As a VC who has been blogging for a long time I’ve been fascinated by the VC Blogger phenomenon. I’ve been subscribing to, reading, forwarding, occasionally commenting, and setting up networks of feeds for a while. With the relaunch of AsktheVC we’ve resurrected something we used to do periodically which is highlight a great VC post. However, we are taking a different tact this time around with our new motto.

Colette Ballou, the CEO of Ballou PR, is hosting a party in honor of me in Paris on Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 from 6pm to 8pm. I put this in the category of “go have a nice hang out on a bridge in Paris and drink wine with tech people” category, which sounds like a lot of fun to me. The details, according to the invitation, follow. When: Wednesday, July 27th, 2011, 6pm to 8pm Where: Pont Solferino, otherwise known as Passerelle Léopold Sédhar Senghor — the pedestrian bridge between Musee d’Orsay and Tuileries. 4th & 5th bench on south side, facing west. Metro: Solferino,Tuileries, RER: Musée d’OrsayIf it rains, we will provide you with a new place/address. Who: You, bring friends!What to bring: you know the drill, it has served us well over the years — each invitee brings a bottle of wine, Ballou PR provides the cups and bottle openers Come join us!

I did eventually solve my Paris smart phone problem. Here’s what I did. I paid AT&T some absurd amount of money for unlimited international everything for my iPhone. The nice senior people at Orange sent me a SIM card that is good until the end of the month for free unlimited everything for my Android. Maxroam sent me a super cool device that gives me 3G and international calling for $15 / day. But none of it matters. Because after two weeks without a smart phone, I simply don’t give a shit anymore. In general, I hate the phone and try to stay off of it. I spend my time in email, IM, and Skype when I’m in front of my computer, which is a lot. However, when I’m wandering around between things, I’ve actually started to realize the joy of looking around and noticing all of the other humans staring at the little pieces of glass they are holding in their hands. During dinner at a restaurant, I’m enjoying the idea that I’m unreachable while I shower 100% of my attention on my beloved and anyone else I’m dining with. And, when I go to the bathroom in a restaurant, I’m actually enjoying the notion that I’m not going to return to the table distracted by the emails I’ve scanned while doing my business.

My partner Jason Mendelson and I are psyched to announce that our book – Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist – has been published and is now available. We are also relaunching AskTheVC – the companion website to the book that we maintained for several years, went dormant for a while, but is alive with content once again.

At Brad Feld’s Amazing Deals, we only bring you shiny happy deals. If you are a Mac user and like to live in a mail client instead of a browser, Sparrow Mail is for you. I paid $10 when it came out but through the magic of daily deals am making it available for $5 for the next 24 hours (up to 1000 copies). Jason Calacanis even loves it – on G+ he says:

I love LEGOs. So, when I saw the page yesterday of the new LEGO Minifigures (sent to me by Lucy Sanders, the CEO of National Center for Women & Information Technology) I threw up a little in my mouth. Like me, Lucy is a LEGO enthusiast, but she was not happy to see how women (or minorities) were represented in the LEGO Minifigures sets. Sure, there is a female snowboarder, a female tennis player, and a lifeguard, but the rest of the female Minifigures are a hula dancer, pop star, cheerleader, witch, and nurse. And that’s it. While I have nothing against nurses, entertainers, or athletes, these mini-figures are perpetuating ridiculous stereotypes about both women and men.

I think about competition all the time. Every company we invest in aspires to lead whatever market segment it is in. In many cases, they want to create entirely new markets. Regardless, they always have competition, whether from other startups, existing companies, large incumbents, or companies they don’t even know about yet. Whenever the startup world heats up, there are many more new entrants. We’re once again in the part of the cycle where there are an abundance of new companies being started. While there are plenty of unique ones, there are a much larger number of “me toos” and “fast followers”. While VCs love to put this on entrepreneurs (for not being innovative / creative enough) and entrepreneurs love to put this on VCs (for just funding me too like things), this isn’t really anyone’s fault as it’s the natural cycle of things and has been going on forever (see Clay Christensen’s excellent “The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail” for the classic examples of this.)

I’m stunned by the lack of financial literacy of so many people in so many contexts. The commentary by politicians, economists, and the media on the European debt crisis and the US debt ceiling dynamics is appalling. The general media and blogosphere commentary on the financials of high growth companies, especially those who have either recently gone public or filed their S-1’s, range from perplexing to just plain incorrect. And more and more entrepreneurs who I’m exposed to who are presenting their companies for financing have a complete lack of understanding of their financials – both current and projected. Of course, some of my fellow board members don’t understand how to read financial statements either, which doesn’t help matters much.

We all love The Onion, right? It’s the best news right after Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert. We also all love Boulder. Those of us that live here love making fun of ourselves and our town because, well, there’s a lot to make fun of. The Prairie Dog is Boulder’s home grown version of The Onion. And it is hilarious. Some sample headlines follow: Oklahoma lashes out, accuses Colorado of being “anorexic” Republican spotted on Pearl street, children alerted Local venture capitalist raises alarm when magic 8 ball goes missing from desk After years of derision, gluten declares intolerance for Boulder You get the idea. The posts are still short but artfully (and sharply) worded. I love it. Thanks @djilk for the tip.