Check out the one of the best views in town, brought to you via our friend Doug's PortsmouthNH.com, a wireless web-cam, and an anonymous local businessman's downtown apartment window. Certainly, this view of the Piscataqua is nothing to wine about. I mean whine. Did I type wine? That was a typo. Anyway, if you look real closely, you can scope out the good seats on Poco's deck before you leave the office. God, how I love the Internet.

In the sweltering heat and stiffling humidity, the place to be Thursday night was on the water. Specifically, on the Thomas Laighton for the eCruise.

My personal photographer, Melanie Burger, tends to shoot scenery rather than people. One of the few people shots was this one of me and my tongue. Good thing she's cute. She's also good at those scenery shots. See for yourself here and below.

My goals for the night (besides avoiding heat stroke and, of course, any sort of maritime disaster) was to a.) catch up with old friends (check), b.) meet some new people (check), and c.) find the eCoast's first iPhone (no dice). I did, however, see...

• Lots of Hatchlings. Marc... Jeremy... Zack... They always seem to have something goin' on. Their original film short "Toll" continues to attract attention at film festivals nationwide. Oh and Jeremy, I owe you a Coke.
  
• An old colleague Mary Kay, formely of Interface Tech News, who sold my old company full-page ads back in the day. She's now with Vermillion, the pre-press printer/direct marketing company.
• My pal Katie and her new S.O. Randy, who runs a very successful systems supplier, Avian Computer.
• Old friend Scott Z, one of my favorite people and a great Red Sox fan, not to mention a pretty nifty developer.
  
• Jeff Ackley, who never misses an eBrew, god bless him.
  
• Ditto for Steve Long, Mr. Snuggleball himself.
  
• George Bald of DRED, who I finally got to meet in person, and who was kind enough to delay his disembarkment to chat briefly about the state's wi-fi plans.
• All the good folks at the Chamber, although there are decidedly fewer of them nowadays, most notably the president, with Ginny and Tom pulling double-duty.
• Hell, I even saw an old college buddy of mine who happens to work on the ship!

It was a wonderful night out. There was some grumbling/confusion about the tickets that didn't = drinks as has been the case at prior eCruises. But that was OK. And then there's those who just couldn't break away on a work night to get there for the 5:25 getaway. They wonder if next year we could push it back to 6 or so? Seems reasonable to me... Might bring a few more people out.

Oh and special thanks to Doug of SingleToken, who not only reserved my ticket while he was getting his, but also tried to buy me a beer on-board. (I was just toooo fast for him!)

eCruisin'

It's back! The can't-miss networking event of the summer of '07 is the 8th Annual eCruise. No, it's not a virtual cruise or some kind of simulation -- it's a real boat ride! In fact, it's the eCoast's monthly eBrew, only instead of meeting at the Press Room, we meet at the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company. The eCruise is chock full of like-minded techies, good drinks, and tremendous views, so join me and friends both old and new aboard the "Tipsy Thomas" (M.V. Thomas Laighton) for a twooo-hour cruise, a twoooo-hour cruise!

When: Thursday, August 2. Boarding begins at 5PM. We ship out at 5:25PM.

Where: 315 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH.

Who: All your compatriots from the eCoast, plus reps from the NH High Tech Council, NH BioTech Council, NH Software Association, and Mass High Tech.

How Much: 20 little ol' American dollars gets you on-board.

Why: Because you'll regret it for a whole 'nother year if you don't!

This year's iteration of Concert for a Cure, written up here in today's Portsmouth Herald Spotlight, looks to be the best yet.

On the subject of the cause, I find this group's attitude toward breast cancer particularly refreshing -- they speak openly and honestly about it and aren't afraid to even joke about it. All too often, I've found myself in the situation of finding out about someone's diagnosis and being totally flummoxed and not knowing what, if anything, to say, ask, offer, or do. These proud, brave women tell it like it is, which opens everyone up to a more open, honest, and educational discussion on the scourge of cancer.

On the subject of the music, Bill Morrissey and Ben Baldwin are well enough known, but I highly recommend not missing Joyce Andersen's set at 3:05. She's awesome. And how Slaid Cleaves, with his talent and looks, hasn't blown up by now is beyond me.

Get your tix here and be there at Red Hook Brewery Saturday for all the fun.

Well, the powers that be at Lions Gate finally allowed us here in the NH Seacoast the opportunity to screen Michael Moore's documentary on the US health care debacle. Check out my link in my previous post (below). And check out the Lions Gate's web site -- I find it interesting that it's promoting some insipid teen movie instead of Sicko. I also find it interesting that despite the last-minute limiting of its release, Sicko is pulling in big bucks, out-pacing Oceans Thirteen, Nancy Drew, Shrek, and Surfs Up in far fewer theaters.

I saw it on Friday night, opening night at Regal Stadium 12 in Newington. The room was packed; I wisely bought tix ahead of time on Fandango just to make sure we got in.

Some have classified Sicko as a docu-comedy, because you will laugh out loud. (Moore has a deliciously acerbic wit.) But I call it a docu-horror movie. As in, it's horrifying. I was horrified by the way we treat our sick, poor, and elderly in this country. I was horrified to see how much better it is in countries from Canada to Cuba. I mean, I knew there was a problem with our for-profit health care system -- if not from the research and facts, but also intuitively and anecdotally. And Moore confirmed my worst fears. This is a movie that, like An Inconvenient Truth, everyone should see, regardless of your politics. The issues Moore raises are universal. They affect us all. Check it out for yourself and LMK what you think!

iPhone, uPhone, y'allPhone

These guys at Apple, Inc.? They know what they're doing. Is there any better case study fodder than Apple when it comes to rolling out new products? Forbes is impressed with their "Think Secret" way of launching the iPhone, where they created a vague impression of a shortage by simply not announcing a shipment number; in fact, they built plenty to go around, much to the chagrin of the overnight campers and cybersquatters looking to turn a profit on eBay. Turns out the launch of iPhone is more like launch of the Harry Potter book (July 21) and less like the Nintendo Wii (last Christmas). For the die-hard fans, Harry Potter will be an event -- a midnight party complete with balloons and a countdown. For everyone else, it's a book (they'll make more).

Oh and BTW, when your product is the subject of not one but two comic strips (Opus and FoxTrot) in the Sunday Globe, you've reached critical mindshare mass. Here's Opus getting his:


And yes, I want one. A lot. Especially since my iPod was stolen out of my car last month. When you consider the iPhone is the best iPod Apple's made to date, the phone part is a bonus and it's not a bad deal at $500.

Tis the season of heat, humidity, and escaping the aforementioned in the air-conditioned comfort and splendor of your local movie theater. Even better, in the Seacoast we've gotten sort of a Movie Theater 2.0 with the new Regal here in Newington, complete with stadium seating -- which from a branding perspective, maybe shouldn't really be called stadium-style, lest someone think of cold aluminum bench-style bleachers. (In fact, the seats themselves are more like captains chairs with their rocking recline, high backs, and individual cupholders.) Anyway, I was stunned to see the marquee in Newington the other day... There's all kinds of movies I'd actually want to see playing right now, from Shrek to Spider-man (well, maybe not Spider-man per-se, but Kirstin Dunst, oh yes) to Pirates to Ratatouile (Brad Bird does it again!) to Evan Almighty. Heck I'd even watch Ocean's 13 or Transformers or Nancy Drew under the right circumstances. Check out the plethora of options!

But the one movie I really want to see isn't there... Or anywhere near here, it seems. I'm talking about Sicko, the new Michael Moore vehicle. Have I ever called a movie theater wondering if and when they would be getting in a particular movie? Not until Moore's scathing documentary about the American health care crisis. That's pretty damn good advance buzz, my friends.

After poking around online for a while, and wondering if I could justify driving 45 minutes to Massachusetts to see a movie, I found this. Could it be a conspiracy to minimize the impact of his message? Normally I'm not much for conspiracy theory, but with Michael Moore, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

What makes this even more ironic (or suspicious?) is that Moore purposefully picked NH last week to premiere the movie in the first place: "We are in New Hampshire today because we hope this film will have an impact in the coming election," Moore said during a press conference. Hmm....

In any event, I have a friend who attended the premiere and she said she "cried the whole way through." Not exactly the stuff of a prototypical summertime blockbuster, is it?

"Happy Father's Day!"

This is how a column in today's Sunday Globe begins. A good start, no doubt, seeing as it's Father's Day. But it's all downhill from here.

The article is by Jane Rosenzweig, a writing teacher at Harvard. The teaser on page A1 was promising: "Daddy Memoirs: Recent memoirs deliver a more nuanced look at the experience of modern fatherhood."

But instead of a detailed, thoughtful review of new books, we get bitterness and belittlement. In the very first graf, she implores dads on our special day of honor to "relax, secure in the knowledge that cultural expectations for you remain low." Nice. It's like waking up and having your wife tell you, "That's OK honey, I'll make the coffee, like I always do." On your birthday. Gee, uh, thanks dear.

She says, "In a culture that's deeply invested in scrutinizing mothers, it seems you still have to do something spectacular -- let your daughter videotape you drunk, perhaps, like David Hasselhoff, or call your daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig" on her voicemail like Alec Baldwin -- to be deemed a truly bad father."

Huh?

That's spectacular? I wonder what superlative she'd apply to a parent like this. I think severing your baby's arms or drowning your kids in a bathtub is on a level somewhat more spectacular than a dad getting angry with his daughter because she missed a visiting date with him.

Overall, it seems Ms. Rosenweig is disinterested in the subject matter of the day, constantly comparing fathers' situations with mothers' and a few fatherhood memoirs to several "Mommy Wars" books, with which seems much more familiar.

Throughout the article, Ms. Rosenweig seems to have a chip on her shoulder, apparently jealous of some perceived advantage that fathers enjoy with our "lower societal expectations." But for which parents is it socially acceptable to work full-time, or part-time, or not at all? Moms have all these choices, but dads are expected to work full-time (overtime, actually, if they want to get a raise or promotion and be good providers for their families), and find time to be good dads, and "help out" around the house, and take care of their traditional yard/home/car maintainance duties. It's almost like she has no idea what fathers actually do, or doesn't care. For a while I wondered if she even bothered to read the books she was assigned.

In her conclusion, Ms. Rosenzweig quotes an anecdote from Crawling: A Father's First Year. The author, a children's book writer/illustrator, was in a grocery store when his daughter began to cry. A woman at the store said: "Ohh, she must want her mommy." The author was a bit insulted by the unintentional dig, and quite rightly so. But Ms. Rosenzweig dismisses his experience and, again, turns it around to a faulty feminist perspective, interpreting it as an implicit criticism of the absent mother! Wow.

Next year, Globe editors, do us proud, self-respecting dads a favor and leave Ms. Rosenzweig's opinions out of my Father's Day. Perhaps next year, the Father's Day article could be penned, by, you know, a father?

And now, Ms. Rosenzweig, if you'll excuse me, I've got a family fun day planned.

The feel-good story of the summer, right here. It's rare these days but always good to see a community of people pull together for a friend in need. I was there on Sunday for the save-the-farm yard sale and concert, and I was struck by the notion that it was sort of real-life reenactment of "It's a Wonderful Life."

In this version, instead of George, the townsfolk cried, "Katie is in trouble?!" and rushed to her house with fists full of dollars. Katie, a long-time and well-respected citizen in Durham, has given so much time and support to non-profits, local musicians... provided gainful employment to so many (including me) through her entreprenuership... hosted so many political candidates and plain-old barn-busting parties... well, her friends just had to come a-running when she needed them most.

The evil Potter's bank in this case was Ocean National, hell-bent on taking her beloved homestead, which she rebuilt from ashes, to public auction, regardless of the circumstances or the good faith shown.

This story has a happy ending of course, but before we get too carried away, I hasten to add that as far as I know, no bells rang on their own and no angels earned wings in the process.

"Here's to Katie, the richest woman in town." ;-)

Boy, you never know how much you rely on your laptop until the day your laptop ceases to function. Basically, I've been a bad blogger lately, and that's my excuse. I just can't sit at a desk and write anymore. I. Just. Can't. Apparently, I need to be comfy on a couch, chair, or on my bed, or maybe downtown at a coffee shop. Does anybody else have this problem, or is it just me? It's like when I went from antenna tv to cable tv. Or dial-up to high-speed. Or regular cable to DVR cable, TiVo style. I just can't go backward, technologically speaking at least.

My iMac, or as I call it, The Mother Ship, still serves its function as e-mail repository (gotta be 30,000 messages in there by now) , iPhoto (hundreds of pics going back to the day I bought my Canon Digital Elph) and iTunes library, which is fast gobbling up the few remaining gigs on my harddrive. But for news browsing, working my fantasy teams, writing press releases, and blogging, it's a laptop or bust. This despite the news story I heard on the radio this morning about laptops causing back problems. (Not sure if this was the source story or not, but you'll get the gist.)

Good news is, I'm adopting a new MacBook! It's coming home to me on June 13 from NYC via my pal Ronald of SeacoastMacSupport fame. Who knows, he may forever be known as the man who saved the Buzz Blog!

How many blogs are blogging this?

This Dilbert stuck me as quite apropos, if not a little scary. (And as an aside, I'm sure many of us marketing types recognized the situation. Poor Tina the Tech Writer! We feel your pain.)

In all jokes, of course, there's a kernel of truth, and Mr. Scott Adams, as per usual, has hit on an emerging truth in business culture. The blogger you're reading may not be who you think it is. No, it's not yet at the point where we automatically distrust the source, e.g., we know now that "hotbunny69" who was pinging you on IM is not really an interested girl trying to strike up a friendly conversation. But as this Dilbert becomes more truth than joke, it won't be long before we do.

The social media/Web 2.0 revolution has given us these tremendous communication tools, and business, moving ever faster to gain competitive edge, is busy exploiting them -- or swallowing them up outright -- but to what end? It's no secret that the user-driven Internet mediums are being utilized (exploited? raided? crippled?) by Corporate America. That's not necessarily a bad thing -- Corporate America made the Internet, originally an altruistic but only marginnally useful invention, into what it is today. But as blogs are becoming less user-driven and diary-like and more commercial-driven and advertising-like, some may see that as robbing the medium of what was its main source of attractiveness in the first place, rendering it irrelevant. So business bloggers beware! Think hard and long before you try to use any social media for corporate marketing purposes. Media maven Marshall McCluhan said "the medium is the message," but consider this: Just because the Pointy-Haired Boss wants to implement a blog, that doesn't mean he actually has anything to say.

Congratulations go out this morning to my good friends Michael McCord and Katie Paine!

"Michael McCord of the Portsmouth Herald has been named the 2007 Journalist of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration's New Hampshire office.

The statewide award is part of the SBA's Small Business Week awards, which also feted Katie Delahaye Paine of Durham, founder of KDPaine & Partners LLC with the Woman Business Owner of the Year."

--From today's Portsmouth Herald. Notice the new web site they're sporting today, too. It looks fabulous!

Took the iBook out to Market Square this morning... I had heard reports that the wi-fi signal from our new, top-secret indoor location, was not quite up to snuff. Well, sad to say, those reports are correct. I got no signal at all in Breaking New Grounds (even from the window seat). After walking and dowsing, I finally grabbed the signal in front of the church. Coming back to BNG, it held until I got the kiosk, where it ironically dropped. (Ironically because of course that's where the WAP used to be housed!) So apparently we've got some tweaking to do. I'll keep you posted here.

A sure sign of Spring -- besides the predictable April snowstorm -- is the relighting of the free wireless Internet access point in downtown Portsmouth. However, this may be the last time our wi-fi hotspot plays the role of vernal harbinger. Yes, by popular demand, we've finally gone year-round! Adam Leech of the Portsmouth Herald continues to follow our progress closely.

Now that our WAP is in a secure, undisclosed location (no, not Dick Cheney's bunker) we are asking for feedback on the signal strength and range. We should still be able to hit BNG no problem, but let me know if you have any issues wherever you like to connect.

Also, as with every year, please don't take the demographic survey more than once per year; we'll set the password for this year and it won't change from visit to visit. (Uniquely, we collect basic demographic information to report the usage statistics to the City Council, and as I have market research experience, I'm the one who has to go through the Excel spreadsheet to de-dupe it. Now that we're up to thousands of users per year, needless to day, I appreciate your cooperation!)

Of course, the idea of cities and towns offering free wireless Internet continues to gain traction, worldwide and locally. Wi-Fi is actually very close to the tipping point, actually -- wi-fi has gone from way-cool bleeding-edge stuff when we first started to something we've come to expect when we open our laptops. Locally, they're loving it at Me & Ollie's in Exeter but in the "sleepy" town of Kingston, no so much. This last article quite correctly points up the fact that libraries tend to be the first wi-fi beachheads in small towns, and indeed, why not? Libraries have always been the great equalizer of information access, and I'm pleased to hear that even the smallest local NH libraries (Raymond, Fremont, Newton) plan to offer wi-fi. Cheers to Nichols Library in Kingston, Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham, and Exeter Public Library for already providing the service.

Full disclosure: For those who haven't heard the news, I work at another small town library -- I'm now the director at the Langdon Public Lirbary in Newington. And yes, we have wi-fi. ;-)

Congratulations to my friends at Sustainable Harvest International; a non-profit I did some pro-bono work for in the past. They've been picked up by the Associated Press and the news blurbs are propogating around the world as I type this. Their success is a prime example of indirect, or what I call Coat-Tail PR. When clients sign up with a PR firm, for example, they always have visions of sugar-plum placements -- like a feature story on the cover of Time magazine -- dancing in their heads. Of course, this is totally unrealistic. But, if you happen to have a unique angle on a societal trend or current news story, you might get favorable coverage by riding the coat-tails of that larger story. That's what is happening here. The story is about "Voluntourism," which is typically done in under-developed nations with shall-we-say "rustic" conditions. SHI's program is a prime example of the trend, thus they get highlighted in the story. Here's a link to the Boston Globe article. Congrats to Flo and Sarah and the whole crew; keep up the good work!

Stocks On Sale!

Tough week on Wall Street, eh? Bloomberg reports it's the end of the worst week since January 2003. Tuesday's sell off was the single biggest declining day since 9/11. Time to panic? Well, if you're a long-term investor (which, unless you're a day-trader, you really are), then there's only one way to really look at the recent precipitous drop in the major indexes: There's a sale on stocks! Been eyeing AAPL stock while you wait for the iPhone? Pick some up in the mid-80s today, a full 5 bucks off last Monday's prices. Like GOOG but put off by its recent 500 price tag? How 'bout now, at 438? Starting a new retirement account like I am? Now's a great time to start... Everything's on sale!

My brother Todd is a stock analyst, and a very good one at that, providing research and counsel to money managers to some of the best mutual funds and hedge funds around. Following this week's trainwreck, Todd just raised his projections for the major indexes over the next year. Essentially, his take is that this volatility is a good thing, because it's creating opportunities. If there's something I want to buy and the price comes down, whether it's a plasma screen HDTV or a share of stock, sure, I call that an opportunity. Check out Todd's blog and his Google video here.

Super(?) Bowl

Following the scintillating touchdown kickoff return by the sensational Devin Hester, the Coronation of King Peyton (yawn) was surrounded by even more yawn-inducing advertising at this year's Super Bowl. In what is suposed to be Madison Avenue's day to score big points, we were left with questionable calls and fumbles. Don't take my word for it, see the lackluster reviews like this one.

IMO, FedEx submitted the most creative ad for the 2nd year in a row, following up the dinosaur delivery episode with an out-of-this-world sci-fi spot.

But the show was most definitely stolen by a mini-mercial by CBS featuring a David Letterman snuggling on the couch with his arch nemesis, "The Oprah."

Best effort in a losing cause ad goes to K-Fed, for painting himself the pop-sensation-cum-fry-guy.

Interesting metrics posted here. Did you know Neilsen is counting DVR playbacks now? According to Neilsen, the ROI winners were Career Builder for biggest web traffic spike, while Anheuser-Busch won "20 percent of all post-game online discussion."

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ads this year were the proliferation of "aggregator sites" like YouTube and iFilm that pulled the video onto the web for later viewing. This of course means that viewers don't have to go the company's own web sites to see one ad; they can go to one site to see them all. These aggregator sites present a missed opportunity for marketers, Ad Age opines.

PS Our local Portsmouth product, "It's Hard to Say Goodbye," came late in the game, as is appropriate, and it hit the mark nicely, although it did seem to be rushed a bit in its final edited form, didn't it? Ooop, I see that it was in fact a bit different, according to this story in the P-Herald.

Wow. Talk about a brouhaha! An imbroglio. A cock-up. A tempest in a teapot. Call it what you will, but everybody's buzzing about a guerrilla marketing plan gone awry -- or, perhaps, even better than planned, depending on your perspective. It's now what will be forever known as the Aqua Teen Hunger Farce '07.

See, there's this show on Cartoon Network about a shake, fries, and a meatball. No, seriously, I'm not making that up. I've seen it; it's actually pretty funny. Aqua Teen Hunger Force airs late nights on "Adult Swim" -- a bunch of avant garde cartoons not meant for little kids, basically. Apparently, they're (Turner Broadcasting, owns Cartoon Network) making a movie of the show. In keeping with the off-center theme of the show, not to mention its audience, they hired a guerrilla marketing firm to do some old-fashioned buzz-making for the upcoming film on the streets of major cities. So far, so good, right?

This group comes up with the idea of installing, randomly within the cityscape, what are basically Lite-Brites (you remember Lite-Brite, doncha?) that glow the face of a character from the show. The problem comes in when someone mistakes them for... (gulp)... bombs!

Much chaos and bedlam ensues -- not on the poor unsuspecting public's part -- but rather on the part of the expert anti-terrorism powers that be in our government, from police to Homeland Security.

The whole thing points out so many different issues of the day, it's hard to know where to start.

• There's the generational gap, discussed quite brilliantly in the Globe here by Michael Levenson and Maria Cramer.

• There's the hyper-sensitized nature of the government, but not necessarily the populace, in our post 9-11 world.

• There's the government's ability to crack down on Lite-Brites, but not to respond to hurricanes and tornadoes.

• There's the revival of the old "Banned in Boston" tradition, because this marketing campaign had been going on for several weeks in 9 (count 'em, nine!) other cities without incident. In fact, Boston is now a bit of a laughing stock nationwide: "Stephen Colbert reported that Boston was besieged by what were "clearly the Lite-Brite doodlings of terrorists."

• There's art (these would be defined as a cross-genre public installations and graffiti, I guess) and freedom of expression vs. public decency and safety.

• The artistic aspect of it, my friends at Dynamic Internet www.dyni.net have bailed out the artist behind the creations -- his web site crashed under the weight of the interest surroundnig this story, but James and his crew got them up and running again as you can see athttp://www.zebbler.com/. NOTE: You can watch the 2 dudes actually installing the Lite-Brites on the video posted there -- click "Past Events" and you'll see the link.

Finally, as a long-time afficiando of guerrilla marketing, I applaud Interference Information Network. I'm not sure if Ted Turner considers the cool $2 mil he had to drop on Mayor Menino's lap for the flap to be money well spent, but he should -- a Super Bowl ad* couldn't have garnered him a fifth of this publicity!

*I'll blog the ads soon, don't worry! Stay tuned.

From a PR perspective, Microsoft is really up against it these days. You may have heard, they've got this new operating system coming out -- Vista I guess it's called. Well apparently it's taken 5 some-odd years to put the thing together. They're very proud of it. And yet... umm, how to put this nicely? Nobody cares. Microsoft isn't having any trouble garnering news coverage about it, but story after news story is lukewarm at best. The worst part? XP works just fine, thanks.

So then, Microsoft has to start touting the particular features of the new OS, right? Well, again, unfortunately, it's nothing special. Walt Mossberg says the other thing everybody else is thinking -- it's nice, but it's no Mac.

It is true, nearly all of Microsoft's "good ideas" are stolen from Apple. In The New York Times, reviewer David Pogue wrote, "You get the feeling that Microsoft's managers put Mac OS X on an easel and told the programmers, 'Copy that.'"

Meanwhile, my laid-off dot-com hero OddTodd summed up Vista's PR problem perfectly a few weeks ago:

"So tonight some nerd told me that Microsoft Vista is having problems. Like there's weird security flaws and lots of software doesn't run on it and all that. Is it me or has the Vista launch been like super weird. Like, is Vista actually out? Or out in beta still sorta? I don't know anyone who has it or wants it or even knows why they might want it later. I got nothing against Microsoft but between wacked-whatever Vista, who-cares Soapbox, not-as-good-as-google Live Search, dusted X-Box, only-for-showoff-scrotums Tablet, and the thanks-but-no-thanks Zune... something feels bizarrely off over at Microsoft."

Then there's the whole "buying a Wikipedia editor" thing. And these blogger bribing allegations. I guess if you see a few PR jobs open at Microsoft.com soon, you'll know why!

Local Boy Makes Good!

Doesn't anybody use this tried-and-true headline anymore? A great opportunity to use it was passed on by the local daily the other day when my old pal Dave Cummins was written up.
When he was first getting into modeling and acting, I thought "That's so cool!" But he was starting in his 30s, and I didn't know how he would be received. It was worth a shot, but it was a long shot. He started small, paying his dues as model for local photogs and getting up on-stage with the local thespians. Now he's (gulp) on TV with Susan Lucci on All My Children? And Tina Fey on 30 Rock? I didn't expect him to have the level of success he's achieved, but I knew if anybody could, it would be him! Congrats buddy!

Watch this space for more news on our Alvirne/UNH/Portsmouth local boy making good.

PS When you read the article, yes, he knows AMC has been on the air for a lot longer than 20 years; that was a misquote/misprint. Hey, it happens!