Mr. Anchorman

I'm moving over to Vox for now

2006-12-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

I even bought the URL redirect: www.MrAnchorman.com. I'm so 1999!

Say it with generators!

2006-09-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

Says-it is absofreakinlutely brilliant time-wasting fun!

Create your own albumn covers, tickets for concerts you never attented, and church signs. Was this created by the Daily Show or something? The Seal generator is cool too. I've always wanted to start my own society and the first step is a good crest.

More Floyd, Bennett not Landis

2006-08-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was, excluding July 4, my 9th Floyd Bennett race in a row. The consistency is finally getting me to a decent level of fitness. The heart rate monitor numbers were scary, in fact, higher than during the Tewksbery TT, the hardest TT I've ever done (used full range of gears from 53x12 to 39x27).

I saw 5+ beats over my threshold a bunch of times. However, I finally had enough energy to read the race and be part of it. I chased the winning break in a twosome which grew to 5. We didnt catch, but I hung on for a proud and pennyless 8th place. The Merrill Lynch team was put in a tough spot by geezer sprinter and series leader James Joseph. ML made repeated attempts to put together a breakaway without him. He was there every time. It made for good racing and the two factions cancelled each other out, leaving the win for another team.

You can see the rest of the photos on the NYVelocity site, and read Dan Schmalz's account here.

Getting my pic in the Blogger profile...

2006-07-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

Here's me sporting a suit in 90 degree weather on the way to a baptism.

I'm all Nanotech and sh**

2006-07-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

I just had Andrew Crooks, the talented owner of the NYC Velo bike shop in the East Village install a new fork on my aging 'ICE' racing bike. I had a feeling 5 years was way to long to beat the hell out of a carbon fiber product, and I was right. I propped the old Profile BRC on the floor and pushed against the blade a little (which had a small hairline crack). With little force, it started to come apart. Two weeks earlier I was bombing down hills on training rides at 45 mph. Scary huh? These are the perils of trying to save money on bike equipment. The lesson is: CHECK YOUR STUFF. Things like bars, stems, forks and even seatposts don't last forever.

The new fork, an Easton EC90 aero, is by far the fanciest fork I've ever ridden. It's the aero version of the Floyd Landis/Phonak fork. Easton claims the nanotubes make it twice as strong as any lightweight fork on the market. I hope so Easton, because although I'm neither obese, a sloppy rider, or a pro who races a hundred times a year, I do beat the crap out of my bikes. Riding and racing in New York city takes its toll on bike parts. I'm only 165 pounds and I've broken a Super Record seatpost, a Mavic bottom bracket, a Team Fuji, and now a Profile fork. Granted, all had many miles on them.

Tomorrow I'll show you how I created bottle openers from the Profile fork tips! DIY ahoy!

Tags: nanotechnology, nanotech, floyd landis, bike racing

USQ Wines, you won me back...through technology

2006-07-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a novice onephile. I have no interest in becoming and expert either. I do however appreciate wine with food and can take a decent stab at a pairing.

PBS interviewed me a few weeks ago for man-on-the-street commentary for their upcoming "Wine Makers" reality show. I hope they use my comments. I made the point that jargon is deliberately used to make people feel inadequate about wine. When people feel inadequate, they drop more money in attempt to bump their status as consumers.

Anyway, I started poking around other stores when USQ Wines moved a few blocks further from my office. I'm impressed by Bottle Rocket and was prepared to throw my bucks their way. However, USQ has the rad new Enomaticc wine serving system straight out of Tuscany. Give a name and email and they're create a free frequent sipper card for you on the spot. You start with 1,000 points and earn another 5 per buck spent.

A bit of wine from the two Enomatics ranges from 9 to 30 points. You get a real sense of the wines by putting them side by side, and it's a social atmosphere. I watched a bit of the World Cup while sipping a Malbec. Shopping behavior guru Paco Underhill is right. Create an experience and keep customers in the store longer and they'll spend more money.

One final thought: if you're in to documentaries, I strongly recommend Mondovino. There's a wealth of information in it about the economics and heritage of wine, and a reinforcement of the lesson that good branding often doesn't mean best product.

Tags: wine, union square

Floyd Floyd Floyd...

2006-06-28T08:28:00.000-07:00

I raced Floyd Bennett field again last night. It's always a good time if you're willing to stick your nose in the wind. Marco Quezada from the Gotham team and I took off in pursuit of the winning break. He latched on, I got dropped just as we made contact. How lame of me. I'm racing mostly on smarts and guts so I'm not too upset. Hopefully I'll have the juice for the upcoming summer series in beautiful Newark. Ah Newark, it's just like racing in Paris along the Seine.

Music blogs

2006-06-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

Meeting Aaron from Coolfer has me poking around the blogs for new music. The Nano and iTunes has me interested in news music again. Putting MP3s on my Sony Clie sucked. I reached a point a few years ago where I stopped going to shows, and stopped swapping discs. Its great to do it again, and listen up RIAA: I'm buying more stuff as a result of the free samples! The verdict is out on Kraig Hill's taste. I found his blog randomly.

Trying this embed video thingy--greatest Stephen Colbert clip ever, and it's not from the Press Dinner...

2006-05-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

This is the best of the dance sequences from the towering classic TV series Strangers with Candy. It's from the "I'm going to sit at the welcome-table" cult episode, Blank Stare part 2.

Thank you Tony for your obsessive fansite, JerriBlank.com.

Mark your calendars New Yorkers! We get the Strangers feature film first on June 28th!

Tags: strangers with candy, colbert

Monetize that crap in your passé cd tower!

2006-05-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

Web 1.0 brought about some great tools for getting rid of unwanted junk around the house. Ebay (my account here) and Craigslist are the obvious, with lesser known communities and sites like Recycle-a-bike, and Freecycle.

One of my favorites is SecondSpin. I just packed up an odd assortment of cds and DVDs to ship to them. It's a lot of fun. You log on, type in the bar code numbers and they tell you how much they'll give you for each item. Once you fill up your cart to a point where it's worth the trip to the Post Office to mail the stuff to them, you get a confirmation number, followed by a check in about two weeks.

Who knew the first TLC cd was worth 5 bucks, or Hannibal dvd 4 bucks? Ugh, how do these things find their way in my apartment? Purge purge purge future cat ladies!

C'mon, do you really need to see Bring it On again, or hear the first Kid Rock album? While you're at it, chuck that nasty-ass CD tower in your living room, along with that $20 halogen lamp that throws light at the ceiling. Every man in their 20s has unfortunately owned both of these.

apologies to the good people at iFurn for making fun of their CD tower.

Tags: declutter, Lifehacks

The paperless office and those stacks of business cards...

2006-05-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

I just hooked up my new Neatreceipts Scanalizer. It's leftover from a TV segment and the PR person said our firm could keep it. I'm going to give it a whirl to knock down my stack of business cards. We'll see how if it's worthwhile. After a few scans, I notice you do have to put a certain amount of time in to editing the fields. Sometimes it can't read weird fonts or large logos and takes a bad guesses. More on my theories on contact management later...

Are people still striving for the paperless office? The first time I saw that term, it was in a profile of John Brockman, the hat & cape wearing literary agent to the Nerderati. Is that a word? I just coined it. One could argue his site, the Edge was the first blog.

Tags: paperless office, scanners

It's Friday! Time for the GTD Friday Review refresher

2006-04-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

This full copy of the GTD weekly review has been residing in my Outlook Notes for years. I thought my throngs of readers would appreciate it.

For more sophisticated analysis, check out Michael Hyatt's blog. The Cult of GTD is something I'll occasionally blog about. I'm a longtime novice. If you're in to GTD, don't miss one of my favorite podcasts, the loopy musings of Merlin Mann at the blockbuster 43 Folders blog.

Here's your Review--no appologies to David Allen since it came from his newsletter email, if I remember correctly.

1. Sort your loose papers. Gather all scraps of paper -- business cards, receipts, miscellaneous notes -- and put them into your in-basket to process.

2. Process your notes. Review journal entries, meeting notes, and miscellaneous scribblings. Turn them into appropriate action items, projects, and so on.

3. Review previous calendar data. Look through expired daily calendar pages for remaining action items, and move those items forward.

4. Download your data. Write down any new projects, action items, "waiting-for" items, and so on.

5. Review outcome lists. One by one, evaluate the status of each project, goal, and outcome.

6. Review "next action" lists. Check off all completed actions. Look for reminders of further action steps.

7. Review "pending" and "support" files. Browse through work-in-progress materials and update lists of new actions, completions, and "waiting-for" items.

8. Review "reminders" lists. Make sure that there isn't anything that you haven't done that you need to do. Also, make sure that there aren't any checklists that you need to review.

9. Review "someday" and "maybe" lists. Look for any projects that may have become active, and transfer them to your "projects" list. Delete any dead items.

10. Review "waiting-for" lists. Record appropriate follow-up actions. Check off as you complete them.

11. Be creative and courageous. Add to your system any new, wonderful, harebrained, thought-provoking, risk-taking ideas that have occurred to you.

Tags: weekly review

Havin' at it

2006-04-01T23:17:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here on vacation at Las Frutales house in Vieques, reading the Instapundit's book and a book about business blogging, and figure, what the hell. So I fire up a blog using my Gmail name, and here it is. It took all of 10 seconds. I'm not sure where I'll go with it. It will probably be a good 'collection device' as the cultish David Allen of Getting Things Done calls it. For now, I'll dump musings on my travels, the media, public relations, bike racing, and lifestyle items here. I'll throw a few curveballs too. Most blogs by PR pros are far too serious.