Life's had me going in several directions at once recently. It's a good thing. As my father says, "It's better to wear out than to rust." He doesn't say there's time for blogging...

Last week I was in San Francisco to talk about how we use social software at work. It seems that my talk was well recieved, well at least Jeff Jarvis liked it. The Web 2.0 Conference seemed like quite a big deal. The conference was at the Hotel Nikko, an upscale hotel in the heart of SF.

At these kinds of gatherings, I'm something of a cross between a tourist and an object for show & tell. I'm not in the internet business, I'm in the TV business, so I am not as concerned about the latest Google rumor as most of the Web 2.0 crowd. The discussion is interesting, but it's not my lifeblood and I'm not in one of the many startups.

The was a definite vibe in the room. Money. The dotboom is over and the money is flowing back in. Like sharks circling the chum in the water, people are working the room like it's 1999 (cue Prince music...). Discussions of VCs, funding rounds, and customers pervade every corner. The money is getting the greed levels up and people all want a piece.

I meet some cool new people, renewed aquaintences will others and stared at a billionaire. You can see me here, working hard with a bottle of beer in my hand. Click on the Brewster Kahle photo.

Across the street was the Hilton, whose workers were on strike. They were marching, banging drums, and chanting. It's been 10 years since I lived in San Francisco, but it retains the same eclectic feel. The strikers were chanting in Chinese at some points. Only in the City by the Bay...

In other news, Katamari Damacy has taken hold of the household and all four of us are playing it. We finally beat the game and I was able to build a truly huge katamari.

516 meters is good, but I'm told some people can get it up to over 800 meters.

Michele has been busy as well, deciding that now is the time to clean the house of things. She's arranged for a large dumpster to appear and I spent most of the day on Saturday filling it up to the brim. And we still haven't put a dent in the mounds of crap we have.

She also went to Costco and picked up a little Gatorade. I should have known that there is no such thing as a little Gatorade when shopping at Costco.

Here's the outside fridge.

I stopped counting the bottles when I got to 20 and there were plenty more. So if you're thirsty, stop by...

Posted by michael at October 10, 2004 11:25 PM