I’ve been reading Fear and Loathing in America Vol II. I had been looking for a real book but decided to pay some homage to the late Dr. Thompson by purchasing another of his books. Maybe some of the money goes to Juan? It isn’t a real book because it is a collection of letters from Thompson during some tough years in the late 60s mainly focused on his inability to write a book on the death of the American dream. The introduction is written by some famous prolific writer who cautions any new writer to not try follow in Thompson’s footsteps because he is unique and all who have tried it have failed. There goes my career as a gonzo journalist blogger! Most of Fear and Loathing in America is quite dry and I was hoping it was going to put me to sleep tonight from 3:30 AM until now but it hasn’t worked the trick yet. Madeline isn’t keeping me up tonight with any crying or eating needs. I just can’t seem to fall asleep properly.

I may have caused this insomnia inadvertently by going to the MIT Venture Capital conference today for a few hours. In general I heard a bunch of people talking about the future of wireless and their many investments. The woman from Intel said that we should expect more hardware products integrated with services, like the iPod or Tivo. I was tempted to pitch her on the laptop lo-jack but our patent has likely lapsed because of we didn’t want to pay the $1,500 in taxes on it. Why should an inventor need to pay taxes on a patent that isn’t making any money? I thought the cell phone always was integrated with a service but I guess her point is that there will be more types of hardware.

I then listened to Allaire talk about Bright Cove. The business strategy for Bright Cove sounded similar to a business model Chris, Peter, and I were talking about before we all went our separate ways as the ChannelWave management diaspora. But Allaire had done a far more competent job than we would have done including getting strategic investment from AOL/Time Warner and placing Barry Diller from Interactive Corp. on their board. Maybe it was a good thing we didn’t try to play in that space. We would have gotten crushed like a grape. But seeing an idea I had come to life and having little role in it left me with a feeling that I may just be doomed to become a sideliner in the whole information revolution.

So hanging out in bed with Madeline and Sarah made me wonder silently to myself about the future. I wondered about whether Madeline would be disappointed in me for not being a great Internet magnate titan or the molecular biologist that discovered the secret to everlasting life without aging. Will I ultimately be a disappointment to her? Where will the money come for this house we need to move into when we get bigger than the three of us if I can’t be the founder of the next Google? Sure, these aren’t things that should keep anyone up at night. But they do work there way into my head.

We had watched March of the Penguins earlier tonight. Maybe it is best to be satisfied that the chick makes it back safely into the water to form the next generation. It is getting colder outside and we felt it on our walk through Brookline today. Tomorrow will be the first Pats game where I will need the full winter treatment.