Added some more domains to the portfolio today...last ones for a while, most likely!

AllMyShows.TV
FantasyHQ.TV
BradleyAndLori.com
LoriAndBradley.com (obviously, these two will go for a TON...lol...)
NFLChampion.com (love this one)
MarinersWorldSeries.com
PrivatizedHousing.com (gotta have Actus represented)
StarWarsSeven.com
GoogleStalker.com
USIMC.com
USIMO.com

I'm really starting to enjoy this domain stuff...there's so many different possibilities in turning these investments into revenue streams that its easy to get excited about it!

Back in Nashville after spending Thanksgiving in Birmingham. Of course, even before heading down to Birmingham, I was one of the brave souls camping out for an XBox 360 outside of the Best Buy down in Cool Springs. I arrived at 8:15, after my weekly tutoring session with the 8th grader I tutor in Algebra, expecting to survey the scene and report back home to grab what I needed and maybe catch some Z's before heading out in the early AM.

Unfortunately, didn't happen that way. When I arrived at Best Buy, I discovered a crowd of about 30 people were already there...and with rumors of only 40 units to sell, I couldn't go home because that 30 people could have easily become 60 by the time I could get back. So I called up Lori, who graciously brought me extra clothes, water, and food ... and the 13 hours of waiting began.

It didn't take me long to realize it was REALLY REALLY REALLY COLD (about 20-25 degrees) and so I came up with an idea on how to beat the system. I ordered two pizzas ("Yeah, I need you to deliver to the Best Buy PARKING LOT. Yes, I am one of those XBox camper people.") and I sold the first pizza for $15 to immediately make my money back. I ate four pieces myself (half of the remaining pizza) since I was really hungry, and I took the remaining four pieces and gave two to the person in front of me and two to the person behind me in line. In exchange, I got them to agree to hold my place in line until the store opened at 9 AM the next day. I then went and got in my car and slept an incredibly-comfortable-in-comparison-to-the-alternative 5+ hours before getting up around 5:15 to make sure I was there when the Best Buy management arrived to distribute vouchers. When I got the voucher that officially marked my space in line, of course it was back to the car until the store opened just before 9.

The system itself is incredible. I picked up NBA Live '06 and Perfect Dark Zero, which are both titles I have enjoyed so far. I've started a season as the Cavs in Live and LeBron's dumping in 40+ per game in highly-realistic fashion...and the Perfect Dark game is great too. I want to get more into the multiplayer of that one on the newly revamped XBox Live...

Naturally, I've heard how crazy I am from all sorts of people for waiting out there for that long. Of course it's crazy! That's what made it so enjoyable. I like getting caught up in events like this every now and then.

It was certainly abundantly clear how far the demand for video games has come just in my lifetime. After observing the rabid fans in Nashville that were in line with me, to reading online about everything that happened across the country that day for the system launch, I'm convinced the XBox 360 will go down as a key event in video game history as the day that video games took over the living room for good.

The complement of "simple games" for people who aren't hardcore gamers can be had on Microsoft's innovative XBox Live Marketplace for a couple of bucks apiece, with current launch offerings of a dead-on port of Joust, as well as Robotron, Smash TV, and other old-school titles for cheap. Somebody in Seattle's been listening to the marketplace, obviously.

And for those hardcore gamers, the games are about to take a big step up. Perfect Dark Zero is one example of a game that has so many different gameplay options that it will make your head spin. The complexity of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which will be the first major RPG to hit the system and will arrive in Q1 '06, will be staggering compared to any current title on any system or even the PC. The return on consumer investment stands to be much greater than before, in terms of hours of gameplay per dollar, despite ratcheted-up cost per game from $49.99 retail to $59.99 for most titles on the system.

I could go on and on about video games and the game industry, so I'll cut that off there and address some other topics quickly:

- Headed to New York next week for Fortune's Innovation Forum. All sorts of big-time speakers there (Fred Smith of Fed Ex, Billy Beane of the A's, Starbucks chief that was the one who made the decision to bring music into the chain, #2 at Target, etc., etc.). I am EXTREMELY excited about this event. I'll also be paying a visit to the Darwin exhibit at the American History of Natural Museum (the one that's been in the news a lot lately) which Ellen, Ben's girlfriend, helped create. Toss in a critical iTest fundraising meeting on Thursday before my flight out and you've got a packed three-day period.

- Speaking of the iTest, I wholeheartedly welcome John Hart to my Board of Directors, effective immediately. (I also am simultaneously installing myself as Chairman of the Board of AHSIMC as we expand into computer science and debate over the next year.)

There isn't anybody I'd rather have participate in this thing than John. Though quite obviously brilliant, I can find brains anywhere. It's his passion and heart that will hopefully rub off on our operation and make it better. There isn't anyone I know or am even aware of that lives at a greater deficit between what he deserves and what he has had happen to him, and it's his persistence and rare degree of fortitude that I so crave to make a characteristic of our fledgling enterprise.

After all, what I seem to fail to communicate to people I discuss this project with is the fascinating reality that the subject matter of our tests is increasingly peripheral to what we do. Our goal of opening up the world of competitive academics to every single student in the United States - FOR FREE - is so unprecedented that in order to position ourselves for victory, we've got to have the right personnel in place to shape the decisions that will guide us to becoming the organization we can, and will, become.

This is a step in the right direction. AHSIMC is instantaneously a better organization with John aboard.

- The Titans take on the 49ers Sunday in the "Battle for Matt Leinart." The loser of this game will likely draft at or near the top in the 2006 Draft, and will be able to select the consensus #1 pick out of USC. (Assuming, of course, the Texans luck up and win another one before the end of the season.) The Titans have been steadily improving throughout the season (though not visible in their record) and should wipe the floor with this flimsy, undisciplined group of West Coast also-rans...as long as penalties don't kill them.

- After reading an article earlier tonight on web aggregators and the profit some folks have made from portfolios of domain names by getting click-through revenue this way, I have opened up some of my own portfolio to one of the more well-known aggregators, Sedo.com, to see if I can make any money this way. Sedo.com opens my domains up to a wide market of buyers who might be interested in purchasing one of my domains (the biggest domain sale of the year, of website.com, was done through these guys earlier this year for $750,000)...so I look forward to seeing what becomes of this.

The domains I own that are listed through the service and populated with ads are:

LeBronVsTheWorld.com
Number1Pick.com
Number1OverallPick.com
NumberOneOverallPick.com
StatusQuotient.com
Sphyramid.com
ItsSanAndreasFault.com
TenYearReunion.com
TheToyTest.com
WorthAMillionBucks.com
Oltomato.com
Myoltomato.com
SanFranQuake.com
USInvitational.com
LetTOPlay.com (no ads on this one)
VGHOF.com (stands for Video Game Hall of Fame)
myVGHOF.com
TheseThingsAreSellingLikeHotcakes.com
UnitedStatesOfMath.com
UnitedStatesOfScience.com


Off to bed. Until next time...

From: Gaurav K Guliani
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 4:39 PM
To: bradley@ahsimc.com
Subject: Re:

did you even watch the games? the white sox went 11-1!, tying the best
postseason record ever since the introduction of the wild card. they
swept the boston red sox and the houston astros. they had 4 complete game
victories in a ROW in the ALCS with 4 different pitchers (which has NEVER
been done). they didn't lose a single road game from the end of
freakin september on. they led their division from opening day to the
playoffs and won the world series, only the 5th wire-to-wire team in major
league baseball history.

you can use the fourier series, the fibonacci sequence and goldbach's
postulate all you want, but there is something to be said about dominant
pitching, clutch hitting and solid defense. if this team had more than
20,000 fans at the beginning of the season and a real star player along
the lines of derek jeter, albert pujols or even steroid monkey bonds, you
would be seeing "Fever Pitch II" at a theatre near you starring john
leguizamo as ozzie guillen. in fact, whether or not they are the luckiest
team, they certainly might be the most underrated world series winner in
the history of baseball, because no one outside of chicago or houston
watched the world series.

(by the way, i can't believe i just defended the white sox...)

On Fri, October 28, 2005 12:58 pm, bradley@ahsimc.com said:
>
> here at work eating lunch...
> i've already seen one article on it, but you'll likely see more...stating
> that the White Sox are the "luckiest team in the history of baseball."
> the basis for saying this is that their actual win total during the
> regular season (99) was 11 (!!) wins more than their "Pythagorean"
> estimate of 88 (nothing to do with triangles or anything, but its a
> predictor of wins based on team runs scored, team runs given up, and other
> factors).
>
> also, i would argue they got extremely lucky by facing the astros and not
> the cardinals, which matched up a lot better against them.
> so why not revel in it? the cubs will win it someday, long after the
> Mariners run off a dynasty of 6 or 7 World Series titles in a row.
> starting next year.
>

One of my favorite investments are internet domains. I use them with the iTest as a weapon, claiming domains that we might presumably use someday, but until then they help direct traffic to our site while warding off others who might try to copy what we do. I consider some of these domains some of AHSIMC's most prized assets as a business.

I haven't mentioned BondsCheated.com here in a while, but I hope to get around to renovating and updating the site before the 2006 MLB season. Bonds picked up where he left off in the last month of this past season, and he should be good to break Aaron's record next year...and I would love to see our site get some substantial traffic as a result of the rioting that will ensue!

I bring all of this up to say that I just picked up two new domains that I intend to build websites around sometime before the end of 2006, when I get a moment or several:

VGHOF.com will become the Video Game Hall of Fame. While GameSpot kinda has a Hall of its own, it doesn't really emphasize it at all and the games are nominated basically whenever they feel like putting a new one in there. Other than GameSpot's half-attempt at it, a Hall of Fame doesn't really exist. Ideally, I'd like to get a core group of industry professionals that could vote every year to decide which nominated titles would get in, but a more realistic approach would just be for me to decide...lol. It would certainly be quicker! Either way, its a nice domain and a project I will enjoy putting something together for at some point, as I still maintain that one day I will be a major creative force in putting together a video game.

OLTOMATO.com is the weird one so let me explain. Lori's alarm clock woke me up the other day to two radio guys talking about an ULTIMATUM, but then started calling it an "ol' tomato." I have no idea what in the hell they were talking about with this, but I then thought about the domain and putting together a site of some sort. I can see the tagline being something like "Click Here Or Else" or "[Fill In The Blank] Or Else," which would of course be the ultimatum...or ol' tomato...or something.

I mean, if someone can turn the GOOGLE domain into a gigantic billion-dollar juggernaut, you gotta think that Ol' Tomato has to be worth maybe a million or two. :)

Seriously, though, I need ideas for this site. I probably won't get around to doing anything with it until (at earliest) January '06, but fire me an email at bradley@bradleymetrock.com if something hits you. If its good, I'll cut you in, promise!

This has been a very, very good day. Put to rest a task at work that had been particularly difficult to accomplish for the past 3-4 weeks, which is great, and then the flood of emails coming in regarding today's 2005 iTest Nationwide Awards Announcement.

I don't have nearly as much time to pursue media attention as I did last year, but unfortunately last year we didn't have nearly as much of a compelling story as we do this year, with a team of 5 students across multiple schools and states claiming the championship, etc. The media will catch on eventually if we keep doing the right thing.

Which brings me to the most exciting news of all: the iTest franchise will be expanding AGAIN in 2007 with the launch of the iTest Debate. Not giving away any details just yet - not that there are many - but I'm extremely excited about the proposed format and the implementation of technology into yet another domain of academic competition. More to come.