Normal Rockstar

"Wired" Magazine: Why FREE is the Future of Business

Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail" and editor of Wired Magazine, has written a fascinating article this month called "Why $0.00 is the Future of Business". Here is a link to the full article - it's pretty long, so you'll need to give yourself a little bit of time to wade through it. If you don't have the time and would rather watch a video, you can watch him give a synopsis of his article below (Wired posted it on YouTube but didn't give any embedding code, so I just recorded it and posted it on my YouTube page so that I could embed it here for your viewing ease - please forgive the low quality audio.)

What do you think?

UPDATE: I guess Wired got jumpy about me recording it, so the video below won't work anymore. Just click on their YouTube link above to watch it. So much for making things user friendly!!

"A Thousand Splendid Suns"

I haven't read a novel for a while, but my wife brought home Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and I've really been quite enthralled (I haven't let her start it yet!). Hosseini wrote the best seller "The Kite Runner" (which I haven't read yet either) and I can see how it became such a hit - he paints such beautiful pictures through the written word of a culture that I know nothing about (the story takes place in Afghanistan). I'm about halfway through and should be done by the end of the week at the latest - so far I would strongly recommend the book... I'll let you know if that changes by the time I finish!

kite runner, hosseini, afghanistan, taliban

Academy Awards Highlights

I'm discovering that I'm not really big on awards shows. I watched the last 30 minutes or so of the Grammys as I rode my bike in my living room (it's on a trainer, which is a piece of equipment that turns my road bike into a stationary bike). Well, last night I only caught the last hour of the Academy Awards, turning it on right in the middle of the "Falling Slowly" performance. Here are my highlights from that point on:

• performance of "Falling Slowly" - if you have not yet downloaded the soundtrack to the movie "Once" do it NOW. This song in particular is one of the most moving songs I've come across in a long time... just a beautiful melody and the synergy of the two vocals is fantastic.

• Jon Stewart inviting Marketa Irglova back to say her thank-yous - I was quite impressed with Jon Stewart all night, actually. He was an entertaining host (for the portion that I saw) and didn't try to push any boundaries or push any personal agenda. But what I found extremely classy was when, after she was cut off at the mic by the music going into a commercial break and not able to say her acceptance thank-yous, Jon invited Marketa BACK on stage after the break and let her say her piece as well - which was a beautifully humble word of thanks and encouragement to the independent artist community. Very classy, indeed.
• "Juno" winning "Best Original Screenplay" - while I can't say anything about her lifestyle, I will say that "Juno" was a beautiful story and well-deserving of the recognition. (Read more about writer Diablo Cody here. [HT: Randy])

Zipcar Revolution

This is one of the coolest ideas of come across in a while (and once again I came across it in my most recent issue of Fast Company). Zipcar is a company that is revolutionizing the way people live in urban centers. It can be a fairly expensive and rather unnecessary thing for someone in the city to own a car. Besides paying for parking all the time, you may only need a car for a few hours every week to run various errands - the rest of the time you're riding public transportation or walking. So the basic idea of Zipcar is that scattered around a major metro center (click here to see a map of where they currently are in the US) they have cars parked in reserved parking spaces. As a member of their service you are given a keycard that allows you to walk up to any Zipcar and unlock the doors, activating your reservation. Then you use the car for an hour or two (or as long as you need it), leave it in a parking space, and walk away. The best part? The low hourly rental fee includes gas and insurance, unlike standard car rental agencies.

Check it out - if I lived in an urban center, I would be a member in a heartbeat!

Ben Stein is Expelled

I came across this movie the other day [HT: Brock] and have been quite taken by it. I've seen banners for it on other blogs but  haven't taken the time to really check it out. Watch the trailer and let me know what you think.

Ben and his team have done a fantastic job of providing some great resources for people like us to help get the word out on this movie. It's releasing in April, not February like some of the trailers say. One of the quotes in the super trailer that stuck out to me is this:

"In my experience, people who are confident in their ideas are not afraid of criticism..."

Check out these links for more info:

Resource Site
Official Website
YouTube
MySpace

(This is post 301, by the way... pretty cool!)

I Should be a Dog Show Judge...

... 'cause I picked the winner at 132nd Westminster Dog Show in Madison Square Gardens tonight. His name is Uno and he's the first Beagle in the history of the event to win Best in Show. He was fun to watch prance around the arena floor - a beautiful, unassuming dog. My wife and I sure saw some funny-looking dogs over the last couple of days, but in the end it was the crowd favorite that took home the big prize. Congrats, Uno - you are now the king of the castle! If you ever want to play fetch for a little bit, look me up... we'll hang out.

Mike Huckabee Gets Another Key Endorsement

This just in... "Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee garners another key endorsement from blogger Normal Rockstar."

I have NEVER posted a blog about politics - frankly, it intimidates me to know that there are so many people out there who (a) know far more about that whole world than I do, and (b) are too entrenched in their own political bubble and agenda to have a civilized dialog with someone of a differing opinion. So, I usually keep my mouth shut (I had to create the "Politics" category for this post!).

Well, it's a new year, a new day, and I've enjoyed following the presidential race as of late (sadly, I believe I've been more excited about primary results on CNN than Sportscenter on ESPN... ouch!). So, seeing as every vote counts (with the exception of mine seeing as I'm a Canadian) I thought I would throw in my two cents and tell you why I would vote for Huckabee.

Two main reasons: first, he's a runner - a marathoner, in fact! That in itself says a lot about a person and their ability to be disciplined. Read a great commentary on this by the ultramarathon man himself, Dean Karnazes [HT: Glenn].

Secondly, he's an accomplished musician. Now, every time I think about this I get some pretty scary flashbacks of a former President playing saxophone, but for some reason this doesn't feel quite as much like a publicity stunt. He plays bass guitar, which really means that any time he straps on the guitar he's in a supportive role - it's not all about him, musically speaking. Maybe that's why it feels different.

Those are my main reasons. You'll notice I didn't say anything about his politics - take me to task if you will (and I'm sure you will!). But at the end of the day you get to vote for who you want and I... don't. So consider this my vote...

Huckabee for President!

Jeanne Assam: Colorado Shooting Heroine

"I just felt like it was me, the gunman, and God."

You are probably aware by now of the "religious shooting" incident in Colorado (if not, click here for an updated story). A gunman shot two people at a YWAM training center in Denver and then 12 hours later opened fire at a church on a Sunday morning. A lot has been made of the story and why he did it. I'm not going to spend any time talking about him or his story - I'm sure you can find it all over the internet. I want you instead to watch this video of a press conference with Jeanne Assam, the volunteer security guard who is credited with taking down the gunman (police are now saying that he may have actually died by a self-afflicted gun wound). Thanks to her quick thinking, she saved the lives of potentially hundreds of church goers (the gunman had 1000 rounds with him).

Please remember the families of those who were killed today. My sister is currently on a YWAM base overseas and sat under the teaching of Peter Warren, the base leader in Denver. Please keep he, his staff, and the students there in your prayers as well. For most of us, life will continue to roll on as usual this time of year. But for some families in Denver and Colorado Springs, their worlds have been rocked severely and they are in need of our prayers.

Rockefeller Christmas Tree goes Green

Have you ever heard of a tree going "green"? I though they were green enough already... It would be more appropriate to say that New York City is going green.
The 84-foot-tall Norway spruce chosen to adorn the Rockefeller Center is covered with 30,000 multicolored light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, strung on five miles of wire.

Using the energy-efficient LEDs to replace incandescent bulbs will reduce the display's electricity consumption from 3,510 to 1,297 kilowatt hours per day. The daily savings is equal to the amount of electricity consumed by a typical 2,000-square-foot house in a month.

Way to go NYC! Read the rest of the story here...

Cyber-bullying Results in Suicide

I came across this story the other day and was quite saddened by it. It just goes to show that not everything you read/see on the internet is for real, I guess. Here's the skinny:

Megan Meier, a 13 year-old girl who suffered from depression, committed suicide after her MySpace "friend" of six weeks named Josh suddenly broke off the friendship and said some pretty nasty things about her. Well, it turns out Josh didn't really exist - he was actually the mother of a classmate of Megan's who was trying to find out what Megan was saying about her daughter online. So tragic... read the story about and then this related story.