First, Jeremy Piven was at the bar. He walked by me at one point and I said hi and told him I was still upset that they cancelled his show Cupid which ran for only 15 episodes more than a decade ago. He laughed and thanked me, but I'm sure he's happy he was freed up to work on Serendipity, Old School and Entourage.

Then Queen Latifah walked by. Wow. She looked like she had no makeup on and was easily the prettiest woman in the hotel.

Continue reading Drinking with the stars ›

I don't remember freaking out when I turned 30, but I definitely had a couple of troubled moments when 40 was approaching. Niki made sure all of that was far from my mind.

Continue reading Surprise! ›

My trip had a promising beginning. One of the pilots came out and introduced himself to nearly everyone at the gate and thanked us all for choosing Virgin America. Wow. One teenage girl was so overwhelmed by this that she started crying. Her two friends teased her when he left.

The purple lighting on the planes was cute. It was like being in a nightclub.

I paid the $15 for wifi and plugged my laptop into the outlet under my seat, but there was no power. Being the only passenger in my premium exit row I tried the other underseat outlet. It was also dead.

I asked the crew if there was some kind of trick I was missing. They said that the power rolls through the rows. That it's not always on in every row. That I should just wait. When I got to 21% battery remaining I let them know it wasn't going to happen.

They told me to try unplugging and plugging in again. No luck. They said there was a reset switch they'd try. Also no luck.

Laptop batteries don't last from NY to L.A. I'm no longer excited about my Virgin America flight home, but I will make sure I've got a fully charged battery.

Or maybe I'll just read a book.

UPDATE: My flight home was better. I had power for the entire flight and I got to unwind after a really good business trip with some music videos I would never have seen otherwise.

Last week I was again lucky to be in town for another Jason Calacanis event, his Open Angel Forum. The five presenting companies were interesting and one was compelling enough that I'd want to invest in it and advise the team. One thing I liked about all of them is that they weren't all from the SoCal region. Investors follow people and markets, not geography.

The best part for me was having dinner with a smart group of investors. Some of them I already knew like Matt Coffin, Gordon Gould, Shawn Gold and Ron Conway. Some I followed on Twitter but hadn't met in person like Chris Sacca and Mark Suster. Some weren't on my radar at all, but are now like TechStars founder David Cohen, Shervin Pishevar and NY angel Jay Levy. Although Jarl Mohn was there and many people have told me I should meet him, there was so much going on I didn't get the chance. Next time!

Mark Suster did a much better recap of the OAF event, who attended it and what differentiates it from events where entrepreneurs pay to present to angels.

I definitely won't miss the NYC versions of these events.

The show started at 7PM and there were two opening acts we wanted to see but we hadn't eaten, so we had a quick dinner at the diner on the corner. At 8:10PM we walked to the show. As we passed an independent ticket salesperson (i.e., scalper) who was offering us a seat "upgrade" to the 13th row, I happily thought to myself "well for us that would be a downgrade." How cool.

Niki and I have seen Rob with Matchbox 20 at Jones Beach and at Madison Square Garden. I saw a solo Rob Thomas show at Live8 in Philly. Niki and I also saw a solo Rob Thomas show with Jewel at Jones Beach and we saw Santana at Jones Beach when Rob came out to sing his monster hit "Smooth." It's safe to say we were both looking forward to this show.

The Beacon scanned our tickets and told us our tickets had already been used once and we couldn't go in. We immediately realized that the person who printed these tickets at home made two copies: one for his friends and one to sell on StubHub. Or maybe he sold the other pair on Ebay.

We remained calm.

Continue reading StubHub Hubbub ›

After a whirlwind tour of Crowd Fusion's features, we gave out the URL for registering for our beta program. We had 500 signups in the first week and we've got about 700 total now. We are managing the beta applicants using our own CMS as a CRM system.

The first round of developers has had access for a few weeks now. The second round is getting access later today, now that most of our documentation has been written. We are going slowly, taking our time with each new user, answering questions about the platform and helping get sites built. "Concierge" is a pretty accurate description of this process. We'll do a few more rounds of access and then release Crowd Fusion publicly some time in early 2010.

My 6-year-old's first guess was Green Day. I said that was close and this is a band with a color in the name. I figured with that clue they'd nail it on the second try.

My 4-year-old: "Pink?"

"Nope. This is a guy singing."

My 6-year-old: "Maroon 5?"

Wow. I wasn't expecting that one. "No."

My 4-year-old: "Black-eyed Peas?"

Again, I was stunned. "No."

I didn't realize they knew so many bands with colors in the name. Now I was getting worried they'd start rattling off bands they couldn't possibly know like Deep Purple, James Brown, Pink Floyd, Whitesnake and the Indigo Girls and completely blow my mind, but my 6-year-old saved the day with "Red Hot Chili Peppers!"

I love taking those boys to school.

When I explained to him that I was writing lawyers and needed the mouse back immediately he asked me what lawyers are. I told him that police make sure people follow the laws, but lawyers actually create the laws. They decide what you can and can't do and these people I'm writing are lawyers who write contracts. I also explained that contracts are agreements, like written promises.

Then I asked him if he knew anyone who used to be a lawyer. He said he didn't. I told him that my father used to be a lawyer. He said, "Wow!" and then ran off and immediately told his brother that their grandfather used to be a lawyer. He could only have been more excited if I had told him his grandfather was a retired jedi.

What I didn't tell him was that my dad told me repeatedly that "lawyering sucks" and that I could pick any other career but that one. I'll hold onto that one. Hopefully this marveling at lawyers thing is just a phase.

Instead of embedding Aladdin's A Whole New World video, I thought I'd share this awesome Microsoft Windows commercial:

Continue reading A Whole New World ›

Days later another doctor at the same office told us she had swine flu. At that point she had been sick for so long they decided Tamiflu wouldn't help. Fortunately they explained that swine flu is often only fatal if you have another underlying condition like asthma or diabetes. They also explained that 30% of the flu tests that come back negative are wrong.

Last week I woke up with a bad cold and aching muscles all over. Niki was worried since I don't handle the flu very well so she immediately made a doctor appointment for me. I was at his office passing my flu test before my first fever kicked in. I took Tamiflu and Advil for five days. My pharma-conspiracy friends were thrilled to hear that even with a good insurance plan my out-of-pocket Tamiflu bill for ten pills was $86.

I only did two conference calls last week. I skipped the Twitter conference in NYC. I drank plenty of Gatorade, read a lot and rested. I watched some great Law & Order episodes from last season Niki had saved on TiVo.

I feel really lucky that it didn't knock me out as badly as previous flus have and that I finally felt normal again in time for Father's Day yesterday.

Swine flu beaten -- now to conquer my overflowing inbox.