Love what you do

UFO performing earlier this month in Santa Rosa.

I had the pleasure Tuesday to finally see one of my all-time favorite bands, UFO, play live in Fresno. 

For those who haven't yet heard their genius, UFO is a British hard rock band that's been performing nearly nonstop since 1969. I'll save you the math: that's 42 years. 

UFO never topped the U.S. charts or won a Grammy, but there aren't many bands whose deep catalog is so full of hummable full-throttle rock. To this day, I regularly find myself hitting repeat on songs such as "Only You Can Rock Me" and "Lights Out" (check out video of 1977 performance above) that I've heard dozens of times over the years, only to suddenly discover a new wrinkle. Critics may sniff, but this is good, honest, boogie-based rock with hooks galore. I'm unaware of any other band in any genre that four decades into its life still consistently produces new songs as good as their old songs. 

As you might expect for a band of such vintage, there are some rough edges. Why lead singer Phil Mogg insists on wearing the same belt and suspenders and pants yanked way up high show after show is beyond me. Perhaps he's trying to make a fashion statement? Um, no, he's 63 years old. He can do what the hell he wants. 

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Keeping history alive by making it fun

The power of History Pin is captured with this 1856 photo of the Champs Elysee in Paris laid over a present-day photo. I've stumbled across three different labors of love online recently that all shared a common link: they're committed to protecting things in great danger of disappearing forever. To top it off, these efforts are fun and rewarding history lessons, almost like history as entertainment (or is it the other way around?).

Having dug into my own little history project, I'm familiar with the thrill these kinds of personal projects bring others. So I know exactly what inspired others to put in the time to launch these three awesome projects:

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Help me with my math

We all know the financial markets are crazy, but if you want proof even serious investors can be distracted by shiny objects, try this on for size.

Smart Money magazine reported this month that Twitter's $8 billion valuation means each of the 51 billion Tweets you and I and everyone else send annually is worth 16 cents. Seriously? My Tweets are genius, but I wouldn't pay 16 cents for them. That 16 cents should make every serious investor stop and take notice and stay far away from any IPO until Twitter shows signs it can earn consistent and sizable revenue. For those who don't know, the company is losing millions of dollars, and has since it launched and is still struggling to find any sizable revenue stream to pay its enormous serving costs, let alone investors. An IPO is simply a way to get others to pay for the party.

Then The Wall Street Journal reports that Tumblr is on the verge of raising up to $100 million in outside investment, giving the blogging company a value of $800 million. This for a company that, while very cool and growing in popularity, generates almost no revenue and has no clear concept of how to make money.

Hmmm ... reminds me of Pets.com, a flash-in-the-pan company whose business strategy was to lose money on every sale.

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