Guess I know what my next career is if the whole entrepreneurship thing doesn’t work out…

Demo Day Urtak

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I mean this in good fun, guys.

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Which is why I’ve proposed a few ideas to help us get the best of both worlds: crazy startup work ethic + physical fitness. What do you think?

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Here is the SpeakerTexted video (click on the text below the video to jump to the important parts – there’s lots of fluff up front):

I’d love to hear what people think of Dino.sr and what ideas you all have for it. Thanks, friends!

Shane

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Now that I’ve made it through grad school, and my band mates are off having kids and working their lives away 9-5, my dreams have crossed over to a different platform. I’m building tech startups and dreaming of making it big, landing VC funding, and having geeky Rails programmers whisper as I pass them in the hall at NerdCon.

Perhaps it’s not as sexy, but it’s glamorous in its own way. And I’ve realized the parallels between starting a rock band and starting a web company are pretty spot on:

I can see the natural progression I made in the music world closely parallels my progress in the tech world. My first band was a crappy punk band, Lynette. We thought we were awesome, but we weren’t very unique. We just played local venues until other bands stopped inviting us when they realized we sucked. Then I started an electro-punk band, Jersey City Fire, which was more innovative, especially in our live show setup. We got to play some shows out of town, but the team didn’t work out in the end. Then I started a dance/pop-core band, K&TK, and we blew people’s socks off (at least comparatively). We toured across the west, recorded some songs, and had a lot of fun. We had the perfect combination of team members, a unique but poppy sound, and lots of drive and hard work. We would play our songs acoustically at random parties to gain fans when we weren’t playing real shows, run online campaigns to drive traffic to our Myspace, and practice relentlessly.

Then people got married and stuff, so we let that dream die peacefully, knowing we might have had a shot if we wanted it.

My first website post-college was a sort of Digg for UFO nuts, AlienUFOBelievers.com (I made it after one of the band guys “saw” a UFO in Montana). It was a cool idea, but there wasn’t a whole lot of market potential. The site was buggy and got hacked, and I sold about $200 in stickers by the time I quit. I started some other sites, which were better constructed and had more potential for ad revenue. They still make me a little money, but I won’t be buying a yacht anytime because of them. Then I started PrintingChoice.com, a Travelocity-style search engine for business card, flyer, postcard, and brochure prices. It has a solid revenue model, and has done quite well. I put that on autopilot and started Scordit.com, a social site that pivots around products people are obsessed about. Users joined, creating thousands of pages of content, and I felt vindicated when sites like GDGT and Hollrr launched with similar ideas and gained a lot of attention. My bands were starting to suck less and less.

Now I’m working on two projects pivoting off of Scordit: mainly Dino.sr, a site for gamers that revolves around games you’ve beat/played/want and lets you created game-specific microblogs of your game progress (and the site is a game itself); and on the side I’m helping with isWearing.com, a real-time stream of people answering the question “What are you wearing,” which aims to help people dress better. Both of these have clear paths to monetization and sort of culminate the experiences I’ve had in my previous ventures. I’m sure these won’t be the last web products I create either. I’ll keep working hard and building better stuff every time, and one day one of my “bands” will get picked up by that major label — I have no doubt about that.

Starting a rock band is a very entrepreneurial experience. I’d be interested to see how many tech companies have been started by people who played in bands. Really, I think being an entrepreneur is all about executing creative ideas — being the guy (or girl) who actually starts a band rather than sitting around with friends and talking about how cool it would be, or being the one who actually sits down and builds a prototype rather than just talking about it for years until someone else builds it.

Sorry Lollapalooza, but NerdCon here I come.

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“Your butt looks great in those pants.”

Is this a compliment? Or is this cynicism? Who knows? If this sentence were spoken and the tone turned down on word “great,” it could instantly convey the opposite of its literal, printed meaning.

Instant messaging and other digital communication formats have adopted what are called emoticons to express attitude in writing, in the form of sideways smileys and frownies and even confuseys :S. However, even with the help of the standard emoticons, some feelings, like sarcasm, are notoriously difficult to convey.

And this brings me to vampires.

Sometimes you just feel vampirey, you know? Come on, you know you do. If you live in America, you’ve seen enough episodes of Angel/Vampire Diaries/True Blood or read enough (ridiculous) books about vampire teens wanting to make out with other vampire teens to relate to the whole tortured lonely romance/biting people thing. But there’s no emoticon to indicate your sulking, brooding, or cold frustration to your friends on the other end of Gchat! On an increasingly digital planet Earth, how’s a person to express vampirish emotions in a clear and efficient way? For exactly this reason, I am officially coining and unveiling a new emoticon: the Vampiremoticon!

:F

As you can see, it’s clearly a sideways vampire, full of fangs and raw emotion. Oh, and sexiness. Take a moment to admire.

Contrary to what you may believe, the Vampiremoticon can be used in a variety of ways other than just to indicate darkness and depression. It can also at various times be used to indicate frustration, silliness, sarcasm, and a desire to bite someone. Here are a few usage examples:

Man this weather sucks. :F

That mall clerk was such a jerk! :F

Your butt looks great in those pants. :F

Your mom! :F

You get the idea. Try the Vampiremoticon in your own life, and see how naturally it becomes part of your communication. I think you’ll love it!

What’s YOUR favorite usage of the Vampiremoticon?

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But then, Krang’s not the kind of guy who messes around with anything.

Though his motives were foggy, it’s clear that no other device could serve Krang’s astronomically evil purposes better than the hulking monstrosity known as the Technodrome.

He stole it from Drakus on Dimension X and warped it away using its built-in Super Portal, one of the machine’s various transportation methods. (The Technodrome is capable of traveling by land, sea, subterra, and outer space, given a properly functioning engine.).

Sadly, Earth’s pathetic technology wasn’t up to snuff with the futuretech of Dimension X, so Krang ended up spending most of his free time trying to repair the Technodrome, rather than usingit to rule the world (once those irritatingly self-righteous turtles were out of the way, of course). Little did New York City know that beneath its bedrock lurked a machine of unimaginable awesomeness. Like many inventions that arrived before their time, the T-drome would not ever achieve mainstream popularity simply because the world was not ready for it.

That unfortunate fact aside, Drakus’s mechanical monster was home to an impressive lineup of goodies. BlackBerry, Microsoft, Lexus, and Tesla can’t hold a candle to Krang’s deviously appropriated  ultragadget, though many such companies have undoubtedly tried to craft a piece of technology as extraordinary and versatile. However, recent advances indicate that a craft with comparable capabilities may only be a few years off.

The Technodrome boasts an array of bells and whistles beyond its classy chassis. Click here to see my Scordit blogazine post on all the goodies Krang’s megagadget sported.

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Krang is brilliant and crazy. Both traits of a typical genius. Throw “sinister” into the mix and you get evil genius, a foe who’s so cunning that only its own lunacy can stop it.

If you watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoons on Saturday mornings (as every child born between 81 and 88 should have), you’re aware of Krang’s mysterious back story. Ruler of Dimension X, came to Earth with his technodrome (which lost its record as the world’s largest gadget when the Large Hadron Collider was built), decided to destroy said Earth with his new friend, Shredder, for ambiguous reasons, etc.

Krang’s cryptic history gives rise to a myriad of questions. Why hate humanity so bad? Why is the Technodrome always breaking down? Why build yourself a bald robo-suit wearing just underwear and metal shoulder pads?

I hope to address some of these issues in future posts. At the start of my quest for a more complete understanding of Krang, however, I decided to go to the source: Krang himself. So, I recently caught up with Pat Fraley, the voice of the original Krang. Here’s what he had to say about the universe’s evil genius enchilada:

Pat Fraley was the voice of Krang for 136 TMNT episodes from 1987-1996.

Tvsky: You did voice work for Ninja Turtles cartoons for several years. Which characters did you do, and which was your favorite?
PF: Off the top of my head, I voiced Krang, Burne Thompson, Casey Jones, and various smaller roles like Baxter Stockman, Ray Filet, and Slash. I think Krang was my favorite. I was given a huge latitude in the performance, and early on, with ad-libbing dialogue, which helped set the character. After a season or so, the writers picked up on Krang’s way of relating to Shedder, and that was a joy.

Tvsky: Krang was a particularly enigmatic villain. Can you shed some light on what it’s like being a limbless brain?
PF: He was a loser, and he knew it. Krang’s anger was always bubbling under all he did. The comedic aspect to Krang came from playing him like a long-suffering Jewish mother.

Tvsky: 10-15 years after the cartoon series ended, where do you think Krang would be now? Still trying to fix the Technodrome? Still chilling with Shredder?
PF: I can’t imagine Krang being any different, but then again, I’m not a writer. In a way, he’s kind of like Daffy Duck:  After 70 years, the duck is still arrogant, vain, prideful, and trying to get his way.

Tvsky: Technology has advanced a lot since the early 90s, and Krang undoubtedly would be due for a suit upgrade. What technology and features do you think he would opt for nowadays?
PF: He’d probably be up to the point where his android body would have a Mylar headband.

Tvsky: What’s a typical day like for the universe’s most evil brain? For example, what does Krang eat? Is he hip to things like Facebook and Twitter?
PF: There is no existence for Krang other than what we have seen. It’s kind of like wondering if The Lone Ranger ever went to the bathroom when the commercials were playing. I don’t think so. Beyond his reality.

Tvsky: If Krang were to be invited onto a reality television show, which do you think he’d prefer to appear on?
PF: Definitely some kind of anger-issue loser reality show. He’d be wearing a doo-rag, and talking about how much he enjoys the control he has now that we works out of his own home studio.

Tvsky: If there was one final thought the brain could leave with those of us who grew up with TMNT, what do you think it would be?
PF: (gurgle) Stoppp annoying me with yooour pathetic questionnnsss and leave mee allonne!! (slurp, gurgle, burb)

Check out some memorable Krang quotes along with Mr. Fraley’s voice skill in the following video!

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What you can expect to find at Scordit.com:

The powers of shameless bragging and longingful wishing
Scordit lets you create a personal profile and then “score” things that you’ve bought, received, or otherwise gotten, and then show them off to your friends and the rest of the world. It’s pretty addicting. Not a big spender? Down on your luck? Still in school and eating Ramen Noodles? That’s ok! At scordit you can also “wish” things that you come across that are cool, and then people can GET THEM FOR YOU when it’s your birthday/whatever. Also, it helps you not forget all the cool things that you always say “I’d love to have that” about when you’re online and browsing around. P.S. I’m not sure that “longingful” is a word, but either way…

Cool gadgets of all sizes and varieties
Not only do your scores and wishes go up on scordit.com, but everyone else’s do too. When you wish for other people’s scores, those items get bumped up until they make it to the top of the category pages, and eventually the home page. So you can come back all the time and check out the neat and/or crazy stuff that’s popular these days!

All your friends, once you invite them and add them!
Yep, just like everywhere else you can add friends. Once you add someone, you can see their scores and wishes in your “friends” tab, which is a cool way to keep on what your friends are getting or what you could possibly get them if you’re ever in the market for a gift. Or it could give you fuel to make fun of your friends, which everyone loves! “You wished for a pink leopard guitar strap?! Lol!” (Only you wouldn’t say “lol”, you’d actually laugh. Unless you’re a nerd…)

Anyway please check out the site, sign up, and tell all your friends! I’ve been working on this site for over 6 months and I need all the help I can get to get things rolling! Enjoy!

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“Bill Clinton ‘I never inhaled‘”

“Facts about Squanto”

“Nicene Creed Explained”

“Sky Pee” – i have no idea how i came up for this

“Walrus facts”

“Who were squanto’s parents”

“Walmart TV Antennas”

“Starcraft girls” – what?

“Largest maxi pad” – sick!

“Birthing Hips” – What in the world? Why would you search for this?

“Faking your own death and drawing blood” – in case you want to disappear after donating to the red cross…

“Fishitarian” – a surprising amount of people search for this, even though I made the word up!

“Analysis of the perks of being a wallflower” – silly high schoolers and their silly high school English classes!

Who woulda thought?

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