Fall out of your chair funny

You have to go check out this blog post by Violet Blue! I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Damn, damn, damn, damn funny. I know what I want to do for my birthday....tiny nibbles - violet blue

New Year is flying by

It is hard to believe that we area almost in February already! My birthday is next week and it feels like it has come out of no where...didn't we just begin this month? Wait...is it almost 2008?

Most of that can be attributed to the great speed at which Castfire is progressing. New clients, technology roll outs, finally a new site and blog...it is even hard for me to believe how quickly life is moving.

I have always looked at so many different startups that were considered over night successes. In digging a little deeper, they were 1.5-2 years old when they finally hit their stride. I was a little bummed that Castfire was doing great things, and we were making $, but just not running at full speed. Now, it feels like we are hitting our stride.

Perhaps the market has matured? Perhaps we have defined our niche? Perhaps we have moved past early adopters and are hitting a much, much larger market? I am not sure it is entirely important for me to define it, however, it is something that I would like to learn more about over the next 6 months.

In release news, our flash player makes me smile every time I see it. The functionality is fantastic for content producers. And it the value adds like flickr integration for the audience are just kick ass, IMHO. Here is an example of it from a podcast at last year's West Coast Conference Championships for the NCAA:

Yep...my pictures in the Castfire account from Flickr. We will be working with the WCC again this year on the production of the series and will include photos from every game. We are quite excited!

Diesel Viral Campaign

Diesel Viral Campaign
Originally uploaded by thepartycow.

Diesel has launched a viral campaign utilizing YouTube. It looks like the gist is two girls have hijacked the domain and a sales guy. When I clicked through to the site, it has a series of webcams in their home (where they have him hidden away) and are dancing in their underwear to the Chemical Brothers. Crazy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wZH_gkjaWE&eurl=

Update:
DY: like, seriously?

DY: wow

DY: this is so lame.

me: no fucking doubt

me: so so lame

me: unless they really kill him in the end, this is worthless

DY: but we're talking about it

DY: and looking at this shit

DY: dangit

me: hahahaha

Burning Man 2007

Well, for the second year in a row, I am not planning on heading to the playa this year. Last year I did end up going and had an enormous time of it. I was quite sick for a couple of days, but managed to fit a week of Burning Man into the final three days. This year, however, I think I am going to stick with my plan of taking a break.

Molly and I have been looking at going to Machu Picchu instead...and it sounds like just what I need! A 5 day climb up the trail would definitely give me a different perspective...

However, this video is a great glimpse into the side of Burning Man that I truly love: the art. The scale is what initially turned me on. However, the detail and creativity is what has me going back. Thanks to Smashing Telly for finding this gem...

This Strange Eventful History: The Art of Burning Man 2001 - Google Video

Sarah Silverman

I am so excited I can't even stand it! We just got tickets for the Sarah Silverman show @ the Cobb Comedy Club for February 9th. I can't stand it...I am almost shaking!! Molly and I LOVE Sarah Silverman. We are hitting the 10:15 PM show if anyone wants to join up...

Tazer War 2007

Not only a hilarious segment on the Daily Show, but Amanda Cogdon making an appearance on the show. Damn funny stuff:

When video bloggers get shot, it's granier...the footage. You can't really tell what's going on.

And a great excuse to try the Comedy Central embeddable player...

Michael Crook DMCA Notice!

A while back, there was a hub bub about Michael Crook who was issuing false DMCA notices to have people remove images or video clips of him. This is a flat out abuse of the DMCA! You can read about it here. I, along with others, posted the image to my flickr stream. Well, today I received:

Dear thepartycow,

We have received a Notice of Infringement from Michael Crook via the Yahoo! Copyright Team and have removed the
photo "Picked the wrong fight" from your photostream.

Subsequent NOIs filed against your account will result in further action that may include termination without warning.

If you believe that you were designated by mistake or misidentification, or if you believe that you have not infringed the copyright, you may submit a sworn counter-notification as to the mistake or misidentification. Please contact the Yahoo! Copyright Team for more information on this process:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html

Heather

I just contacted the EFF and am going to figure out how to submit the docs...

Update:Original

Update 2: Mr. Crook has contacted me and let me know that he is withdrawing the DMCA request. I am glad this was handled so quickly!

Sharepod

Anyone ever use Sharepod? Man...this would make life A LOT easier to share music with Molly!

Sharepod: "(A Windows program which copies music to/from your iPod and shares music with non-iPod friends)"

We will have to be careful with the term Reality

This is one of the most impressive demos I have seen in a while. It starts a bit slow, but to watch them morph images we know is frightening and exciting at that same time. Our children will have different definitions for reality than we do.

YouTube - 3D morphable model face animation

Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Advertising Campaigns

Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Advertising Campaigns

It is really amazing to go through all of the different ad campaigns listed in this roundup. Marlboro Man, the #3 Ad Campaign of all time...

Golden Globes acceptance speech

Man...Sasha Baron Cohen's acceptance speech @ the Golden Globes had me on the floor laughing...

YouTube - Borat - Sacha Baron Cohen Golden Globe Speech

Bush, Iraq, More Troops, and Strategy

What if? Just for a second, what if...

The brilliant strategists at the White House realize that the war cannot be won. There is no possibility for a successful outcome. There is no positive legacy left for this presidency. The majority of Americans (last I checked, 2/3rds on a CNN poll) say no way to go forward and add more troops. How do you recover?

What if the possibility is to propose a huge solution. Add 20,000 troops. Take on another 2-3 BILLION dollars of involvement. Go after the infidels. Rebuild a country. Build an army. Build a police force. Teach democracy. Take it all on. Go after 3 or more years of war.

Well...the Democrats in Congress shoot it down. That's what they were brought on to do...they were brought on to force a troop withdrawal.

So...we go through months and months of argument on the floor and in the press. The Dems win. We start to withdrawal. True civil war breaks out in Iraq. Thousands of US troops die during the withdrawal because they can't be supported. We lose tons of military hardware/weapons as our withdrawal is hurried. Chaos breaks out. Terrorist take over the country. The situation worsens.

What happens?

Bush was correct. The Democrats pussied out and lead us down the wrong path. Disarray is followed by disappointed voters in the US. As we head into the presidential elections, the voters are disillusioned with the leadership in Congress and move to replace the house, senate and white house with Republicans to find a more aggressive stance in our foreign policy.

It is out there, but not beyond belief. I hope that the priority of party has not outweighed the finding a solution that is best for the Iraqi people. I hope this is a silly post and I someday regret posting it.

Oh Paula...

What the hell is Paula Abdul on? She is WASTED...

YouTube - Paula Abdul - What is she smokin'???

Breakfast of Champions

Seeing Double
Originally uploaded by Lisa Sunde.

Yes...Breakfast of Champions definitely rocked again this year. Where else can you show up dressed as a parrot and have someone walking around with a real parrot? Man...life can be pretty surreal. The funniest/worst part was that for the course of the party, people would come over and excitedly tell me that there was a guy walking around with a parrot. I just HAD to see this. I just HAD to get my picture taken with it. I didn't have the heart to tell them that this had been going on for about 9 hours and, YES, I did know there was a real parrot at the party. Oh...the life of a party parrot.

I have a ton of posts to publish to catch up on life over the past couple of weeks...