Seriously, how did I miss this? I nearly spit out my coffee. The rebuttal video is just as funny. Unfortunately, Best Buy didn’t think so and they nearly fired the person that created it – even though he never mentions Best Buy anywhere in the video. It’s too bad companies can’t have a sense of humor once in a while. And for the record, I love my iPhone 4.

Update: While Best Buy didn’t share Brian Maupin’s sense of humor, it appears that Paramount Pictures does. Nicely done Brian!

I was watching a roundtable interview over at Zacuto.com with the director of this short film, Sean Dunne. I did a quick search on Vimeo and found this piece called “The Archive.” It’s the story of Paul Mawhinney of Pittsburgh, PA and his collection of almost 3 million records. While I was initially drawn to watch it because of my love of vinyl and music, it was the story of Paul’s current despair that really made an impression.

Watch it and let me know what you think.

I talk a lot of shit on my radio show – a lot of it at the expense of this country and some of its people. I believe as an American it is our job – our responsibility- to hold our leaders to a high standard. A lot of brave men and women have fought for this country over the last 200 plus years making sacrifices that we can’t even begin to imagine. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t stop to think about it enough throughout the year. So today, let’s take a moment or two from our BBQ’s and fireworks to honor those that gave so much for our independence.

Happy 4th of July America. Now, let’s hear some rock n’ roll Mr. Vai!

Just when you think BP can’t do anymore to screw their own reputation, you hear something like this. Yep, apparently BP has been sending their own “journalists” to “cover” the event in the Gulf. Unbelievable.

My friend Jeff sent this link to me this past week and I was blown away. It’s an incredibly clever way to illustrate that sometimes the answers we seek are right in front of us, we just need to adjust, and in some cases reverse, our thought process

I talk to a lot of non-tech people about Twitter. Most of the time the general consensus is that they don’t get it. Why do they want to read about someone getting coffee or eating a sandwich? Well, I personally do like to read those types of details in a Twitter feed, but I understand that it’s not appealing to everyone. A new Twitter client called Twylah can help cut through that clutter.

Let’s say you follow your favorite baseball player on Twitter and you’d only want to read about his tweets relating to baseball – Twylah will help you do that by sorting a any Twitter profile by most-tweeted keywords. Cool right?

Maybe you want to create a mini-blog out of your Twitter stream – you can do that too. In fact, I can use my Twylah page to mix in blog posts longer than 140 characters with my existing Twitter updates. Register yourself a domain name and point it to your Twylah page and BOOM – you’ve got yourself a blog.

I recently interviewed Twylah founder Eric Kim for Relevantly Speaking. I think you guys will find this interesting.

I talk to companies everyday about the way to use a channel like Twitter the right way to engage and market to consumers. There are many clients doing it right including CPK, Zappos, Comcast and Citrix Online.

Then I see spam like this:

In none of my recent tweets have I talked about home ownership or solar panels. So why single me out with an “@” message that tries to sell me solar panels for my home? I often counsel clients on listening tools they can use to make sure they are part of relevant conversations that are happening on Twitter about their industry or their brand. When done correctly and with genuine intent, it can often lead to a sale – or even better – a long term relationship.

In this particular case Mr. Lester Sheets not only wasted his time by blindly Twitter spamming me, he did actual damage to his brand by harassing me in a very public way with an unwanted tweet. First off, even when I am in the market for solar panels this incident ensures I will never buy from him. Second, I immediately unfollowed him therefore severing any chance he had to build a relationship and market to me in the future.

Social media marketing is a lot like a cocktail party. You wouldn’t walk up to a group of people, interrupt their conversation and start handing out business cards, would you? No, instead, you’d walk up, smile and probably listen for a few minutes to hear what the conversation was about. Then, where appropriate, you’d add a comment or share a common experience that adds value to the group. Maybe after 10 or 15 minutes someone might say to you “hey, what is it that you do?” At that point you can elaborate and if they’re in the market for what you’re offering you have a reasonable chance at building a business relationship. That’s because you took the time to listen and add value before you shared details about yourself. It should be the same mindset on Twitter.

That said, I have a question for @SilverJingles: How often has you vomiting into someone else’s Twitter stream actually brought you a customer?

Those that know me understand my passion for food. A good meal is one of my favorite things on this Earth. In addition to traveling and dining at some of the most amazing restaurants in the country, I also like to cook for myself at home. Usually I’m a “make-it-from-scratch” kind of guy, but sometimes I take a shortcut or two.

Tonight I made pasta with Rao’s Homeade Marinara Sauce. It was one of the best pasta dishes I’ve had in a long time. Here’s what I did:

First, I pan-fried an Italian sausage until it was brown. Then I cut it into bit-sized pieces and set it aside. Next, I chopped some red bell peppers and onions and sauteed them in the same pan I had cooked the sausage with a bit of olive oil. When they were just about cooked I added some finely sliced garlic and the sausage I cooked earlier. After browning the garlic and cooking the sausage through, I added the Rao’s Marinara Sauce. I simmered it on low heat for about 10 minutes and served it with bucatini pasta.

For those unaware, Rao’s is a legendary Italian restaurant in Harlem. It’s nearly impossible to get a table. Ever. They’ve since opened another location in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace that replicates the New York location almost identically. They’ve become such legend among foodies, they’ve started offering jarred sauce at retail outlets across the country.

Rao’s sauce consists of pretty simple ingredients. It contains only Imported tomatos, olive oil, onions, salt, garlic, basil, black pepper and oregano. This is truly one of the cases where the end-result is greater than the sum of it’s parts.

This is an admittedly unusual entry on my blog. Even though I obsess about food daily, I never write about it here. I am not in any way affiliated with Rao’s and I don’t receive any compensation for writing about their sauce, but this meal was so good I felt compelled to share it with you in the hopes that you might try it.

The sauce is available at most major grocery chains – at least here in Santa Barbara. At $7.00 per jar, it’s not cheap, but you could easily feed 4-6 adults on a single jar of sauce – that’s pretty reasonable.

If any of you actually try the sauce, I’d love to know what you think. Am I smoking crack or is it really that good? For those interested, I paired it with a 2007 Estate Pinot Noir from Melville Winery.

This is a redux of a video that was put out awhile back. For those of you that are skeptical of social media and it’s impact, take a look.

The series finale for “Lost” is just a few hours away. Lots of people are treating it like the Superbowl or the Oscars, but will it really have a satisfying payoff? My money is on “no,” but we’ll know soon.