Tomorrow evening is the Social Media Mafia "sit down" dinner in NYC.

The event is taking place at the Trattoria Dopo Teatro at 7:30pm, tomorrow (April 24)

125 West 44th Street

Looking forward to seeing you for big eats and some drinks, and plenty of geekery.

Send me an SMS tomorrow if problems: +447824776785 send me one anyway :)

Technorati Tags: dinner friends mafia media sit-down social dinner sit-down social media mafia friends

Facebook chat will aid in the reduction of publishing on the platform: Discuss

So Facebook rolls out a chat application this morning, I log in to find a list of "online friends" ready as potential victims for me to pounce on for synchronous chat!

I don't know about you, but I do like live chat, I mean hell I've used it as a business platform for about 8 years, chatting with clients and students all over the world, it's always been my office. I remember using Yahoo! extensively with students for 4 years, as our "virtual classroom", and even added away messages like "this is my office knock first", or "I'm in the garden making fireworks", poor attempts and installing a sense of go away I am busy right now.

So I'm comfortable with chat.

Already today I chatted with Jeff, Maz, Daniel, Ben, Matthias, kfir, CJ,

I do prefer though the time one has in email, the reflection time, to ponder and to measure, chat removes that and of course demands immediate attention.

Regardless of how you feel about chat itself, do you think it might actually decrease the amount of publishing on the platform itself? If you can instantly contact and ask a friend something, why would you publish, notes, forums posts and various bits and bobs?

What's your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: chat class facebook friends IM synchronous facebook friends chat class IM synchronous

I got a mass-who-sive box through the mail today from CJ containing my new uber-minimalist business/networking cards, matching the lime theme on this 'ear' blog. I can't even remember how many I actually ordered, but the box is GIGANTIO and rammed with even smaller little plastic cases with a gazillion cards in, I like it, makes me feel important!

As you can see we are sporting a very stylish minimalist embossed concept on the front, and a delightful twirl of the card will reveal some further details about moi, including me email addy and "dog n bone number".

I also love the way the cards have a few lines on the reverse, for making some notes, like an appointment, a web page, another phone number, another contact etc.

I think that's part of it you know, part of why I love these new cards. I love the space on the back that enables me, or anyone else, to write things about our delightful moment of interaction, almost like a node of some kind, a contact for other people, pretty smashing stuff! I've used any old scrap of paper in the passed, whatever was laying around, but this is far better.

The cards were not the cheapest in town, I mean who do you think you are dealing with here? No, no, not cheap but worth every penny to me for giving CJ the power to organise it all for me, and get them churned out. You should go speak with her if you want it all taken care of yourself, she will work with you until you are totally happy and then some.

Technorati Tags: address business cards contacts email friends networking telephhone business cards networking contacts address email telephhone friends

The key to the drink is quality vodka and quality orange juice, bad juice and bad vodka is just not good.

To finish this off I enjoy having a large segment of fresh orange in the glass, skin included, typically a large glass with about 3 shots of vodka.. ahhhhh a long long screwdriver.

One of the reasons I enjoy a Screwdriver it that the more you drink of these the clearer your thought seems to become, its a good alcohol buzz, it's not a groggy beer haze, or a demon head spin, it's pleasant and crystal.

The other reason this combination is perfect is that you are drinking large amounts of pure orange juice which is rammed with vitamin C of course. Hang-overs are often never present due to such a high intake of vitamin C.

So if we meet up and have a drink you'll know what I'll be having.

Update: A twitter follower mentioned it might be vitamin B which aids hang-over cures. If you know please do comment.

Technorati Tags: drinking friends juice orange screwdriver vodka vodka drinking screwdriver orange juice friends

Gmail Tip

You might not be aware of this (I wasn’t until recently).

You can use your gmail username with a + after it with absolutely anything and you’ll still get the email.

You what?

Yep, for example my username is “chambly”, so I could let’s say use chambly+disposable@gmail.com and I’d still get the email.

Or chambly+yahoosignup@gmail.com and I’d get the email still.

Why is this so cool?

Well you can use different combinations for different contacts you may meet, say +business, +friends, or say +spam if you want to sign up to a site but fear spam. You can then set up filters in gmail to filter your mail based on the +whatever, keeping you very organised and your precious username lean.

I love that tip, think it's handy yourself?

Technorati Tags: business contacts friends gmail google mail spam tip mail tip gmail google spam contacts business friends

Strange title perhaps, but one that is true, Kidney stones really do fucking hurt, and a lot!

I felt I should write up a blog about the previous week as many people were wondering what I was doing or up to, some people had read my status message on Facebook, some just caught the odd Twitter, some, those closest friends, were in the SMS loop.

Fact is the last seven days are probably up there with the strangest in my life, sure I have had completely crazy weeks before, totally mayhem in places, yet these last seven represent two very extreme ends of joy and pain.

Last Friday Nov 30 I received final news of a negotiation I had been working on, and though I’m still not releasing that amazing news publically, let’s just say the deal is life changing for me and my family, which of course is “the” driver for me these days.

So there we were in town on this amazing high, enjoying a plush bar and having a single celebratory drink and contemplating our future when I started getting some abdominal cramps, not severe, but mildly annoying.

We finished our drinks and then made our way back home to get Lola fed and off to bed, Jo popped out to talk with a friend and I had an evening looking after me girl. That evening the cramps stayed similar, just mildly annoying.

Saturday ….

So I got up fairly early on Saturday with a radiant smile (after such wonderful news the day before), made a cup of tea and sat down to watch the morning news.

Within about 10 mins the cramps were back and this time had me worried, the pain was increasing by the minute and thankfully Jo suggested hospital was the best idea.

I drove off to hospital and by the time I had arrived I was doubling over, in real discomfort. After some initial checks and various samples they were slightly baffled. They gave me some anti-spasmodic drugs and mild painkillers, which this did seem to help. The diagnosis at this point (by a young doctor probably not long out of training) suggested “these things happen and usually clear up within 24 hours”. Umm yeah, sure skippy.

Now this is where I am pissed off with Accident & Emergency, they sent me home. Within 45 mins I was in utter agony at home, tremendous pain, such that Jo had to drive me back to hospital while I was literally writhing around in the back of the car.

Hours went by with me in extreme pain, pain like I never knew existed. Again the duty Doctor was a young female, probably far too in-experienced and also very insensitive to my condition, her suggestion was “we are at the end of line, so best if we send you home with some pain relief”. I looked up at her from the bed and said “I am going fucking nowhere in this state of pain”. She went on to say “well the only other thing is we send you to Stoke (another hospital) for some checks”, well Christ she had a brain after all. I said “let’s do that”. Again hours passed, far too many, with little urgency, needless pain suffering before I ended up in the back of an ambulance on my way to Stoke after a blast of Morphine.

I won’t bore you with any more details about what went on, but the diagnosis was that I passed a couple of kidney stones, these come down from the kidney and can rip the ureter as they pass down into the bladder, and I’m telling you it fucking hurts.

To make things worse due to some laceration of the ureter by the passing stones an infection was contracted and joy oh joy produced a handsome fever from which I am now suffering.

I am now back at home after my hospital holiday and relaxing in bed mostly, the fever is reducing by the day, along with remnant pain, should be ok by mid-week, about 10 days from the start of it all.

So there we go, many people were asking so I felt a quick update might help. I also want to say a huge thank you to those of you who sent wishes to me, you know who you are, yes you, It didn’t go unnoticed I really appreciated that a lot, often you can tell her cares about you in these situations.

OK, that’s it, I apologise now for future medical related blogs, as they are bound to come, I have good mini-stories of the experience, I think that’s the point, in all these things there is always, inevitably, a positive side, always something good to share with someone about it, I’ll do that I imagine.

And you know what, fuck the stones too!

Technorati Tags: doctor friends hospital kidney morphine pain stoke stones thanks kidney stones hospital pain morphine thanks friends stoke doctor