I’ve been stretched too thinly across a few big projects and trying for nearly three months to find a couple of qualified people to help me on the work I’m getting through EVB. Right now the market is hot for UX people, and the only ones who seem to be available are the totally un-hireable. I’ve interviewed some doozies.

Well, last week I finally found a couple of qualified, seemingly normal people who aren’t currently booked. We made them verbal offers and they accepted.

But one of them had some issues with the EVB contract. EVB went back and forth and back and forth with him for a week until they had enough.

It got me thinking about how some people seem to approach life with a ‘no’ attitude. They scrutinize things and question things as if the world is on a mission to screw them.

Lots and lots of people have passed this video around, but it puts a giant, ridiculous grin on my face everytime I watch it. This guy is my new hero.

Matt is a 31-year-old guy from Connecticut who was inspired one day during his travels to do his signature silly dance for the camera and upload it to the website he was using to keep his family up-to-date on his wherabouts.

Anyway, what started on a whim in one country, he decided to repeat around the world…

Well, you could say it caught a wave (over 10 million views as of today), and a year or so later, Stride Gum approached him about sponsoring a sequel, on their dime – which was a no-brainer for Matt…

Don’t ask me why, but I was looking at Sean Hannity’s website today. OK, I was looking for a video clip of his recent interview with Shelby Steele that I learned about via Digg or reddit or something. Anyway, once I was there, I found myself clicking around out of sheer amazement.

Right away, I was assaulted by an orgy of red, white and blue that makes Stephen Colbert’s set look sedate. This is the obligatory patriotic pose. When you stand in front of the American flag, you must look proudly into the distance and display the underside of your chin. It also helps to have a second shot of yourself behind you, representing that “over-reaching” quality we want from our government.

Anyway, after I absorbed the full weight of Hannity’s patriotism, I tried searching for “Shelby Steele” and came up with nothing…

I was delighted to see, however, that I can share this page of zero search results with a friend. And I can search for Shelby Steele in the Yellow Pages. Do people still use the Yellow Pages?

Undeterred, I tried searching for Obama…

Nothing. Hmm… An example of “fair and balanced” reporting? How about a search for Clinton…

OK, could be the same thing. How about a couple of searches more in line with Hannity’s views…

Wow! How about another…

So, clearly pure incompetence. Maybe it has something to do with the way every word you search for is transformed into a “Sean Hannity Keyword.”

I want to keep clicking! By far the best thing I found on Sean Hannity’s website was this…

This has to be a joke. It needs to be a joke. But there’s no way Hannity is that funny, so I can only conclude that it’s real. I’m completely hooked at this point, especially when I see…

I love this. Watch out ladies, he’s “ready for it.” He’s actually armed and ready for it, if you look at the picture. Don’t take your eyes off your drink if you’re around this guy, because he’s bound to slip you a rohypnol.  I can’t stop myself from clicking into his profile…

Who would have guessed motor racing and wrestling? I mean, the guy has a high school education. But wait, there’s more…

Wait, twenty-seven? Didn’t your personal information say you were 31?

This dude can’t be real. I’m almost sure he’s fake… but he is the “featured” profile, which either says something about Hannity’s audience (if he’s real) or his ability to run a website (if he’s fake).

I wish I had time to see more, and say more, but it’s midnight, and I’m procrastinating. I have a couple more hours of work left before I can go to bed, so I’ll just leave it here.

My job has sent me to Amsterdam for the week, and when I went to the Continental Airlines website to check in for my flight the other day, I was presented with the option to buy carbon offset credits – powered by an organization called Sustainable Travel International.

The whole idea of carbon offsetting is met with some harsh criticism. Skeptics argue that it’s just a way to help people feel better about themselves without having to change their consuming, polluting lifestyles…

But there’s no reason why purchasing carbon offsets can’t be just one part of a person’s overall change in lifestyle, instead of an alternative to change. And the truth is the money spent on carbon offsets does make its way into projects like wind farms and reforestation initiatives.

It might be better to avoid air travel altogether, but of course it’s unrealistic. I’m happy that the airline industry is promoting not only awareness of the issue in general, but a quantification of my own individual contribution. And I’m happy that they point me to one way of mitigating at least some of the damage.

It won’t save the world, but it’s better than nothing.

After a mostly fun eighteen-month ride, I decided to leave Scout Labs. As part of the founding team, I played a big part in defining the initial vision for both the product and the company, and I got a profound education in startup life. I got to work with brilliant people, and I’m forever grateful for the experience.

I’m also a bit sad about leaving, because I still very much believe in the opportunity, but I know I made the right decision.

I left with no particular plans, not much of a cushion, and vague dreams of travel in foreign lands where the dollar still goes a long way. But I was out of work for all of about 30 minutes before a couple of big freelance projects fell into my lap.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past month, and I don’t plan on looking for anything permanent any time soon.

…and not just because my recent investment in oil futures depends on the price continuing to rise.

The sudden upsurge in the price of gas has been the top news story for the past few weeks, and there doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight. Oil is a finite resource, and as China, India and other developing nations have… well… developed, the worldwide demand for oil has shot up. As Americans turn to the government – and the three people campaigning to be the next president – for a solution, it seems amazing that no one saw this coming.

Of course the US leads the rest of the planet by a long shot when it comes to oil consumption, thanks to a combination of massive suburban sprawl, the popularity of gas-guzzling SUVs and a system of government subsidies that keeps our gasoline cheap compared to the rest of the world.

Progressives have lobbied the government for years to raise the mandatory average fuel-efficiency requirements of American cars, and the government’s response over the last eight of those years – especially from that bunch of oilmen in the executive branch – has been predictably dismissive.

The normal Republican philosophy regarding such things is to let the market take care of it. Keep the government out of it, they say. In an ideal world, I totally agree. The government is bloated and slow and bad at getting things done. In reality though, the problem with the Republican hands-off philosophy is that Republicans are totally disingenuous about it.

If the real price of gasoline was actually reflected at the pump, then people would stop using gasoline simply because they couldn’t afford it. People would stop buying gas-guzzling behemoths in favor of smaller cars. People who work in cities would stop moving into houses way out the suburbs, and people who already live in the suburbs would start carpooling or taking public transportation (if it’s even an option). That’s the market at work. We know the market would do its thing because it’s exactly what happened in the past when gas prices shot up for any length of time.

And it’s happening again. Even the modest rise we’ve seen over the past year or so – and it has been modest for Americans, no matter what it feels like – has sent a surge of riders to mass transit, according to this recent article in the New York Times. The difference this time is that given what’s happening with China, India and much of the rest of the developing world, oil prices aren’t likely to level off again… ever.

The bottom line here is that the Republican philosophy works. We just need the courage – yes, courage – to let the market actually do its thing.

Of course there’s another part of me – the part that loves to travel – that’s afraid to see what all this will do to air fares.

My small town library was one of my absolute favorite places when I was a kid. I regularly borrowed to the full limit of what I was allowed to take home. I still love the library, and the big one here in San Francisco is way cooler than anything I experienced as a kid.

So, on that note, here are 5 things I love about the library…

1. Free WiFi
   Considering the small town library of my childhood didn’t even have computers (which took up whole rooms back then), you gotta love free access to the Internet.
2. Peace and Quiet
   Sure, I can find free WiFi and lively gaggles of hipsters and hippies at (respectively) Ritual Coffee Roasters or Farley’s, but when I want to actually do some work, I prefer a little more peace. At the library, you’re surrounded by people who are seriously and silently getting shit done. As an extra bonus, you don’t have to feel guilty for taking up a seat long after you’ve finished your coffee.
3. “Stealing” Music and Borrowing DVDs
   One of my favorite things to do at the library is to hit their A/V room and borrow a bunch of CDs before heading to a table to work. Then, while I work, I rip all the CDs into my iTunes. Right now, for example, I’m ripping Wilco’s “Sky Blue Sky.” Before I leave, I’ll borrow the second season of Lost, which I’ve been watching with my girlfriend.
4. Ridiculously Small Fines
   If you put embarrassment aside, the punishment for lateness at the library is almost silly. You can borrow as many as 50(!) books for three weeks, then renew them online for another three weeks, but if you forget to return them for a couple more weeks, you’ll owe the library like twelve cents. And then they don’t even make you pay what you owe. You can still borrow books. OK, I’m exaggerating the lowness of the fees a little – but just a little.
5. Self-Service
   On my library’s website, I can search for anything in their system. If they don’t have it, they let me search Link+ (a network of 51 libraries in California and Nevada) where I’m almost certain to find what I’m looking for. Once I find something, I can request them to hold it at the branch of my choosing. Then they email me to let me know when my request is ready to pick up. They email me again with a friendly reminder if I haven’t picked up my stuff after a few days, and again when it’s time to renew anything I’ve checked out

I can’t believe I’m writing about Britney Spears, but bear with me.

One would hope that Britney bottomed out somewhere around the head-shaving or the crotch-flashing. Now it seems the gossip mill’s coverage of Britney has finally bottomed out as well.

Yesterday I was in the checkout line at the Safeway – where I get most of my celebrity gossip – and I noticed the usual array of Britney shots on the covers of the usual magazines. But something was amiss.

The normally snarky Us Weekly had Britney’s face dominating the cover, but instead of the obligatory jab about her latest booze binge or child-endangerment episode, the headline simply read, “Living With Mental Illness.”

Adjacent to this on the shelf was Star magazine, whose cover story was something about how Britney and K-Fed are working to come up with a parenting agreement that will be good for their kids.

All of this on the heels of the recent South Park episode (“Britney’s New Look“) lampooning our insatiable appetite for tabloid news. Key quote, “I know watching celebrities go down can be fun. Me and my friends were just as guilty as all of you, but maybe, just maybe it’s time to let this one go.”

Amazingly, the tabloid press is listening, and it seems they’ve agreed to a ceasefire.

Of course, Craig Fergusson called for it a long time ago.

I was reminiscing with my colleagues yesterday about the dawn of the ATM machine. We were remembering how, when banks first started to install them, they all used to charge you a small fee for the convenience of using it – whether you belonged to the bank or not. Thankfully, banks abandoned this practice, although many will still charge you for using an “out-of-network” ATM.

When I was in Singapore doing some consulting for Singapore Airlines, they weren’t really down with the whole e-ticket thing. Labor is cheap in Southeast Asia, so travel agents are still the main outlet for sales of airline tickets. One of our initiatives with Singapore Airlines was to expand their e-ticketing capabilities, and we had to repeatedly push back on their desire to demand a convenience fee.

We poked fun at notoriously-stingy Singapore Airlines about this behind their backs. It all seems so archaic, but I still occasionally run into service fees here and there – like when I buy baseball game tickets online, as I did today.

So let’s get this straight… I’m making things more convenient for you, so you want to charge me a fee.

Actually, I suppose it’s more convenient for both of us, which is apparently a problem. So your fee is designed to counter-balance this dangerous increase in net convenience?

Just like the “patriot” act, this “convenience” thing isn’t fooling anyone. Let’s come up with a better name for your fee.

How about simply, an INconvenience fee? Maybe a We’re Sorry fee? Sucka fee?