American Idol Season 7

I have a weird relationship with American Idol. For some reason, I seem to fall in love with the show every few seasons and cease to care at all in the off-years. Anyhow, this has turned into one of the years where I can't help but follow the show week to week...and I've even started voting. Contrary to popular belief, votes are accepted from people other than 12 year old girls...

I've been wondering for awhile how the week to week voting impacts decisions made on the show, such as who is called out on stage in which order, who gets the most screen time, sits in the front/back row, singing order, etc. At the very least, it'd be neat to see how different the show would be if the viewers saw the votes each week. Would it cause people to vote more? Reinforce crowd favorites?

In my own attempt to find some predictive power beyond DialIdol, I decided to review the trends of Google searches on some of my favorite contestants. What I found was pretty interesting.

For the past few weeks, I've felt myself getting bored of David Archuleta- apparently I'm not the only one. Each week his peaks and troughs seem to be getting lower and lower. Conversely, David Cook went from one of my least favorite contestants to possibly my favorite after a number of strong weeks. How about the rest of the country? Well, it seems they've really caught the fever. Check out the query volume explosion for him this week! Now let's see if he can follow-up next week and keep the momentum...

Wow. I'm Speechless...

Black Guy Asks Nation For Change

CHICAGO—Some residents reported seeing the black guy waving wildly and quoting from the Bible, while others said they spotted him shouting about global warming.

Man Sells His Life on eBay

Wow, so it's been over a month since my last post. In part I've been busy, but a part of me has also been trying to figure out if I should continue this blog. Blogging's a big time commitment and something's not quite working for me yet. I'm hoping I'll find the voice I'm looking for soon; time will tell.

Anyhow, one story came across my eyes this morning that I couldn't help but share. An Australian man named Ian Usher is looking for a fresh start in life. So he's decided to sell his life- all of it, on eBay. As he puts it: "My whole life is for sale. Everything. Lifestyle. House. Car. Motorbike. Job. Friends. Everything that I own, and all of the things that I don't own, but that are still an important part of my life!"

It's an interesting concept, but can you actually sell your entire life? How do you value someone's life? Something tells me this is a value-destroying exercise, for a number of reasons:

1. There's some probability of many assets becoming worthless...how, for example, can he sell his friends? Don't they have a say in the matter? What if they don't like the new Ian who replaces him?

2. His job appears to be worth something; his bosses have agreed to give the new Ian Usher a tryout in his place. However, would someone with enough money to buy his life want his job at a rug store? Can they divest this asset in a secondary market? That might help his valuation marginally.

3. It appears his life isn't going so well to begin with, so I can't imagine investor interest will be all that high...generally, Ian, it's best to sell high and buy low.

On the other hand, there's the obvious angle that this move will buy him some 15+ minutes of fame. So the real question is: can he cash in this newfound fame for more than what he loses on the auction? And, more importantly, will his new life in fact be happier than what he has now?

For more info, see his website.

Big City Rednecks Come Out for Big Dog Daddy

When I lived in NYC, I always loathed the fact that New York, despite being one of the greatest cities on earth, doesn't have a country radio station. Some might say that not having a country radio station is part of why NYC is so great, but I disagree. All preconceived notions and stereotypes aside, country artists have a knack for telling very real stories, capturing little Polaroids of life, that just about anyone can relate to. If you haven't given country a real shot, you owe it to yourself to take a second look.

Anyhow, this Valentine's Day Megan gave me an awesome gift, and one I never would've expected in NYC/NJ: tickets to see Toby Keith in concert at The Meadowlands. Needless to say, the show was unbelievable. Even if you don't like country, there's something about Toby Keith's uncompromising, unapologetic bad-ass attitude that just makes for some good entertainment. As an added bonus: despite the location, the stadium wasn't just packed with yuppy cowboy wannabe city slickers like me. No, no. Every self-proclaimed redneck in the tri-state area came out for the show that night. Pick-up trucks filled the parking lot. Bud Light flowed like milk and honey. And the people rejoiced.

So for any other country fans out there, thought I'd share a few snapshots taken from my phone at the concert...it was definitely a good time. If you have the opportunity to catch any remaining shows on The Big Dog Daddy Tour, I highly recommend you do!


Jack Ingram opened for Toby, playing Wherever You Are, Lips of an Angel and Measure of a Man, among others


Big Dog Daddy Keith himself, soon after taking stage


A shot during the uncompromisingly patriotic encore, including American Soldier and Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)

My Night with the Stars at YouTube Videocracy

So I've never been one to be particularly star struck, but I had a really cool night and wanted to share. Last night I attended YouTube's Videocracy event in NYC. It was a pretty interesting concept, bringing together everyone from traditional media companies to internet content providers to celebs and (of course) YouTube-born stars to celebrate the evolution of online video.

While it was great meeting people from a number of really interesting companies, hearing from marketing gurus and sitting near Damon Wayans, what really caught my eye was the new breed of YouTube stars in attendance.

It's one thing to chuckle at Lisa Nova's biting brand of comedy, but somewhat surreal to see her jump off the computer screen and on stage to host the event. Similarly, after watching Chocolate Rain on loop, it was a bit odd to stand there and chat up Tay Zonday in person. What was cool about it wasn't so much that these people are now famous, but rather that it wasn't so long ago that they weren't. And even now, they seem to remain very real people- a bit shy, timid on stage, not quite sure how to handle the attention, and a host of other very real qualities; the same qualities that made them endearing to millions of viewers.

My second "aha!" of the night was the wide array of ways people have found they can use video to engage each other. I've certainly watched all forms of video online before, but never took the time to think about how different they could be. You have people like Justin Timberlake's find Esmee Denters or Soulja Boy (two of last night's performers) who found fame with music videos. Lisa Nova and Buck Hollywood who've made their names through Comedy. Kentucky boy William Sledd who has become the face of fashion on YouTube, rising from obscurity. Then there's the Blendtec guy showing off his blender's ridiculous blending power by destroying pretty much anything (including an iPhone) in it. Also a guy I met last night, James Kotecki who made a name for himself with political video blogging from his Georgetown dorm room. And this doesn't even begin to touch things like the Cup Stacking phenomenon, seeing a self-taught Korean guitarist redefine Canon in D on the electric guitar, speed painting, how-to videos, family and pet videos and so much more.

The neat thing about user-generated video is its innate reality, something that I think we've all been a bit starved for. I'm not suggesting that high-quality, studio-produced works don't have their place; they certainly do. But there's so much beauty and wonder in day-to-day life that is lost almost by definition when one tries to engineer it. Truly great films and directors find a way to capture snippets of it, but it's amazing to see how raw, unedited clips from everyday people can have a similar impact on the audiences that find them relevant.

Reflections on Super Bowl XLII

On the surface, there are some rather obvious notes to make about Super Bowl XLII.

It was a great game, a truly exciting nail-biting contest. It's so rare to see a Super Bowl result in such a great game that this in itself could be noteworthy.

And of course, there's the fact that the game featured the recurring Boston-New York rivalry that has proven by far the most interesting in modern day sport.

And even more notably, one of the two teams in this rivalry was also fighting against destiny, attempting to join the 1972 Dolphins, the only NFL team to finish a season undefeated, in the history books under perfection.

But if you start thinking about the game a bit more deeply, you see a whole host of subplots and archetypes that we probably all knew we were witnessing even if we didn't sense it at the time. These are the struggles that made this Super Bowl one to remember, debate and learn about for years to come.

1. David vs. Goliath: Not only were the Patriots chasing perfection, but they were doing so against a team who just about everyone except Giants fans and bookies had written off entirely. A team that wasn't even *supposed* to make the playoffs, let alone stand any hope of prying the Conference championship from the grasp of Brett Favre or Tony Romo. A team that ESPN ranked #27 in the league in their week 3 Power Rankings. This game was supposed to be a blow out, only someone forgot to tell the Giants they couldn't win.

2. The Best Offense is a Good Defense: Even stacked against the '72 Dolphins, the Pats may have been considered the best team, or at least the best offensive team, of all time. They weren't only undefeated through 18 games; they crushed their opponents, racking up the league's #1 offense with over 35 points scored per game. Week after week, the Pats showed their offensive prowess leading many, myself included, to say that you couldn't stop the Pats offense, you could only hope to slow them down enough to keep up. Yet again, we forgot to tell the Giants what was impossible. Perhaps knowing that their offense couldn't go blow-for-blow with the Pats, they attacked on defense, holding New England to under 20 points for the first time all season and sacking Brady 5 times, the first time any team had done so since 2003.

3. Karma is an elusive entity: I personally didn't know who to root for during the game. I have lived in both New York and Boston. My Dolfan loyalty may have demanded rooting for the Giants, but shouldn't you also root for the team that beat your own, so you can at least have lost to a champion? Most of all, two blemishes on the NFL's record kept me torn: Spygate and what I'll call Eligate. I certainly can't whole-heartedly root for the Pats after their scandalous early season faux pas. Then again, I don't think Eli will ever sit quite right with me after the way he entered the league, like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum at risk of not getting his way. Apparently, karma has spoken and earn-at-all costs capitalist puppetry is more forgiveable than win-at-all-costs cheatery...or at least its statute of limitations has expired sooner.

4. Great just isn't good enough: In a moment of humility after the game, Randy Moss was asked to comment on what happened. His reply:

"I think their intensity from the beginning snap to the end of the game was really higher than ours. We just couldn't meet that intensity."

Did the patriots just get cocky? Did they buy the hype that they were unbeatable? Or was going 18-0 leading up to the Super Bowl simply sufficient? Whatever the explanation, the Pats just didn't bring it on Sunday, certainly not the way a champion should. If anything great comes out of their loss, it should be that younger players heed their example and hustle a little more next season, sprint off the field a little faster, lift one more rep, because no matter how well they've done, they can always push just a little bit harder. Good is the enemy of Great.

Google Won't Search for Chuck Norris

Thanks to Annie for pointing out this fun bit of Google trivia. To replicate:

Step 1: Go to Google
Step 2: Type "find Chuck Norris"
Step 3: Click the "I'm feeling lucky" button
Step 4: Enjoy!

Getting Paid to Interview for Jobs?

A new start-up called NotchUp is trying to "fix" the recruiting industry by introducing a new paradigm, one in which top candidates, whether actively or passively seeking a new job, are offered fees to accept job interviews from companies looking to fill positions.

A guy I met while in New York was exploring a similar idea where headhunters posted "their" candidates' resumes to "bid" on job postings listed by companies. Each job would have a bounty attached to it, which would be paid to the recruiter if their "bid" was successfully hired and retained for X months.

I'm excited to see how models such as this pan out, where economic incentives are used to solve for problems in the status quo, such as candidates' time not being valued and companies being restricted to speaking only to candidates who are actively job hunting (and, in turn, candidates not evaluating their options to at least confirm they're happy where they are).

Anyhow, I signed up and invited 450 of my closest LinkedIn friends. Interested in joining? Let me know and I'll refer you.


More about NotchUp (from their site)

"NotchUp was started by Jim Ambras and Rob Ellis, two managers who have collectively recruited hundreds of candidates.

On the corporate side, we noticed three common themes in the recruiting process at every company we worked at – significant amounts of time and money are wasted in the recruiting process, key unfilled positions can cripple a company’s growth, and every company wants to hire great individuals.

As individuals who have interviewed for our share of jobs, we noticed the system was equally broken.

The recruiting process for candidates is characterized by cold calls and mass emails, outside recruiters that don’t have your best interests at heart, and taking time out of your busy schedule to interview with a company that doesn’t always seem interested in you.

The only winners in all of this are job boards and headhunters.

We realized there had to be a better way to connect companies and candidates. "

Internet Party: When Google's parents leave town...

Hilarious video I stumbled across on YouTube. I don't know which personification I like better eBay or facebook.

Fair warning: some explicit language.

It Was Only A Matter of Time...

Now that I'm a Californian, we all knew it was only a matter of time before I had to have some form of cosmetic surgery. So, I gave the blog a face lift!

What do you think?

Personally, I found the old set-up to be about two parts fun and seven parts hideous. This one looks far more professional to me, but if you disagree, please do share.

What amazed me was how painless the whole procedure was; Dr. Blogger really knows what he's doing!

Too Soon To Quit?

Last night, a friend called me in dire need of consultation. With the deadline approaching to cast her Florida Democratic Primary absentee ballot, she just couldn't decide- Barack or Hillary? It was a true identity crisis, especially since she was actually a big fan of Biden.

So we get to discussing her decision criteria and, always one to have a unique take on politics, she says "I want to like Obama, but it really bugs me that he's quitting the Senate without even finishing one term. I'm nervous about electing someone who quits so soon."

As I thought about it a bit more last night, I saw some pretty strong parallels to discussions I'd had with friends back in New York who were nervous about quitting their first jobs "too soon." My advice was always: "If you'd be happier and more effective elsewhere, then quit tomorrow."

Of course, conventional wisdom would paint me a fool. Any headhunter who finished reading their firm's training manual before cold-calling you will tell you that it's "professional suicide" to leave a job in less than 18 months (or to stay at one for more than 3 years, thereby depriving them of a commission). Personally, I don't buy it.

Take i-bankers. Most lower-level bankers hate their jobs. Many of them will even admit that they're not learning as much as they'd hoped. Yet, most will stick it out for a couple years, for some reason I fail to comprehend. I think of it like this:

If I were interviewing two ex-analysts with identical backgrounds (same degree, worked in the same group, equally hated their jobs at 6 months, etc), but one difference: one quit and the other "stuck it out," who would I hire?

The one who cut their losses and changed course, or the one who did what was expected of them?

If my resources are at stake, I'll take someone who knows when to abandon ship (be it a bad job or bad project chewing through shareholders' money) over someone who sticks with a bad bet anyday.

So, I guess my point is that I applaud Senator Obama for going after the job in which he believes he can add the most value. Not many of us have that type of courage. It's often easier to just fall in line and hide behind "I'm too young," or "it's too soon" or "I'll do it eventually." In an age when a 23 year-old can lead a $15B company, and two other 20-somethings founded the single most influential organization of our generation, do any of us really have an excuse to wait?

On the other hand, if Obama wins and serves only one term, he'll be a Presidential alumnus at age 51. Seriously, where do you go from there?

Pictures from Europe are up!

Sorry for the delay...have been swamped at work since getting back. We've finally uploaded our pics. Check out our Picasa Web Albums and let us know what you think!

To read up on the trip, check out the trip blog, I'm With Stupid.

Video to come once I figure out how to get it off my camera and edit it...likely to be awhile.

Miguel y Danny en Espana

Michel et Danny à Paris

Mikey and Danny's Night in London

'Phins Hire a New Coach

As anticipated, my beloved Miami Dolphins, under the new leadership of VP - Football Operations Bill Parcells have hired a new head coach, canning Cam Cameron after only one season (albeit an abysmal one) at the helm. Also as anticipated the new skipper, Tony Sparano, is a member of Parcell's inner-circle, allowing the Big Tuna to live up to his promise of not assuming head coaching duties, while maintaining his ability to strongly influence coaching decisions.

While I'm hopeful that these recent leadership changes will help return our team to its rightful place as one of the NFL's premier franchises, it's difficult to get too excited, as the past decade has brought "big" announcement after "big" announcement, followed-up by wretched under-performance. That said, Parcells has quite the resume of turning around under-performing teams...could this finally be the start of a successful post-Marino era?

If nothing else, we might benefit from other teams confusing our new coach for his near-namesake Tony Soprano and being afraid to invoke his wrath by beating us.

Ahhh....Vacation

In case you've been wondering why the blog is so quiet, I've been on vacation! Woohoo!

Leaving on phase II of the vacation today; heading off to run around Europe with my best friend Mike for about a week and a half. Of course, we've created a trip blog, I'm With Stupid, so head over there for updates on our adventures in Madrid and Paris.

Happy new year to all- see you in 2008!

HELP US COMPETE FOR $250,000!

A non-profit that I am on the Board of is competing in the $250,000 Facebook Causes Giving Challenge and I need your help! From today until February 1, 2008, we're racing to get as many $10+ donors as possible for our facebook cause Educate, Don't Obliterate: To educate tomorrow's leaders in the name of peace.

Please help spread our cause (and encourage others to do so)!

1. Vote for us by donating $10+ to Educate, Don't Obliterate

2. Pledge to invite 20 friends on facebook each day
3. E-mail your listservs: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/48396?recruiter_id=2080600
4. Place our link in your away messages
5. Blog about us

Donations are tax deductible, benefiting Children of Abraham, a 501c3 dedicated to educating young leaders around the world to promote peace and understanding in their local communities.

Crank dat, Kosha Boy

With Chanukkah just about coming to an end, this seems like perfect time to share this Jewish-themed parody of "Crank Dat, Soulja Boy." Just found it this morning on YouTube and it seems to be spreading quickly. As someone who unashamedly admits to having tried to learn the original Soulja Boy dance through countless pathetic attempts at following along with the YouTube instructional video, I got a real kick out of this parody.

Happy Chanukkah! Now, Crank Dat, Kosha Boy!



[And in case you have somehow avoided the original that skyrocketed to #1 on the charts due largely to internet fame, here ya go...The music video and The instructional video with the dance]

NYT- A Holiday Medley Off-Key: In Interfaith Marriages, a Rivalry of Rituals

Passing along an interesting article on interfaith marriage from the New York Times website. Original link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/garden/06Fight.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

December 6, 2007
A Holiday Medley, Off Key
By JULIE SCELFO

WHEN her sons were toddlers, Amy Manata, a Jewish woman with a Catholic husband, began conducting a silent war. In the months leading up to Hanukkah, she would ask the boys, now 4 and 6, which toys they wanted most, then bestow them at Hanukkah to ensure that it was a better holiday than Christmas.

She and her husband, Frank, who live in Skokie, Ill., are raising their sons with both Catholic and Jewish traditions. Still, with so much Christmas everywhere, “Hanukkah was sort of getting lost, and I felt like I couldn’t compete,” she said.

Ms. Manata willingly put up Christmas decorations, but she sometimes felt weird about the wreath on her front door and the tree in her living room. “Skokie was very Jewish when I was growing up,” she said. “I wasn’t in a house with Christmas lights until I was a sophomore in high school, and I remember feeling so uncomfortable about it, like it was a totally foreign place.” Years later, a tree in her own living room brought back some of those feelings.

It is a familiar problem, widely known as the December dilemma: the annual conflict faced by millions of adults in interfaith marriages over how to decorate homes, how and when to give gifts, and which rituals to celebrate.

As of 2001, more than 28 million Americans lived in mixed-religion households, according to the American Religious Identification Survey, which is widely viewed as providing some of the best data on the subject. Of those households, the largest group of interfaith marriages (distinct from interdenominational Christian ones) was Christian-Jewish, and few types of couples seem to experience the December dilemma as acutely as they do.

One reason for this is that few non-Christian religions other than Judaism have significant holidays in December. (The Muslim holiday Eid-al-Adha, the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca, begins on Dec. 20 this year, but it often falls in other months.) Another reason is that many Jews, both despite and because of their assimilation into American society, are particularly conscious of threats to Jewish culture.

According to the United Jewish Communities’ National Jewish Population Survey, about 47 percent of Jews in the United States who married in 2001 married non-Jews, up from an average of 13 percent before 1970.

“You get this kind of difficult blend of family-of-origin issues as well as religious and cultural issues all at the same time,” said Karen Erlichman, a licensed clinical social worker in San Francisco who specializes in counseling interfaith couples. “They kind of sweep it under the rug for 10 months of the year, and Thanksgiving comes and it’s like, ‘Uh-oh, here we go.’”

When Scott Gamzon, who is Jewish, and his Episcopalian partner, Rick Draughon, adopted their son, Noah, three years ago, they agreed to raise him Jewish but get a tree and spend Christmas with Mr. Draughon’s family in Texas. Despite the agreement, Mr. Gamzon said he cannot help but engage in a few guerrilla tactics.

Two weeks ago he told Mr. Draughon that “it would be really nice if the house had lights all around it this year,” then sat back and did nothing to help beyond instructing him how to arrange the lights and manage the cords.

“I pretty much stood around and gave him opinions,” Mr. Gamzon said. “I had no idea how much work it actually was.”

Mr. Draughon got his revenge days later when picking up Noah from his Jewish preschool. “I put Christmas music on, and later, when Daddy Scott was in the car, Noah was singing, ‘Up on the rooftop, reindeer pause.’ Scott was like, ‘Where did he learn that?’ I was like, ‘Hmm, I don’t know.’”

Then, on Saturday, while entertaining guests for dinner, Mr. Draughon set an iPod to play a mix of holiday songs by Diana Krall. “Scott was like, ‘Would you please turn that off,’” Mr. Draughon said. “I was like, ‘It’s not “Jingle Bells.” It’s Diana Krall.’”

But even sultry jazz versions of Christmas standards can alienate someone who does not celebrate the holiday, a concern frequently overlooked by those who grow up Christian and never experience the isolation of being part of a religious minority.

While Mr. Gamzon said he enjoyed the “forbidden fruit” aspect of decorating a tree, he said he also felt guilty about it, and vividly recalled the scolding his mother gave his younger brother more than 30 years ago when he asked for one. “My mother said, ‘If you really want a Christmas tree you can go live with the neighbors,’” he said. “We were not the Jews who had a tree.”

Jewish-Christian couples may also experience tension more acutely because “having a tree in your house can feel like just a big huge announcement that says I’ve gone over to the other side,” said Micah Sachs, the managing editor of interfaithfamily.com, a Web site that encourages interfaith couples to observe Jewish traditions. “The world is full of all these symbols: it’s full of Santa, it’s full of trees.”

That helps to explain various commercial efforts at making Hanukkah, which is not considered a primary holiday in Judaism, a festive competitor to Christmas. Among the innovations: inflatable lawn menorahs.

Early on, Danielle Kolker and her husband, Donald Viscardi, a self-described Christmas fanatic, negotiated detailed rules about holiday decorating.

“What can be seen from outside has to be completely 50-50,” Ms. Kolker said of their house in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. “If there are Christmas lights up, there have to be Hanukkah lights up too. I don’t want it to look outwardly like we’re more one than the other.”

The compromise, raising their boys Jewish but celebrating Christmas, is working well, they said. At least it was until last summer, when their 7-year-old son, Zachary, asked Ms. Kolker whether she and his father helped Santa buy presents. “He said, ‘Mom, tell me the truth.’ I said, ‘Mommy and Daddy help buy some of them.’ I didn’t say, ‘There’s no Santa Claus.’”

Mr. Viscardi, a private tutor who has twice been a Macy’s Santa, was disturbed that his wife even suggested that the mythology of Christmas could be anything less than true. “I was upset she said that without thinking about the repercussions,” he said. “Going through Macy’s program, being trained as a Santa, I know you never want to destroy that illusion, at least until they get to be a little bit older, anyway.”

For her part, Ms. Kolker cannot help but be annoyed that she has to shop for and wrap a bunch of gifts and then put Santa’s name on them. “He gets credit for everything,” she said.

Susan Needles, a clinical social worker in Manhattan who holds workshops for Christian-Jewish couples sponsored by an organization called Interfaith Community, said the only way to reach a mutually satisfying arrangement is through careful discussion and negotiation.

“Attention has to be paid to how they’re going to incorporate their dual faiths as they go forward in marriage and in their life together,” she said. “That requires work: finding the language to communicate how they feel; discovering what they feel and what they know about their own faith; and discovering what they know and feel about their partner’s faith. It’s harder than buying furniture you both like, and that can be hard.”

Outreach programs across the country have lately tried to help couples achieve this goal. But they can do little to relieve the stress caused by another major source of holiday conflict: extended families.

Frank Manata, Amy’s husband, said that his wife has been supportive of his desire to share Christmas with their sons, but that his in-laws have been less than enthusiastic. Three years ago they clashed over his practice of allowing the boys to play with their Lionel train set around the holidays, then packing it up with the ornaments.

“Her parents think I’m a terrible person for putting it away,” Mr. Manata said. “I’m like: ‘No, it’s a Christmas tradition. It’s up for a month, that’s what makes it special, that’s how we did it.’ So my father-in-law bought a huge Lionel train set and put it up in his basement, so the boys have a train to play with all year long.”

Mr. Manata, who was annoyed by the train episode, never said anything to his in-laws because, he said, they are otherwise wonderful. But now he finds himself facing another indirect assault: he chipped in with them to buy a big gift for the boys, a Nintendo Wii, but his mother-in-law wants to give it at Hanukkah and not on Christmas.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to give it to them on Hanukkah,” said Mr. Manata, whose wife explained her parents’ behavior as a reaction to feeling threatened by Christmas.

Even the anticipated disapproval of a parent can influence family dynamics. Twenty-one years ago, when they married, Ron Klain and his wife, Monica Medina, struck a deal: their daughter and two sons would be raised Jewish (for him), but they would celebrate Christmas (for her).

Despite their satisfaction with the arrangement, the couple, who live in Chevy Chase, Md., have never put up the tree while Mr. Klain’s mother is visiting from Indianapolis. Instead, they wait until after her annual December visit.

“I grew up in Indiana, with a decent-size Jewish community, but we were a distinct minority,” Mr. Klain said. “Not having a Christmas tree was very much part of our Jewish identity in a place where everyone else did.”

Ms. Manata said that after her struggles, she no longer feels there is any holiday battle to fight. Several years ago a friend who is Catholic told her, “Nothing is going to be as big as Christmas; you’re not going to be able to make it as big as Christmas,” Ms. Manata said. “As soon as she said that, it kind of clicked with me. It’s not a race. We’re not keeping score. If I compete, my kids are not learning much from me.”

Many interfaith families who have managed to create their own traditions enjoy at least a bit of domestic peace. The first year of Brad and Linda Simon’s marriage in 1978, Mr. Simon, who is Jewish, sought the perfect everything bagel: seasonings evenly distributed, a symmetrically round shape and a hole that was just right for a red holiday light to poke through. Then he shellacked it, and it has adorned the top of their tree — Ms. Simon is Catholic — every year since. (“In the late ’80s it finally fell apart, and I had to shellac another one,” he said.)

Dana Reynolds, a mother of two toddlers in Albuquerque who was raised Jewish, has struggled to accept having a tree in the house ever since she married a Catholic man nine years ago. Although she put up with it every year that her husband, Jeff, decided to have one, she never really participated. “I kind of tolerated him doing it,” she said.

But lately she has been rethinking her attitude. After Mr. Reynolds left last week on a trip to Africa, she arranged to have a nine-foot tree delivered to the house. Then she and the boys, whom the couple are raising Jewish, spent Monday decorating it, to surprise Mr. Reynolds on his return next week.

“He’s not just my husband anymore — he’s the father of my kids,” Ms. Reynolds said. “I want my kids to celebrate diversity and coexist with everyone.”

It was a gesture worthy of a Christmas — or Hanukkah — TV special. “I’m hoping that he’ll see I’m not just saying I’m comfortable and open to him, but that he really believes it,” she said.

H&H Bagels Make Me Happy

To quote my Yelp! review on the subject:

"My girlfriend just sent me a lovely surprise shipment [of H&H midtown bagels east] in California. I can't tell you how happy I am right now to have real NY bagels and lox in my tummy. The lox especially is fantastic; H&H knows lox!"

Just thought I'd share...I really like bagels. This is awesome. If you know a transplanted New Yorker, chances are they miss bagels, especially at Chanukah time, when bagelmissingitis tends to flare up. You might want to consider sending them a dozen or two...here's the link

And while you're at it, throw in a Junior's Cheesecake!

The Richter Scales: Here Comes Another Bubble

Funny video from YouTube, set to "We Didn't Start the Fire," that I wanted to pass along. Valleywag didn't like it; TechCrunch did. The song told me to blog about it, so I did.

Anyone else think all the clichè talk about a tech bubble is just lame? Facebook's valuation may be questionable, but at least this time around businesses are monetizing...that's a start

Wine 2.0

This morning, The Boston Globe published a typical December article with a few cool gadgets to help you solve your endless list of holiday giftees. Unlike most such articles, though, I actually cared about this one...because it involved wine!

For those readers who don't know me personally, I'm big on wine. I have a nice little collection started up, all the necessary accessories and a spreadsheet that I affectionately refer to as "my baby" with tasting notes on my first 300 or so wines, until the list became too much of a burden to maintain.

With the Wine Collector 250, though, I may be on the verge of a whole new level of obsessiveness. The $200 price tag seems a bit steep, but it would save a lot of time and effort to have help in tracking my studies and cataloguing my collection over time. Plus, being able to have a Yelp-like wine 2.0 community would be really cool, perhaps finally democratizing the American wine buying dictatorship of Robert Parker's palate.

As an added bonus, the Intelliscanner, which is really the core of the product, has the ability to catalogue (it seems) anything with a barcode. I just hope they'll be really innovative and look to combine the device with services such as Google Product Search (formerly Froogle), to enable real-time locally driven shopping comparisons. Wouldn't it be awesome to be out shopping and just scan the barcode to see other stores in the area (or online) selling the same product for less?