove to myself that I'm really engaged, but I'll tell you: the original motivation that got me to lose almost 70 pounds was my daughter and wanting to be fit to keep up with her. Believe me, it stinks when you feel winded after only 15 minutes of sprinting.

Especially after having run a marathon around this same time last year.

Losing My Voice

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 11:12:06 +0100

For the first time in my life, I lost my voice today. I can't speak above a shrill whistle-type sound. It's really eye-opening. And annoying. I also left my USB memory stick at home. That's also annoying, as I spent hours last night creating content for work. I'm going to scrap the afternoon and go home early.

Ruzzle fruzzle.

But, something interesting: I was in a sour mood yesterday. I'm one of the folks in the company who's almost ALWAYS in a good mood. It's AMAZING how people react when *I* start acting all doom and gloom. It's fine for all them to say it, but when I join in... whoa.

So that was an eye-opening experience.

If I Ran a Movie Theater

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:19:30 +0100

I wrote a short while back about really liking the movie, SERENITY. I saw the thing 3 times in the theater. You know what that costs these days, but hey: I couldn't get enough of the experience. Obviously, that's not typical. Most people see the flick, have an opinion, and then go on their merry way.

Tonight, my wife and I watched the first DVD from the series. It had the pilot episode plus two others. I was SO excited (and this experience is rare to me). It really lived up to the quality of the movie, and I felt the same good feeling. This got me thinking.

Imagine this: You go to the theater and pay to see SERENITY. You really enjoy yourself. On the way out, there's a freshly set-up kiosk selling, wait for it, SERENITY on DVD. Sell me the DVD right then and there (because I'm still jazzed, I'm GOING to buy it). Then, give me a coupon for $3 off the next ticket for SERENITY I buy at that theater. See? Repeats. Branching. Franchising.

Okay, maybe you're of the opinion that it'll eat into your sales. Fine, then set up the kiosk and sell me Season 1 while I'm still jazzed from watching the movie. Sell me that, a tee shirt, and get me to give you my email address (and some useful information) to get $5 when the DVD eventually comes out (that weird six or more months that Hollywood sits on things). But wait: get me to buy that CD soundtrack. Hell, if I bring my iPod, give it to me for $10 instead of $15, just by downloading from your local dispenser. Throw some, "If you like Serenity Soundtrack, you'll love Young Guns Soundtrack" stuff on there, too.

If I ran a movie theater, you'd be broke. Distribution is one of two keys to business in this new world. Interfaces is the other.

A Run

supersized@chrisbrogan.com (Chris Brogan) — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 12:02:30 +0200

Don't anybody faint. I actually managed to get out and run for a 1/2 hour this morning. It was glorious. Of course, like most of my runs, it started to rain. The only thing missing was the trail. I didn't want to risk cancelling, so I did streets. Next up: a return to the trails.