This week will hopefully be more productive than last. I spent a lot of last week either paying attention to politics or thrashing between three different projects when I should have been working on any one of them and finishing something. On friday I did get to do the neener-neener dance. A client who didn’t follow my recommendation, then later decided I was right after all, now will have to pay extra because I had already implemented it the way they asked for. That felt like a good way to wrap up the week, but I need to actually get the work done this week.
I’ve also got another project that I’ve been holding on the back burner for about a month, and it’s time to wrap that up. It’s probably going to fill up this week, but I’ve had problems getting started on it.
Finally, in completely unrelated (and somewhat icky) news, I sometimes have goofy late-night ideas about websites that should be out there. For some reason, they often appear in my head after a night at the bar. Sometimes they’re good, like the idea to snarf Better Nerds. Sometimes, they’re marginal, like Mental Hygienist (I still like the idea, but don’t have the time to do anything with it — if you do, let me know). Sometimes, like this weekend’s idea, What’s That Rash? I’m not sure. And maybe it should be a .info, rather than a .com. But hey, the domains are available and I’m pretty sure I’ve had worse ideas. I could even see it paying for itself with referral money from the health and personal care section of amazon. Doesn’t mean I’m going to snarf those domains, though.
- Hey, here’s some good news, First Avenue could reopen in a few days, possibly as early as Saturday the 13th. [strib]
- I got the following Press Release which explains more:
November 5th, 2004
For Immediate Release
Contact: LeeAnn Weimar
First Avenue May Re-Open
Minneapolis - An agreement with the bankruptcy trustee John R. Stoebner, may get First Avenue’s doors open after abruptly closing Tuesday, putting 120 people back to work.
In a meeting that took place this morning, Steve McClellan and Jack Meyers met with Stoebner and struck up an agreement that may get the venue up and running again as early as Saturday, November 13th.
701 Ventures LLC, the company that will run the new business, is set to acquire the name First Avenue along with all of the clubs assets after the former owner The Committee Inc. filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy earlier this week.
The arrangement still needs approval from a bankruptcy court judge, who is scheduled to hear the case at 8:30am Friday, November 12th.
- eWeek asks Is Microsoft Ready to Assert IP Rights over the Internet? Specifically, Microsoft is claiming some form of IP rights over 130 protocols which were already described in RFCs. Hard to say what they’re trying to accomplish, but I’ll be looking more carefully at licenses from them in the future. [slashdot]
- In a continuing spread of information you may not want companies to know about you, Retailers turning to databases to rein in customer returns from customers who
return too many things
. Yes, it makes business sense in some cases, but I doubt most companies are ready to deal with pissed-off customers who find out about such a database the hard way. [slashdot] - If you’re going to gripe about a company online, be Careful Where You Complain and be careful about using their trademarks. [wired]
- It was bound to happen…and it did. Mark Cuban got fined for his comments about the NBA’s opening night being on election night. I don’t much care one way or another about the NBA, but I was completely unaware the season had even started, since it got swamped in election coverage. That doesn’t seem like especially bright marketing to me, and I think Cuban should have complained about it. [doc]