My best friend passed away last month.

Actually she was murdered.

She had moved to New York in the spring to work on her music career. On September 19 she got into an argument with the man she was living with, and he shot her twice. She died on the scene.

Penna and I met in 2007 and became instant best friends. Within a year we were referring to each other as “brother and sister.” That’s how close we were – the 20-year age difference also made it quite easy for me to see her as a little sister.

She was one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen or known. She was also remarkably bright and talented. Her death is a tragedy on many levels.

I have set up a memorial web site for her at http://pennapiererra.com/.

The weather reports are saying Hurricane Irene is “the worst since Gloria”, back in 1985.

I was in Boston for Gloria. Actually in a small town in Eastern Mass., just outside of Concord. The town had a total of 4 traffic lights. Understand that in 1985 no one had cell-phones or smart-phones or broad-band. Dial-up Internet was all there was at best – at 1200 baud if you could afford a “good” modem. So if you lost power or your land-line telephone, you were cut off from the world.

Despite this, and the warnings on TV, everyone went to work as usual on the day of the storm. Most people left a little early, though. The rain started to pick up around mid-afternoon and I went down to the grocery store. By now the skies were darkening and the light outside was kind of eerie. The store had hired a fiddler, dressed in maritime garb – pea-coat, hat, and so on.…

What. The. Hell.

I haven’t updated this site in so long it’s embarrassing. But life has a way of doing that, I guess. Or one’s “life situation”, as Tolle would put it. Yes, DoK is going all metaphysical. It took ‘em several tries to kill ole Rasputin, so he must have been on to something worth knowing, eh?

So what’s been going on in GonZoville?

One of my start-ups, Dialed In, is still hanging in there. We have a lot of Fortune 100 users, but the investment environment sucks worse than the 2008 Lions (or worse than the Mangini-coached 2009 Browns will) so we’re struggling along, trying to get to break-even.

My other startup, Find-a-Therapist.com, is about to launch a new site: FindHealthPros.com, and then we’ll take the new technology I wrote for that (called “Morpheus”)…

People who don’t live in Los Angeles, or California for that matter, often ask me what it’s like out here. Well, there are times I wish I carried a camera around all the time, or had a camera phone. Because the stuff one sees in a week around this city is enough weirdness for a whole year just about anyplace else. And it’s not the overt whack-job channeling George Patton on the street corner. It’s more of a mellow, do-your-own-thing, weirdness.

Here are some things I’ve seen from just the last few weeks.

• I’m grocery shopping at Trader Joes. This very hassled looking fellow is racing around picking up a few things. He has two cell phones attached to his belt, like six-shooters. Attached to these are two over-the-ear headsets, one per ear. The question isn’t just: “Is that level of technology integration necessary?” … it’s also: “Why didn’t you leave that stuff in the car while you shop

…

Today’s game against the Steelers was starting to look like last year’s debacle, and a return of the malaise that plagued the Patriots for so many years. Horrific penalties, bad bounces at the the worst time – often resulting in turnovers, and injuries. Harrison and Light both having to be carted out.

The offensive line seemed to crumble when Light went out. And the Steelers were completing big pass plays. As a long-time Pats fan I’d seen days like this before. Days when everything went wrong. When the score was 13-7 and the Bad Mojo was whipping the Pats like dogs I switched it off to go get groceries. I don’t know why I did – as bad as things were going the Steelers were still only up six. New Englanders have long memories, and the Pats for so many years really stunk.

But not today.