Ever Had a Good Idea?

We sometimes get ADD at our company. So many ideas and a bunch of entrepreneurs. We've been working on a tool to help us look at those ideas from a bunch of different angles and get votes from a group to gauge the validity of an idea. So to you my friends I announce the beta launch of FreeBrainstorm.com.

If you don't check it out now, don't worry, I'm sure I'll be spamming you in the coming days or weeks once we get some bugs worked out. Internet Explorer is having some issues, but if you are smart and use Firefox, head over and signup for an account, give me some feedback, and let me know what you like and what you don't.

Nice job Eric, the app and site look great!

Prison Break or 24?

I was late to the party on both shows. 24 my wife and I started and watched 5 seasons in a little more than a month on DVD. It was intense watching without any commercials and we spent many a night up until 2 or 3 in the morning watching Jack Bauer save the world.

I was recently on a business trip and wanted something to watch on the flight. I heard some good things about Prison Break but had never watched the show. I decided to download the first 5 episodes on my iPod. I've got to say I was addicted after the first show. 24 is great, but you always know Jack Bauer is going to save the world. For me Prison Break has a lot more twists and turns and is really intense. Kara doesn't like the violence of 24 so she prefers Prison Break. I'm torn between the tough guy, save the world Jack Bauer and the unpredictability of Prison Break. Any of you watch these shows? Any preference?

Competition for Google

A new search engine is debuting today. Not major news, that happens all the time, but this time it has several ex-Google employees, talented senior level people. The new search engine is at cuil.com (pronounced cool). I'm a big Google fan, but I love competition. Especially in my industry I like to see other options for advertisers and searchers. Google has managed to develop a monopoly, but because of the way they've done it have drawn little ire from the general public.

We'll see how Cuil performs. Right now they are getting slammed by so much traffic and their site is extremely slow. Based on the few searches I did it seems to deliver up some pretty accurate results. The images they pull from sites to display with the search results seem to be pretty random. I've got my fingers crossed that they really catch on.

Air Conditioning Final Working

We've spent most of the summer in the office without air conditioning. We've been around 85 degrees for nearly the past six weeks in the office, it has been pretty nasty. Nobody wants to come into the office, we're all generally not as productive, and everybody is cursing the a/c guy, the landlord, and anybody else in the repair chain.

This morning I walked in and we are a cool 72 degrees. That's right Barack Obama, 72 degrees...and I love it. I had to get a little cranky with both the landlord and the a/c guy to get it done, but they understood and got it fixed.

Ahh...life is good again.

Cell Phone Rant

[Begin Rant] I get really annoyed at how stupid cell phone companies think I am. Every time I call somebody I get "You've reached Ryan McCoy I'm not available right now, please leave me a message", then I get an annoying voice that comes on and tells me how to leave a message.

Come on, we've been leaving messages after the beep for decades, do you really need to tell me how to leave a message? Why does this bother me? Other than wasting my time it will always take me over the 1 minute mark for a call...after the phone has rang, the person I'm trying to contact has their greeting, and then annoying cell phone woman's instructions on how to leave a message I end up over 1 minute. I'm not on an unlimited plan so I'm semi-concerned with my minute usage, but more than anything I get tired of being told obvious things and having my time wasted. [End Rant]