Has anybody else noticed the Content Harvest RSS plague? Many of my keyword searches are now returning random crap that has nothing to do with the keyword I searched for. Content Harvest is picking up on keywords that are popular and associating them with junk they want you to read.

Hopefully they’ll be screened out of the blog search engines soon and identified as the spammers that they are.

P.S. Hi guys, if you’re reading this, I really love Content Harvest. Really. Just kidding. Don’t attack my site.

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I had heard the buzz about SpinVox a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t get one of those early U.S. test accounts. Recently, I was reading Guy Kawasaki’s blog and he was raving about it. I got one of the test accounts made available by his post, and just set it up today.

Wow.

There have to be umpa-loompas behind this thing. You can call and leave a very complex message, and it’s translated to text and send right back to your email. Being an email junkie anyway (I carry a Blackberry), this is way handier than trying to listen to the message, jot down the phone numbers or other information, etc.

If you want to get a demo, and know my cell number, just call it and leave me a message. I’ll forward you the email transciption that it sends me. It’s pretty impressive. Now, we wait to see how much they’ll charge. I’ll pay $5/month easily.

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I had an experience tonight that backs up my theory that when people drink, it’s like a truth serem. Or maybe it’s just that since their inhibitions are lowered, they more easily say what’s on their mind.

What really sucks is when you didn’t know what was on their mind, and you find out, and it’s not such a good thing. But I suppose it’s better than just not knowing.

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Now this iPhone, I would buy.

Thanks Jim.

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Just finished watching the Colts great comeback - one of the better football games I’ve seen in a while. During the game, there was a commercial for “The Number 23” (remember, I don’t time shift football games). If you know me well (the number 23 is always occurring in my life), you would probably realize that this freaks me out a bit.

The number 23 has always been big in my life. It shows up at the most random times, and always has some strange meaning. I won’t get into all the random stories about the number, but suffice it to say it’s ever present and always seems to signal something for me.

Recently, the number 23 has been everywhere in movies and TV, especially the ones I like. I’m a huge LOST fan (yeah, I know it’s strange, but if you watched it from Day 1, you’d understand). 23 is of course one of the numbers in the lottery ticket, but that’s no big deal (some people get way too into this). What’s a big deal is that it’s the most prominent and obvious of the numbers. The plane left from that gate, and 23 was a huge part of one of the season finales. It’s the only prime number in the LOST sequence. In the Matrix, every time I watch it I can’t help but notice that the hotel room where the final scene takes place is #23. I fully expect that “24″ will soon rename itself to “23″ to take advantage of this momentum.
So, I’m thinking that something is going to happen with me relating to TV/Movies in future. I have no idea what. Maybe I’ll go to one.

Only recently did I discover that the 23 enigma was a thing. I don’t think I suffer from apophenia, but of course logically I recognize that it’s most likely just a coincidence. But then again, coincidences shouldn’t happen over a period of 30+ years, should they? Why isn’t it that I haven’t noticed other numbers? I understand why I wouldn’t notice 1 through 9, since they occur regularly. But why wouldn’t I notice 11, 13, 17, or 32? Maybe because I’ve noticed it so much in the past, I notice it more now?

I need a theory here. I’m not a superstitious person, and I am by training a scientist of sorts (at least I know I normally think this way). So, am I looking for 23? Or is 23 looking for me?

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My mom was out for a few weeks over Christmas. These snaps were taken up in Breckenridge, before the blizzards. It wasn’t that cold. But she’s from Florida. It amazes me how much stuff she was able to wear all the time.

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My buddy Tosh who works at GooSketchTube sent me this time lapse of the recent blizzard here in Colorado. It goes too fast, so stop it and drag the slider yourself so you can control the pace.

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Ok, I’m not really depressed. This looks like a good season of 24, judging from the season premier tonight.

You know you really love a show when you’re willing to watch it real time. Almost everything I watch is time shifted, but I couldn’t wait for this one. I think those were some of the first commercials I’ve watched (or at least noticed) on TV in a year or so. Of course, I still couldn’t tell you what they were advertising, because I wasn’t paying attention. But I sat through them, for fear of missing 2 seconds of the show.

I don’t like to time shift on NFL playoff games or 24. Just like you can’t be behind real time in your knowledge of an important football game, you also can’t be 10 minutes behind on the new season of 24. It’s a guy thing.

On Friday, I was still out in Silicon Valley and I met with Heidi Roizen (Brad Feld’s partner at Mobius). I spent about 45 minutes at her house talking about TechStars and 24. I think we split our time roughly in half on those two subjects. Heidi seemed to really dig TechStars, and was a huge 24 fan. It was equally fun talking about both.

She told me the story of when Jason Mendelson, Brad, and she visited the set of 24. Heidi told me all about watching a taping (and learning Edgar’s fate too early to her dismay), meeting some of the cast and watching some of the “writing” in action. I never realized (or thought about the fact) that 24 was set about 8 to 10 years in the future. When they’re showing those crazy CTU screens and you’re saying to yourself “that’s not real” - you have to remember this is in the future. Just enough in the future, Heidi said, so that they don’t have to worry about how the cars look, but can take a few liberties with real time cellular video and the like.

Who cares if Jack’s car is faster than Apache helicopters or if the bad guys can tell that a military satellite just focused on them in real time. Jack is a badass so I’ll put up with a fair amount of nonsense.

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We announced TechStars today (Jan 15) kicking off with coverage in the Boulder Daily Camera.

You can read all about it using the links above. This has been my big project for the past several months, and gets cranking in the summer. We’re seed funding ten new tech companies, and setting up a startup boot camp. We hook them up with many successful entrepreneurs, coach them during the summer, and set up an investor day at the end of the summer where we hope they can raise more money if needed.

Man, this is gonna be fun.

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I’m been out here in Silicon Valley for the last couple of days. When I checked into my hotel, and fired up my MacBook Pro, the Internet wasn’t working. After the hotel staff asked me all the usual questions about plugging stuff in and rebooting, they sent someone up. I hate that part - gee guys, I do this stuff for a living. Trust me when I say it’s not working. About an hour after the guy left stumped, it started working on it’s own.

I’m on my way home to zero degree weather now, sitting in the San Jose airport. I had a couple of extra hours so I stopped into “Bits and Bytes - An Internet Cafe”. They have power connections at each table, which is pretty cool. I ordered a beer, and fired up. What? No free wireless? No RJ-45 jack? I have to pay $10 to T-Mobile to get Internet access inside an “Internet Cafe”? What the - you can’t do that!

I’ve complained before about my bad luck with Internet in Silicon Valley. I don’t have this anywhere else, but every time I come out here the connections suck, are unavailable, or broken. Am I alone here?

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