Agmon Dot Com

1. Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)

2. Insomnia (Erik Skjoldbjærg, 1997)

3. The Machinist (Brad Anderson, 2004)

4. Spider (David Cronenberg, 2002)

Techcrunch noted earlier this week that Google is monetizing over a billion video views a week.

I bet they do it by having highly relevant ads embedded in their videos, such as the one below. Classy.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a flu in the past couple of days, which allowed me to spend countless of hours feeling sorry for myself, bidding farewell to anyone I ever cared about, and basically trying to kill time in any possible way.

Here we go, flu-time special.

Peace Dove Fail:

Jimmy Kimmel is having fun with Obama’s Auto-Tune:

Always worth a mention: ‘What is Love?’ with special guests:

A beautiful Levis ad:

An interesting animation technique by Donato Sansone:

VIDEOGIOCO by Donato Sansone.

Random pictures from the Chicago Marathon, Sunday 8am, 0 degrees celsius. 45,000 runners, 1.4M spectators.

I hope to be running it next year.

Backpacking in Alaska isn’t easy: the remote distances and limited road access almost force you to stick to the major tourist routes. It’s hard to go off the beaten track in Alaska without spending lots of money on float planes to unload you in remote regions and pick you up when you are done with your excursions. Such excursions would also require serious amount of planning and gear, which make it less suitable for the casual backpacker.

There are, however, a few ways to avoid (as much as possible) the cruise-ship crowds. I would recommended the following itinerary for a 2-week backpacking trip:

• Juneau; Hike up to the MendenHall glacier; Take the tram up Mt. St. Roberts.
• Go aboard the Alaskan Marine Highway ferry to Skagway.
• Hike the 4-day Chilkoot trail. It’s a difficult yet a highly rewarding hike that traces the Klondike goldrush passage into the Yukon.
• Take a bus from Whitehorse to Fairbanks, and the bus/train from Fairbanks to Denali.
• Spend a couple of days camping in the Denali park. Find your spot amongst the photographers with the 450mm lenses, and observe bears, lynx, moose, mountain sheep, foxes and more. If you are lucky – you may be able to see Mt. Denali in all it’s amazing glory.
• Buy and read the book ‘minus 148‘, an unbelievable account of the first winter ascent of Mt Denali.
• Leave the park, promising yourself that you will come back again at least once more in your lifetime.
• Take the train/bus to Anchorage.
• Not much to do in Anchorage, besides eating at Sacks Cafe & Restaurant. Amazing food!
• Rent a car in anchorage, drive south to Skagway. On your way to Skagway, make a stop in the enchanted town of Hope, that seems frozen in time.
• In Skagway, climb up to Harding Ice field; take a boat tour to Kenai fjords; visit the amazing aquarium; eat superb sea food in Ray’s waterfront restaurant; see a movie in the town’s beautiful old movie theatre.
• Back to Anchorage, and home, knowing that part of you will always stay in Alaska.

Some general tips:

• Guide book: Lonely Planet was an excellent guide book, mapping things to do, where to stay, etc.
• Cost: Plan on an average of $200/day/person. Alaska is expensive. Get the Alaska Tour Saver coupon book – you may end up saving hundreds of dollars.
• Weather: this is the trickiest part. With an average of over 15 days rainy days a month, you are bound to get wet. You need to be ready to spend time outdoors, no matter what the weather is like. Pack good rain gear – you’ll need it!
• Gear: If you plan on hiking the Chilkoot trail and/or spending time in Denali national park – make sure you bring with you full camping gear, a tent, warm sleeping backs, air mattresses, etc. In the Chilkoot trail you would also want to have with you bear spray. There are plenty of bears in the area, and exercising extra caution is advised.

I’m always late to hear about interesting concerts and events. I even managed to miss Nirvana’s last concert (well, the one before the last one) in Slovenia, just because I was too lazy to buy tickets on time. So, basically, I missed out on an amazing concert, and the best pickup line of the nineties: “Hi there. You know, I saw Curt Cobain in his last concert. He looked so profoundly sad. Want to go out for a drink someday?”

Well, thanks to this new thing called Internet, the Nirvana fiasco won’t happen again. Last week, I managed to get hold of excellent tickets for the September U2 concert through Craigslist. Finding the right pair of tickets was a challenge though, as I am very picky about seat location. I had to browse through dozens of postings and switch back-and-forth to the Soldier Field stadium seat map, in order to make sure I have the optimal seat for looking Bono in the eyes.

Earlier today I discovered FanSnap, which is ideal for optimizing your price/location ROI. While StubHub is doing an ok job of listing tickets (I managed to get decently-priced same-day Leonard Cohen tickets in May), but Fansnap’s ticket map and broad ticket availability put them ahead of other players.

As a side effect, I also learned that my original $540 ticket investment is now up by approx. 15%. That’s far more than what my portfolio did over the last 12 months. 15% in a week! Scalping suddenly looks like an interesting business, but that will already be a topic for a totally different blog post…

A great presentation on Netflix culture. A must read for managers everywhere, and especially a must-read for top-level management in corporations of every size. I am not sure who leaked this presentation (and whether it was leaked), but it is also a great  recruiting speech.

Netflix beat Blockbuster to the ground, and with such exciting core values, I am curious to see how they are going to cope with their biggest challenge so far, their battle for survival: the crazy race towards dominating real-time video streaming. With ‘minor’ contestants as Amazon, Google, Apple, the cable companies and every major media company out there, I wonder whether Netflix can innovate fast enough to compensate for their strategic weakness over the cable and network providers?

Netflix vs BlockBuster stock performance

Presentation is pretty long, my dear ADD friends out there.

By the way – If you happen to read this and are a Netflix star – Send me an email – I’m hiring

Disclaimer:
I support Netflix shareholders on a monthly basic by paying a $20 subscription fee for movies I never have time to watch.

One of the signs of one getting older is attending events and realizing that more often than not, you are older than the average crowd…

I was less than half my current age when attending my first big concert, Metallica, in Tel-Aviv in 1993 (unbelievable – I even found a picture of an original ticket thanks to Al Gore’s invention, the Internet). It was an amazing experience, and I’m not sure till today how I managed to stand in the 2nd row without being crushed to death. I do remember however losing my t-shirt during the concert, and catching Kirk Hammett guiter pick…

Fast-forward to 2009. Depeche Mode and Kings of Leon will have to forgive me, as I skipped Lollapalooza’s first day due to rain (did I mention I am getting older? ), yet the following 2 days were a blast. I’m not sure what are the official numbers, but I estimate 250,000 people attended the festival. Tool were my personal highlight.

Here are some random shots I took.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: Thanks Pasha for the tickets!

My Saturday speculations on Google’s Eric Schmidt relationship with Apple materialized faster than expected. Boy I love being right