A friend of mine posted the following link on facebook from cnn.com regarding a new browser called RockMelt.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/11/08/rockmelt.browser.mashable/index.html?hpt=Sbin

According to the article, RockMelt is "a new browser that lives in the cloud and uses Facebook authentication to synchronize a user's browsing experience across machines." Basically, by using RockMelt you can have the same browsing experience on any computer that has RockMelt. Your settings are saved in the cloud, including bookmarks, browsing history, and even your social media profiles.

Please read the article and watch the video demonstrating the capabilities of RockMelt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAPKPhoTqFY&feature=player_embedded

There are issues that the article and video do not cover. It is great that your personal browser and social media settings can follow you around wherever you are, but what else can follow you around? How about advertising? No matter where I log on to Gmail, I receive personalized ads based on the content of my email. With RockMelt, every website on any computer could have ads targeted at me.

What about security? RockMelt will need to guarantee that someone cannot hack into my RockMelt account and then gain immediate access to who knows what from pages I visited who knows where.

Several weeks of Social Media class has led me to keep an open mind towards internet marketing but security vulnerabilities still concern me. The general public is probably more averse to targeted ads and security concerns than I am. As a result, RockMelt may have some obstacles to overcome before gaining wide acceptance.

Hello to my long lost readers. It's been way too long since my last entry. I have been doing some really interesting things over the past couple months that have caused me to stop blogging...actually that's not true...I've mostly been eating pizza and watching Bravo. In any event, I'm back baby!

So it's Halloween weekend, and as usual I waited until the last minute to get my costume. I'm going as Giligan from Gilligan's Island (some friends and I are going as the whole cast). Being the frugal shopper that I am, I decided to go to the local Salvation Army store to find some clothes for the costume. I was able to find exactly what I needed, light blue khakis and a red rugby shirt, all for $5. On this particular night, the store was pretty empty except for a family buying coats for their young kids and a group of flamboyant men looking for Steve Urkel costumes. I think everyone found what they were looking for.

I just thought of a really good costume idea for people with a sense of humor and not much dignity. You dress up like a "certain part of the male anatomy" then surround yourself with black painted cardboard (made to look like a camera phone). To finish it off, you write "from Brett" on the top....Brett Favre text message.

Happy Halloween to all.

-Phil

One of the big reasons I moved to California is that I hate the end of summer. The weather changes along with your state of mind. I've learned that even in California you can't escape the feeling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqYBGcv41M8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR_VeG1XW_4

A martyr is someone who dies for a belief. Nearly every culture honors its martyrs. America has Memorial Day to remember fallen soldiers. Many saints were early Christians, persecuted then killed because of their faith. I could go on and on.

Detroit Tigers pitcher, Armando Galarraga will be remembered as a martyr of baseball.

Last night Galarraga had a perfect game until the first base umpire Jim Joyce blew a routine call on the very last out. For anyone who follows baseball, this is a tragedy of epic proportions.

The immediate reaction from pretty much everyone is that Major League Baseball should allow instant replay. This has been a debate for many years now, and this last instance looks like the straw that will finally break the camel's back.

This passionate, yet justified, outrage stems from the fact that Galarraga will never own his place in the record books like he deserves. In baseball the record books are everything.

So Armando Galarraga will never receive his rightful place as the 20th pitcher to throw a perfect game in Major League Baseball...

...BUT he may hold a much more important place in baseball lore. If instant replay is adopted quickly, we will forever remember that it was because of the Armando Galarraga's imperfect game.

It may seem like a consolation prize at first, but his lasting effect will be much greater. 10 years, 20 years, 50 years from now fewer and fewer people will remember that he ever pitched a perfect game, but instant replay will live forever alongside the DH as a landmark change to the game.

Let's not forget there was a second vital individual in this event, Umpire Jim Joyce. It's easy to consider him the scum of the universe, but when the smoke clears he's just a guy who happened to make a huge mistake. For the rest of this guy's life he'll have to live with his mistake as if he killed someone. If you ask me, the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Just ask Steve Bartman.

So Dear Mr. Selig, its time to institute instant replay. My suggestion, honor the fallen heroes for sacrificing their dream and livelihood, respectively. Call it the Galarraga-Joyce Rule.

-Matt

I just can't get into movies like I once did. I was the guy in high school that spoke in movie quotes and prided myself in knowing what actors were in what movies. I would also get angry when someone misquoted a movie.* Looking back it was kind of pathetic, but it was my way of interacting with people in the very awkward teen years.

I always enjoyed movies, pretty much any movie too. I felt a historical duty to at least rent relevant** movies of the year. That's why I saw Avatar. I guess it's a hard habit to break.

Nonetheless, I've grown weary of movies as I've grown as an adult. Take for example, last night my gf and I sat down to watch Away We Go. We got less than a half hour into the movie before I couldn't take it anymore and turned it off. My attitude was, "who gives a shit?!" I just refused to get into it.

It wasn't a terrible movie either. In fact, I would say that it was the type of movie that people that know my tastes would tell me to watch. The movie, for those that are unfamiliar, is about a couple (Jim from the Office and Maya Rudolph) who are expecting a baby so they decide to go around to different places looking for somewhere to call home. It was written by Dave Eggers, who I am a fan of, and his wife. The dialogue was witty and it had a whole indy thing going on. The supporting cast was awesome, Catherine Ohara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, and Jim Gaffigan (I'm sure there were other cool cameos, but like I said, i stopped 30 minutes in).

I should want to watch this movie! However, a day later I am still numb about the whole thing.

Why? Initially, I was going to answer these in classic blog style, bullet points, but I actually think this brings up larger topics that can be expanded into posts of their own***. Anyway, I'll give you the brief, semi-self explanatory reasons for my movie apathy, in bullet point form.****

1. TV shows are the new movies

2. There's nothing wrong with me, recent movies aren't worth watching.

3. I'm older and I value my time more

Stay tuned as I explore these topics and try to figure out what's wrong with me.

-Matt

*Heaven forbid someone should disgrace Chris Farley's memory by thinking they were quoting Tommy Boy when it was obvious that the line was from fucking Black Sheep!

** With some exceptions, I trust Teenage Matt's judgment of what's relevant. I could probably use his judgment these days.

***I'm not sure if I'm being clever by expanding the meaning of this post or procrastinating by putting off the in depth parts for later.

****WTF? CardRunners' blogs don't have bullet point formatting anymore?

I didn't want to write a blog entry about the finale of Lost because a million other people already have and they know more about it than me. However, I have ten minutes before I go to sleep and want to get a post up. I also wanted to say something just for the record and the longer I wait the less it matters. So here are a few thoughts...

1. I was content with the ending, everyone lived happily ever after, great. I then read a bunch of blogs and critics' reviews and then agreed the ending was total bullshit. The sideways time didnt have any plot significance. I was hoping Desmond was rushing around for a reason.

2. Can we get a do-over? I brought this up a while back. They should remake the show in 20 years. Do a totally different story with no connection to the original. Different characters, different mysteries, different rules, different outcome. Just plan it out better.

3. I don't like when people call Lost a mystery. Calling something a mystery implies there was something that needed to be solved by following clues. There were definitely mysterious things in Lost, but there were no detectives running around putting the pieces together. It was just crazy people running around killing each other until there was noone else to kill.

The only people associated with the show that can be considered detectives were the fans. They were the ones looking at all the details trying to piece everything together. None of the characters grasped the entire scope of what was going on.

Let's call it a journey. The mysteries were not so much solved as they were revealed to the audience as well as the characters.

It was a fun journey and that is that.

-Matt

PS Remember the video game Myst? I always kind of wish Lost was more like that. There were some similarities. In fact I'm surprised the two weren't compared more often. I really liked that game.

In order to regain my blogging momentum, here are some crappy jokes I've written in the past month or so.

-Matt

I was walking down the street and I saw a bunch of dudes wearing flannel and hooded sweat shirts loitering outside a doorway, I went in thinking it was an open mic night but it turns out it was a soup kitchen...It wasn't the soup that tipped me off that I was in the wrong place; it was the fact that all the people their were really funny and interesting... The soup wasn't bad either. (Phil wrote the "funny and interesting" part)

Indiana Congressman Mark Souder resigned after it was revealed that he had an affair with a staffer. Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Bob Livingston, John Ensign, Gary Condit, Kevin Garn, Vito Fossella, Tim Mahoney, and Mark Foley...were unavailable for comment.

Yesterday an immigration judge ruled that President Obama's aunt can stay in the US. In unrelated news, millions of people in Arizona are changing their name from Martinez to Obama.

It looks like Obama is nominating Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, which means for the first time in history 3 of the 9 justices will be women. More importantly for the first time in history the US Supreme Court has enough women to field a team in the D.C. coed softball league. (I already blogged this one)

Notorious B.I.G. isn't dead; he's just in a really long food coma.

President Obama released a memorandum stating gay partners should have hospital visitation rights. Critics think this could lead to a slippery slope stating. George Rekers said at the time, "if you give homosexuals an inch, they'll take a footlong." As it turns out, he would know.

A mexican soap opera star is in trouble with immigration authorities after she paid a pizza delivery boy to marry her in order to gain US residency. They knew something was up when the prenuptial agreement stated "US residency in 30 minutes or less or the marriage is annulled." This wasn't the only pizza boy she approached, he was just the only one to sweeten the deal with a free 2 liter of Pepsi.

Smoke an ash has finally cleared over Europe and planes can return the skies. However, upon further inspection the smoke wasn't from a Icelandic volcano but rather a Phish concert.

Hello,

You ever tell yourself to do something, but the longer you wait the harder it becomes? That's how blogging has been for me the past 2 months. It has just sat in the back of my mind while I lived the rest of my life.

So what have I been up to?

I'll keep it brief because this has never been a forum for me to talk about my personal life. As you may know I'm in grad school, so that's what I've been doing. I was marketing director for a student run conference on clean technology. If you are into entrepreneurship and/or cleantech check out the conference website: www.cacleaninnovation.com. looking back I could've used this blog to promote the event but I'm not one for worlds colliding. Now that the conference is over I'm looking for an internship for the summer, anyone hiring? That's where I am at, consumed by school. This isn't a bad thing, I'm paying a lot of money to be in school so I better take it seriously.

So what's happened since I last blogged?

Butler made it to the Championship game.

A volcano

An oil spill

The National released High Violet

The Dow went crazy for a day

Tiger Woods didnt win the Masters

Conan went on tour

I went to Cubs Spring Training

The Lakeshore Theater in Chicago closed its doors

Lost

New CardRunners website

So many good things I could've written about. Anway, expect alot more activity from here on out.

-Matt

PS I don't know what Phil has been up to.

In my last post I divulged that phil and I wanted to start our own online bitcom. Well here are two guys that actually did or atleast made funny videos anyway.

We actually saw these guys perform at the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival last year or in 2008, i can't remember. They did this crazy eleborate 30 minutes sketch the involved time travel and parallel universes. It was pretty trippy and hilarious.

-Matt

• One character buys a butchers block thinking that it would make a good bar (based on real events). Realizing that it was a terrible purchase, they try to make up for it buy hosting a underground arm wrestling tournament.
• The two roommates buy hand guns and eager to use them try to convince themselves that being shot in the foot wouldn't be that bad.
• A friend from college comes to visit in order to come out of the closet, and are surprised to find out that the roommates were overly supportive (not gay themselves, just really enthusiastic).