Mike Flacy

Are you familiar with Ping.fm?  It’s a service that allows you to update all your social networks with one click of a mouse.  I thought this was a brilliant idea when I signed up a year ago, but it’s becoming more evident each day that my “lifestream” is molded differently for every social network I belong to.  Occasionally there’s a smidgen of overlap, but I’m typically writing to very different audiences.

I rarely post about politics, but something intriguing on the campaign front caught my eye today. A presidential candidate is advertising in Burnout Revenge. For those unfamiliar, Burnout Revenge is a car-racing video game owned by Electronic Arts.

It’s been about a week since I arrived in Los Angeles and I’m slowly starting to become acclimated to my new, frantic environment.  There’s a strange element of peaceful bliss about getting lost in the chaos of this city.  I’m getting a better idea of the city layout and have starting ditching the GPS just to see if I can find my way around the city.

All the grocery stores are completely different on this side of the country.  I’ve switched from the Publix, Bi-Lo, Ingles and Food Lions of the east coast to the Ralph’s, Vons, Trader Joes and Bristol Farms of the west coast.  The only constant was Whole Foods, but I’d have to sell a kidney to shop there on a regular basis.  Ralphs is the most similar to the east coast stores and there is a great one about a half mile away.  Definitely caters to the UCLA crowd.

I’ve taken some pictures that need to get up on Facebook and Flickr soon.  I’ll try to upload those this week.  I haven’t been keeping up with TV and iPhone apps lately, but I have really enjoyed the new Sunny in Philly

season.  It’s pretty incredible when a show can consistently stay hilarious season after season.  I’m also digging the new version of the Facebook app for the iPhone.  I can finally post to walls and return messages without logging into my computer.  Yay!

Digsby just keeps better and better.  They recently added LinkedIn support to the social networks.  I’m not interested in status updates so much, but it’s interesting to see the updates when people change their job.  Plus I never have to type in my log-in info anymore.

I don’t typically read Mark Cuban’s blog, but he made a great common sense post about building wealth this weekend.  There are too many people living beyond their financial means in this country.  I’d love to eat at Whole Foods and drink Starbucks everyday, but I don’t based on the same principles that he discussed.

I took Chris Brogan’s advice today and beefed up my LinkedIn page a bit.  I added a bit of a summary and linked out to the RSS feed on this blog.  I also wrote a recommendation for a fellow writer.  I’ve really started to notice an increase in networking lately and I’m attributing it to LinkedIn, especially after adding so many contacts.

I’m happy with the blog design for now.  I keep tweaking it every day just a little bit, so expect to see small changes.  I’m also looking to add something new to the sidebar, but I’m trying to figure out what I should toss in there.  I’m really digging the minimalistic look right now, but I’m still missing something.

I also completed a quick video preview of Friend Book for the iPhone this afternoon.  It’s not out on the App Store on iTunes yet and it’s certainly worth checking out when it hits the digital streets.  Click the picture to the left or the Youtube link at the top of the page to watch the 3 minute preview.

I saw a man pushing a baby stroller with a toddler down the road today with his left hand and carrying a running weed trimmer in his right hand. He was either nuts or some sort of Nanny / Landscaper hybrid. Crazy or not, I drove away blissfully indifferent of the Cabbage Patch Kidnapper.

I tend to embrace my apathy. It’s especially fun to invoke during conversations. I’ve noticed that people automatically assume that you are of a differing opinion when clamming up; political and religious conversations in particular. For instance some liberal co-workers at my previous job thought I was a staunch conservative; all from adopting an apathetic stance. Truthfully I’m probably somewhere in the middle, but I don’t see the point in talking about something that I’d have to pretend I had the ability to change.

That’s the real beauty of apathy.  I don’t have to lie to myself about how much I should care about matters of supposed importance.  I get to focus on stuff that’s important to my little egocentric mind instead; work and play perhaps.  Everything else gets deleted from my brain after conversations end.  But on to more social topics…

I added a LinkedIn profile recently for networking purposes.  Seeing how my previous jobs weren’t exactly tech-related, I couldn’t beef up my contact list.  I strapped on my creativity hat and sent a mass-mailing to VGT contacts about adding me.  It will help me keep track of their job-hopping movements anyway.  I got about 60% to add me.  Not too shabby!

I also got in on the Ping.fm beta finally.  For those that don’t know, Ping.fm allows you to send the same status up to mutliple accounts.  For instance, I have it setup to send my status update to Twitter, Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn.  It works with tons of other services as well (FriendFeed, Xanga, Livejournal, Blogger, WordPress, Pownce, etc…).  I have a beta code if anyone wants to sign up.