Category Archives: Random stuff

Amazon’s new Endless.com

Just checked out Endless, Amazon’s new site that sells shoes and bags with free overnight shipping. Looks like it uses the same engine that powers Amazon’s main site, just different skin. Great concept, and I love quick shipping and Amazon in general. But I checked out their offerings and they are really not all that great. The bags they sell suck, but then Sherry and I are kindda bag snobs. Their shoes are okay, Zappos has way better selections. I saw some Evisu kicks that are kindda cool. They have stables like AE, but their prices are quite high, I’d just go to Nordstrom for that, they have better prices and even better return policy.

It would be a lot more interesting if they sell high end bags and shoes with free overnight shipping at really good prices. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Endless.com

Endless.com was built by Amazon.com in response to customers’ desires to shop a destination dedicated to shoes and handbags. Our site is built for these categories, and the passionate customers who shop them– this is our focus. We are a unique store that offers our customers the ability to find what they want easily and we deliver it as quickly as possible– reliably and securely. We take our shopping seriously–our staff is dedicated to providing the best possible experience, and our passion for shoes shows.

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the construction site across the street torched up (rivermark fire)

I was home for lunch and was playing some Wii tennis. I heard some crazy sirens from outside but thought it was just some accident on Montague Expressway. I let Fee-Fee out and on my way back this is what I saw… You can see how close it is to where I am from the first photograph. I can feel the heat from my patio. I hope they have insurance.

Here’s the story in the SV local paper…


Rivermark construction fire from my condoRivermark construction fire

Rivermark construction fire

Rivermark construction fire

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Happy Holidays, Wii, shopping, and random updates

Haven’t blogged for a few days, I did manage to catch up with most of my feeds and shared a few items in GReader… We didn’t do much for Christmas, just ate at a different restaurant every meal (as usual), played Wii, and shopped, well, we did a lot of shopping…

The Wii is a ton of fun, we only have Wii Sports, which came with the console, and The Legend of Zelda. Wii Sports is fun, I like tennis, bowling, and boxing. ๐Ÿ˜€ It is actually pretty good exercise playing Wii, I’m dead serious. I workout quite a bit, run about 5 miles per day and do weights 3-4 times a week, my shoulder and back were sore after playing some tennis. I bought Zelda because I was looking for games to buy for the Wii and it was rated very highly at all the gaming sites. I am not really into gaming, I guess the Zelda series is cool and people out there actually cop the Wii just to play this game. Sherry and I played it, the first task was to herd some goats into the barn, we could not f’king get any of them to go inside the barn. We even googled some strategy guides and it just told us to go to a place so that the goat will be between the barn and me, and it will go in there when you go closer toward the barn. We tried that and the goats always went to the side and went away last minute. (would appreciate any tips, please comment!)

We were pretty excited about boxing day shopping, I made a list of places I had to go shop and I think we hit them all. First stop was Bloomingdale’s and we were there almost sharply at 8 a.m. I finally copped the Number (N)ine jacket I’ve been lusting after for months. That thing is ridiculously expensive and I caught it at 40% off one weekend, but it was still too high. Today It was marked down by 50% and there was a 15% coupon, I applied for a Bloomie card and got another 15%. After all this it was under $1k, pretty damn good deal. ๐Ÿ™‚ Sherry didn’t cop anything special, just some random stuff from Zara and Club Monaco. Neiman had a ton of bags on sale, including A LOT of Balenciagas. They didn’t have the motorcycle bag marked down, but there were a ton of other styles for cheap. Nothing really caught her eyes though, plus she just copped a Bottega bag like 2 weeks ago so her bag fund is probably not real high at the moment. The shoppers at Neiman rocked some nice shit, we saw at least 2 Balenciagas and a lady there even had a Hermes Kelly bag (at least I think it was a Kelly, the Birkin is bigger, I think)… Most of the Dior Homme stuff at Neiman were marked down by at least 50%, but all that were left were in bigger sizes like size 52, didn’t have anything that fit me.

For about a month I had been trying to decide between a Bottega and Goyard messenger bag. They are both not cheap so I had to be absolutely sure before I pull the trigger. I would also want to customize the Goyard bag with initials and/or stripes so those would’ve been even harder to figure out. I still couldn’t quite justify spending $2.5-3k on a messenger bag, although I would really use it every single day probably for decades to come, still not easy to justify. We went to the Bottega pre-sale and the messenger bag was not marked down at all, and Goyard never puts anything on sale either. Today at Neiman I spotted a really nice messenger bag by Mulberry, it was on sale and marked down additional 25%, I tried it out and it was pretty f’king dope, so I said f it, cop the Mulberry and forget about the BV and Goyard. I am pretty happy with my decision right now. ๐Ÿ˜€

Oh yeah, coincidentally both the jacket and the bag sport RiRi zippers! M6 on the bag and M8’s on the jacket! I like shit with RiRi zippers… ๐Ÿ™‚

Tomorrow I will be in Vancouver for a day. My uncle left us last week and I am going to pay my respect at his funeral. He was a very good man and he will be dearly missed. RIP, Dr. Wong.

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ChangingThePresent

This is a great alternative to giving some b.s. gifts to your friends and family, not to mention last minute gifts to those who are impossible to shop for…

ChangingThePresent:

About ChangingThePresent – How it works

Overview

Many of us don’t need any more fruitcakes, toasters, or pen & pencil sets. Buying unwanted presents just isn’t a fulfilling way of spending our money or expressing our love.

It’s no surprise, then, that the media has reported the beginning of a trend. People are discovering that the best way to show you care for someone isn’t giving them something they don’t need, but rather in doing something to make the world a better place, in their name.

If you make such a donation gift through this site, you can also have us send a personalized greeting card to let them know how thoughtful you were.

Be sure to create your wishlist so your friends know what you want, and ask them to do the same.

Just imagine how much good we could do by capturing for effective nonprofits even a little bit of the $250 billion that Americans spend each year buying presents for one another. As this site catches on, it will become the standard way many of us will show how much we care. If you’re here now, you’re at the front of the pack.

Finding Donation Opportunities

You can browse by cause to find over a thousand donation opportunities. You can search by name to find hundreds of nonprofits, and see their offerings. Soon, you’ll be able to search by name to find and support virtually any nonprofit. (If you would like to see your nonprofit on this site, please go to the page, For Nonprofits.

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my condolescenes to the Kim family

This is truly sad news for the tech community… RIP, James…

Thank you for your Support

12/6/06 – 1:15pm – The authorities have confirmed that James Kim was found. They have reported he did not make it.
The friends and family respectfully request that the media refrain from contact during this time to allow us time to be together as friends and family in peace.

A statement for the media –

“The friends and community of the Kim family are deeply saddened by the news received today about James Kim. We want to send out our utmost thanks to the Search and Rescue teams who risked their lives in the efforts to bring James back to us, they are true heroes to risk their own lives for a stranger. As friends we know that we did everything we could to help in the search for the Kim family, which is our only comfort now. We thank the Oregon authorities, the media, and everyone who sent us their thoughts and prayers for their support through this very difficult time. Please continue to keep Kati, Penelope, Sabine and the rest of their family in your thoughts.”

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VCAT (Venture Capital Aptitude Test)

I haven’t really been reading up on my subscribed feeds that were tagged “VC” for a long time, and this is pretty much why… Instead of getting an MBA or JD/MBA and then try to break into VC, I’m probably better off using that money to do my own shit and see what comes out of it…

How to Change the World: The Venture Capital Aptitude Test (VCAT)

Venture capital is something to do at the end of your career, not the beginning. It should be your last job, not your first.

My theory is that when you?re young, you should work eighty hours a week to create a product or service that changes the world. You should not sit in board meetings listening to an entrepreneur explaining why she missed her numbers while you read email on a Blackberry and intermittently spew forth gems like, ?You should partner with MySpace; I can also introduce you to a few of the losers in our portfolio.?

Furthermore, entrepreneurs should view any young person who opted for venture capital over ?real world? experience with contempt. Why would you want advice from someone whose background consists of working in a college bookstore or cranking spreadsheets at an investment bank? Financial models are almost totally irrelevant because there?s no financial wizardry involved in making a good product and selling the heck out of it.

The three worst backgrounds for a venture capitalist are management consulting, investment banking, and accounting. Management consulting is bad because it leads you to believe that implementation is easy and insights are hard when the opposite is true in startups. Investment banking is bad because it leads you to believe that everything can be reduced to cells on a spreadsheet and that companies should be built for Wall Street, not customers. Moreover, investment bankers are oriented towards doing deals, not building companies. Accounting is bad because it leads you to believe that history not only repeats itself, it predicts the future.

Finally, there is the issue of the pertinence of an MBA to venture capital. The upside is that such a degree can provide additional tools and knowledge (such as calculating that 25% of $1.6 billion is $400 million) to help you make investment decisions and to assist entrepreneurs. The downside is that earning this degree (and I have one) causes most people to develop the hollow arrogance of someone who?s never been tested. All told, the downside of an MBA outweighs the upside.

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