July 2011 Archives - David Starkweather

Evil Plans is a great book. It’s a book about an idea and about a state of mind that allows you to chase your dreams. Your Evil Plan according to Hugh Macleod is your ability to do something that you love and to have fun while making a living.

Hugh is living proof that it’s possible to do something that you love and make a living at it. He is a former ad man, who slaved away at a job that he didn’t like. He was starting to get burned out at a reletively young age when inspiration hit him. He loved drawing cartoons and he ended up finding a way to turn that passion into a career. He now runs Gaping Void Gallery where he sells his art – some cartoons, doodles and high end art work, all of which was started with a love for drawing cartoons. He’s making money doing what he loves. The book Evil Plans is a collection of his cartoons and his inspiration and encouragement to take the same leap of faith that he did to ‘Have fun on the road to world domination.’

Evil Plans isn’t just about quitting your job and starting a business though. For some people, its doing a better job in your current role or taking on a new project that your excited about…Or it might just be finding a hobby or passion that might one day pay you rewards…and hopefully earn you money. Either way the message is inspiring and the book is a breeze to read. You can buy it here, or learn more about Hugh and the Gaping Void Gallery here.

When I pre-ordered my copy of the book, Hugh sent an autographed drawing along with the book. I keep it at my desk as I plot my Evil Plan.

We just got back from Maui…and it was awesome! (The map has been updated here.)
For whatever reason, Hawaii always had a bit of a stigma against it for me. When people went to Hawaii for their honeymoon or on vacation, I always kinda thought, “well, that’s nice, but why didn’t you go somewhere more exciting!?” Perhaps Hawaii always had a sort of 80’s vibe about it with the Luau’s and tiki torches and all the cheesy versions of it that people brought back to the states and put in their dark 80’s basements. Or maybe it was just because going to Hawaii meant that you weren’t leaving the US, even though you were going to the most remote island in the world. Whatever mental block I had, it has now been removed. In fact I’d have to say that Hawaii was one of the best places we’ve visited, if not THE best, and I think there are a few reasons for that.

From Maui, HI

1. It is so easy to get around. You ARE in the US still so all the US laws and specifically driving rules are the same. Renting a car is easy and is almost feels like you’re back home…aside from the views of course.
2. The food is great. Of course it is, you’re on an island so the fish is as fresh as it gets. This was also one of the reason why I think I wasn’t wowed by Hawaii in the past. They allegedly love SPAM and serve it in restaurants – something that is held over from being on the most remote island on Earth. This wasn’t true.
3. The beaches are fantastic and there are no private beaches! You can go to any resort and use their beach. The four seasons beach was fantastic for snorkeling and the Sheratons beach is where I swam with a giant sea turtle…a wild giant sea turtle! It was as big as me! It was AMAZING!
4. There is something for everyone. There is a terrain for everyone, a type of beach for everyone and whatever you want to do, its here. The island is so diverse with mountains, plains, beaches, volcanoes…you name it and its here. It makes for an amazing view regardless of where you are.

One of the most fun things we did is take the ‘Road to Hana’ which is scenic drive around the eastern coast of the island. It’s an all day adventure full of the most spectacular views you’ve ever seen. There are lots of things to stop and see. Waterfalls, black sand beaches, coastal views the whole way… It was great. the only draw back from this is that to make it to Hana and back, you need to leave early so that you’re not driving back in the dark. We were on the road by 8:30 and we did the last half of the crazy hair pin turns in the dark. It was like driving an Rally car in the dark. Lots of fun

But what may have been the absolute coolest thing that we did was swim with a Giant Sea Turtle! It was awesome. It was as big as me. It just swam up to shore on the beach we were on and started slowly swimming back to the ocean. It was amazing. A huge crowd of people were all floating around it just staring….crazy!

From Maui, HI

So in short, Maui was great. I’d recommend it to anyone trying to decide on a vacation spot. As to what we did on the trip.

Is Netflix destined to fail?
Will Amazon turn from online mega retailer to full service content provider?
Will Google continue to sell us content so that we can click on their ads?

These are all questions that Netflix spawned this week when they announced drastic changes to their pricing policy. If Neflix goes down, and it seems like they might, as they just don’t have the relationships in place to continue moving forward with their On-Demand services, Google, Amazon and Apple all seem posed to take over.

Most people despise their cable operators enough to not buy on-demand movies through them and moving to Google TV/Apple TV or Amazon Instant streaming service all seem like viable options that may end up being the easiest ways to get fresh content.

Amazon seems like the best option to me. They started out by becoming THE place to get books and then get everything else. They offered everybook imaginable on their site and then made the leap to digital books and are able to keep their price points at a reasonable, if not cheap price. They already have the capability to provide access to the movies. You can already buy nearly every movie ever made from their site. So what is stopping them from providing you with every movie available to stream?

Google could end up being the long term winner in everything technology related. They aren’t always first to market but they are able to continually provide users with FREE content that is accessed easily through mediums they are already using. They’ve also just launched a music service to rival Amazon’s MP3 store and Apple’s iTunes. And they have Google Books and recently launched their own branded ereader to rival the Kindle. If those two services can take off, this would lend Google to have the upper hand among their competition in creating the ultimate suite of content services, available on your TV, laptop/PC, or Android mobile device. They have all access points covered and all they need to do is connect all this digital content to your Google+ account and all of a sudden Facebook and Twitter are no longer relevant, Amazon and Apple don’t have the access points and Google gives you the content and serves you the ads, raking in all the money. It’s a win win for them if they can pull it off.

Apple makes great devices. They aren’t for everyone though. They are expensive and elitest in their marketing efforts. iTunes is a great service but with so many other options available, they seem destined to take their ball and go play by themselves. They one caveat to this is the ability to strike an exclusive deal with a movie studio with the launch of a new product…AppleTV3D anyone? That or something similar with an exclusive studio deal could seal Apples venture into streaming movies much like they took over the cell phone market for a while.

Either way, Netflix doesn’t seem equipped to fight off all three of these competitors. More than likely, they will probably remain in business servicing the customers who either don’t want to migrate to the digital services or who don’t have access to highspeed internet connections.

For further reading, here is a great article on Netflix from Lance Ulanoff and PCmag.com that spawned my post.

I’m sitting here watching the Tour de France as I’ve done for the last couple years. This is actually one of my favorite time of year. The Tour is extremely exciting to watch and its even more fun to get on your bike and tear up the streets of your local town imagining you’re whipping through France.

This year however something popped into my head. I’m an avid cyclist and yet I still don’t quite know who to root for! There is Mark Cavendish and Alberto Contrador but neither really seems to stick out as being that guy to pull for.

In years past there was always Lance. Regardless of how well he was riding, you could always pull for him to climb the next hill better than the next guy. Or just to root for someone when you see him riding. This year though, Mr. Yellow Jacket isn’t riding and I’m struggling to find his replacement. With all that being said, international fans and die hard cylcists (a step or two above my fandom level) probably have some people to root for. But in general there isn’t another Lance.

So then I started thinking, if the Cycling big wigs were smart, or even if Versus Network was smart, they should take out a large national ad campaign focusing on a single rider. Someone to be the new spokesman for cycling that people could root for. Someone for cyclists and tv watchers alike could say, “oh, I saw him on a billboard or on tv. Let’s see how he’s doing.” more ad money for versus, more product placement for bike companies, more cyclists on the streets and surrounding the sport. This of course is the same argument Soccer fans have been making for years and I understand the arguments. But as a fan, it’d be fun to see something happen.

As I’m writing this, Mark Cavendish just make the most rediculous comeback to win Stage 5 in the Tour. I feel exhausted just watching him do it. These guys are amazing.

David Starkweather

Evil Plans | A Book Review

Maui | Fish and Macadamia Nuts

Is Netflix The Next Blockbuster?

The Tour Needs a Big Name

David Starkweather

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