Our Rock Creek home has been an awesome place to live for the past four years.  For a couple starting out, this home provided the perfect amount of space, is located in a beautiful neighborhood that is full of life, and is a short walk away from the Front Range Village shopping center.  We definitely loved living here.  There last few weeks getting it ready to list have been pretty busy. You don’t realize just how much extra stuff you have until you try to de-clutter from it.  If you’d like to see the results of our effort, you can check out the pictures at our listing.

We’re now looking for a single-family home that’s a little more in between of our two jobs, as well as something that will host a few chapters of our lives.  We’re anxious to see where these next few weeks and months will take us and are excited for the opportunities.

Back in December of 2006, I heard of this site known as Last.FM that tracked the music you listen to and offered recommendations based on those stats. While I rarely take advantage of the radio stations and streaming, I am fascinated by the data my “Scrobbles” bring.  Two years ago I jumped the gun and eagerly published my list before I reached 30,000 songs, so after patiently waiting for 40,000 I am eager to see how much musical tastes have changed over the last two years and 11,000 songs.

Dropped Off the Last List:

• Gym Class Heroes (363 Plays, Previously Ranked #10).  This dropped all the way to #13.

#10: Pearl Jam (402 Plays, Previously not on the list). When the Pearl Jam Twenty documentary came out last fall, I binged on their music for a month straight. If I were to put together a Mt. Rushmore of albums of my teenage years, Ten would have to be on there. Top Album: rearviewmirror (greatest hits 1991-2003) Top Songs: Daughter, Given To Fly, Even Flow.

#9: OutKast (476 Plays, Previously at 7).  Andre 3000 is one of those renaissance men who seems to do anything besides what he does best.  OutKast has fallen down on my list simply because they haven’t produced anything relevant in nearly 6 years.  Top Album: Speakerboxxx/The Love Below Top Songs: Ms. Jackson, Rosa Parks, Hey Ya!

#8: Jimmy Eat World (502 Plays, Previously at 6). Not much to say here, except that this is a solid band that I still want to see live some day. Top Album: Chase This Light Top Songs: Here It Goes, Open Bar Reception, A Praise Chorus

#7: John Butler Trio (562 Plays, Previously at 9).  I think these guys haven’t even peaked when it comes to their music, each album gets better and better. Top Album: Grand National Top Songs: Daniella, One Way Road, Used To Get High

#6: O.A.R. (565 Plays, Previously at 8).  Another band on my “Need to see Live” list, their newest album King, is really good. Top Album: All Sides Top Songs: Right on Time, War Song, This Town.

#5: Red Hot Chili Peppers (594 Plays, Previously at #3).  RCHP was a band that I definitely missed these last few years, and am glad that they’re back with I’m With You, but these guys need to get their stuff together and get on Rdio, which is how I’m consuming 90% of my music today. Top Album: Stadium Arcadium Top Songs: Under the Bridge, Soul to Squeeze, Dani California.

#4: Five For Fighting (613 Plays, Previously at #5). John Ondrasik has got to be the classist musician out there. Top Album: Slice Top Songs: The Riddle, 100 Years, Slice.

#3: Michael Franti & Spearhead (728 Plays, Previously at #4).  When I last wrote about them, I was hoping that their next album would be like their earlier stuff. Sound of Sunshine is as good as you can get, producing one of my favorite songs in Hey Hey Hey.  Top Album: Stay Human Top Songs: One Step Closer To You, Hey Hey Hey, People in tha Middle.

#2: Muse (842 Plays, Previously at #2). Whether it’s working out, coding or having a party, Muse is a great soundtrack to life. Top Album: Origin of Symmetry Top Songs: New Born, Hyper Music, Time Is Running Out

#1: Dave Matthews Band (2011 Plays, Previously at #1). 2012 looks like to be a big year for them, with an album supposedly coming out sometime before December. Now if they would just come back to Denver… Top Album: Big Whiskey and the Googrux King Top Songs: Two Step, #41, Crash Into Me

Thanks for indulging me in the vanity of looking at my listening habits.  If you’d like to check out some of my statistically favorite songs, I’ve created an Rdio playlist.

I’ve been following the Internet hype machine all day. As the rumors of Denver making a hard run for Peyton materialized, it became easy to come up with reasons why he should become a Bronco.  Some of the many reasons that come to mind:

• Denver has a great young offensive line that fosters a great running game, of which includes a Pro-Bowl Left Tackle that will protect Peyton’s blind-side and million dollar neck.
• Denver has a defense that improved in spades last year, and if Peyton is anything like his vintage self, he’s proven that he’s able to elevate decent defenses into good defenses – imagine what he can do with a good defense?
• Denver has young solid wide receivers with tremendous upside
• Denver’s not in the same division as New England (which can’t be said for Miami), and won’t have to deal with “Manning vs Brady” twice a year
• Denver’s not in the same division as the New York Giants (which can’t be said for Washington), and won’t have to deal with “Manning vs Manning” twice a year
• Denver’s not in the same city as the New York Giants (which can’t be said for the Jets), see above.

The Tebow Factor:

I realize that it seems like the Broncos are all in on Tebow, but every single team should be asking themselves: “Is my team better off with Peyton Manning as my QB?” Of the 32 teams, only a half-dozen or so can legitimately say “yes” – Denver is not one of those teams.

I realize it may seem like a setback to send Tebow to the bench after the turn-around he had, but think about it for a second: You can’t argue that Tebow struggles with reading defenses – so imagine being able to learn how to read defenses from the guy who is arguably the best guy at reading defenses in NFL history?  Tebow has the work ethic, Peyton has the ethic + and is a fountain of knowledge that will nourish Tebow.

Does it suck short-term for Tebow? Of course it will, but in the interests of Tebow’s career – this is the best thing that could happen. Tebow gains the knowledge and tutelage under one of the greatest to ever play the game, and will emerge 2 years from now a smarter QB with the same skillset, with 2 extra years of tread on his tires.

If you’re a Broncos fan, you can’t deny that Broncos wouldn’t be better off with Peyton Manning at the helm, in pretty much every way. It’ll be interesting to see how the next few days will play out. There are some teams that legitimately scare me in the Manning race: Tennessee & Arizona in particular – and I think Baltimore is a dark horse in this race that no one is talking about.  Either way, this goes to prove that “waiting for NFL season to start” is almost as exciting as the NFL season itself.

I’m excited to add another February family birthday to my calendar, welcoming my new niece and God-daughter, Sonia de la Luz Balderrama-Durbin, into the world on February 8!  Sonia came in at 7lbs and 20 inches.   Both baby and Mom are doing great and everyone gets to go home today!

Bethany and I will have to wait until April to go visit, but now are counting down the days!

So apparently Broncos fans are all redneck hillbilly ranchers who can’t drive to save their life.  Thanks, NFL.

At least that commercial got one thing right – you’d have to go to a bar to watch the game, as chances are you don’t get NFL Network at home.

Read: Why Coldplay and Adele Aren’t Bringing New Albums to Spotify

If you haven’t used a streaming music service like Spotify or Rdio yet, you’re missing out on where music consumption is heading. The industry is shifting, just like it did at the turn of the century when recording artists had to come to grips with the fact that people weren’t buying complete albums and getting singles – either through Napster and eventually through more legitimate channels like iTunes.

Now a decade into the digital music age, people are moving away from the “ownership paradigm”, where instead of being limited to the songs on your iPod, you can just pay a flat fee or stream whatever you want.  When Pandora first came around, people became happy with having new music to stream – now with services like Spotify you can go a step further and choose a specific song or album.   Personally I’ve come around to this.  Those who know me personally can attest to the level of effort I’ve put towards developing my personal collection, but even I find the appeal in the ability to have any song stream straight to my phone any time I want.

Just like a decade ago, when we had artists who refused to join us in the 21st century (Metallica), you know have artists that are kicking and screaming their way into the streaming era: Coldplay and Adele, who feel that their new albums are too good to simply be streamed.  They can hide behind the notion that their album should be experienced in a certain format or fidelity, but this boils down to one of two things: greed or ignorance.  They think that people should pay more for new music – not unlike how the movie industry is delusional enough to think people are happy to pay full price for a new release rather than rent it.  For their sake, I hope they’re just being ignorant about where the music industry is going and won’t deal with the vitriol people still hold for Metallica.

Adele and Coldplay are kidding themselves if they think the purchase model is competing with streaming models.  The people who don’t purchase their music will do one of two things: steal it or worse – not even listen to it.  In terms of music discovery, people will continue to turn away from the radio and use these streaming services to find something new.  Musicians need to temporarily take themselves out of the “artist” shoes and place their feet in the entrepreneurial shoes.  More and more, recorded music is transitioning from being a product and more towards being a marketing tool to get fans further engaged.  As an entrepreneur, you need to be where your consumers are – and if you’re consciously choosing not to be where people are, they’ll either resent you or ignore you.

“I Hate Tim Tebow”

I Twittered those words last night, sitting in a rain-soaked Mile High Stadium finally fed up with the 18th series of boo’s coming down and the 10th chants of Tebow that started no sooner than halfway through the 2nd quarter of the first game of the 2011 season.  So I posted the following to Twitter:

I hate Tim Tebow – and it’s because of all you jackasses at this game that chant his name. What about him drives you to boo your own team?

So I rang that bell – and I can’t un-ring it. Since then I’ve engaged in some Twitter discussion with Tebow supporters – some of them friends & family – about my comments and what spurred them.  While I can’t put this toothpaste back in the tube, I feel like I need more than 140 characters to explain what I said, and why I wrote what I did:

“I Hate* Tim Tebow**”

* ”Hate” is a strong word, but it’s important to understand Sports Hate vs. Real Hate.  Because of the affiliation nature of sports, you have the ability to hate a player for what they do on the field, or you hate that they’re on a team that you rival.  You don’t hate the person personally, or want anything bad to happen to them or their family – you just don’t want to see them do great in sports at that moment.

** In the case of Tim Tebow, I don’t have a problem with Tim as a player or as a guy. He’s a charismatic athlete who has found success in a conventional game through unconventional ways – it’s easy to understand why people gravitate to him and root passionately for him.  At the same time, Tebow has (unintentionally) bred an aura of mal-content and distrust amongst Broncos fans against the coaches, management and team in general.  Over the years as we have watched the team suffer some fallbacks, it seems that fandom has taken a turn for the worse.  Once unconditional supporters, Broncos fans have now become fickle, ready to turn on their team with a series of boo’s after every bad play.

This is nails on a chalk-board for me.  There are very few exceptions, but generally you should never boo your own team at home! Last night when the game started, I commented to my wife that there was a great sense of energy in the stadium that hasn’t been felt for some time – that all lasted all of 1.5 quarters, when the boo’s rang down amongst the stands after an interception was thrown.  A steady stream of boo’s persisted for the rest of the game, much like the rain that fell throughout the night.  The boo’s then degenerated into chants of “Te-bow, Te-bow” throughout the third and fourth quarter.  In the storied South Stands, fans started to turn on each other, with one fan profanely ripping into a guy for saying Orton should get the benefit of the doubt.

I hate to say it, but last night the Raider fans showed more class towards their team.  It was no surprise that they egged on Broncos fans that chanted for Tebow.  Why not root for the continued fracturing of fanbase of your rival?

I realize Tebow didn’t ask for this (at least not directly – Tebow has no shortage of endorsements, public appearances, and has written memoires at the age of 23).  Tebow didn’t ask to be drafted in the first round. Tebow didn’t ask to play for John Fox and John Elway.  Tebow didn’t ask to sit on the bench while his team is struggling – I get all that.  What I don’t think Tebow fans get though is that putting him in isn’t going to solve all of your problems.  John Fox and his staff have forgotten more about football than most fans know.  As fans we have a right to second-guess the coaches, but in the first game in the first season: the coaches deserve the benefit of the doubt. They feel Tebow isn’t the right guy to play in this situation, we should accept that.  If you don’t agree with that – fine, then don’t cheer Orton – but to boo the guys that put their health on the line to ultimately entertain you – that’s classless.

The problem I have with Tebow is that his presence is turning a segment of Broncos fans into Tebow fans, who couldn’t care less about the state of the team.  All that matters to them is to see their guy play. Nevermind the other 44 players on the team. Nevermind that Tebow is currently the 3rd-string QB after a training camp where he seems to have regressed in his performance.

Orton shares in some of the blame for last night’s loss, but there’s plenty of it to go around. Orton didn’t make the running backs anemic in their 38 yard performance. Orton didn’t commit 6 holding penalties on the offensive line.  Orton didn’t drop passes.  Orton didn’t let the Raiders rush for nearly 200 years last night.  Tebow is not going to make all of this better.

I realize that I’m extremely fortunate to be able to attend home games, and that there are people far more deserving than I that don’t get to go, but it’s not fun going to the games anymore – not because we’re losing, but because being completely infatuated with a single player, the fans have lost sight in what it means to support their team.

Unfortunately, like that Indie band that you’ve passionately followed, they became big and were never quite the same. In Digsby’s case, it was acquired by a company called Tagged back in April. In their blog post, Digsby claimed they were going to continue to support Digsby and they were going to determine the long-term plans for Digsby. Over three months later, with virtually no communication from their blog, in their forum or through their Twitter account – let alone any changes to their app – the long-term plans are all too apparent: there are none!

To be fair, they’ve made small bug-fixes whenever MSN changed their protocols, but the straw that’s breaking my fact is that on July 1st Twitter changed their authentication model, which broke the way Direct Messages are retrieved. I’ve submitted a bug and scoured the forums to no avail.  In fact, the only topic that is getting traction on the forum is the “Digsby Dead” topic, where other fans are concluding that Digsby has in fact died.

So Rest In Peace Digsby. You were a great product which I loved, but I’m not going to continue to use a product which is no longer supported.  At least there’s on take-away: you guys gave Trillian a swift kick in the pants and now they’re passing you by. In related news: I am now using Trillian again.

Please, prove me wrong. I’d be happy to come back.

Old Town Fort Collins bars plan to launch ID scanners

You need to read the story, but in a nutshell an initiative called “Downtown After Dark” wants every establishment in downtown Fort Collins to install drivers license scanners, as well as photograph everyone that enters a bar in Fort Collins at night.  They want to build a database of all patrons so that they can easily identify trouble-makers.

They say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”, but I’m not even sure if these intentions are that good. I can appreciate the intention of wanting to curb bar fights and disorderly conduct, but is giving the police a database on everyone that goes out the way to do this? Talk about “guilty until proven innocent.”

If we’ve learned anything by the internet: building a database of personal information will surely get hacked. It’s like what Steve Buscemi said in Armageddon, you’re going to put your trust into something that was built by the lowest bidder? They said that the ID system is being targeted by the small minority of disrupters, but it’s the vast majority that’s going to be impacted when some identity thief gets into that data. Moreover, if you have open access to employees in these establishments, how hard is it for a seedy worker to go in and get the address of woman he’s decided to stalk?

You then have the issue of what’s considered “unruly behavior”. I’m sure the law enforcement in Fort Collins do a fine job, but this system becomes all too easy to track the whereabouts of anyone out to have a good time in Fort Collins. What happens when someone who has unpaid parking tickets shows up at the bar?  What happens if a private investigation firm gets access to this DB. All of the sudden your employer can now find out whether you were drinking the night before you called in sick?

Each one of these systems costs $1800 – multiply that by the number of bars in Old Town and watch those costs sky-rocket.  Those machines need to be paid for by someone – whether it’s the owners hiking the prices of drinks, or the tax-payer when this measure is put on a ballot.

This all boils down to the fact that some bars in Old Town have a problem over-serving people. Instead of cracking down on the patrons who are having a good time, not causing any trouble and pumping money into the local economy, why don’t we crack down on the bartenders who aren’t cutting people off when they need to be? There are bars in Old Town which constantly have these incidents, why not crack down on the owners of these places to beef up their own security before tracking anyone who goes out in Fort Collins?

It does scare me a bit that we’re starting to look back at things in the 90′s – the era of my teenage years – with the same patronization as we are with the 80′s. Does this mean I’m getting old?

I’ll try to describe it, but you really just need to go see if for your self: Imagine having a listening party. You sit in a circle with 4 other people and go around and each pick out the next song you’re going to play. Meanwhile, there could be a room full of people listening to the music you’re picking out. If they like the song you get brownie points, if they hate the song it gets skipped. That’s essentially Turntable.fm. In an era where people walk around with ear buds, this is a great way to socially experience music and discover new songs.

You can simply go to listen and vote, and for many it’s a human-Pandora streaming experience.  Different rooms have different genres, but the ones I’ve loved the best are the “anything as long as it’s good” rooms. Secretly I think many of believe ourselves to be music connoisseurs and experience joy in sharing new music with friends. There’s also joy in invoking great music memories by playing a classic song. At the same time you don’t want to disrupt the musical flow.  I don’t like listening to the radio, but I still desire the discovery of new bands and songs – this site gives a great social element to doing just that.

Simply said: you need to try out this site. Come join me! If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll see when I’m logged in and we can DJ together! Fair warning though: you’re going to lose hours and nights to this site!

At this point you’ve probably heard of Google+, their latest foray into Facebook’s territory. "Heard" is probably the key word, because so far very few people have even seen it. The invites have been slim, and after more than a week of being unmasked, I only personally know one person who has received an invite.

As expected though, all of the tech journalists and pundits have received their invites, and since there have been numerous articles, videos and podcasts touting the new service. People have devoted their entire shows to covering the new features and whether Google is a game-changer in the social networking space. I don’t blame the tech journalists for covering this and discussing this – it’s their job.

At the same time, I think that many of the pundits are failing to notice the disparity between themselves and the people they are supposed to inform. I understand the intention of wanting to give people a good perspective of Google+, but hearing these people get caught up in the excitement is only serving to remind me that the pundits are the cool kids, and we are not. They’re inside raving about the meal, while the rest of us are standing outside with our noses pressed against the glass.

Maybe Google may be thinking they’re carefully cranking the "hype" dials, giving the loudest voices the first access, but Google is walking a thin line right now. While people now seem excited about getting a glimpse, their excitement may turn into resentment as people’s patience wears thin.  One can only go so long only hearing about something without any chance of a glimpse.

My hope is one of two things happens: Google starts to open the flood gates on invites, so more of us "common folk" can starts to play with Plus, or that the pundits stop drinking the Google Kool-Aid and let the hype calm down.  Hopefully all of you that want invites will get them soon!

Update: It looks like Google is starting to open up the invite process. I was actually able to get in this morning.  Who else is in?

I grew up a Marvel guy while dabbling a bit in the Batman books, but I never really got into Green Lantern until the Kyle Rayner era.  I grew to really like Rayner, to the point that I despised the decision to bring Hal Jordan back as the main Green Lantern – so I have a had time with this character to begin with. That said, the writing going on in the Green Lantern books is amongst the best in comics right now, and I’m really enjoying the storyline.

Caution: Spoilers Ahead

I went into this movie with pretty low expectations. I think it was one of the few movies where each time I saw the previews I wanted to see it less. I’m not a big Ryan Reynolds fan, but I don’t dislike him – and I know my wife likes seeing him in movies. I was pretty leery of the CGI-suit, as well as how all of the aliens would be portrayed in the movie.

Walking out of the movie, it about lived up to my quasi-low expectations.  I didn’t hate it, but on the heels of seeing X-men First Class – which had a pretty adult storyline – Green Lantern really came off cheesy.  The dialog was pretty poor, there were a lot of mischaracterizations and characters who were pretty rich in the comics became very one-dimensional.  This movie is almost like a meal where you have all of the right ingredients, but screw up the amounts so that you’re tasting the wrong things in your dish – that was Green Lantern.

I loved seeing Oa (the Green Lantern planet) and loved the training sequences, but felt like that whole movie was way to short.  I wanted them to spend more time with the Corp, more time with some of the other strong and developed characters (namely Sinestro).  The storyline was inconsistent how they painted the picture of the Green Lantern Corp, but when it came time to take on Parallax, all of the Lanterns were conspicuously missing.

The worst part was at the end (after the credits), when they had Sinestro putting on the yellow ring. Here was a character, while very well developed off-screen (and partially from my comic knowledge), had no real attachment with the audience and yet was somehow supposed to draw a surprise reaction by putting on this yellow ring. I felt like the director at that point was like “Crap, I don’t think we’re going to get a sequel on merit alone, we better put in some kind of tease.”

One thing that came to mind while reflecting on this movie: what if I’m not the target audience.  More and more we saw Super Hero movies that have very adult themes: like The Dark Night and X-men First Class. However, what happens when you see this movie through the eyes of a young teenager or tween?  All of the sudden the dialog doesn’t seem as cheesy.  Given that aside from some freaky scientist mutations, there really wasn’t a lot of adult content, and the love interest between Hal Jordan and Blake Lively’s character didn’t really get too steamy or complicated. Maybe this movie, similar to Star Wars, was targeted towards a younger audience.

Right now this movie would probably fit at the bottom of the “2011 Super Hero Summer” list, below Thor and X-men First Class.  I’m anxious for Captain America to come out later this month, at which point would be a good time to update the Top 10 Superhero Movie list I wrote in 2005.

What did you think of Green Lantern?