Author Archives: Brian Alvey

After a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day today, I stopped at Starbuck’s to get Niki the green iced tea she loves. I was wearing a black t-shirt with a silver Superman symbol on the chest. As I walked in the door, the woman behind the counter said “Superman, I am so gladContinue reading “Superman, I am so glad you’re here!”

I worked with Nick White for years at Business Week. I was working more from home in 1999 when this happened, but I remember the horrible story being relayed to me by some co-workers when I was at the McGraw-Hill Building that next week. Working late on a Friday night he left for a smokeContinue reading “Video of Nick White trapped in an elevator”

Niki and I both use Twitter, despite the fact that neither one of us is a teenage girl. When Niki went into labor 10 days ago, she kept her family and friends updated via Twitter. None of them follow her using the service itself. They just kept reloading her blog to see the new updates in herContinue reading “Twitterbirth”

In the end, that’s what this internet is about. Do we participate in a project of cynicism or a project of code? Project managers call on us to code. Investors call on us to code. I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks bugs will go away if weContinue reading “The Audacity of Code”

When I was in high school I drank Coca Cola like a fiend. When I was in college I was thrilled when three-liter bottles came out. After college I hit my largest weight ever, 225 pounds. Not good. Around the time I met Niki, I was drinking up to two two-liter bottles a day. IContinue reading “Living without soda”

I met an old friend of mine at an event he was attending and another old friend walked up and introduced me to the guy he was talking to, Jack Myers. I don’t know if I gave Jack my business card or if he just has the mutant ability to sense peoples’ email addresses, but IContinue reading “Antigua threatens our IP”

I haven’t blogged in more than six weeks, mainly because there wasn’t a lot of news I wanted to share publicly. Plus, it’s just easier to give a half dozen updates over Twitter every day. Twitter has ruined blogging. We have a baby daughter arriving any day now. Niki’s mom died a week ago on a cruiseContinue reading “Quiet time”

I love web comics. I have a comic book publishing company that’s giving away comics online for free and I follow several strips both on their sites and in my feed reader. Some creators post their whole comic in their feeds and some just send out links letting you know a new strip is online. One of the onesContinue reading “Savage Chickens: One more reason I love web comics”

Niki is a big Nathan Lane fan so for Christmas I got us tickets to the matinee performance of November on Saturday, plus the all-important baby-sitter. November is a new play by David Mamet about a first-term U.S. president who is guaranteed to lose his upcoming re-election bid. He has messed up the country pretty badly andContinue reading “Nathan Lane in David Mamet’s November”