Lose It Update

lost 6 lb :)

Lose Weight!!! Lose It App

I have an iPhone.

I like my iPhone (AT&T sucks tho)

I have many apps on my iPhone, games, Twitter, Facebook, subway MTA, AIM and LOSE IT!

This is a superb app that allows you to track your caloric intake against a pre-set goal. You put your sex, age,weight into the app, select how many pounds a week you want to loose and then every time you eat you record the items. It's easier than it sounds and totally addicting. It also allows you to keep track of your exercise and subtract the exercise calories burned from your daily goal.

The thing that is also useful is, you start learning exactly how many calories are in things!

Who knew a single whole wheat pitta bread is 165 calories, pom juice is 192 calories for 11 fl oz!!! 

Lose It makes you want to not break your daily goal and it works. I am 5lbs down in two weeks. Try it, it's free.

You have got to be kidding

The government had a photo op today...not Obama shaking someone's hand, but a replica of Air Force One being tailed by an F-16 jet flying low over Manhattan! Buildings were evacuated, panic ensued...which turkey dreamed this one up? You can see from the photo how low it came over the buildings along the Hudson.

The FAA says the jumbo jet flying low over Manhattan this morning was "photo op" -- something having to do with the branch of the military that takes care of Air Force One.

However if you read the account from the WSJ -- which got the official statements -- you'll see that none of it makes any sense.

Sections like this are particularly unhelpful:

In a written statement Monday, the Air Force confirmed that an "aerial photo mission" had been carried out Monday in the area of New York City by the Presidential Airlift Group, which is described on the White House Web site as being part of the White House Military Office and responsible for maintaining and operating Air Force One. The Air Force statement described the mission has having been carried out in coordination with the FAA. The FAA referred additional questions about the matter to the U.S. Air Force.

"This mission, involving the VC-25 and an F-16, was conducted in conjunction with normally scheduled continuation training for assigned aircrew members," the Air Force statement said. "This mission was coordinated for the Upper New York Bay, south of the Holland Tunnel and in the Newark Bay north of the Staten Island Expressway between the hours of 1000L and 1030L."

We're not 100% sure, but the English translation is: "Oh crap, we really screwed up, so we're going say a bunch of words without saying anything."

Here's more ass-covering from the NYT:

Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said “the photo op was approved and coordinated with everyone.” Notification was made in advance to the mayor’s office, “including its 911 and 311 operation centers,” the New York City Police Department, the New Jersey State Police, the United States Park Police and other agencies, he said.

Later on Monday morning, the Police Department acknowledged that it had been notified about the event but said it had been barred from alerting the public. “The flight of a VC-25 aircraft and F-16 fighters this morning was authorized by the F.A.A. for the vicinity of the Statue of Liberty with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it but to direct any inquiries to the F.A.A. Air Traffic Security Coordinator,” the Police Department said in a statement.

What!? So everyone in the government knew that a jumbo jet would be weaving in between skyscrapers this morning, but they were barred from alerting the public? Um, why? Were they afraid office workers were going to open their window and shoot spitballs at the plane?

Did they really think that the uninformed public would simply look up, see a plane and not evacuate their offices in a panic?

The bottom line here is that there was either a) a massive communication failure or b) a massive error in judgment. The most charitable interpretation of the government's obfuscation is that they're covering for someone's professional error.

Unless there's a really good explanation, that person probably deserves to be fired. Now, we just need to figure out who it is.

Bea Arthur gone :(

The mark in the entertainment industry for success is not how rich you are, how much "power" you have or had, but how much you will be missed when you're gone...this lady was a legend, and will be missed for decades to come.

Bea Arthur True/Slant

It's Friday...

Indeed it is, the end of the week, start of the weekend. Lots to look forward to this weekend, most of all a 40th birthday for my friend Will, and then hopefully sunshine in NYC!

Phillips Senseo recall

A couple of days ago I got an email from Amazon telling me the Phillips Senseo coffee maker, (one of the fancy put a pod in for each cup thingy), is defective and being recalled. Today I call the recall line and got told that yes, mine is in the recall and that they would be replacing it with the basic black model. Now mine isn't the basic black model, it's the LED, silver with multiple brew options! So I explained this and was told, hmmm, sorry we're only replacing them with the basic model.  It's a bit like saying, I'm sorry we messed up, potentially exposed you to injury by buying our shiny new Ferrari, here's a Fiat to replace it! Their catch phrase is Sense and Simplicity... well there's certainly some simpletons there with no sense!

Le Tweet from Le Bird

So last night I was watching Larry King, (unusual for me), and Ashton Kutchner was on celebrating beating CNN to 1,000,000 Twitter followers.  I have been registered on Twitter for a while, but not really used it. Are people REALLY interested in what I am doing or thinking?  I do though subscribe to some of Kutchner's thoughts from the show last night...it is impressive to have a social network tool that can make one individual more powerful, (in that one arena) than an established global TV network.

I have ramped up my tweets today, just to see if it's my bag of nuts. I must say it's nice that certain people want to see my tweets, just as it is nice people read this drivel I write out here on my blog. Are we humans naturally  social network beings?  It is somewhat addictive. I subscribed to Mr. Kutchner's tweets to see what's going on and it is very interesting.  As fellow Larry King guest P. Puffy Sean John Diddy Combs, (I think I have them all in there did I miss any?) said, when an artist or star issues a website, or blog it's usually an assistant, record company or film company doing it...when you see tweets it's actually from the celeb on his/her cell phone. Just now Ashton, (I'm now referring to him as Ashton as we've traded tweets and so now he must be a friend no?), posted a photo from his car showing the external temp where he is driving to be 102ºf, which is bloody hot! It is also, a direct way for celeb to keep in touch with their fans. Ashton has well over 1,000,000 fans following him, and they all got that photo.  What happens when Ashton's new film comes out and he starts promoting it on his tweets?

So how do you make money on this Twitter thing?  Well today I got a tweet ad from "Mailchimp", which showed up, not on my main Twitter web page, but on my app on my cell phone "Twitterific". So "Twitterific" is selling ads, but so far nothing on Twitter itself? Listen, together Ashton and I have 1,258,921 people following us, now that's an audience?! Now admittedly most of those people are following Ashton, I only have 8 people so far, but it's a start!

The death of newspapers...

...OK so everyone seems to be talking about the death of newspapers, and surely in print the prospects don't look good, but this morning was a real eye opener for me. I was having breakfast this morning with my good friend Byron Elton. We were sitting in his Manhattan hotel, having breakfast in a large breakfast room. Lots of business people, families and parents all sitting around having breakfast, and from where Byron and I were sitting, we could only see three newspapers. 

A couple of interesting things to point out here:

1: Breakfast time is premium time to read a newspaper.

2: A hotel, where a newspaper is left outside your door every morning, is the prime place for people who ordinarily wouldn't read a newspaper, to read one.

3: The average age in the breakfast room was over 30 years old so it wasn't a room full of "wired" people.

So at the right time of day, with the right demographic in the right environment, we only saw three newspapers. This means that reading a physical newspaper is habitually becoming obsolete.

I do agree with Byron that the skills of reading the news, having good journalism and investigation of issues will never go away, but the way of consuming it will go to online, electronic readers like the Kindle, your cell phone, and become news all the time on demand everywhere.  Sites like True/Slant will build real audiences and it is easy with browser bookmarking to have these sites become habitual.  On my browser bar I have the following destinations, all of which I visit daily if not frequently through the day:

True/Slant

This Blog

Deadline Hollywood

All Things D

Fandango

Silicon Alley Insider

Facebook

Valleywag

Paid Content

KOL

The one positive thing, think how many trees we'd save when print newspapers go away!

Nabaztag Lives

Nabaztag is a rabbit, mine is called Ethel, and it is operated by the internet. This is my favorite thing at the moment.  My brother actually bought me the rabbit a couple of years ago, but I couldn't work out how to get it set up, (it is a bit of a chore), but about a month ago I had another crack and now it's y coolest favorite thing in my apartment.

Your rabbit comes with two ears that move depending on what you program her to do. My rabbit tells me how she's feeling, does ti-chi, delivers the weather twice a day and on demand, plays Virgin Radio from the UK, gives me stock market status, and overall is totally cool.

Check out their web site, if you're looking for a very unique an cool gift or just want to spoil yourself I truly recommend a rabbit.

I just realized ...

... I haven't written anything for days!!!!!!

Threadbanger - Here's how to do it on the web!

Many years ago, I took a lanky,  scruffy 16 year old in Miami, made him clean his teeth and brush his hair and made him a local TV star.  He was one of the hosts on a show I was producing in Miami called WAMI On Miami. He conducted the very fist TV interview with a then 15 year old pop star Britney Spears, interviewed  other pop star sensations like N*Synch, and help create the number one kids show in South Florida. As much as I am a guru and star maker, (insert laugh here), Rob Czar had and has a real talent in front of the camera. Instead of being a big head "I'm a star TV host", he decided when the show had run it's course to go to LA and follow a job in the entertainment field. Instead of joining the masses of wannabe TV hosts and actors, he got a job as an producers assistant. He then proceeded to work this job, learning production and how a show runs and worked his way up to be a casting assistant, then casting producer. I then lifted him out of casting to host a show for me on NBC for Discovery Kids. He was superb.  I am amazed at his ability to take on bigger and better things, so when I was at AOL, I contacted Rob for our teen service RED to host some pieces from the Warped Tour. Rob not only hosted, but he directed, shot, edited, and completely soup to nuts produced 75, 5 minute shows for RED.  He did this again, then took this one man band on the road through European music festivals.  Rob, who has no real ego that I have ever seen, has built himself up to be a real self made talent.  

When my friends Jed Simmons, Herb Scannel and Fred Seibert were setting up their new online video company Next New Networks, I had no problem telling them to speak to Rob. By this time Rob had found a wonderful partner Corrine, who also hosts, produces and edits, and looks a million times nicer than Rob on screen.  They designed a show aimed  at people who make their own clothes, or DIY clothing, (Threadbanger).  Their shows are superb and have become very successful, and now have 1,000,000 people a month watching them. In web terms this is very very good.  They have been featured on Rachel Ray's show twice, and now, on Wednesday they were featured on the CBS evening news. 

This is an example of true talent. Next New Networks is an example of doing targeted content in a smart way. Watch and enjoy! 

True Slant

When I was at AOL I had the pleasure of working with some really smart people. One of these people was a guy called Lewis Dvorkin, the head of AOL News. Lewis got news, he lived it, but also totally understood how to serve it up to people online. We had a tool at AOL called Omniture, which could show you who was clicking where on a page, and in Lewis's case, which story, which lead, picture or DL (dynamic link) was working. Lewis studied these results religiously, and could show you how the phrasing of a headline of a story would get more clicks that another. Lewis's new venture is True/Slant (www.trueslant.com), a very clean, unique way of delivering news, from opinionated journalist bloggers, who also interact with the audience reading their posts. It's a great idea, and as ever Lewis is right on target. Now he has another smart guy from AOL Dave Cautin working there, I can only imagine the business and dollars will follow. It's a great idea, check out the site, it's really worth a bookmark.

The Future of Inner City Transport?

Is this the future of inner city transportation? This electric "POD" from GM and Segway is supposed to be hitting the streets in 2012. It's a two seater, top speed of 35 mph and does 35 miles on a charge. Imagine in NY, parking would be easy, getting groceries home..easy, zipping up to Dinosaur BBQ from my garment district pad...easy. The only problem is, you would look a complete plonker! Talk about designing something that follows the Bauhaus "form follows function" ethos.  I like the idea of having zippy small, inner city electric cars... something that would cost little to store, better for the environment... but with all the designers in the world, and people looking to make innovative beautiful things...this is what GM could come up with?

Here's Video

Ok just when I thought there was nothing to write about...

My friend Zhanna posted THIS AMAZING VIDEO...enjoy!!!

Back from Vacation

but nothing to write about today!

Back from vacation!!!!

i hope you can see the label. This was a bottle of water I bought yesterday in Grenada airport.