Author Archives: Brian Alvey

Like I said, I’m glad the new Autoblog logo is a new take on my old one and not something radical. I am considering snagging the old “tire tracks” background I drew in Illustrator and slapping it on my own blog. We’ll see. My old logo: Matt’s Dennis’ new one: UPDATE: Matt did all of the site’s design work, butContinue reading “The Autoblog redesign”

I read a story about Bono and The Edge writing the music for a Spider-Man musical about a month ago and I have had trouble getting it out of my mind. When I saw Spider-Man 3 I thought to myself, “Wow, I hope Spidey has better luck on Broadway than Mary Jane had.” Just like with Cork’d, IContinue reading “Spider-Man on Broadway”

Last night, Gwen Stefani kicked off the summer concert series at the Nikon Theater at Jones Beach. I half expected someone in the tour’s marketing team to place little stickers over those signs changing it to the “Akon Theater at Jones Beach” for the night since he was one of her opening acts, but thatContinue reading “Without a Doubt”

Some of my favorite Dans — one I worked with and one I haven’t yet — made a clever little social wine site called Cork’d about a year ago. Just a few days ago they sold it to a new company run by Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV. When they launched I had a ton of great ideas for Cork’d, but IContinue reading “Cork’d gets acquir’d”

I’ve been a big fan of Squeeze for a long time, seeing many of their line ups over the years and turning my sister on to them as well as individual members like Glenn Tilbrook, Chris Difford, Paul Carrack and Jools Holland. This year after an eight year break they’re doing a short reunion tour. Their reunion isn’t getting the press thatContinue reading “Tempted by the flute of a Mothra”

After more than six weeks of me not drinking any Diet Coke, Niki’s cousin is visiting and we have a case of very attractive cans in our kitchen. I’ll let you know how it goes… Update: There are like four frosty cold cans of Diet Coke in our refrigerator this morning. None in the basement whereContinue reading “Diet Coke in the house”

Before I turned four, I spent a bunch of time at Virginia Tech and have lots of memories of Blacksburg. My mom used to take me for sundaes in nearby Roanoke. I remember a little girl named Tabitha who lived in our neighborhood who had the same birthday as me. I have a pretty vividContinue reading “Virginia Tech memories”

Our Weblogs GM Judith Meskill is leaving. Today we’re having some Weblogs sales meetings in NYC and tonight we’re taking her out for a farewell dinner. It has been a roller coaster ride recently for me at AOL. Losing Judith is definitely a low. Meetings with the new AOL Platforms boss Ted Cahall and theContinue reading “If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower”

The Boston Marathon takes place today and one of the official participants will be running the marathon from space, astronaut Suni Williams. I’m sure it’s a lot of work to run a marathon even when you’re weightless and I am happy to report that they are not counting the space station’s own orbiting into her distance. I can’tContinue reading “Force equals the gravitational constant times Boston mass”

Some of you have known for a while that I’m on my way out, but to others it’s likely to be a surprise. Is it because they are prepping the company so they can sell it to Microsoft? No. Is it because all of the management who paid attention to you and respected your business and your teamContinue reading “Why I am leaving AOL”