Brad Barrish

That is some nice hair, dude. I can't stop staring.

Learn to dance with Napoleon. I'm so practicing this weekend.

I've been exploring social networking sites over the last month. Doing a little "research." I think I now have some semblance of a profile on nearly every single one. I jumped on the Friendster thing (and then off) so long ago and then went to MySpace, which I actually still check out every once in a while. The stuff they are doing with music is fantastic and I've actually found some unsigned bands I like. One of them was nice enough to send me a CD for free because I said I would mention them on my blog (LOL!). I feel kinda bad about it, but I'll send them some cash for the CD, if only I can figure out where i put the CD. I'm getting off-topic here... So everyone is trying to create the perfect social networking site. I'm not sure what the equation is, but MySpace seems to be doing something right. A year ago no one cared about them and now they are among the most highly visited sites on the net. I don't mean to make this whole thing about MySpace, but they're the only ones who are doing it right. Yahoo 360 is neat too. If anyone wants an invite, let me know. I was checking out Microsoft's thing as well, which is a mess. Good thing not too many people are using it yet. I'm happy to hand out invites for that as well. Just leave all your details in the comments. Oh, but my favorite to date is theAssbook. Best. Name. Evar.

I composed this post about the state of the online music stores and digital downloading. I was in the process of editing when I started reading Om's take on Yahoo music. Following the read, I decided to just scrap the long, drawn-out take on it.

In music industry parlance, this is an EP, not the full album!

That's one of the best explanations that I have read.

Owen sent me an IM to ask if I was going to his 31st surprise birthday party. Owen isn't 30 and clearly it wasn't going to be a surprise. When I told him I wasn't going to be there, he told me it was okay because he would be turning 31 again in five years. I told him I would be counting down the days. He then offered to remind me every day. I told him it would be great if he could slap together an RSS feed that reminded me. He obliged. Now everyone will know when Owen turns 31 (again).

Thanks to Om for pointing me to Mobster. I'm always interested in programs that take pay attention to music I am listening to, and based on data it collects from other sources (be they people or collaborative filtering engines), tells me what else I should check out. I don't know why there aren't better recommendation engines for web sites to use. I'm talking about the music variety here, but it could extend out as more people listen to or watch streaming media. At this point there are quite a few more people listening to music on their computer than there are people watching TV shows or movies on their computers.

I have a flickr pro account to give away. I would prefer to give it to someone with an established free account or someone that will use it. Justify yourself in the comments and I'll pick the winning plea. If you are a current flickr user, make sure you leave your account name so I can find you.

Adaptive Path is pretty much THE company when it comes to Information Architecture (IA). As I've been settling into my new job, I've been reading more technology-centric stuff. The CEO of Adaptive Path wrote an extremely inspiring (and validating) essay on the future of the Internet.

For five years we’ve been working to refine what we know, and rest a bit after the madness of the nineties. And now we’re ready to dive in again — wiser, perhaps, but no less captivated by invention than we were ten years ago. Sure, everyone is excited by Google Satellite Maps and Yahoo’s acquisition of Flickr, but it goes beyond that.

Catching up and getting back in the game is really exciting. Since I left my last job and consulted for the past year doing Mac stuff, I had a lot of time to think about the future of the Internet and I couldn't agree more with what Ms. Fraser had to say. These are inspirational times. People that were burned out after the late 90s are starting to appear again. It's all a big ripple effect and it feels great to be involved again.

It's easy to miss my del.icio.us bookmarks at the bottom right of the screen (scroll down all the way), so I just wanted to give a few of my favorite new places a spotlight.

Audio Arsenal is a new weblog that collects links to free MP3s, ring tones, videos and everything in between. It's just getting started, but it promises to be a cool new daily visit for me.

oyayubizoku is the weblog of Jason Fields, a long-time buddy of mine from back in the day. His whole blog centers around all things digital and pretty.

LiveModern has proved to be an amazing resource for A and I. We're not quite ready to build, but we're going to be buying a house in the near future. Our plans are to live in the house for a year, save some money, wreck the house and build an amazing prefab.

It's always gratifying when you set goals or determiations and are able to reach them. Long before I read Conversations With God, I made a habit of writing down goals every once in a while. I'm too lazy to look up the exact quote, but in the book it mentioned something about setting goals, writing them down, saying them out loud and thinking about them. It went on to say that if you follow these steps, you can make anything happen. It's very similar to what we are taught as Buddhists, and it's very true. There's nothing magical about it, though it can seem a bit magical when you see the results. I don't mean to suggest that you have to be religious or spiritual to make things happen in your life. You don't, but faith plays a big part in it. Faith in yourself and faith in the law of cause and effect. It doesn't take much time to write these kinds of things down. I keep a small Molskine notebook around to scibble these kinds of things in. I go back and review them every once in a while and literally read them out loud. There is very little in my life that I have not been able to make happen. And those things that have not yet happened, they will. I'm a little impatient, but patience seems to come with age and I'm only getting older.