Schiavoni Files

Also exciting is the official launch of my company's new website: www.newprogressivecoalition.com.

It's neat because not only does it have political networking capabilities where you can contact other members directly, etc., but it also helps you find specific targeted resources and information based on the political interests you define on your profile.

There's a catch though, you have to be a member to use it. My company's goal is to find, grow and engage the next generation of progressive political investors. We want to make sure that people have a way to be more strategically engaged in progressive politics, connect with other like-minded people, and be treated like more than just an ATM machine every time a candidate rolls through town. It's time we get serious about building our progressive political infrastructure folks, and leverage the talent of the next generation of entrepreneurial individuals and organizations. As our CEO always says, remember what happened when the small financial investor got access to the research and information they needed to make smarter decisions about their financial investments? The market grew. It's not time for us to do the same in politics.

And we have kick-ass parties.;o) Tomorrow we have a PACKED launch party at this really cool new restaurant/speakeasy called Bourbon & Branch. Pictures to follow after tomorrow.
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How cool is this website my friend created? (Click"open we feel fine," load the page, and start clicking on dots, squares, mounds, etc.). How does it do that? I have no idea.

According to the site description: The system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.)... [and] the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written.

Of course this guy is also the brains behind Google's personalized search, but even so, I still feel impressed. (now I'm off to search for my quote particle).
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We've all had them at one point or another.

They finally came up with a mathematical formula to explain them (although they forgot to factor in variable "D" for desperation level).

The more interesting phenomena is some of the non-alcohol related slumming that happened to many of us in college. We called them Wesleyan goggles. I'd like to figure out the mathematical formula for those.

Then you get out of college and realize you weren't slumming after all, the pool was just much more quality to begin with (or at least it would be 5 years later when they turned from boys to men).
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My brother Tony writes an almost daily blog about my roommate Leina. I've mentioned this before, but feel the need to mention it again since it's been so funny lately. Everyone who knows either Leina or Tony thinks it is pretty much hysterical. I am not sure if people who don't know either of them find it funny.

But you ask, how could my brother possibly have enough material to write so much about my roommate? a) Leina talks on the phone a lot and much of the time she is talking to my sister-in-law Erica who she grew up with and b) he makes stuff up to fill in the details.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone had a blogographer? I thought about writing one about my friend Stephen because he's a total character. And Stephen said he thought about writing one about our other friend Andy. Then maybe Andy could write one about me (except he now lives in China). But that would all take a lot of work.

My conclusion: my brother has too much time on his hands.

It's funny because as I'm writing this post about my brother's blog I find myself switching over to his writing style a bit. Kind of strange.
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I've always said that following electoral politics is like following any other sport.

You gotta keep track of the players/candidates, the odds/polls, game/campaign and of course, keep track of the wins and losses.

I'm now working on a growing list of electoral junkie characteristics. Here's my start:

• holds congressional bracket pools in our office each election
• heads right to the NYT Weekend Review like others do the sports page
• attends or hosts presidential debate and state of the union parties (complete with political buzz word drinking games--"a shot every time Bush says nuculear")
  
• watches the political betting sites with avid interest (they are usually very accurate)
• And my new favorite (and the impetus for this post): Fantasy Congress

I definitely know a lot of race junkies who can name all the open seats in the country even in midterm elections complete with candidate bios and poll numbers. I personally think those folks are as crazy as the guys that know the draft pick round of every member of their favorite college football team. Still, I like to be a bit righteous about my chosen sport. The players aren't usually as hot or fun to watch, but the stakes are much higher.
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