I was recently talking with my Dad about the Chevy Volt - before the 230 mpg claim - and how nice it would be to drive my entire commute on electricity only. Yeah, that would be sweet!! The only problem I said was "I couldn't see myself buying and driving a Chevy. My dad, a long time Chevy owner, cocked his head and with a look of "wtf are you talking about Willis?" said "what do you mean?!" I knew instantly I had put my foot in my mouth and needed to retract it quickly. I put on my 'BS' in marketing-hat and said, "The brand just doesn't speak to me."

A little Starbucks and a BusinessWeek makes for a nice start to my day

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I've been using tinychat.com a couple times since it recently debuted a couple weeks ago I think. Perhaps there were similar services before that I didn't know about, but tinychat is fantastic. Its simple, apparently interfaces with twitter - but best of all it provides a quick place to chat online without worrying about which service each person is using. Fantastic! I'm using for team projects in my current class.

I know some people are complaining about Safari 4's tabs being up on top, but I love it! It saves just a bit more space giving me more viewing room on my laptop screen. It took a little to get used to, but this is a great feature of an even better Safari.

Twitter

I'll admit I didn't think much of Twitter when it first came out. Heck, I didn't really get the whole fascination with it until just a couple months ago when I decided to sign up to check it out. Usually I sign-up right away for anything new and cool on the web, but Twitter just didn't have an appeal for me.

That is until I clued into companies like 37 Signals, Dimdim, MailChimp and others were using it to communicate with their clients about their respective services. It was suddenly as if their customer service departments were personally messaging me to tell me about service outages or new features I had to go check out right away.

I even follow Minnesota Public Radio's tweets to stay fresh with what is happening back home, or let me know their Budget Hero application has been updated. (I will balance the federal budget!!)

I'm not tweeting all that much - don't want to be one of those people that write about what they eat and when they go to the gym. When I do, I try to keep it professional - dabbling in a little personal branding because you never know what is going to happen.

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MailChimp.com answers one of their common questions with a website: Can I use a purchased email list?

Brilliant!

I'm loving my new laptop bag

Well, its more of a sleeve with a couple of pockets and a shoulder strap.

Like many with corporate jobs and laptops to lug around, I was given a giant leather monstrosity of a bag branded with the corporate logo. But I suffer this affliction no more! I picked up Incase's Nylon Sleeve Plus for Christmas and its been wonderful ever since. Silly how my svelte little sleeve makes me smile a bit inside - especially compared to what my co-workers are lugging around.

Facebook

Having been the 'fat kid' growing up and being teased through much of elementary and high school, I must admit it gives me a degree of satisfaction to see former tormentors tipping the scales. Shallow and maybe a little mean, but damn it feels good.

Kodak Zx1

I still have a soft spot for the MinoHD, but this new camera from Kodak is looking really nice. And its water resistant!!

The Porsche Panamera

Now thats a Porsche I could like....