Bill Watt’s Blog

God, I was really hoping those last 3 years of options would be worth something but since eBay dipped into the 20’s last week I think those dreams are over.

This is a post from Seeking Alpha with the title Choosing Amazon over eBay: and I’ll refrain from offering any additional commentary

I’ve been asked by several readers why I’m writing more positive posts about Amazon (AMZN) than I do about eBay (EBAY), so I thought I would list the reasons. I still believe eBay can be a fantastic business again but I don’t see that turnaround anytime in the near future. (more…)

Alice and I had a great time catching up with Matt and Hima last night. We went to Zucca European (Yelp reviews) in Palo Alto and the food was ok… not great but ok. It was better the last time I went with the guys for one of our Wednesday night dinners. I most enjoyed the cranberry salad and the chicken part of my main dish was ok. Even the lemon tart stared out pretty good until I realized I couldn’t cut through the crust.

So, all in all it was ok. It was pretty expensive for an ok meal and I think that was my last time there. But the nice thing is that you can always  count on good company and good wine to make an ok meal much much better.

The “big story” from CES right now is about Gizmodo folks running around shutting off TV’s and cutting out the video used for people’s presentations. Yes, it is an idiotic thing to do and similar to when kids go out and vandalize property AND take a video camera, these guys recorded all the evidence on their own .

Well- as dumb as that is I want to talk about this article on Boing Boing and a few associated comments.

1)  I disagree with this comment from the Boing Boing article:

Still, no biggie — just turn the TV back on and you’re up.

Uh… anyone ever had someone pull the whole, “get in the car… I promise I won’t try and drive away as you reach for the door!” trick? It never ends after one attempt. People who do these kinds of things keep going and going.

2) This comment is particularly indicative of our society:

Tv-b-gone is the best tech purchase I’ve made in memory. The blessed peace it gives at restaurants and bars (where people aren’t even watching the damn tv most of the time) is wonderful.

Uh… free market anyone? Go to a restaurant without a TV. People need to remember that they can vote with their feet. One commenter offered a similar response:

If you don’t like the TV on at a bar or restaurant, ask the manager to shut it off. If they won’t, don’t go to said restaurant or bar anymore. Don’t be a jerk and potentially ruin it for anyone else.

Exactly.

Blurg:  Versatile expression of confusion, annoyance, anger, boredome, or surprise, meaning may vary based on accompanying punctuation and prefix. Origins are believed to be in the internet slang used in ID Software’s computer game Quake.

I got the definition at the Urban Dictionary while I got my love of the word from Liz Lemon.

I was watching the 2nd episode of the Celebrity Apprentice tonight. I like the hook of giving money to a charity but it really felt like a gimic in week one. At the start of week 2 it was touching to see the impact that a “mere” $67k had on the woman receiving the check for the charity. Man. As an individual it is easy to think that $67k is a ton of money but in the context of fighting cancer it seems like nothing. Seeing the impact that it had on a person directly involved in the battle was very touching.

Actually… the title of this post says it all.

So, one problem we’ve had with where we live is the growing number of dogs in the development. Don’t get me wrong… I love dogs. What I don’t love are dogs that bark all day or all night. In most cases I feel for the dogs because they’re clearly barking for attention. There was one puppy across the walk from us who was hoarse from barking all day but was really quiet when her owners were there. I left a note and then spoke to her owner who was happy to know what was going on while she wasn’t there. In fact, they’d already started on some training for the puppy and it has been much much better.

But there is this other dog down the street from us who is left on the  deck for hours at a time and goes nuts when people walk past to hit the mailbox. Now that I’m home during the day and mostly not napping (mostly) I hear it barking like Timmy was down the well again. Being a person who likes to address issues, I walked down to leave them a note with my phone number (if you’re going to leave a note, you have to put your name on it otherwise it is just passive aggressive and that’s no way to be a neighbor) and it turns out the owner was there. He was sitting in the living room while the dog was on the deck barking at him.

I actually saw this owner walking the dog yesterday and having watched a few episodes of the Dog Whisperer I could have guessed the problems this guy is having. The dog was walking him. The dog must be all of 5 pounds and was pulling against the leash as if his life depended on it. The sad thing is that it probably would take like a week and then some consistent behavior onthe owner’s part and everone would be happier.
So, the same thing I say about bad parents I’ll say about dog owners… if you don’t want them why do you have them? It is your responsibility, it takes time and it isn’t something you can turn off.

Ok, I’m tired now. Nap time!

Today the first person at one of the Starbucks local to my home remembered my drink and pastry selection.

I’m going to write more about this but I’ve been wanting to post this for 4 days now and I should at least get the link up there for anyone who would find this interesting:

Seth Godin’s post

As an FYI, I found this in a post by Fred Wilson so he should get credit too.

From time to time my friends say things that make me laugh. Here is another of those precious quotes:

“I want to growl, but I’m worried it might come out as a purr.. and people might pet me”