Dear Lovely Simplerista,

This past Monday I went to see a taping of The Colbert Report with a couple of friends. As you may recall, I saw a taping of The Daily Show a couple of weeks ago, which had been on my bucket list for a very long time. Now it was time for Colbert before his show ends and he takes over for David Letterman.

It was interesting to see the difference between Stephen and Jon. Jon was nice, but way more reserved. There was very limited interaction between him and the audience after the first chit-chat that he does with the audience after the warm-up. 

In the case of Stephen, it seems like he fed way more on the interaction with the audience than Jon Stewart did. He got really into it, and in between the bits, he would talk to us and interact with us, which made it feel way more intimate. He would explain why when they were doing retakes. And after the show was finished, he asked if they could run through a bit for an upcoming show that they needed some audience feedback to.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I can definitely see why they've tapped him to take over for Letterman.

I'm continuing my tour-de-comedy-shows. On Sunday I'll be going to a taping of John Oliver's show, Last Week Tonight.

News from the blog

As you may have noticed, there's a Battle for the Net going on right now, to prevent the oligopoly that is the internet provider gang of four from getting the right to differentiate between different sources of traffic, ie. extort a mob like tax on the rest of society. I'm strongly against it, even though I have struggled with what the conscious way to fight this is.

Here's my take on the blog.

Another subject I've struggled with is the difference between "Wanting to do" and "Wanting to get done". That too is on the blog.

News from Simplero

One new feature that saw the light of day today was that from now on, when you're on the annual plan, your invoice will correctly say "Annual fee" when you pay your annual fee, and "Monthly fee adjustment" when we automatically adjust your monthly fee for a given month in order to give you the lowest total bill for that month.

It's something that has caused a lot of confusion, so I'm happy to report that things should be clearer now.

Random stuff from around the interwebs

Sandy Ross wrote an awesome review of Simplero. We're eternally grateful. If you want to write one too, we'd be more than honored!

 I wrote about my experience with getting a US visa on my blog. If you're looking to get one yourself, you might learn a few things.

The classic clip from Star Wars where Yoda says "Do or do not. There is no try." Worth rewatching.

This IKEA parody introducing The Bookbook is pretty awesome.

Tomorrow I'm taking the written test for me NY driver license. I have to start from scratch to get one in the US. Haven't been there in 22 years. Wish me luck!

-Calvin