I just watched a great conversation on one of me least favorite news shows “Morning Joe”. About 5 minutes in the guests on Morning Joe really capture the way I feel right now and the dream I have of an new revolution driven by the economic imbalance that exists in this country.

I’m seeing more and more of these big fake testicles hanging from the back of pickup trucks and SUVs. Last night I saw a Dodge Durango with a big pair that had more than the usual amount of detail (lots of veins and testicle like texture).

I’m not sure how to react anymore. Is it disturbing? Consider the man who drives an Jeep Cherokee around with a pair of balls hanging from the back. Does he think his old Jeep Cherokee is some sort of macho on wheels? Is he letting everyone know he’s so tough that even his car has balls? I honestly don’t get it - at all.

Sometimes I can ignore the scary psychological issues and just laugh to myself - “omg what will the redneck culture produce next?”

The other night when I saw the pair hanging from the Dodge Durango I found some great context for this new trend. Imagine a Dodge Mini-Van with a pair of big plastic labia attached to the rear door.

There are many reasons Facebook annoys me. But I largely ignore all of those because the ability to re-connect with so many old friends is worth the annoyances.

Except for the advertising. Every single time I visit Facebook I am bombarded with ads for gay men. Right now, in another window where Facebook is open, I’m staring at an ad that says, “What Gay Are You: Find me on Gay.com get your gay on. Be apart of the gay.com community. Find your match now.”

Why am I getting these ads? This is supposed to be targeted advertising.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

I got the cold that everyone seems to have.  I couldn’t kick it though and it turned to bronchitis.   After a night of not sleeping I called my doctor’s office.  I was seen by the doctor within the hour.  I was out of the appointment within the hour.  I had my drugs from the pharmacy within the hour.   I had huge LOVE for my small town the entire hour.

Wow.  These guys are great!  I called to express concerns over making Vilsack Secretary of Agriculture.  I said I wanted a Sec. of Agriculture that was against GMO’s and for the health of Americans and our small farms.  The guy was so nice and wanted to know more.  So I talked more then  I talked about CAFOS.  He hadn’t heard of them and was asking questions.  Asking questions!  Really.  

Yeah!  Obama!

Early in the summer my current company 3mix was established. We opened an investment round of 250k and began raising the money from local investors. The money came in and we quickly grew to a team of eleven (including part time employees).

The 250k we needed to raise was intended to get us through our initial release and prove our model in order to grow revenue from either a VC round or partnerships with larger companies.

Everything was going according to plan until . . . the economy took a dive.

We had raised 185k until that point and since then have been unable to raise any more. Risk tolerant investors disappeared overnight. We had commitments up to 350k - those vanished too.

As I read stories of huge sums of bail money going to executive bonuses, and auto industry executives taking private jets to DC to lobby for some of the bailout cash; I consider my situation as CEO of a small company.

• Neither myself, or the two other executives at 3mix has taken a salary. We agreed to take small salaries (smaller than our highest paid employee) ONLY when we met revenue goals beyond the current funding round.
• We made decisions to pursue a business model and product feature set that was counter to the status quo. It was a strategic decision based on our perception (and experience) that current models were not sustainable and that new models would be in demand and tenable down the road.
• The money 3mix raises does not go into personal short term gain for executives. On the contrary it is a contract to work hard and responsibly to manage the ROI of all shareholders.
• The money 3mix raises goes into the pockets of local employees and other small local businesses.

Politicians, especially in this past election season, like to talk a lot about Mavericks, Pro America, Working America, Frontier Spirit, and the Fundamentals of the American Economy. As a definition through example of those terms, I give you 3mix and the thousands of other businesses who operate with similar values, passion, spirit and hard work.

I could easily go off on a rant about (for example) the auto industry, but I won’t. I’ll let them lobby for my tax dollars while I focus on things I can manage. I’ve honestly considered driving my car out to DC to ask Henry Paulson for 65k worth of bailout money. I mean what’s 65k out of 700 billion? I have more confidence that 3mix can return a profit on that 65k (back to the American people) vs whatever amount the auto industry execs obtain. But I doubt I could get a meeting with him outside of some sort of publicity stunt.

So instead I’m going to reach out on this blog to any potential investors. Here’s the situation:

3mix needs to close their current round by raising another 65k. We look desperate but we’re in a good position. We’ve got at least two contracts we’re negotiating that would extend our burn rate an additional 6-12 months. We need to keep our development team on staff and paid in order to complete the sales cycle to land these deals as well as perform demos for other clients who are very positive on using our platform.

3mix has built a multimedia and advertising widget management system that is ahead of our competitors. Our operating costs are low, our talent is high and we’re all extremely passionate about making technology work for content creators.

We can show revenue in December if we can keep our doors open to December. 65k ensures that we’re operating through February (ignoring any other revenue) - ample time to close the contracts we need to get through 2009, survive this recession and grow more opportunity and jobs.

If anyone out there is interested in investing in a small business operated by talented hard working people, then please contact me at will@3mix.com to learn more about the offering and our business model. We need to raise the remaining 65k in the next 2 weeks to secure our success.

I love the science fiction genre. My favorite novel is “The Stars My Destination” by Alfred Bester. And I can recall fondly sitting in front of the television as early as five years old, watching the original Star Trek with my grandfather (and asking a LOT of questions).

I remember Saturday mornings as my weekly geek getaway: getting up earlier than I needed to during the school week to watch Star Trek the animated series and Johnny Quest. This was back before there was a 24/7 cartoon channel and the major networks reserved Saturday mornings for kids. And it was before geek culture was the norm and so stuff like the Star Trek and Johnny Quest were on pretty early in the morning to make room for all the Scooby-Doo like bullshit.

Something I always appreciated though was the “science” in science fiction. Creating science fiction that blends fantasy with fact is an art and a subjective one at that for sure. It’s on this point that my love-hate relationship with the Star Trek series teeters. Warp drives, phaser guns and tele-porting down to planets . . . good stuff. Racing around the sun backwards to go back in time . . . bad stuff.

I just watched the new Star Trek trailer and apparently I’m going to be pushed to the brink of both amazement and annoyance again (watch the newer trailer - “trailer 2″).

The good: just about everything. Young Spock and Kirk, big alien monster, space battles, space ships, lasers . . . did I mention it’s in . . . SPACE!?

The bad: ok so wait, they built the Enterprise on Earth? Are you kidding me? It’s huge! It has no boosters. Are they going to strap it to an enormous rocket? wtf? Even Gene himself wouldn’t write that silliness.

Having had fiber Internet at the office for over a year, I’ve been anxiously awaiting it’s arrival to my home. [It’s funny that we’ve arrived at a time where cable Internet is not enough bandwidth] I unfortunately live right on the outskirts of town and therefore am in one of the last zones to get fiber.

While researching the fiber construction timeline and pricing for residential service, someone at the office read Lisco’s Fiber-To-The-Home Service Agreement, and shared this item from the terms:

9. DATA TRAFFIC POLICY: Customer understands that the 100 Mbps Internet service is for ordinary residential or home business use. Customers with large data transport needs will require custom pricing. For example, streaming or downloading of full-screen DVD-quality video of more than five hours per month is not considered ordinary use.

I hope this is an oversight and not intentional fine print. On a cable connection I download DVD and HD quality video as much as 24 hours a day. Even if you ignore torrents, what about using Netflix Watch Now several nights a week?

The attraction of residential fiber is to do exactly what they are saying you cannot do. In other words, their definition of ordinary use of fiber Internet is in contradiction to why anyone would be interested in getting fiber.

If I wasn’t streaming and downloading high quality movies, I wouldn’t be anxious to get fiber.

I won’t even get into the confusion this document reveals around ordinary business use.

How embarrassing. I’ve been having a brief long distance conversation with several friends about how the last Bond movie was great, except for the gaping plot hole. No one understood where I was coming from and finally I go a detailed explanation of the area of the plot I thought was broken:

Plan A is to win the money. Bond is the best opponent at the table, so
LeChiffre attempts to knock him off and simply win the money. Nothing
else is planned.

Bond survives and wins the loot, so now everybody is reacting to the
situation at hand.

Off camera, White meets with LeChiffre and demands he gets the money
back or he’s dead. They catch Vesper alone and kidnap her to get Bond
to follow to a not-so-public place. Remember, Vesper is not a double
agent YET, so she is expendable. They leave her in the road as a
quick, desperate solution to cause Bond to wreck and snag him. Against
all odds, Bond comes around the blind corner and manages to not hit
her (although still wrecks anyway).

In the boat house, they torture Bond to get the codes and he instead
is able to put up with it. White is waiting in a different room,
disgusted with LeChiffre’s failures. Growing impatient, or knowing a
00 will never release the codes to an enemy, makes a deal with Vesper.
Get the code from Bond and we’ll spare your lives.

Vesper is now a reluctant double agent, and finally gets the code at
the hospital.

Although she could give up the bag, she has fallen in love with Bond
and wants him to retire and live a life with her. The only way to do
that is, naively, to take up White on his promise to leave them alone
for the money.

In the end, she realizes she should have simply trusted Bond with the
truth. She purposely locks herself in the elevator underwater because
she doesn’t feel she is worth saving.

The weakest point I see is that Bond must wonder why White wouldn’t
have just killed him and Vesper along with LeChiffre, just to tie up
loose ends, and that there must still be a future gambit awaiting for
White to get the code later. But I don’t think that’s a huge plot
hole. Even if he’s suspicious, what else can Bond do? He’s been
released and is back in safe hands.

Ok that makes sense. Am I the only one who didn’t pick all that up in the movie theater?

I’m pretty excited for Quantum of Solace.

I’ve been trying to find a book to read to my daughter (who is now five). I wanted something that was sci-fi or fantasy, interesting enough for me to enjoy, long enough to space out over many bedtimes and of course suitable for her age.

I feel a bit dumb to have searched so long on Amazon before thinking of The Hobbit. And it was due to Penelope asking questions about Lord of the Rings characters after playing with a Lord or the Rings board game we have down in the basement.

The book arrived this week and we finished our first twenty pages tonight. It is an incredible book to read for kids. The characters are fun from the beginning, the humor is easily conveyed through reading and there are songs to sing like every ten pages. Tonight I had to sing like a dwarf.

My daughter was giggling more than I’ve heard her when reading some of her favorite short children’s books.

I can’t wait to get to the dragon!