photo credit: Open Kitchen España

Thank you for visiting my personal blog. This is a special message for those who subscribe it through RSS.

Until now, I’ve used a service called FeedBurner to serve my RSS feed. Unfortunately, there have been some ominous signs that the product is not receiving adequate attention, leading to questions about its reliability.

I wanted to address this before it is a real issue and, as such, have moved my RSS feed to another provider. To that end, I would like to ask you to please delete your old subscription and subscribe to my new feed URL, which is at http://feeds.patrickokeefe.com/patrickokeefe.

photo credit: nyoin

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has really supported me in 2011. This is decidedly unspecific, but I suspect that you know who you are.

Thank you to all of my loyal, close friends. That’s a small group. You know who you are.

Thank you to everyone who has been genuinely kind to me. I hope that I have thanked you all individually throughout the year. I mean it.

Thank you to everyone who shares my work and uses it to build a better business or online community. Your success helps to validate my work and I appreciate it.

I hope that you have a great holiday season and a happy, healthy and successful 2012.

I have a feeling that 2012 is going to be a really interesting year. I’m ready. Let’s get it.

Disclaimer: I am a long time Amazon.com customer, which has led to me becoming a huge fan of the company and a shareholder. I just wanted to get that out of the way, up front.

I really love the Amazon Kindle Fire.

I would estimate that I am safely spending more than an hour every day on it and, more often than not, multiple hours, just depending on what my day is like.

There is a lot of video watching. I’m currently working my way through “My Name is Earl,” every episode of which is free for Amazon Prime subscribers. I also have been playing a bunch of games. “Night of the Living Dead Defense” and “Airport Mania 2: Wild Trips HD” are among my current favorites.

photo credit: i.m.indraneel

I’m a fan of the Harry Potter series. Today, I watched the final movie, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.”

When I think about things like this, what I tend to think of most is the passage of time. I wasn’t a fan early. I got into it in the early 2000s and the second, and maybe the third, book had already been released. My brother Sean was a fan first and that’s how I picked it up.

In 2000, Sean turned 11. I turned 16. My youngest brother, Trent, turned 2. Now, all of us love the series and we went to see the final film together. I’m 26, Sean is 22 (and heading to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to start his third year of college, and first away from home, in just 6 days) and Trent is 13. So, that’s what I think most of. Being kids and now being adults (and a teenager) and the time we spent together. I always marvel at the passage of time.

I pre-ordered the deluxe edition CD of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s new album, “Watch the Throne.” I expected to have to wait for it to arrive to check out the album, but I didn’t realize that buying a ticket for the “Watch the Throne” tour entitled me to a digital, standard edition copy of the album.

My favorite tracks on the record are “No Church in the Wild,” “New Day,” “That’s My B****” and “Otis.” They just released the visual for “Otis” and I like it a lot. Just Jay and Kanye having fun.

photo credit: internets_dairy

When I was growing up, Nickelodeon was probably my favorite TV station. I loved the channel and still do. It’s a highly memorable part of my childhood.

When I was at IZEAFest last year, I had an animated and highly enjoyable conversation with Ryan P. Thompson about old Nick shows like “All That,” “Doug,” “Kenan & Kel,” “Rocko’s Modern Life” and more. That conversation continued on Twitter where, somehow, I brought up that I had won Nick or Treat.