Which is an easier place to visit, Irkutsk or Angarsk?

Feel free to ignore this post. Or – you can just laugh at the picture of a bunch of lame people trying to play Rock Band (the only one who wasn’t lame was the singer.) However, I think there will likely be a reunion tour, much to Katherine‘s chagrin. If you were wondering why Facebook’s search function is so lame, Katherine has some thoughts on this. Just don’t take her on in Scramble – she’ll destroy you.

I’ve been in a reading slump lately – I just haven’t felt like reading. This happens sometimes and whenever I break my “at least two books a week” rhythm, I just roll with it until it changes. Yesterday was a three book day. I absorbed the books into my brain as though it was meant to be. All three were non-fiction, although only one was “challenging non-fiction” (in a good way.)

Every day I get inbound emails from entrepreneurs looking for funding. I triage these quickly as I can usually tell within a couple of minutes of looking at whatever is attached (executive summary, overview, intro powerpoint) whether or not it’s in an area that I’m interested in investing in. Since my top level filter is “theme” it’s easy to make a quick call. If you’ve ever sent me something, hopefully you’ve gotten a quick response.

Yesterday was a great “very little computer” day that resulted in me reading three books (one great, one 50% great, and one poor that turned into a skimmer.) More on these later. I read two things in FeedDemon this morning that spun my head around better than the Sunday morning TV political talk shows could. First was another post from Jared Polis chronicling his trip to Iraq. This was was titled Inside a Private Mercenary Compound in Iraq and is better and more authentic than virtually everything you see in the NY Times about life in Iraq.

While catching up on some stuff today, I came across the word “automagically” on Bebo. I first heard the word from Todd Vernon. Todd is now the CEO of Lijit, but at the time he was CTO of Raindance. It it one of my favorite Vernonisms, up there with “chocolatey goodness” (used to describe a wonderful computer hack or feature.) I use automagically all the time – it’s a nice shorthand for Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I occasionally see it in the wild on blog posts every now and then, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it used in a web service. Oh happy day.

Someone is far down the negotiating path to buy the old StorageTek 440–acres in Louisville from Sun. The Boulder Camera is speculating that it’s eBay, Google, or Apple. Whoever it is will have fun demolishing million plus square foot eyesore that is the old StorageTek facility.

Jared Polis is continuing to blog his trip to Iraq. His post – Arrival in Baghdad – was better than most stuff I see in TV (ok – I’m setting a low bar here.) He also did a live Q&A on Colorado Confidential that included a flamer under the handle “IraqWarVeteran” (created on 11/21/07 – apparently just for the live blogging event.) I’m proud of my friend Jared for making the trip and being open about his goals. I personally have no interest in going to Baghdad so I’m happy to live vicariously through someone like Jared, especially when I get to reflect about it quietly on Thanksgiving morning.

David Spade is hysterical. I’m glad my first meeting didn’t start until 10am today – it gave me time to watch the World’s Dirtiest Film.