As I wander around in summer school, I’ve been working my way through Brian Harvey’s Computer Science Logo Style 2/e, Vol. 1: Symbolic Computing. So far I’m finding Harvey to be a fantastic writer and his approach to introducing computer science concepts to be very accessible (to me). In addition to being a good writer, Harvey has written a Logo interpreter that goes along with the book series. For those of you that are sneering and thinking “Logo – that’s for kids”, Harvey has a fun four line program showing the power of Logo that he uses to challenge one to reproduce in four lines of Java.

When I read James Frey’s first book A Million Little Pieces, I thought it was the most intense book I had read in a long time. Frey’s second book – My Friend Leonard, which continues where the first book leaves off, is even more intense. This book starts at the bottom (like the first one does), starts to climb a little, and then turns you upside down and smashes your head into a concrete floor over and over again. I started it in the Seattle airport last night on my way to Boston on the red eye – I figured I’d just get started and then put it down when I settled in on the plane to fall asleep. Bad plan. An hour into the flight, I finally gave it up and went to sleep. I finished the book off after I woke up in Boston this morning. The roller coaster ended – finally – on page 357.

I’ve just agreed to be a judge for the finals of the Microsoft produced Imagine Cup Programming Competition. This is a college programming competition that now has over 15,000 students enter. I’m heading over to Yokohama, Japan at the end of July with Scott Maxell of Insight Venture Partners and Chris Pacitti of Austin Ventures who are my co-judges for the finals. We’re apparently going to do an American Idol like thing – nerd style. Scott insisted on being Simon and I offered up – much to the chagrin of Amy – that I’d be Paula. I think it’s awesome that Microsoft produces a worldwide college programming competition – it was easy to agree to judge when asked.

I’m at Gnomedex. Rick Klau said it earlier today when he said that the Gnomedex theme song is “It’s Raining Men.” I’m in a room with 500 people and there are less than 10 women in the room. I’d better tell my friends a the National Center for Women & Information Technology that the RSS tech universe needs to be studied a little more. Remarkably, within the first hour of the conference, we destroyed the “newly amped up WiFi at the Bell Harbor Conference Center.” So – there you go – RSS Disconnected. We just sang the official Gnomedex theme song (led by Dave Winer) – “Yellow Submarine.”

Gnomedex starts tomorrow (ok – I guess it officially started tonight, but I chose to spending the evening gorging on sushi with Amy and then watching the Spurs crunch the Pistons.) I’m not a conference guy (I get restless) but I happened to be in Seattle and it has turned into the center of the RSS universe for a few days. So – off I go to Gnomedex tomorrow.

Seth Levine has a guest blogger on his site today contributing to his M&A series – his friend Daniel Benel, a corp dev exec at Verint Systems (NASDAQ: VRNT). Daniel’s post is well worth reading – he covers three topics that fall in the category of “things sellers try to tell buyers that a sophisticated buyer will see through, so don’t be a wanker” (my words, not his). Hockey Stick Projections We Don’t Pay For Synergies Overboard Competitive Concerns Once Jason and I finish our term sheet series (soon), we’re going to start dissecting a standard M&A letter of intent. This will be a nice technical / legal compliment to Seth’s practical viewpoints.

Star Wars 3 was technically beautiful, but thematically disappointing to me. However, Seth emailed me a link to Store Wars (via his dad Randy). You’ll have to decide whether or not you are on the dark side of the farm. Worth a five minute break from your day. Hang in there until the end – yogurt is delightful.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. I like almost every day, but today is special. Happy Anniversary Amy. Happy Birthday Drew. Happy sunshine everyone else.

I had a nice response to my I Don’t Get Podcasting – Yet post where a number of folks responded privately – both trying to give me a clue as well as sending deals my way. On my run today, while listening to Postively 10th Street (happy 18th anniversary Fred and Joanne – Chai) and Mass Hysteria, I was thinking about the new investments I’ve been looking at. I’m working on one that I think will surprise people after I do it, and figure I’ve got one new deal left in me this year after that one.