This evening I was not expecting it, but I suddenly ended up with a new Nom de plume.  Its been a couple years since I was given a good nom de plume (Harry which was then used to launch this site.  For those of you that have missed the quarterly hint or confession that Harry is my middle name, well there you have it).

I also go by brettbum which is a run together of my first name and part of my last name.  Something that was automatically put together as an id a couple decades ago for a company and computer system that no longer exist.  It was easy to remember and I used it for some of my email addresses years later. 

When I was a teenager working in sales, I briefly (and successfully ) used the nom de plume of Brad Rubenz.  That worked like a charm and I have no idea why although I suspect that MC Hammer might have had something to do with it as 'Can't Touch This' was at the top of the charts at the time.

Tonight, I was given the nom de plume of Brett Pitt.

I was in a nice little town hall meeting and came up with the goofy idea of setting up an internet kissing booth.  Never being the type of person to stop myself from letting a goofy idea or a joke go too far, I promptly did set up that internet kissing booth at http://PaidToSmooch.blogspot.com 

My first customer then jokingly referred to me as Brett Pitt in one of the comments.  That seemed like a fine opening for a new Nom de plume (as opposed to my new porn name, a sure fire ticket to hang out with hot coworkers wearing fine lingerie or something . . . or nothing) and so I ran with it. 

Of course that meant feeding my domainer addiction and so now I am the proud owner of the domain brettpitt.com (still parked and nothing to see there yet).  Maybe I'll use it for celebrity gossip or finally start doing a little stand up comedy using my new nom de plume.

One thing is for certain, I'm going to have to work on my abs if I'm going to get anywhere with that name in comedy or porn!

So if you want to hop over and visit the kissing booth, be my guest. Its only a quarter to kiss the Pittster!

Wolf Blitzer on CNN about 4:40 est is reporting that Heath Ledger has died at the age of 28 in New York. Reports came in to CNN via the NYPD.

Heath Ledger reportedly broke up with his super model girlfriend on December 31 of 2007.  He was then rumored to be partying with other un-named super models.  There is no word on the nature of his death yet.

Wikipedia has him listed as dead according to the NYPD as well.  He was reportedly found dead in a Soho apartment.  He had one daughter, Matilda Rose who was born in October of 2005 to actress Michelle William.

Rumors/Speculations/breaking reports

Some reports now saying that pills 'all around him' found near his bed.  A housekeeper let a masseuse in for a scheduled appointment.  The masseuse found the dead star.

Address of Heath Ledger's Death

421 Broome Street, New York (SoHo), NY

The apartment was previously reported as his, now reported as Mary-Kate Olsen's apartment,( who is to say what is real at this point)   Question if it was his housekeeper and masseuse, why would they go to Mary-Kate Olsen's apartment?

TMZ is reporting "We're told when paramedics responded, the actor(Heath Ledger) was in full cardiac arrest. They attempted to perform CPR on him, but were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead at the scene."

TMZ after reporting that it was Mary-Kate Olsen's apartment, NOW claims to have a credible source that says the apartment has nothing to do with Mary-Kate Olsen.

Final Update

OK, I'm not following this any more.  I clicked over to TMZ chasing a weird Wikipedia entry and saw them streaming the removal of his body.  Too sick for me that. 

Back to work

Photo Shop has never really been my thing.  Something about the program rips my nerves like a chalk board getting the rub down with a rusty garden rake.

Anyway, I had fun getting a mental image out of my head and into photoshop after watching the primary returns on the news too long tonight.  Back in the old days, I suspect that they would have tarred and feathered Huckabee if they didn't like him.  Today, they'd be nice enough to have used cisco or is it crisco?

I wrote a little article that goes with it over at NoMoreIncumenbs.org.  But in general I find it important to ridicule racists or racism in whatever form it pops up.  When you try and debate racism in a calm and normal way it only seems to give the racist or racist ideas some strange form of legitimacy, like they are worthy of a normal analysis or conversation. 

Until I find a better way, ridicule is the way for me where racism is concerned.

For whatever strange reason, I received three different emails today from old friends that I haven't heard from in quite some time.  Once every three months is kind of unusual, getting an email from a single person that is, but receiving three in the same day!

Just kind of odd. 

I reach out to old friends on a regular basis, especially after I find new contact information for them.  I think I'm going to kick off some sort of Contact an Old Friend on Friday routine. . . .

I've been catching up with a number of blogs today as I temporarily pause from reconfiguring my office and writing correspondence in response to many of the people and companies that I met at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

While casually surfing through Blog Explosion (earning a few surfing credits too) I came across a quote from one of my favorite authors (on a site with a picture theme that looks like something out of a Camelot fantasy book or something (snores).

The Quote

It's a Dangerous Thing Going Out your front door

was featured as a caption below the title or something on this site.  I recognized it for the book that it came out of right away, a book that might become a movie sometime soon now that the legal battle in the courts seems to be over.

The thing that struck me is that the quote is actually kind of obvious, but not so obvious are the quotes that could have been

Its a Dangerous Thing going out your front window

or

Its a Dangerous Thing going out your neighbors back door with your neighbor's wife's gold bangle caught in your hair

or

Its a Dangerous Thing repelling out your third floor bedroom window head first and holding onto a rope with one gloveless hand like a character in The Musketeer choreographed by Yin Yin himself!

That's right, not too many people would make those connections right away!

So anyway, without Googling for it, can you name the author or the book that quote comes from?  How about the character in the book responsible for the quote?

Good evening everyone.  I've been traveling like crazy the last few weeks.  Going all over the country from New York to California and a couple stops in Las Vegas.  Even some stops in St Louis, Illinois and Atlanta.  I feel like the only places I haven't been is New Orleans and Branson Missouri, home of the Sam's Club inspired Branson Hotels  (I have no idea what that means.  Sam's Club used to be one of my customers and I have no intention of going to Branson, just using a little artistic license) 

Anyway, this evening I am working on getting my office reconfigured and setting up my podcast (growing into a videocast) studio.  I have had most of my equipment packed up for several months now, but just got back from a trip this afternoon and getting ready to settle in for the winter and get a load of work done.

You have probably noticed that I have been relying on Utterz a little heavily lately for my blogging here.  Most of my recent videos from Utterz are essentially some mobile blogging moments that I have literally phoned in.  :)

So anyway I am going to be working on getting a little more writing in and at the same time working to collect some podcast videocasts from several of my sites all under one roof.

Hope you are having a good winter and post holiday season by the way.  I probably will not travel too much until February for an affiliate summit and then maybe in early March again for South by Southwest in Austin.