Follow up on the conference. The keynote was an executive from AOL championing the Internet as The Medium for reaching consumers. Which everyone attending the conference already knew. Why else would we be in the business we are in, if we hadn't already figured out this fact? Preaching to the converted can be good when the speaker is especially motivating, but this speaker was not. At all. I won't call that 45 minutes a complete waste of time, but it certainly was not the best use of my time. Following that was a panel of experts, the theme of which appeared to be Direct Marketing 101-Lite. Now, not everyone at the conference comes from a direct marketing background (although affiliate marketing at its best is very much all about direct marketing), so I can see how that panel could be of value to a fair number of attendees. I do come from a direct marketing background, however, and was almost wishing that I had skipped the conference entirely in favor of a day in the office as usual. Almost.

It was, at least, lovely to walk along the Hudson River on such a sunny, pleasantly warm day.

Went to business conference today in Manhattan, which meant day out of the office (yay!). Conference is turning out to be a waste of my time, telling me nothing new (boo!). Luckily, conference has free Wi Fi, so I'm online getting business ("business" business and personal business) done. Can't wait for lunch, so I can head off to F&B on 23rd Street.

For any NYC-area music lovers, I have a hot tip for you. Sandy Bell is playing a show at sin-e this Friday night at 8:00. Sandy has one of the most beautiful, soulful, rich voices you'll ever hear. (Not to mention that Sandy herself comes off as one of the sweetest, most karmically beautiful people you'll ever meet.) Don't believe me? Click over to her site and click your way to the "music" section. Turn up your speakers, because a cut from her most recent EP, "The Good Daughter", will start playing automatically. Then get off your asses and head down to sin-e Friday night to see her perform live. Yes, it's definitely worth the hassle. The live performance is even better than the recordings.

My friend Kira, who's way more interesting than me, just started up her own blog at kiraliza. Not much there yet, but give it a month and it'll be better than a pair of tickets to see the next John Waters movie.

After a bad (i.e., lazy) week, I finally made it to the gym again last night. As soon as I stepped into the place, I realized why I hate going to the gym in the summer. I immediately started dripping with sweat, just making my way to the locker room. (And no, I'm not that out of shape.) Must scout out other Crunch locations and find one sufficiently air-conditioned. Or else start a swimming regimen.

The job hunt continues apace. No responses yet to my resume, but then, none of the listings that I've been replying to have inspired me to really go all-out with my cover letter. Should anyone reading this know of any open ecommerce manager positions, preferably with a start-up company, please let me know.