Brian Alvey

We had a great night last night. Niki said she wanted to get tickets for Rob Thomas at the Beacon Theatre in New York City months ago. We didn’t get them when they went on sale and figured we’d either skip the show or buy some on the ticket reselling service StubHub. We’ve had a great experience with StubHub in the past, so a few weeks back we bought 5th row seats. We were excited.

The show started at 7PM and there were two opening acts we wanted to see but we hadn’t eaten, so we had a quick dinner at the diner on the corner. At 8:10PM we walked to the show. As we passed an independent ticket salesperson (i.e., scalper) who was offering us a seat “upgrade” to the 13th row, I happily thought to myself “well for us that would be a downgrade.” How cool.

Niki and I have seen Rob with Matchbox 20 at Jones Beach and at Madison Square Garden. I saw a solo Rob Thomas show at Live8 in Philly. Niki and I also saw a solo Rob Thomas show with Jewel at Jones Beach and we saw Santana at Jones Beach when Rob came out to sing his monster hit “Smooth.” It’s safe to say we were both looking forward to this show.

The Beacon scanned our tickets and told us our tickets had already been used once and we couldn’t go in. We immediately realized that the person who printed these tickets at home made two copies: one for his friends and one to sell on StubHub. Or maybe he sold the other pair on Ebay.

We remained calm.

I talked to the people in the ticket office at the Beacon and they were incredibly supportive. They couldn’t do anything about the StubHub tickets besides confirm that they were, in fact, used 45 minutes before we tried to enter. They told us to call StubHub and the Beacon ticket rep gave us a free pair of second balcony, second-row-from-the-back seats — just in case we didn’t have any luck with StubHub. Wow. At this point we were Beacon fans for life.

I patiently explained our situation to StubHub. The first thing they did was take down my number in case we got disconnected. Very reassuring. They saw that I’ve used their service a bunch in the past and they connected me with a customer service manager. He apologized and quickly called the local ticket center. He said they had some replacement tickets for us, but we had to go get them ourselves.

I asked the Beacon team what the exact start time was for Rob’s set. They said 8:50PM. It was now 8:20PM. We jumped into a cab to begin our 70 block roundtrip. The ride downtown was slow, but the ticket handoff was fast. Their agent Matt handed us two sets of tickets: one was a pair in the first row and one was a pair in the second row. Amazing. At this point we were StubHub fans for life.

Our cab made its way back to the Beacon. We jumped out at exactly 8:50PM and still had time to get some drinks. Our first row tickets worked first try, no drama, and we spent the rest of the night just a few feet away from the super-talented Rob Thomas. It was incredible.

In September at TechCrunch50 Craig and I got up on stage and told a couple thousand of our closest friends — and tens of thousands of our closest friends who couldn’t make it to SF so they watched on ustream — that our Crowd Fusion platform is being released as an open source project. Unlike the hour-and-a-half episode of This Week in Startups that I was on, this was a six minute presentation (video here) with two minutes of questions from the panel of expert judges. It was a blast being on stage and having people come up to us afterwards with feedback and questions. I definitely need to go to more events and do more speaking!

After a whirlwind tour of Crowd Fusion’s features, we gave out the URL for registering for our beta program. We had 500 signups in the first week and we’ve got about 700 total now. We are managing the beta applicants using our own CMS as a CRM system.

The first round of developers has had access for a few weeks now. The second round is getting access later today, now that most of our documentation has been written. We are going slowly, taking our time with each new user, answering questions about the platform and helping get sites built. “Concierge” is a pretty accurate description of this process. We’ll do a few more rounds of access and then release Crowd Fusion publicly some time in early 2010.

On the way to school this morning, “Under the Bridge” came on the radio and I asked my boys to tell me who the band was. Usually, they pass these music tests on the first or second attempt. They both love the song “Snow,” so I figured they had a good chance of getting the right band for this one.

My 6-year-old’s first guess was Green Day. I said that was close and this is a band with a color in the name. I figured with that clue they’d nail it on the second try.

My 4-year-old: “Pink?”

“Nope. This is a guy singing.”

My 6-year-old: “Maroon 5?”

Wow. I wasn’t expecting that one. “No.”

My 4-year-old: “Black-eyed Peas?”

Again, I was stunned. “No.”

I didn’t realize they knew so many bands with colors in the name. Now I was getting worried they’d start rattling off bands they couldn’t possibly know like Deep Purple, James Brown, Pink Floyd, Whitesnake and the Indigo Girls and completely blow my mind, but my 6-year-old saved the day with “Red Hot Chili Peppers!”

I love taking those boys to school.

My 6-year-old came into my basement office and was fascinated by what I was doing. At first I thought he was amazed by my giant monitor, but it turned out he was digging my wireless mouse. He picked it up and tried using it sideways on the wall by my desk, which was close enough to work. Then he tried the desk across the room with no luck. At this point I freaked out a little because I had open a Gmail reply to a bunch of lawyers about a contract — I didn’t want him to send it by mistake before I finished writing my message.

When I explained to him that I was writing lawyers and needed the mouse back immediately he asked me what lawyers are. I told him that police make sure people follow the laws, but lawyers actually create the laws. They decide what you can and can’t do and these people I’m writing are lawyers who write contracts. I also explained that contracts are agreements, like written promises.

Then I asked him if he knew anyone who used to be a lawyer. He said he didn’t. I told him that my father used to be a lawyer. He said, “Wow!” and then ran off and immediately told his brother that their grandfather used to be a lawyer. He could only have been more excited if I had told him his grandfather was a retired jedi.

What I didn’t tell him was that my dad told me repeatedly that “lawyering sucks” and that I could pick any other career but that one. I’ll hold onto that one. Hopefully this marveling at lawyers thing is just a phase.

Our kids have had Slinkys a couple of times — metal ones and plastic ones. They love them, but within about an hour they’re usually twisted out of shape and don’t go down stairs anymore (unless you count rolling them on their sides as going down stairs). Watching our kids play with them got me thinking that the inventor of the Slinky probably didn’t like kids.

I imagine that he was sitting in his lab, looked over at a spring and had this amazing idea: “I can’t stand all the noise the kids in my neighborhood make. I’d love to create a toy that they can only play with in the middle of the street. Maybe a game where they walk slowly, hunched over looking through goggles at the double yellow lines. No, parents will never fall for that one. Eureka! I will make a toy that children can only play with on a staircase! And they’ll have to go all the way to the top and lean over and do this complicated motion with a spring.”

Nice.

I shared this theory with Niki and she told me how her parents got her and her brother Slinkys when they were growing up in Florida — in a house without a staircase. There was one step up into the foyer, then one step down into the carpeted family room.

A one-step Slinky might very well be the saddest toy in the world. Safe, but sad.

What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, and makes a slinkity sound?
A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing! Everyone knows it’s Slinky.
It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky. For fun it’s a wonderful toy.
It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky. It’s fun for a girl or a boy.
It’s fun for a girl or a boy.

Yesterday the wonderful Crowd Fusion team launched our second site: a green news site called Super Eco. Super Eco has been in the works for several weeks now and it showcases many of the platform features that you may have already seen on our consumer electronics news site Obsessable. You can follow Super Eco on Twitter, on FriendFeed and on Facebook.

Here are some of my favorite Super Eco links:

• Feature: What’s in your underwear?
• Feature: What ‘organic’ means
• Topic: The greening of the White House
• Interview: Matthew Modine
• Profile: Al Gore
• Profile: World Wildlife Fund
• Comparator: Shampoos compared

C.K. created a brief video tour of Super Eco.

Super Eco’s tagline is “This planet means the world to us.” Here’s a quick overview of Super Eco’s mission from the about page:

Super Eco is the website for people who want to live a more environmentally conscious life but may not know where to begin, as well as for those tracking breaking news and trends. Super Eco is able to contextualize research and how-to’s within stories and news so that information about dishwashers, or compost bins, or Al Gore, or global warming, or hybrid vehicles are presented in a radically fresh, exciting, high energy and helpful manner. Super Eco promotes less worry and more wonder.

Less worry. More wonder. And away we go!

Robert Scoble wrote a couple of interesting posts about having to give up Diet Coke and the end of health privacy last night. His health privacy post is especially timely with Steve Jobs’ leave of absence and all of his recurring cancer and liver transplant speculation.

I used to drink a ton of regular Coke in high school and college, easily more than two liters a day. Years ago I made the switch to Diet Coke. Almost two years ago I gave up Diet Coke cold turkey and haven’t had a soda since.

Scoble’s posts made me reflect on my life with and without soda:

I drink really weak iced tea all day, plus orange juice and sparkling water. Sparkling water wasn’t something I was ever into before, but now Pellegrino and Perrier give me that feeling like I’m drinking bubbly soda again, putting some action back in drinking.

Six weeks after I gave it up, I was tempted by people bringing Diet Coke into my house.

I even had dreams where I went back to drinking Diet Coke by mistake.

More than a year after I gave it up, I wrote about how important living without soda has been for me.

Still, if I know I was having my last meal ever, I would definitely have a Diet Coke with it.

I crave it almost every day.

I’m wishing Scoble lots of luck on this one.

I had read some reviews of the new animated Batman team-up show, but I hadn’t caught the show myself until last night. We were eating dinner and I turned it on in the middle of one with Green Arrow, Speedy and a hooded guy who was floating with a ghost Batman, Ebenezer Scrooge-style. My first guess was that he was the Phantom Stranger, but it turned out to be Deadman. It was a decent show that I’d definitely watch it again, even with the distraction of Batman sounding like a cross between Christian Bale’s raspy Batman and Oswald from the Drew Carey show.

I just looked it up and it actually was Diedrich Bader as the voice of Batman. I’ve heard him in a bunch of other cartoons — as Buzz Lightyear’s foe Warp Darkmatter and in a Scooby Doo Halloween special — so I’ll get used to him. Michael Rosenbaum, Lex Luthor from Smallville (and the Flash from the animated Justice League show), was the voice of Deadman.

Next episode’s preview was for a Batman and the Blue Beetle team up. I wasn’t going to TiVo it until I saw today on ComicMix that Wil Wheaton is the voice of the Blue Beetle. Well that changes everything.

ComicMix has a Brave and the Bold preview video and pictures from the episode. Unlike the one I saw last night, the dialogue in this one is really interesting. In the clip on ComicMix, Batman and the Blue Beetle are breaking into some villain’s fortress and sharing tips about the tools of their trade: lasers, stun guns, knockout gas pellets. I’m not going to transcribe it. It’s a short clip that you should watch for yourself. Cool show.

Tonight I’m catching a redeye or two home after some great meals and meetings with my Crowd Fusion team and a generally successful CES. I didn’t make it to dinner with the team last night, so I tried to make up for it today. What was I doing last night? I was hanging out with some Twitter friends at yet another Intel party. (They do throw good parties.) This one was a private Counting Crows concert at LAX, the nightclub inside of the Luxor.

Brooke Burke was the party’s host. I came close to getting my picture with her like Brian Solis did, but it wasn’t meant to be. I was jammed right up against the stage for the whole show with Brian and Frank though, and I got photos of her welcoming us to her show and some great close-up shots of the Crows.

The band played a great thirteen song set including A Long December, Big Yellow Taxi, Mr. Jones, Omaha, Hanginaround and Color Blind. Pretty much everything I wanted to hear except for Accidentally In Love, Rain King and Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby and a dozen more songs, but who’s counting?

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Last night I went to the Intel party, hosted by @sarahcuda, @somewhatfrank, @briansolis and @zappos, and got to introduce people like Maralyn from AOL (what, no Twitter name?) to @MCHammer and watch @juliaallison be as shy and cameraphobic as usual.

At the party, plenty of people had iPhones and plenty of other people (like me) were talking about how Palm had debuted their Palm Pre iPhone killer earlier that day. Maybe Bono’s big investment wasn’t a mistake after all.

No one played any Elvis songs, even though it was his 74th birthday.

I still have a list of people to meet up with at CES before I go and I’d like to handle some more gadgets like the Sony VAIO P netbook, but I got a lot done in a single day.