I’m not, but if you are, try some virtual bubble wrap.

For all you 24 fans out there, Jason pointed me the 24: Season 4 Life Expectancy Chart. Priceless. Of course, if you aren’t a 24 fan YET, you can get started in – well – 24 hours – with 24 – Season One. And – if you are a real masochist, try out 24 – Season Two and 24 – Season Three over Memorial Day weekend – you can take your time and watch 48 hours over three days.

NPR had a magnificent segment on the new Star Wars Family of Home Health Care Products for all you veteran Star Wars fans. The product line includes: Jedi-nase – attack your seasonal allergies at the speed of light Grow-bacca – full body wookie hair Oil of Yoda Anti-Aging Wrinkle Cream – “Wrinkles have I, not anymore. Buy you this now.” R2D2ED – for erectile dysfunction to help the force be with you for up to four hours and many more, including the Skywalker Walker.

My friend Dave Jilk just put a copy of Howard Anderson’s MIT Technology Review article “Good-Bye to Venture Capital” on my chair (I thought it was quaint that he put a xerox copy of the magazine article on my chair instead of emailing me the web page – maybe he was trying to tell me something.) Howard was a founder of Battery Ventures and then YankeeTek Ventures. I met him for the first time in the early 1990’s when my first company (Feld Technologies) did some back office network / software work for Battery. I met him again recently at the MIT Sloan School Dean’s Advisory Council meeting (I’m on the MIT Sloan DAC – among other things Howard is the William Porter Distinguished Lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.) It was great to catch up – albeit it briefly – and his mindset during our conversation was very similar to what he talks about in the article.

I’m stunned. It’s 11am Colorado time and there are already 200+ posts listed on Technorati about NewsGator’s acquisition of FeedDemon. It’s amazing how the word spreads and it is fascinating to read the feedback (both positive and negative), speculation, and rants (good and bad) about this deal. I’ve noticed several negative comments asserting that “this was driven by the VCs.” While I’ve clearly been involved in NewsGator’s strategy (and Fred has some flattering words to say on the matter), JB and Greg have been driving the strategy and execution of this business (as a VC, I get to “be helpful”, hopefully in a more productive way then the IRS when they show up and say “we are just here to be helpful.”)

I’m an early stage investor, so it’s unusual for me to make a late stage investment. I made one last week in Klocwork, where I led a $10 million investment with existing investors Pequot, USVP, and Cisco. One of the areas I like to invest in is companies that build software to help companies build software (more commonly known as IT Management as an umbrella over lots of sub-segments, including ALM, IDE, SQA, and Security). In 2001, we spent some time working with a few entrepreneurs we knew trying to put together a pre-production source code “static analysis” product. At the time, post-production code security / SQA tools were becoming the rage (e.g. the rapid rise of Mercury Interactive), but no one was concentrating on finding the security issues pre-production (or at the source code level.) We weren’t able to pull something together – we just couldn’t convince ourselves that we had something fundable. Eventually, we bagged the project, which happens when you are an early stage player.

Last week, I wrote about Amy and my trip to the Kentucky Derby. Amy just put up a short post about it and 174 awesome photos for those of you that are Derby fans, love horses, or just want to see me in a silver grey window pain plaid of mint and cream Canali jacket.

No – this is not porn spam. This is an example of the how the web can be used to expose things. As you may be aware, United is working with the bankruptcy courts to invalidate a portion of its guaranteed pension plans. Five current and former United Airlines flight attendants – aged 55 to 64 – have joined forces and created a calendar called “Stewardesses Stripped (of their Pension?)” The goal of the racey 14 page calendar is “to create national awareness to the naked truth that no retirement fund is completely secure and that there is a definitive crisis in the pension guaranty system.” 

Microsoft announced yesterday that their MSN division acquired MessageCast. We were the seed investors in MessageCast and my partner Heidi Roizen sat on the board. As with many acquisitions that happen early in the life of a company, this one is bittersweet. On one hand we are very happy with the deal and excited for the entrepreneurs (Royal Farros and Dave Hodson) and their team. On the other hand, we were enthusiastic about the long term prospects for MessageCast and were looking forward to a continued working relationship with a group of folks we know and love working with (Heidi and Royal go back many years as they were partners in T/Maker – the folks that brought us clip art.) I was the backup partner on MessageCast and delighted in badgering Royal and Dave about RSS whenever I had the opportunity.