Belmont's Swan Song

It's well known that Veronica Belmont has decided to pursue other interests and has left Mahalo Daily. But not before starring in one last comedy episode. Those of us that grew up in the 1970's, and those wishing they had, will no doubt enjoy the latest episode titled "I'm Gonna Git You Spamma!" Brilliantly written by one of the new co-hosts, Lon Harris, it includes a groovy narration track by Tay Zonday, a guest appearance by Digg's Kevin Rose, and several fellow "Mahooligan's" such as Jonathan Harris, Mike Rhodes, Ken Bothe, Adam Hann-Byrd, Juan Garcia, and Lon Harris. Also included is former Mahaloite Mark Freiburger and the big dog himself, Jason Calacanis.

Brilliant. Simply brilliant...

I'm Gonna Git You Spamma!

Forty

It's been nearly 40 days since my last blog post, and since this past Wednesday was birthday number 40, I figure it's time to jump back into the blogosphere with a posting. First, a brief bit of business to clean up since last we spoke:

I've spent most of my time the last seven weeks preparing for, micromanaging and live blogging the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament for Mahalo, which ended two weeks ago. While the numbers certainly didn't live up to what I'd hoped for, it was an overall great experience. I was able to recruit several fellow Mahalo employees to help me blog the early games of the tournament, when as many as four games were being played at once. And I must say, with very little preparation to build off short of a brief lunch-time video I threw together for them, these guys really stepped up to the challenge and did an outstanding job in delivering all of the games of the tournament.

The liveblogging thing has been hit-or-miss recently, and I think this is a learning experience for me. Do I wish we were producing a weekly sports-related content video to build an specific audience and drive traffic to our site? Of course I do, but I don't get to make that decision. I can only play the cards I'm dealt. What I'm learning is that we need to be a little bit more selective about what works and what doesn't. The NFL games worked, and my vision for the fall is to live blog the Sunday Night and Monday night games, along with the late-in-the-season Thursday night games on NFL Network (which seemingly nobody still has). The pay-per-view events have worked, and we'll continue to do the boxing and wrestling events as they come up. I think we have the potential to hit with some niche events, like auto racing and the like. But I've decided to pull back a little bit too, so as not to over-saturate. I was going to live blog the NFL Draft next weekend, but with so many other outlets covering it, I'm deciding to just comment about it when it's over.

I must tell you the experience of doing all the games in the NCAA Tournament (I personally handled half of the games myself) was exhausting, but satisfying none the less.

Moving on to the subject of my birthday: my family and friends each took part in dual celebrations this past week, and they were really great. It's nice to know that I mean something to people. Seems like it should feel more important than it has been. I keep waiting for the epiphany that a round number such as 40 should constitute. Yet I feel the same as I did last week.

So I thought I would compile a brief list called "10 at 40", the 10 greatest experiences of the first 40 years of my life. After all, I'll feel extremely fortunate if I can do a 10 at 41, let alone a 10 at 80. So here goes, in Letterman-style reverse order:
(10) Graduating from high school
(9) The Remedy screening and after-party in April of 2004
(8) The '86 Mets winning the World Series (still my favorite sports moment of all)
(7) My internship at WFAN
(6) PA Announcing the Hollywood vs HipHop Celebrity Basketball Game in NYC in 2006
(5) My 20-year high school reunion weekend in 2006
(4) Winning the Saddle River Day School morning announcement job, announced in front of entire student body in an assembly
(3) Winning softball championships in 1991 & 97 as a teammate of my best friend, Patrick D'Errico
(2) Getting to be the best man at my brother Zac's wedding in 2000
(1) The births of my nieces, Bella and Vivi

I feel very blessed to have experienced some of the highs and many of the lows that I have so far. I'm trying to learn to lose the many things that I regret about my life, of opportunities wasted and people lost, to accept that I am where I am right now in part because I went through some trials and tribulations and came through the other side. Now I need to just see where things go next.

And you know what, I haven't been able to predict anything of true significance to this point, and I'm not going to even try to do so going forward. Just going to fasten my seat belt and see where the ride takes me next...