March 31, 2008
Maroon Ventures launches blog ...
I guess it was inevitable. My partners and I have started a group blog over at MaroonVentures.com. While I use Movable Type for my Suffering the Benz blog, I decided to branch out and give Wordpress a shot for the MV blog. Very impressive. Easy to set up and tweak.
Anyway, stop over and check it out. There's a link where you can submit your URL for our blogroll. And we're still tweaking, so if you see anything that's not quite right, let me know.
Posted by Bob Benz at 3:37 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2008
The cove ...
As it gets warmer, I've been spending a lot more time down on the dock, smoking a cigar and watching the dogs froth and churn in the water.
That's where I found myself several nights ago, under a brilliant waxing moon in weather so warm the fish were popping all around me like bubbles in a deep fryer. The hounds had already charged off into the night, not to be seen again until the next morning. Another jailbreak that leaves me wondering where they go, what they do, with their much-coveted freedom. I need to invent a dog GPS or Gilligan Cam at some point so I can snoop on their midnight rambles.
That left me, Xena the noble Newf and the fish soaking in the moonlight when three sharp croaks echoed through the cove, followed immediately by swishing feathers and the sandpaper scraping of claws on shingles. A massive blue heron had alighted on the dock's pitched roof, right in front of me and Xena. He didn't see us. At least not until Xena became very agitated and made it known herons aren't welcome on her dock.
The heron sprang off the roof, flapping and croaking through the moonlight into the shadows on the other side of the cove.
During the day, it's amusing to watch gulls work their way in from the main channel, dive bombing along the way in search of fish, pirouetting on the breeze and trying again. Their ballet is rudely interrupted by a kingfisher as he cackles along inches above the water. My mind instantly slips to an old Pink Floyd lyric ...
"Hear the lark harken to the barking of the dark fox
"Gone to ground.
"See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water.
"And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees."
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2008
Rock bottom flashbacks
Not sure why, but I've had the riff from UFOs "Rock Bottom" ricocheting around in my head for the past several days. Yesterday, I finally broke down and downloaded "Strangers in the Night" from iTunes. It's truly one of the great live albums of the '70s, and it's largely forgotten. Michael Schenker's guitar work is amazing. The dude was a whack job, but he could shred. And he had a sense of melody that many speed demons lack.
I've been listening to the album nonstop almost since I downloaded it, bringing back memories of Pittsburgh teen angst, Iron City beer and the parking lot of a dilapidated skating rink where we spent way too many nights blasting UFO from a boom box, taking particular pride in the fact that we were sitting in a former stone quarry that used to be called Rock Bottom.
Posted by Bob Benz at 11:09 AM | Comments (1)
Venture money drying up?
Given the nature of my new business, I slowed down a bit on the elliptical this morning when NPR launched into a report on the impact Bear Stearns is having on venture capital in Silicon Valley.
Toward the end, the reporter asks if the downturn will stifle innovation in Silicon Valley:
"Entrepreneurs who are inside large companies but their personality is more entrepreneurial and they see their company slowing down, that can spur them to say, 'It's time for me to go out and start something on my own, cause I'm bored,'" responded venture capitalist David Epstein.
Hmm.
(BTW: Just noticed NPR is using "preroll ads pimping their sponsors in the audio player on their site ... not sure if this is new or just new to me, but I found it interesting.)
Posted by Bob Benz at 10:56 AM | Comments (4)
March 17, 2008
Beautiful Children ...
I just finished Charles Bock's first novel, "Beautiful Children." In short, it was an amazing book. Flawed, but amazing. It's still bothering me. The characters keep rising up in my mind at strange times, especially the street kids. I'm trying to sort through it all and definitely will need to re-read the last few chapters. A lot happens there. Too much to absorb in one read.
I guess I should expect nothing less from a novel that lists the bizarre guitar virtuoso Buckethead atop the acknowledgments section.
In short, the book is about Kenny, a Las Vegas kid who disappears. It chronicles the impact of the incident on his parents' marriage. It staggers through the Las Vegas Strip following mangy runaways. It slinks through the slime and silicone of the porn industry.
I guess my main complaint is Bock's tendency to layer detail in a way reminiscent of Updike. While it can breath life and truth into a scene, it also can short circuit the narrative. It's a balancing act. At times, I just wanted to navigate around all the detail, staying with the narrative thread, that swift cool stream of words cutting through the descriptive silt Bock was accreting.
But I'd rate that a minor flaw, one born of an 11-year birthing process for the novel. That amazes me. What tenacity, to stay with it that long and finally get published with considerable fanfare.
The New York Times Magazine did a decent profile of Bock a few weeks back. Worth a look ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 5:23 PM | Comments (0)
Viva Las Vegas?
The quiet dude from Penn & Teller finally speaks out in this hilarious zombie film. It seems the undead are a perfect fit for Las Vegas. His description of Penn's demise is particularly amusing. Definitely worth checking out ...
& Teller
Posted by Bob Benz at 5:12 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2008
Feds pop Popcorn ...
Looks as if moonshiner Popcorn Sutton is having more problems with the authorities. Also interesting is that Popcorn's daughter is squaring off with some of his admirers in the comments section of an earlier post I did on Popcorn.
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:55 AM | Comments (1)
March 8, 2008
Innovative approach to iPhone growth ...
I was pretty geeked to see that Apple intends to create a much more seamless integration between the iPhone and Microsoft's Outlook. That's the one thing that has stopped me from trying an iPhone. I'm a total Outlook junky. It rules my life, and the Blackberry works it better than any other mobile device I'm aware of.
But buried in the news was something even cooler. Apple announced a partnership with the VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which is creating the iFund, a $100m vehicle that will focus on iPhone software startups. What a great idea. This giant carrot is now dangling out there, encouraging developers to create the next great iPhone app. Brilliant.
How long till I can trade-in my Blackberry?
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:00 AM | Comments (1)