We had a fairly uneventful Halloween this year. Since Michael is not 13, this may be the last year he gets out to trick or treat. The fact that he is already tipping 6′ makes him look a bit odd going to door-to-door. It kinda sucks that Ashland is not exactly the trick-or-treat capitol of the world. They have a big parade and party downtown, but not many active houses on our block giving away candy.

We are of course the exception. We were giving away the full size candy bars, but we are so tucked away that most people don’t even know there is a house here. We got one mid-size group of kids. I should have just unloaded the candy to them, but now I have it sitting around the house.

To be honest this was one of those days I really miss California. I would have liked to of taken Michael to Knott’s Scary Farm. I always loved that when I was a kid. Maybe we should do something out of town next year. It’s hard because he has school usually on Halloween.

We watched the Omen remake which really sucked. The whole movie just felt a bit flat. I’m sure it’s partly due to the fact that it followed the first movie so closely that there was no surprise as to what was going to happen next. But the acting was a bit uninspired as well.

That’s about it for the uneventful Halloween. I did take a couple shots of Michael with my new camera. I’m not sure how I’m liking it yet. I’ll have to give it a good run through in Vegas and Hong Kong next month.

[tags]halloween, ashland[/tags]

After moving to Oregon I decided to try live healthier. Part of that was weight loss, and another part was reducing my footprint on the planet. Here are some changes I have made and why they’re important.

Stopped drinking bottled water: American’s purchase 28 billion water bottles per year, and 80% of those end up in land fills. The bottles water industry also consumes 17 million barrels of oil per year, and contributes 2.5 million tons of CO2 into our air. And these numbers are growing dramatically every year.

Since I have been working on weight loss, more water has been essential. But I now just own a couple sturdy water bottles and fill those up with the filtered water from my refrigerator. Not only is this better for the environment, but I am also saving nearly $70 per month on bottled water.

Bring my own bag shopping: Both paper and plastic bags cause significant drains on the planets resources. We use about 4 – 5 trillion plastic bags per year, and only .06% of those bags are recycled. This build up of bags have effects that range from wildlife eating the bags and of course dying, to helping cause a major flood in Bangladesh.

And if you think paper is better, be aware that paper bags are usually made of virgin fibers that cause en estimated 14 million + trees to be cut down each year.

It’s not always easy to remember to bring a canvas bag with me, especially for non-grocery shopping. So I keep some in my car, and when I forget, I punish myself by not using a bag. I’m sure that when you look at how many bags you use, you see it’s a small step to make a big difference.

Use CFL light bulbs: Lighting is one of the primary drains on electricity. So why is it that a product that costs about the same as a regular light bulb, yet saves people 75% off their lighting bill only has a 6% adoption rate in the US? Seth Godin wrote a great article exploring that issue. He also mentions that if everyone switched to CFL bulbs, we would eliminate the need for foreign oil without lifting one Hummer off the roads.

I have replaced all the bulbs in my house and it looks to be making a nice big difference. It’s an easy step to take to reduce power consumption in the country, and the bulbs are now nearly $1 per bulb at some stores. This more than pays for itself in no time, so put this on your list of things to do next weekend.

Energy Efficient appliances: Every now and then the government does something useful for the environment, although not so much lately. Back in 1992 they started the Energy Star program as a voluntary labeling initiative to inform consumers that the product had met energy efficient guidelines. The EPA is estimating that this saved $12 billion in energy costs in 2005 alone. Another appliance technology that has come to market recently is HE washing machines. These machines use 20% – 66% of the water a traditional washing machine uses. But you have to use HE labeled laundry soap.

Here is something I thought was interesting; you save more water by using an efficient dish washer than washing them by hand.

All my appliances are Energy Star compliant, and my washing machine is HE. My last place didn’t have those things, and I notice a big difference on my electric bill.

Eco-friendly cleaning products: Obviously toxic chemicals rarely help the environment. So using an eco-friendly laundry soap and cleaning supplies can help cut down on the amount of toxic waste the planet has to deal with.

Also, using smaller container of concentrated liquids help reduce the amount of package waster, and shipping weight.

For example, I use non-toxic laundry soap in a big concentrate gallon that is HE complaints. I use white vinegar as a natural fabric softener.

Tankless water heater: Heating water account for 14% of the average Americans energy budget. That can be significantly reduced by using a tankless water heater. Traditional water heaters sit around, sucking up power to heat water your not using. Tankless heaters heat water as needed. This is obviously an even better value if you travel and go long periods without needing hot water.

I have a tankless water heater that works great. Less maintenance, and never ending hot water in a sometimes shower busy house. I hate cold showers! I do have to wait about 2minutes for the water to heat up occasionally, but that isn’t usually much of problem.

Purchase Green Tags: We have a program here in Ashland that allows us to purchase Green Tags. This is a small price increase to run off of renewable electric energy. Because we are very efficient now, we pay very little difference for this, I expect my electric bill will remain under $100 per month, and it’s nice to know that our home is running of clean, renewable power.

I’m not sure who widespread this program is, but it may be worth checking out to see if there is something in your area.

Recycle: Most cities now have decent recycling plans, we just need to take advantage of them. I have found this isn’t as difficult as I once thought it to be. Just be conscious of the fact that whatever I put in the trash has to go somewhere is enough to keep me recycling. But you can also go the extra mile and look for products that come from recycling as well. Obviously when you purchase paper products you should be looking for the little recycled logo.

Being conscious: Simply being conscious is a big part of the effort. Making sure to keep lights off when not in use. Walking to the grocery store, video store and movie theatre has made it where I only have to fill up my tank once per month. Consolidating trips so that I can make less of them, and use less trash all starts to add up to not only reducing waste, but being healthier and saving money.

Here are some the areas I would like to improve in:

Buy a hybrid: I honestly looked at Hybrids, but didn’t see what I needed. I needed a small SUV with AWD. The hybrid SUV’s I looked at didn’t really seem to save much gas and cost a lot more. I really liked the RX400h, but there is no Lexus dealer within 2 hours my house. So I went with the best I could find. I’m averaging about 20 MPG, which considering I only fill up once per month, is better than most people.

Buy more local groceries: I am aware of the issues in trucking groceries across the country. I’m trying to be better at buy more locally grown foods, but it’s not as easy as it should be.

Solar panels: I have to admit that I think I just like the tech of solar panels more than I think it will help, or be worth the money in my case. If I spend less than $100 per month on power, and I already use renewable power from the city through green tags, then it’s more eco-bling than anything else. But I do like the idea of it.

Hopefully this will be helpful to anyone looking to make some simple changes to be more eco-friendly. You can check out my other Blog Action Day post on Switching to Ethanol at NetResults.com.

It would be great if others left their suggestions here as well.

[tags]blog action day, cfl, environment, seth godin, green tags, he washers, energy star, recycle, tankless water heaters[/tags]

Technology is never-ending; new models come out, prices come down, etc…  But 2 months is an awful short cycle to lower the price on a product, especially by 33%.  At that point it’s just screwing over the very evangelizing customer base that carried Apple through hard times, and propelled them in the good.  In short, Steve Jobs kinda screwed us loyal Apple customers.

Reading Steve’s email to us loyal customers doesn’t really make me feel much better.  He explains that he hopes the lower price will increase sales.  Well no shit.  I am all for more Apple users in the world, but I don’t really care enough to pay extra money to them.  It’s obvious Steve believes I should care about this, but it’s not my problem any more than my paying my mortgage is his.

Anyone who purchased an iPhone has gotten the little comments from the cheap, uninformed PC users about waiting until the price comes down, or waiting until the second generation so that the bugs are worked out.  We didn’t listen because we trusted Apple to do the right thing.  In this case, they didn’t.

Now luckily I used my American Express card to purchase my iPhones (I bought 3 in total), so I may have some recourse beyond the $100 store credit.  Hopefully I’ll be able to recover the $600 extra I paid.

In summary I have to say that I’m a little torn on the issue.  On one hand I was very happy with the product, it’s the best device I have ever owned.  On the other hand, I do feel that because I am such a supporter of Apple (Macbook Pro, Cinema Display, Hi-Fi, iPods, Airport Extreme, Airport Express, AppleTV, etc…) I was over charged and taken advantage of.  Steve screwed those of us who care the most.

So I guess they should enjoy their holiday bum in sales, but be aware that on the next big product launch that line may be a little shorter.  I know it will at least have one less person.  In the future I’ll just wait a few weeks for the price to get cut by 1/3.

[tags]apple, iphone, price cut, steve jobs, mac, store credit[/tags]

I will be moving forward with Blogitive, and will be incorporating it into my new company, NetResults. I have been working on some really exciting updates to Blogitive, so this is an exciting time on that end as well. This change will allow me to focus more on building out Blogitive into what I would like it to be, which is the best solution for bloggers to make money online.

I will also be maintaining some side projects at NetResults. I have a stake in a couple ecommerce ventures (eSnacks.com and DotFlowers) with more on the way. And since I love consulting, I will be maintaining a few select clients in that space as well.

It’s not easy to make such a big change in my life. I find myself second guessing the decision, and of course there is some worry. But in the end I know this is the right choice. There are certain freedoms that just don’t go along with any organization bigger than 2 – 3 people. I need that freedom or I get bored.

If you’re interested in my new company, you can check out NetResults here. Feel free to stop by, or better yet link to me! I need a lot of links to get back to the power usweb.com has in the search engines.

One cool thing about going this route is I am going to try to better document the company’s start on the NetResults blog. Hopefully some will find that interesting.

[tags]usweb, netresults.com, blogitive, esnacks, dotflowers[/tags]

Jeffrey J Basford 

Shaun decided to launch a nice little ecommerce site that sells candy online. eSnacks.com sells candy in bulk, and vintage candy. It’s a nice clean design, and leverages Google Checkout as well as Paypal.

I put a small order through myself for some Wonka Donutz and Wonka Bars. They arrived while I was in Costa Rica, so I came home to some significant shrinkage thanks to Michael. Overall the order process was very simple.

I like the large selection, and the prices are pretty fair, especially when compared to the store. I love the movie candy section. It would be pretty cool to have the big cinema size boxes of candy when I set down to watch a movie at home.

They also offer a lot of hard to find candy from the UK, like Flake Bars and other Cadbury chocolates. I’m not sure what the prices are in the UK for Flake bars, but they are very high here.

The shipping price is a little high on the items, but that’s in large part because they include an ice pack with each order to make sure you chocolate doesn’t melt while in transport.

So if you get in the mood for some chocolate, checkout eSnacks.com.

[tags]esnacks, willy wonka, wonka bars, wonka donutz, cadbury, cadbury chocolate, cadbury flakes, candy, vintage candy, candy in bulk[/tags]

Rob Semaan

In speaking with a friend today, the topic of the famous Sunscreen speech came up. One of my favorite lines of the speech is to live in New York, but leave before you become too hard, and live in Northern California, but leave before you become too soft. I think about that a lot being in Oregon.

I like to think I’m pretty laid back. And when I told a good friend I was moving to Oregon, he remarked that he thought how well I would do there because I’m so laid back. “It’s a slower lifestyle” people would tell me. That sounded perfect after a couple years in Orange County. OC is a fast paced lifestyle where you have to keep on the financial treadmill just to maintain some dignity by driving the right car or living in the right place. Growing up there I had seen that first hand, but somehow didn’t appreciate the stress that it would cause me as adult. As a teenager, my years in Laguna Beach were some of the best of my life. But as an adult, Orange County was putting me in an early grave.

I didn’t make the move lightly. I had first heard about Ashland in 2001 through a TechTV segment on the Ashland Fiber Network, the towns self-owned Internet service that had full fiber connections going to homes. “It’s like have a T1 line to every home” was the idea. At that point I was living in Silicon Valley and drowning from the imploded bubble of the dotcom’s. I was very receptive to the idea that 4 hours away there was a great town where houses cost a quarter of the homes in my area, the schools were top notch (the public schools, not the $40k per year schools that were good in my area), and was growing with a tech community. I did some research, and even followed up on a couple potential jobs. But in the end I decided to retreat to Arizona, where prices were cheap, companies still hiring people with my experience, and I had what little family I had left.

A couple moves later and I found myself back in Orange County. It had been my desire to return since the day I left. But somehow it didn’t feel the same. I was older, fatter, and somehow it seemed I was a little poorer. The weather was great, the shopping and dining were good, and the people were more familiar to me, but that’s about all.

The main problem I was having was that my son didn’t seem happy. His school was crap. The standard issues of So. California schools like overcrowding, many students not speaking English, and what appeared to be an escalating school violence issue. Adding to that issue that my search for a home lead me to the conclusion that an entry level house in an acceptable area would start at $850k, I started giving things some thought.

I took a drive up to Ashland, OR. to check things out. The town was as described; beautiful, quiet, quaint, etc… The people seemed very friendly and the home prices were about 40% cheaper on average when compared to houses I was looking at. The thing about Ashland is that there are no real bad areas. The whole town is overpriced when compared to Medford. If you live in California, the best way to describe it is like a cross between the community of Irvine, with the artsy feel of Laguna Beach. A few days after my return, someone firebombed a car near our home. The decision was made to move.

I took one more trip up to Ashland to check out rental houses before we moved. I checked out several before having the luck of running into a nice couple that was selling their home, Art and Kay. Art and Kay are very much the typical Ashland couple, despite the fact that they didn’t live hear yet. Both educators from Northern California who owned a couple of rental homes in Ashland. They loved visiting, and they planned to retire here. After a couple weeks of communication, Art let me know that they had just purchased what would be their retirement home, and they would be happy to have me as a renter for that home while they finished up in Northern California. I took a look at the house and it looked perfect for what we needed short term. The house has an incredible view, big enough for everyone, and was in decent shape for the age. We made the move and things went almost (spent almost a month living at the Holiday Inn waiting for the old home owner to vacate) smoothly.

So I have now been in Ashland for about 18 months. People often ask me how I like it, and I tell them the truth. I hate it! Don’t get me wrong, Ashland is a very peaceful, beautiful town. And I was aware that I would be giving up a certain lifestyle. There is no Best Buy, no Apple store, and I would have to leave the delicious taste of Jamba Juice on the beach behind me. That’s way okay. But what I didn’t take into account was the meaning behind living at a “slower pace”. For starters, that means that no one here gives a crap about how well they do their jobs.

We call the pool guy to get the pool ready for summer. He says he’ll be out on Tuesday. Tuesday comes, no pool guy, no phone call from pool guy. Wednesday evening the pool guy comes and says he will be here Thursday, no problem. Thursday comes, no pool guy, no call from pool guy. Saturday at 3:30 pm, the pool guy shows up unannounced and needs us to walk him through the pool issues.

I bring my car in to be detailed. The guy seems nice enough, and when I pick up the car, it looks okay. I ask him what wax they used, he doesn’t share that with me. I ask him what they used on the chrome, no real reply. So I do some research and try some products out myself. My wax job comes out much better than what they did. So, I ask them if they have tried the products I used. He had never even heard of them. So, I dropped off the products the next time I had the car detailed and asked him to use them. They did, but I don’t think they used the wax properly because it didn’t have the shine like when I did it. I know this seems petty, but honestly if I brought my car to be detailed in Newport Beach, they would be using some hand made wax that the Nazi’s created to make their Aryan super cars more shinny. And it wouldn’t be a big deal if this was an isolated occurrence.

Restaurants in the area are also not really big believers in the “service” part of “food service”. I have usually been pretty laid back in restaurants, but the places here seem to expect you to have infinite patience and understanding. It’s no unusual for them to bring the appetizers our with the meal, or forget your salad, or no offer a refill the entire meal. They also seem to run out of things at an alarming pace. And then you have the places that decided to close down one or two days per week. And why wouldn’t they chose a Sunday to close. That just makes sense. I mean, who goes out to eat on the weekends, right? The one usual exception to this is McGrath’s in Medford. Not exactly fine dining, it’s about 1 or 2 steps above Red Lobster, but they do seem to believe in good service.

Oh, and that great Internet service I spoke of. The thing that got me interested in Ashland in the first place…this is the ultimate in incompetence and bad service. First I can’t get a call back from them. It ends up that the people who started the service bailed after the town politicians started adding their two cents. The whole thing is now run by one of the biggest losers I have ever seen in business, Richard Holbo. The guy doesn’t call me back for over two weeks. And when I finally catch him at his desk, I ask him if I can get the AFN fiber service at my rental house (this is before I agreed to rent it), and he said yes. But when I call him back later to schedule installation, he then tells me I can’t. I’m now too far out. My complaints ended up catching the ear of the local paper who did a story on how I moved here with my family, and was looking at relocating USWeb here based partially on AFN’s performance, and they screwed me right out of the gate. The best part is when they reach Richard Holbo, he tells them he and I talked and that I was now satisfied! So, Holbo is not just incompetent, he is a liar. Keep in mind that AFN was set up to help the schools and the community with the money it would bring in. but because of Richard Hobo and the incompetent politicians, AFN loses money every year. Imagine that; a high speed ISP losing money for the past 4 years! Insane.

I could go on and one about the service issues in town, and anyone who speaks to me on a regular basis knows that I do, but there is no point. The problems I see in Ashland are what happens when a town is too soft. I get not letting the little things get to you. But life is often made up of many little things, and when they are all going bad, things start to go down hill in a big way. Ashland is a place that is soft. They don’t worry about how well they do their jobs, they don’t concern themselves with the big picture, and because of that, the town is in peril. AFN is losing money and will continue to do so until the town just lets’ it die. The county libraries all closed down because the politicians can’t agree on how to pay for them, and no one here wants to pay for anything.

Barack Obama says that Republican’s have no compassion, and that liberals have no sense of reality. Ashland is definitely the example of the later.

I could go on and one about the service issues in town, and anyone who speaks to me on a regular basis knows that I do, but there is no point. The problems I see in Ashland are what happens when a town is too soft. I get not letting the little things get to you. But life is often made up of many little things, and when they are all going bad, things start to go down hill in a big way. Ashland is a place that is soft. They don’t worry about how well they do their jobs, they don’t concern themselves with the big picture, and because of that, the town is in peril. AFN is losing money and will continue to do so until the town just lets’ it die. The county libraries all closed down because the politicians can’t agree on how to pay for them, and no one here wants to pay for anything. Barack Obama says that Republican’s have no compassion, and that liberals have no sense of reality. Ashland is definitely the example of the later.

So with this rant I’m sure everyone thinks I will be moving. The truth is I would love to, but I can’t. I made my son a promise when we got here. I promised that we would stay here through the rest of his school. So unless I can convince him to drop out of school at eighth grade, I’m stuck here for a while. I’m even buying a house here soon. But I am convinced that I’m moving to Las Vegas or something. Any place with Best Buys, Jamba Juice, etc…

Not everyone is unhappy here. My son doesn’t claim to be thrilled here. He misses having things like Dave & Busters, and Disneyland nearby. He can’t find a video game made this century in any of the arcades here. But he is doing well in school and seems to have made a lot of friends. And I do have to say that with the exception of one lazy teacher who is obviously burnt out, our experience with the schools here have been overwhelmingly good.

I asked my physical therapist how she liked Ashland. She had moved here two years ago from San Francisco with her husband. She said she loved it. I asked here what she did in San Francisco…she was a Yoga instructor. And that is it right there. If you are a Yoga instructor from San Francisco who enjoys hiking, Ashland is like heaven. If you’re someone whose hobbies include playing poker, going to clubs and sopping for overpriced toys…like I said, I’m moving to Vegas.

[tags]ashland, oregon, mcgraths, richard holbo, sunscreen, orange county[/tags]

Condo Rental in Tamarindo 

]]> http://www.filthylucre.com/the-downside-to-a-slower-pace/feed 0 http://www.filthylucre.com/michael-the-master-duelist http://www.filthylucre.com/michael-the-master-duelist#comments Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:43:32 +0000 Ed http://www.oneblogtoomany.com/2007/04/13/michael-the-master-duelist/

Michael (he’s the one in the yellow hat) had his first Yu-gi-oh duel last weekend at Toys R Us. It was a very small turn out with only 4 people, but he won. For those of you who do not know what this is, it’s a trading card game with monster that fight each other. It’s like Pokemon or Magic.
He had a really great time and got a free DVD, poster, card and a patch for winning. Since he has been collecting these cards for years, it was good to finally watch him get to play against a real person. He plays the games on his PSP and Gameboy, but it’s not really the same.

His next duel in early next month. As the returning champion he gets to stay in his seat while other players rotate in to play against him.

[tags]yu-gi-oh, duel, michael, toys r us[/tags]

]]> http://www.filthylucre.com/michael-the-master-duelist/feed 3 http://www.filthylucre.com/sxsw-interactive-2007 http://www.filthylucre.com/sxsw-interactive-2007#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:13:28 +0000 Ed http://www.oneblogtoomany.com/2007/03/19/sxsw-interactive-2007/
This was my third year at SXSW, so I’m starting to feel like a pro. I decided a while ago to limit the amount of conferences I attended, so for the past couple years I have only attended WebmasterWorld in Las Vegas, and SXSW in Austin. A lot of the other conferences like Search Engine Strategies and Ad:Tech just became too much about selling and not really an exchange of ideas. Especially Ad:Tech; just to get to the main area you have to walk a gauntlet of Spam vendors fresh off the plane from Boca.

How I love any excuse that gets me to Vegas (especially now that I’m living in such a small town), I have to say that SXSW is my favorite show. Austin is really an amazing city. I’m not a huge fan of visiting Texas overall. Dallas is far from my favorite city. But Austin is so different than the rest of Texas. Downtown 6th Street during SXSW looks more like New Orleans. And the music scene in Austin really can’t be beat.

I have just been going to the Interactive portion of the festival, but I’m starting to branch out more. Next year I’m defiantly going to stay the entire 2 weeks for the film, interactive and music portions.

I do have to say though that this year’s sessions were overall not quite up to last year. I think that’s part of some growing pains for the show, which seems to increase in size significantly every year. But some of my favorite speakers were back and put on some incredibly good sessions.

My favorite sessions:

Short Attention Span and Big Dividends with Jim Coudal and Brendan Dawes
I first saw Jim Coudal speak last year with Jason Freid (who I guess was to busy getting Highrise ready for me to speak on any panels this year). Their session was great, and I really liked what Jim had to say about curious people. Jim then became a personal hero of mine after his spoof of Advertising.com’s really, really, really bad “viral” video for Subway. Jim’s session this year really was almost a continuation from his talk last year. It really revolved around the idea of being creative and trying things for the sake of trying them. I put a few projects together to gain some knowledge and experience, and of course I always hope that maybe there is some money to be made on the projects, but when you have to leave those projects to pursue more immediate results (usually for money), you’re sometimes left feeling like a bit of a failure. It was nice to hear someone else defend against that. It’s very clear after hearing Jim speak that he is no failure, but he is better at starting things then finishing them. I like to put myself in the same light.

I had never heard of Brendan Dawes, but he is certainly an entertaining speaker, and had a lot to offer in this session. I picked up his book (one of the more common signed copies, as he puts it), so hopefully I can learn more about him.

My favorite bit from the session was Jim comparing his management style to a Montessori Day Care “we all have our responsibilities, but there are no grades here”. The session really made me start to think a little differently about USWeb, and I came up with a couple things I would like to try.

How to Bluff Your Way in Web 2.0
Jeremy Keith and Andy Budd are really great guys who not only know this industry, but can put everything into context in a very funny fashion. After going through some pretty funny observation about an over use of gradients, funny spelling and adding an RSS to every piece of content to the site, they got down to the serious problem that the Web 2.0 term has created. USWeb shares some of the same issues they have with prospects or clients asking for silly things like “Web 2.0 design standards” or to “make the site more Web 2.0”. At USWeb we actually had a client tell us we need to not think about their company as Web 2.0 (which we certainly didn’t, but more Web 3.0). Ironically, their company really performed more like a pre-dot-bomb Web 1.0 than anything else. As Jeremy pointed out, the term has become a bad buzzword. Where something like AJAX puts us all on the same page, Web 2.0 is now confusing everyone and holding us back.

We need to start killing that term and refer to things as what they truly are. Blogs, video and photo sharing are social media. Web Standards refers to developing sites that meet w3c validation standards, and design is subjective.

The Future of Online Magazines
This session was not the most informative, but was one of the most entertaining. The panel was just a funny, likeable group of people from sites like The Onion, Salon.com and Nerve.com.

I don’t want to focus on the negative, so I’ll just say that some of the weaker sessions were How to Attract the Ideal Client (the panel just seemed far less qualified than any other panel at the show), Create a campaign in 1 hour, and SEO and Usability.

I also thought it was odd that so many people in the RSS in Marketing sessions were focused on the fact that RSS doesn’t yet have a huge penetration into the market, but there was a lot of excitement in the Microformat session, which has no real market penetration. Maybe some of the people at SXSW are just more forward thinking than I am, but now that Microsoft finally started supporting RSS (after Apple started 5 years ago), but I don’t see anyone (Firefox or Opera included) supporting Microformats. And to be honest, I haven’t yet seen a useful demo for Microformats. Feel free to tell me where I’m wrong here.

Other bright spots of SXSW were:

1. I got to see Bob Schneider perform and met him after.

2. I got to meet Doug Coupland

3. I got to meet Patrick Norton.

4. I had some great BBQ at Iron Works and County Line

5. They started using the jalapeño bread again for their hamburgers at the Hilton.

Overall, still a great show. I’m going to offer up some suggestions to Hugh for next year, and even offer to put together a couple panels myself. I would like to see the focus go more back to developers (both application and content) of the Web.
[tags]sxsw, interactive, austin, texas, 2007, bob schneider, jim coudal, brendan dawes, patrick norton, andy budd, jeremy keith[/tags]

]]> http://www.filthylucre.com/sxsw-interactive-2007/feed 0 http://www.filthylucre.com/the-cost-of-car-repairs http://www.filthylucre.com/the-cost-of-car-repairs#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:02:10 +0000 Ed http://www.oneblogtoomany.com/2007/03/04/the-cost-of-car-repairs/
Few things are as frustrating as an unplanned car repair expense. Last week I had to replace the tires on one of my cars for $500! Now it’s not as expensive as some repairs, like a Mercedes Radiator, but still pricey.

And when did tires get this expensive? I used to see signs all the time for “4 tires for $99″. I understand that those were probably crappy tires, but 5 items the price seems excessive. I got one of the lower priced, all season, brand name models.

Hopefully I at least won’t see that expense again any time soon.

On the upside of things, I waxed my new car this weekend with P21S car wax. It turned out awesome. I took some pictures that I uploaded to Flickr, I hope they can show how amazingly shinny it made my car.

Update: Added the picture of the car after being waxed with P21S. The pic didn’t come out as good as I had hoped. It really is amazingly bright.

[tags]wax, car, tires, p21s[/tags]

]]> http://www.filthylucre.com/the-cost-of-car-repairs/feed 1 http://www.filthylucre.com/top-10-films-i-saw-in-2006 http://www.filthylucre.com/top-10-films-i-saw-in-2006#comments Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:49:01 +0000 Ed http://www.oneblogtoomany.com/2007/01/31/top-10-films-i-saw-in-2006/ Kevin Smith just put out his list today or his top ’06 films. So I thought this would be a good time for me to list mine. Although I suspect that he has a lot more people that care.

One disappointing note is that his top 3 films are all films I really wanted to see but haven’t yet. The Departed, Little Children and Half Nelson. I just don’t get out to the movies that often, and these haven’t made it to video yet.

1. 12 and Holding – This actually came out in ’05, but like I said, I’m not seeing most films until DVD. Everything about this film is awesome. The acting is top notch, the directing was great, but it’s the screenplay that is really beyond what I think we see in 99% of films. It was just a really well done story. Also, Jeremy Renner is really starting to pop up in a lot of great films. I had just seen him in North Country and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. It was nice to see him play a decent guy for a change. Between his acting and the great films he chooses to be in, he is really becoming a signal of quality for me when looking at movies.

2. Syriana – Again, an ’05 movie. Clooney got a bit more credit for Good Night and Good Luck, but this is by far my favorite Clooney film yet. If you haven’t seen this yet, check it out right away. It’s one of the most intelligent movies I have ever seen.

3. Borat – Think what you will about him, but if you didn’t laugh at this movie there is something wrong with you. This is one of the funniest films I have ever seen.

4. Babel – Really well put together movie. Each story line could have been its own film, but they weaved together beautifully. I was happy to see a lot of the supporting actors getting some recognition at the Golden Globes.

5. Clerks 2 – I was concerned about Kevin Smith messing with the Clerks movie. He did a great job with the rest of the “Jersey” films, but the Clerks characters felt almost off limits, even to him. But he pulled it off incredibly well. By far my second favorite Smith film yet. Take note Lucas, you can make a decent sequel a decade later and not have it suck.

6. Casino Royale – I have to admit when I’m wrong here. I didn’t like the idea of a blonde Bond, and when I first heard that James Bond was going to have a genuine love interest, I thought I might throw up. I thought they were going to destroy the whole thing. But it was by far the best Bond since You Only Live Twice. Craig is an awesome Bond, and the director really used Judi Dench a lot better then the last guy. I read somewhere that Sean Connery thought that Quinton Tarantino should have directed the Bond film. This turned out almost as good as that would have been.

7. Who Killed the Electric Car – I’m becoming a bit of a tree hugger in my old age (or maybe just that it seems many of the problems we have today stem from oil), so I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. It raised some great points, and I think everyone should really be asking these questions when you see such an obvious move by an industry that hurts the consumers. I’m looking forward to the future of cars in the hybrid space, especially the plug-in hybrid. Because I think Ed Beagly Jr. was wrong when he says that electric cars are good for 90% of the people. They are actually good for 90% of the driving. 10% of the time, you may need to go further than electric can currently take you. But if we can start seeing plug-in hybrids that work with E85 fuel, imagine getting 100 MPG on average, and the gas being E85! We are close to seeing some real changes in this industry; hopefully the automakers will start moving a lot faster.

8. Little Miss Sunshine – Proof this list is not in order. If it was I would say this would rank #3 beneath 12 and Holding and Syriana. This is an amazing film, but everyone seems to know that already.

9. Thank You For Smoking – The best role for Aaron Eckhart since In The Company of Men. It does a great job at walking a moral line and still showing heart.

10. The Good Sheperd – The longest movie I enjoyed all year. The story was compelling and I loved watching the character develop, or actually come apart over the span of a couple decades. It was also a nice suprise to see Angelina Jolie play a role with a little subtlety, which is rare. I did have a hard time buying Matt Damon getting older. He just didn’t seem to age.

Some honorable mentions: Notes on a Scandal, Last Kiss

Worst movie I saw in ’06: Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice (not a good year for 80’s TV shows), The Illusionist, Employee of the Month, Basic Instinct 2.
[tags]movies, kevin smith, clerks, illusionist, babel, borat, jeremy renner, miami vice, james bond, casino royale, syriana[/tags]

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