This video ought to give you a good laugh.

This news certainly makes my day. Thankfully, Griffey is not going to Atlanta as was previously reported. I have always been a huge Ken Griffey fan, and am certainly excited to see him in a Mariners uniform again. Count me in for opening day!

Wow, it’s been a big day relating to the state of the housing market — there’s help on the way! Head over to Zillow Blog to learn more about how 9 Million Families are to get mortgage help through Obama’s Housing Plan. I’m guessing refinancing is going to be a hot topic for the next few weeks as people watch what where mortgage rates end up following this.

If this report by AJC is true — all I have to say is DAMN IT. I would probably attend at least twice as many M’s game this year is Griffey was in uniform. I guess my only hope now is to wait and hope ESPN reports something different, such as that Griffey is coming home to Seattle to play in 2009.

Update: AJC was wrong (YAY!) — we still have a chance!

There’s an event next week that I wanted to share with any Seattle techies/entrepreneurs who read this blog. The fact that the proceeds of the event are being donated to a local seattle non-profit in the microfinance field called Vittana just makes the event even more appealing to me. Dave Schappell at TeachStreet gave me the heads up earlier this week, so I wanted to pass along the message:

• Beers and Boulder with Brad
• Wed, Feb 25, 6pm-8:30pm
• $5 entry fee
• Further Details – http://beersboulderbrad.eventbrite.com/

Brad Feld is coming to town and we are having an entrepreneur party. If you don’t know of Brad, he writes the popular blog Feld Thoughts (www.feld.com) and is a managing director at Foundry Group (www.foundrygroup.com). He’s been an investor in a number of Seattle-based companies over the years including AdReady, Smith & Tinker, Shelfari, and Judy’s Book, and is currently on the board of Impinj. Brad’s is also a co-founder of TechStars (www.techstars.org), a great startup program based in Boulder that has helped create a number of interesting companies, including SocialThing (acquired by AOL), Intense Debate (acquired by Automattic/WordPress), and Brightkite.

Brad’s going to spend the evening talking about his views on entrepreneurship, especially around early stage companies in today’s environment. He’ll give us a detailed view of TechStars and why it’s been working, along with an explanation about how he thinks about early stage VC investing. The evening with be heavily Q&A oriented – Brad’s open to any questions about anything.

NOTE: $5 fee will be donated to Seattle-based Vittana (www.vittana.org), an early-stage non-profit building the next step in microfinance — education microfinance.

SPONSORS: Event cost is being kept to a minimum thanks to the generous support of:

• Beacon Law Advisors (www.beaconlawadvisors.com) – Beacon works with startups — end of story. We’re a Seattle-based boutique firm of seasoned corporate, transactional, and technology attorneys who also have significant operating, in-house and entrepreneurial experience. Current clients include: MindBloom, TeachStreet, Vittana, and many more.
• The Microsoft Strategic & Emerging Business Team (SEBT) supports early stage and established software startups developing on the Microsoft platform. SEBT helps develop and grow local software economies worldwide through programs like Microsoft BizSpark, a global program for startups that provides fast, easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and production licenses with no upfront costs and minimal requirements. To learn more visit www.microsoftstartupzone.com.
• Square 1 Bank specializes in providing financial services to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. We help growing companies and their investors navigate financial obstacles by providing access to funds and expertise. Our customized product offerings and unrivaled team of venture banking specialists provide a banking experience designed exclusively for you. We are entrepreneurs serving entrepreneurs. To learn more visit www.square1financial.com

On Sunday evening, I attended the WWE event at the Key Arena, a “cage” match. In short, I think this was the worst live event I’ve ever been to — and I didn’t even have to pay for the show (a friend got me a ticket). If you want to get an idea for how fake the event looked in real life, take your impression after having watched a professional wrestling event on television and multiply it by 100, or maybe even 1000. I used to watch the occasional wrestling event on television with my dad when I was young and thought the world of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Sting (among others). Now, after seeing a real event, I know it’s basically just a massive scam to make money from unsuspecting fans. Yes, sporting events like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL make a boatload of money from fans  — but at least with most sporting events, there is real competition rather than the whole event being staged. It was clear to me the entire outcome of the WWE event was rigged.

I’m sure I could write several paragraphs on how crappy an event it was, but in all honesty — I don’t feel like wasting my time.

My friend, and soon to be roommate, Matt Heuer got all kinds of media exposure this week for the sign he brought to Portland – Oklahoma City game at the Rose Garden. The game marked the first time the Sonics (now the Thunder) returned to the Pacific Northwest after having been relocated to Oklahoma City after last season. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that he had his two year old nephew Zach Rankin with him, but part of the allure of this story for the reporters was that Matt used to work for the Sonics and has been a fan for years. He certainly didn’t appreciate Clay Bennett packing up the team and moving them to a new city after having been in Seattle since 1967, and decided to make a point with a sign — and it certainly worked. Here is a great blog post recapping the night.

At least Clay left us Seattlites the Sonics name should Seattle recruit another NBA franchise. The game was on Wednesday, so I know I’m a bit late to the party — since I was traveling all week and had the REBarCamp Seattle event on Friday, I didn’t hear about this until Friday evening after work. Matt said he was hoping to get on the Jumbo tron at the Rose Garden, but never in his wildest dreams was he expecting to be on virtually every major sports media outlet overnight.

A friend sent me a link to this video and I thought it was worth sharing more broadly (it’s from 2007, so maybe you’ve already seen it):

I’m off to Santa Clara tomorrow afternoon for the SMX West conference, but will be back in Seattle Thursday evening just in time for the Seattle REBarCamp event on Friday morning. If you’re in the Bay Area (or traveling to the conference) and want to meet up this week, e-mail me.

Photo courtesy of John Fenzel

I’m a firm believer that sticking your head in the sand gets you nowhere in life. With that said, I wanted to share a gut retching passage from The Translator that sheds some light on just how ugly this world can be. The memoir, written by Daoud Hari, takes you into the heart of the Darfur genocide through the eyes of a “translator” (Daoud) who helped journalists navigate the landscape as a guide. If you want to keep your head in the sand about what has occured in Darfur, that’s your decision. And if that’s you, I’d urge you to click back on your browser right now and not read the excerpt below as it’s one of the most gruesome passages I’ve ever read. I thought I’d share it for two reasons. 1) To educate people about the atrocities in Darfur and 2) so that I have a permanent record online that I can find later of this powerful reminder of the impact wars have on those they touch.

For background, during his time guiding journalists through the camps of Darfur and Chad, Daoud regularly heard stories of horrible atrocities from victims of the Darfur genocide. But the passage below from one victim he came across is particularly terrible and stood out in his mind:

One of the Janjaweed men started to kill me in a painful way. My daughter could not bear to see this, so she ran toward me and called, ‘Abba, Abba.’ These words, which mean ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ filled his throat with emotion, and he paused a long time.

The Janjaweed man who had tied me to the tree saw my daughter running to me. He lowered his rifle and he let her run into his bayonet. He gave it a big push. The blade went all the way through her stomach. She still cried out to me, ‘Abba! Abba!’

Then he lifted up his gun, with my daughter on it, with blood from her body pouring down all over him. He danced around with her in the air and shouted to his friends, ‘Look, see how fierce I am,’ and they chanted back to him, ‘Yes, yes, you are fierce, fierce, fierce!’ as they were killing other people. My daughter looked at me for help and stretched her arms in great pain toward me. She tried to say Abba but nothing came out.

It took a long time for her to die, her blood coming down so fresh and red on this — what was he? a man? a devil? He was painted red with my little girl’s blood and he was dancing. What was he?

It’s sad this kind of thing really happens in this world, but nothing will ever change if stories like this are not brought to light. In the acknowledgements of the book, Daoud finishes with this paragraph:

If i can presume some bond of friendship between us, my reader friend, let me ask you to think of the fact that tonight as i Write this, and probably as you read this, people are still being killed in Darfur, and people are still suffering in these camps. The leaders of the world can solve this problem, and the people of Darfur can go home, if the leaders see that people everywhere care deeply enough to talk to them about this. So, if you have the time, perhaps you can do so. For it has no meaning to take risks for news stories unless the people who read them will act.

If you want to help improve the situation in Darfur, here are some resources.

There are some details on the $15,000 tax credit over at Zillow Blog for those interested. How much of a positive effect on the housing market do you think this will have?

I’ve still been struggling to figure out why my blog appears to be penalized and I think I may have (finally) found something. Take a look at the page descriptions here. I don’t see the same content on the actual page after clicking through, so I wonder whether a hacker put some sort of cloaking script on my blog that shows Google something different than a person? How do I find this in my wordpress theme file and remove it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I just checked ESPN and saw this story about A-Rod testing positive for steroids in 2003 — when will this steroids mess end for MLB?

I just watched the brief demo of Yahoo Search Pad, and I think the new feature is pretty slick. Is this enough to break my Google habit? Probably not, but it’s a good start.

Yeah, I think it makes sense to cap executive pay at companies that have taken taxpayer money — but extending cuts across the board? I think that’s a bit extreme.