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Showing posts from 2007

Holiday Gathering at Court Square Tavern on Saturday

It's the holiday season, and that means a time to celebrate the things we're thankful for. For me, that means the reopening of Court Square Tavern after last year's fire . Even though my office is less than a block away, I've not gone as much as I would have thought. Then again, it's been a pretty busy year. So, this Saturday, I'm asking anyone who's still in town to drop on by, sometime after 6:00 PM or so, to have a couple of beers (or hot drinks) and to chat and have a little fun. Leave a comment if you're thinking of coming, and come on by. Remember, it's non-smoking now, and there's even wi-fi. I am hoping to leave the computer at home, but you never know. In the new year, I'd like to get a regular gathering of folks there to talk podcasting and new media locally. This might be a good way to start that off. So, if you've not met me at all, and if I've not met you, this may be a good way to get things going!

Tim Kaine event captured by local Realtor

Kudos to Daniel Rothamel , the Real Estate Zebra , as he covers the press conference of Governor Tim Kaine today at a new bridge over the Rivanna River in Fluvanna County . I had to work on a piece on Albemarle County's Six Year Plan for secondary roads funding , so I missed the 10:30 appearance opening up the ecoMOD3 house. I'd like to see more of these types of things, and would encourage any would-be citizen journalist to consider lending a hand with the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. There's always something to do. I've even updated the About Page to let folks know more about the opportunities. In 2008, the site is going to need more people helping out if it is to continue growing. There's a lot of really exciting things that are possible, but it's going to take people who are interested in learning a few new skills. In the meantime, here's Daniel's piece from today:

Devo spending December recording new material

Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo and Mutato Muzika was profiled in LA Weekly last month . I had no idea exactly how prolific he and his company is these days. The eight-page piece traces Devo's ascent and Mothersbaugh's pursuit of work in music commercials. At the beginning of the piece there's a great photograph of Mothersbaugh in front of Raymond Scott's Electronium. I thought this was very fitting, in that Mothersbaugh is doing exactly what Scott set out to do when he created electronic machines: create interesting music for advertisements. Anyway, lots to read in there, and it's worth it for anyone looking for a little creative inspiration, in terms of the connection between artists and the system. Mothersbaugh is such an interesting guy, and the article also intersperses a lot of great clips from Devo, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and the Life Aquatic.

Classic look for Charlottesville Podcasting Network now available

Michael Strickland has done it again. The web designer of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network has added a page which presents a classic view of the community podcasting site . We switched it to the magazine format, which some people didn't like so much. They thought it made it harder to find if new things had been posted. I must admit, I think I'll make this the main way I check the site online. I am more used to this style, given that it's how I read mostly everything online. It seems more real, and things don't get buried like they currently do. Thoughts? Thanks, Michael!

A sunny day in Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving, another trip to see Henry in England. Of course, England is in mourning having lost 3-2 to Croatia last night, meaning that their hopes of entering Euro 2008 are now over. I watched the second half at my family's house in Dunstable, and everyone was upset. James went upstairs in disgust to play Freespace2, and then Jim stumbled home from the pub, distraught. Even Pam was livid, and was questioning why the about-to-be-sacked manager decided to play Carson in goal. At the cafe where I went for breakfast, it was much the same. Elderly lady after elderly lady decried the result, and it seemed that everyone here is quite gloomy. Except cousin Georgina, who thought it was funny that England are crap. Today is not gloomy. I am bright and cheery and happy and well rested after my first day here yesterday. I worked up to the last minute, and dashed out the house, thankfully with everything intact. Things could have gone wrong, as our Saturn is on its last legs and does

Lessons from Sci-Fi Friday

Now, by now you likely know that I do enjoy my science fiction shows. And I'm not ashamed of this, either. I like to follow stories that inhabit intricate universes, where things may or may not be different. So, with that basic character trait, I've been watching the Sci-Fi channel on Friday nights in order to watch glimpses of an upcoming movie of which I've written about quite often in the past. They've been showing clips from Battlestar Galactica: Razor (debuts on November 24!) during commercials of Flash Gordon and Stargate Atlantis. That has meant I've watched shows that inhabit very uninteresting universes. In my case, that means that it has incredible aliens, dumb accents, or just isn't very believable. Or, isn't very consistent. Or the acting was awful. Just like the show I'm watching now. Stargate Atlantic doesn't seem to have anything to do with its predecessor. Somehow the idea of going through space via a gigantic portal controlled by h

British writers won't cross US picket lines

Well, so much for my fantasy, in which Britain's best comedy and television writers would get a golden chance to remake the American airwaves. The Writer's Guild of Britain has asked its members to honor the strike by members of the Writer's Guild For America. This isn't unexpected, and of course, my fantasy is pretty far-fetched. But, the scenario outlined below is something I frankly would love to see: “We are contacting the major UK broadcasters and producers, and the UK Film Council, asking them not to dump UK material into the US market, and not to dress up American projects to look as though they are British. Any such manoeuvres would bring at best a short-term advantage, whereas the adverse consequences could last for years." That's Brian Corbett, chair of the Writer's Guild. While the solidarity is impressive, this would be a good chance for American audiences to see first-run British stuff, rather than recycled remakes. Much has been written about

BBC's In Business presenter writes about podcasting

Peter Day is the presenter of In Business on BBC Radio 4 . He's written an article for the Daily Mail about how podcasting has drastically increased the profile for his show, which he's been hosting since 1988. I woke up to what was happening when I went to Cambridge and a procession of dons and local business angels mentioned recent favourite programmes they'd heard in the gym. It seems to be a good fit, this half an hour of workout accompanied by half an hour of keeping up with busines trends. Whenever I meet teachers, they talk about the use they can make of In Business in schools. Podcasting makes this 'resource' much more accessible. And we've now made available on the website a downloadable archive of programmes going back years. When the BBC started podcasting two years ago, I made a programme about it. 'Although I report endlessly about technology,' I said, 'you only notice what's happening when it begins to effect your own job.' Here

Podcasting Charlottesville Beyond Charlottesville

This blog entry prompted by Leslie Middleton who was alarmed at the weird pingbacks she was getting on her latest Rivanna Rambler podcast . These days, pingbacks are mostly spam, but every now and then I get an example of how the Charlottesville Podcasting Network has a vast potential audience. The Islamic Cultural Community of Northern California is having Dr. Abdulaziz Sachedina speak in December, and what better way to pitch his talk to potential attendees by linking to his recent appearance on WINA's Charlottesville--Right Now! with Coy Barefoot ? I'm sure they found it by typing "Sachedina podcast" in Google. I'm always glad when this sort of thing happens, because it turns a one-time radio appearance into part of the public record. And, it's good for a couple extra fifty downloads or so, I reckon. That particular recording has been downloaded 122 times now, so we'll see if this goes up over time.

Radio on the television / television on the radio

I was searching out new mp3s to listen to just now , and came across this absolutely painful interview. Luke Burbank of NPR interviewing Icelandic band Sigur Ros and it goes pretty poorly. After the first long pause, it's pretty clear the group has no interest in being interviewed for this show, which is also being filmed for YouTube (hence the video). I thought it odd to watch an interview like this, and to see it going so poorly. It's a very raw interview, with people who has clearly not been prepared for interview. There's absolutely nothing going on here, and the host points that out at one point, and then it just goes downhill from there. I've never been very good at live radio. For me, it's all got to be scripted. I've not been writing many radio pieces lately, and I miss the structuring of creating a script. When I write for radio, I transcribe everything I can, even the soundbites, to see if there's a way I can present the information as succinctly a

iTunes podcast subscribing as easy as dragging and dropping

You would think that the guy who runs the Charlottesville Podcasting Network would have figured this out already. Today I was reading through one of the e-mails I get from Poytner about how to improve my craft as a journalist. And, I noticed there was a podcast involved as well. The innovation, though, was a suggestion that I could "drag and drop to iTunes." So, I tried it. I opened up iTunes, opened the Podcast folder, and dragged the link to Poytner's podcast feed in, and it worked. I'm now subscribed! Easy as pie. Try it yourself! Charlottesville Podcasting Network feed: Drag to iTunes Charlottesville Tomorrow podcast feed: Drag to iTunes One thing to note is that feeds directly into the iTunes music store do not work this way, which I don't find terribly surprising. Edit: I had to delete two of them, because I can't seem to get Feedburner to work correctly with the sub-category podcasts. Need to upgrade CPN's Wordpress and Podpress to get this started.

NFL in London

I'm really enjoying that as I type this, the Miami Dolphins are playing the New York Giants in London. There's a nasty, cold drizzle coming down, but the stands seem to be packed. I had a lunch meeting at 1:00 so I missed the first half, and the opening festivities. Hey! They just had a streaker! There's a guy who does this at all the events. So, anyway, for me, this is significant. As readers may or may not know, I'm first generation American, born to parents who moved from Liverpool in 1965. Being English-American barely counts as an ethnic category, but yet, I've always felt caught between two cultures. I'm a fan of both American and English football, and so this is a lot of fun, having this game on. I could probably write out a lot of interesting comparisons, but for now, I'd like to see the Dolphins continue to get trounced. If they lose, they will be 0-8 and Outskirts guy will find some way to blame our fair city. When I've been over to England, Am

Drawing your attention to the widgets

One reason I continue to keep this personal blog of mine in Blogger is because of the ease of placing widgets in the sidebar. I don't think they're terribly effective, but they're kind of neat. Of course, you have to come to the site in order to actually see them. One concern I have with advertising on blogs is that the most loyal readers who read feeds throughout the day don't ever have the opportunity to see the ads. Ads in RSS feeds seem to be kind of discouraged, or at least, filtered out. I subscribe to about 200 feeds, and none appear to have ads. So, no one sees the widgets on the side of the screen, and I don't know if they're effective. But they sure seem neat to me at times. First, the top box is just a simple thing that reads the feed of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network . Nothing fancy, and it only seems to post the top item. I'm still looking for a good player to use, and would love to figure out a way to place this kind of a player on othe

Larry Sabato weekend

So, this past weekend was a Larry Sabato weekend for me. On Friday afternoon, I went to the U.Va bookstore to record the director of the U.Va Center for Politics talk about his new book "A More Perfect Constitution" for eventual podcast on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, as well as for a special edition of WVTF's Evening Edition. And then on Saturday, I recorded Mr. Sabato giving a slightly similar lecture as part of U.Va's More than the Score Lecture series. That recording also features Sabato's Crystal Ball. Go take a listen on the U.Va Minds website .

The real Charlie Brown?

So, what kind of a man was Charles Schulz? I've heard his family is upset about a new biography by David Michaelis' new biography called "Schulz and Peanuts" and I've just read a review of it on Salon . The book paints a picture of Schulz as much more complex than the simple life his official biography. In other words, perfectly normal and just like the rest of us. The difference is, Schulz produced one of the most recognizable works of the 20th century. But, I never knew he got divorced, and I didn't know he wasn't particularly close to his four children. He was known to respond to reporters' questions about his kids by telling tales of Charlie Brown. I think I'd like to read the book. Fantagraphics has been printing a deluxe hardcover reprint series . When I was a kid, I used to devour reprint books, and at one point knew intricate details about the character. Peanuts is what first drew me to serial strips, and I'm still hooked as an adult. I

An update on the incident at this weekend

In advance of the Hook posting an article on the topic in tomorrow's issue, I wanted to say my piece. I've been in touch with the police department through Captain Bibb. He phoned me first on Monday, but didn't have as much information then, as he hadn't spoken with the officers in question, had not gotten their report. On the first call, he did tell me that it was a report of a suspicious person in the area, and he said the officer was a seasoned veteran. On the second call, he had more information. He said the officers were responding to a call made by the elderly woman who lives in a house behind my street. Somebody had been knocking on the door, and she was frightened. When the officers arrived, they heard loud shots coming from the vicinity of my house. That's because we live underneath a stand of oak trees, and when the acorns come down, they're as loud as gun shots. I'll post an mp3 of this later on tonight. They came to my back door, and seeing the

Lessons from the barrel of a gun

So, at least I can now say that I know what it's like to be at the end of a loaded firearm. Last night I fell asleep at at about nine, something I've done not in a while. I didn't mean to. I just put my head down and crashed. But, I usually only get about five to six hours of sleep a night, so I popped right back up at around 2:30 or so, and could not go back under. After an hour of laying there I decided to get up, and went downstairs into my basement office. I decided to watch Chuck , which I missed last Monday. More on that later. I goofed off for a while, hoping I'd get tired again. At about 4:30 or so, my dog started barking in the space above my head. He was very agitated. This annoyed me an awful lot, as I'm sure it was bothering my wife. He usually growls anytime there's a cat outside, which is a lot. Sometimes a dog or some other critter will get into our mud room. Billy was upset, and Amy opened the door to the basement and cried down for me. "The

Recent lack of activity

I've found it hard to write anything in here for a while. I have a lot of drafts that I save when I realize I can't really send it out to the public. It's so easy sometimes to be absolutely candid, way too much so. I have to watch that as do we all. I think sometimes I cut back way too much, maybe too fearful. After all, it's not like there's an incredibly large audience. These days it seems everyone announces their life on the Internet. This is fantastically grand. We live on here, and our lives are influenced by here. Where is here for you? For me at the moment, it's being on the kitchen table that's in our living room. We recently moved everything around in order to sit in the window, able to look out over our cul-de-sac with its majestic views. So, that's one observation. One thing that happened and can be pointed out. I did not mention to anyone on here that the recent appearance of Bolivian President Evo Morales on the Daily Show was absolutely stu

Ronald Jenkees is why I think the Internet works

I read all of BoingBoing's post from this week, and came across a link to Ronald Jenkees , a guy from Kentucky (I think) who is an incredible keyboardist/beatmaker. I don't usually click on video links, but something about the guy's image made me need to check it out. I don't listen to a lot of hip-hop, but I saw in the post that he uses FL Studio - formerly known as Fruity Loops. I used to use Fruity Loops to make wacky sound concoctions, including the former intro music to the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. In all, I made over 500 compositions using the program, which gradually got more complex with each upgrade. I believe Fruity Loops was the first program I ever purchased over the Internet. I don't use it much anymore for some reason. But that may change after tonight, after watching Ronald Jenkees in action. Check this guy's studio out. He's loaded to the max with equipment, and he knows how to play. Watching him is so joyful, because you're o

Attention erstwhile Doctor Who fans

Okay, so I know I'm not the only Doctor Who fan around here, but I'm not aware of anyone who has watched the new series on the Sci-Fi network. However, I'm aware that it's not exactly cool to talk about such geeky things. But, I've got a message to anyone who has enjoyed the show on PBS, but hasn't watched in years. Tune in tonight. Seriously. It's one of the best episodes of the series to date. It begins with a cold open, with our intrepid time traveler and his companion Martha Jones on the run from someone, but we have no clue who. The next scene is very confusing indeed, as the Doctor wakes up in bed, with Martha serving him breakfast before he begins his day as a school teacher in a prep school circa 1913, one year before the Great War. He doesn't know who he is, and believes himself to be human. Over the next two episodes, a really fantastic episode emerges, and one that has several key details that lead into the rest of the season. Non-fans as well

Labor Day Weekend

Well, not quite the Labor Day Weekend we had anticipated. It disappeared in an instant. Our 22-month-old daughter got pretty sick and is only now beginning to get better. So, we spent the weekend huddled around the couch, watching her to make our girl was okay. This kind of crowded out everything else, though I'm currently on my sixth load of laundry. I acknowledge that's a lot, but at least one of those loads is because of the aforementioned illness. It was nice to have a day off. I am still in many ways adjusting to having a regular job, and so today was a nice day, though I find it hard to relax now. I was able to tweak a little things here and there. People who click-through to the actual blog will see what I think is a pretty impressive widget which will allow you to easily scroll through the past 10 shows on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network . I put the widget on a few other places, including the waste of bandwidth that is my Myspace account . I didn't really do

Watching the Virginia Tech match at Court Square Tavern

So, I was going to sit at home to watch Virginia Tech's first match of the year. Instead, I thought I would come to Court Square Tavern to watch it. I'm the only customer. Cutting out smoking caused a lot of regulars to not come back out of protest. And so far, there are no replacements to pick up the Saturday traffic. So, here I am in the seat where the cash register used to be. I'm also working on a story for work while I watch Virginia Tech attempt to get something going here in the first quarter. The interception Glennon threw on the first play didn't really do much to get things going. Now that I don't work here, I think I'm going to try to come in and watch football here on the weekends.

Coy Barefoot to interview World Without Us author

Alan Weisman's book The World Without Us imagines the world without human beings. Not exactly the funniest of topics, but Weisman recently appeared on the Daily Show. I've already related in this space how Coy Barefoot has interviewed many people who have gone on to appear on the Daily Show. Well, this time it's the other way around. Weisman will be Coy's guest on tomorrow's episode of WINA's "Charlottesville--Right Now!" so tune in if you want to ask him a question. You can dial in at 977-1070. Coy tells me Weisman will be on the show Tuesday, August 28 at 5:00 PM. WINA Newsradio 1070! Tune in.

Drop in Nielsen ratings due to drop in television usage - not methodology

Well, the revolution really is here, if by revolution you mean the end of televised entertainment as we know it. Everything is changing, and fast. Here's a report from MediaPost : IN AN EFFORT TO ADDRESS client concerns over declines in TV usage this year, Nielsen has issued a report concluding the drop most likely is due to real changes in TV viewing behavior and is not due to TV ratings methods, or new technologies like DVD players, video game systems or digital video recorders (DVRs). But while concluding that "no single factor played a predominant role" in the declines, the Nielsen report found that the biggest impact was felt among TV's heaviest viewing households. Of course, I read this on a night when I am watching reruns of Heroes live on Channel 29. I certainly don't watch television like I used to. People are watching shows rather than networks. We're not dumb anymore. Now, I can't wait until we can pay for the channels we want, without the rest,

We're number #181!

The new Nielsen market rankings are out ( link from Lost Remote ), and Charlottesville has moved up one spot to #181. That's based on there being 85,520 "TV homes" in our market. That population is an increase from 83,850 last year. Harrisonburg moved up three slots, to #178. I didn't know that Harrisonburg they were larger than Charlottesville. Other Virginia markets saw changes as well. Roanoke-Lynchburg climbed one to 67. I find it strange that those two areas are twinned together in the same market. Bristol also went up one, with 328,970 "TV homes" in the Tri-Cities area (which, to be fair, does include some Tennessee homes). However, Norfolk/Portsmouth/Newport News stayed steady at #42. That's despite an increase of 5,000 new homes to 717,440.

British producer John LLoyd on Coy Barefoot show

Coy Barefoot gets some great guests, but last week he spoke with John Lloyd , a writer and producer who actually co-wrote two episodes of the first series of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He was on to talk about his new book, The Book of General Ignorance . Pretty neat, I'd have to say. I've produced five of the shows tonight, after a day spent working on the three remaining Voices of Poverty podcasts. I've also finished some podcasts for the U.Va Housing Division . What are you listening to these days? Here's a YouTube link to a QI episode that has Mark Steel in it.

A British perspective of soccer sports writing

One of the best things about David Beckham playing in the MLS is that each match is getting write-ups in British newspapers. That's a lot more attention the league could never have gotten, and it seems that the level of play seems to go up when Beckham plays. Witness last night's 5-4 victory by the New York Red Bulls over the Los Angeles Galaxy. I was not able to watch it live, thanks to it being on Fox Soccer Channel, but it was a lot of fun to watch the highlights this morning. But, check out this paragraph from Times Online The first goal came from an in-swinging Beckham corner kick, which Pavon met at the near post with a header that beat Red Bulls goalkeeper Ronald Waterreus and slipped inside the far post. Beckham’s left ankle continued to bother him but, despite his obvious discomfort, he picked out Pavon again with a 30-yard free kick and another crisply-despatched header put Galaxy ahead. Suddenly, they had the initiative and the interplay between Beckham and Landon Do

Wacky British television thanks to YouTube

I had heard that the BBC was going to be putting up a channel on YouTube, but I had forgotten all about it. Today, I stumbled upon it by accident and watched a few clips. There isn't very much at all on there, but there seem to be more clips of a program called Shooting Stars then any others. It seems like an odd way to treat celebrities, and seems much more like a wacky game show than a contrived reality show. I can't embed the clip, but the link to one episode is here . I wish that I could get more meaningful content from the BBC, either free or paid. I believe they do not have the right to post full content to anywhere other than the UK, and they are currently launching an online video player for the British islands, but not for anywhere else. I think this is a mistake. I would be willing to directly pay the BBC the equivalency of the license fee for the right to live stream their video signal. I can get an audio stream from the BBC. Why not video, especially if I am willin

Watching the match thanks to the Internet

MLS is selling a subscription to watch all of its game live over the Internet, and right now, they're charging $15 for the rest of the year. So, I decided to go ahead and purchase one in time for tonight's match between DC United and the LA Galaxy. I wanted to see Beckham play. And, I'm glad I did, considering that he scored a goal on his first free kick. It was very amazing to watch, and I'm glad I can follow him as he tries to lead the Galaxy to a title. I've never really paid attention to an MLS season before, but this time it could be a lot more interesting. I'm also intrigued by how tonight's match is a Superliga match, and not an MLS one. (stopped writing because the match was on) This woman had a really bad experience last Thursday trying to fly from Cincinatti to Washington to meet her father so they could see Beckham play at RFK.

BBC to air Dirk Gently radio programme

Before I start, I love when I write about BBC shows, because I get to say "programme" instead of "program" which makes my twice-yearly trips to England seem a little more cost-effective. Thanks to the Internet, though, I don't have to be on the island to listen to Radio 4. So, this October, I can listen to Dirk Maggs' interpretation of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently and the Holistic Detective Agency , a book I know I've read but I can't remember anything about. Maggs' was the man entrusted with finishing up the radio versions of the last three books in the Hitchhiker series. They were absolutely fantastic, and a tremendous love letter to radio and to Adams himself. Featuring a star-studded cast with Harry Enfield in the lead role, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency will be produced by the same award-winning team that made the conclusion to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Harry is joined by Lord of the Rings actor Billy Boyd, F

David Beckham begins MLS career

I tuned in to the second half of the DC United-LA Galaxy game tonight on ESPN2. I had originally planned to go up to RFK to see this match, because I wanted to see David Beckham. Since joining the Galaxy last month, he has yet to play a match in a league game, due to injuries he sustained playing for England in June. So, there's not really been too much to watch. I seldom watch MLS play. There doesn't seem to be anything of stake, and the quality of coverage usually isn't that good. There's also no one in the crowd, or at least, there's not enough to make it seem like an event. Tonight when I tuned in, they had a packed house, with something like 47,000 people there. That's pretty impressive. There were that many people there when I went with my dad in 1998 to see the U.S. national team in their last friendly before the World Cup. You hear time and time and time again how much no one cares about soccer in this country. So, it's nice to see a packed house. An

What kind of a commenter are you?

I'm a journalist who covers government meetings, but one of the RSS feeds I check frequently in Bloglines is TVSquad. I don't watch that much television, but I am fascinated by the business of the medium. TVSquad keeps me up to date on the creative side, and I am a frequent commenter. So, I'm curious to know exactly where I fit on their list of the kinds of people who comment on the site . This post is written by Jay Black in response to the Simpsons movie, and the countless people who commented on every single related post by saying that "The Simpsons haven't been funny in years" and so on. So, click over there, and weigh in on who you are.

Whatever happened to the Showbiz Pizza robots

I grew up in Lynchburg in the 80's, and one of the best things we had going for us was Showbiz Pizza. Pizza + videogames + animatronic figures = a great time for ten-year-old Sean Tubbs. Flash forward however many years, and the place is out of business, and then I read this on Boing Boing . Some guy bought one of the sets, somewhere, and then reprogrammed them to perform new styles of music. To me, this is absolutely hilarious.

What can widgets do for you?

In my RSS reader ( Bloglines , by the way), I have saved a lot of articles on widgets. Widgets are supposed to be the next wave of online advertising. To the uninitiated, widgets are little pieces of code that bloggers place in their sidebar to do something useful. Blogger allows its writers to add these pretty painlessly. All of the stuff to the right (if you're on the site, of course, as opposed to an RSS reader (bloglines, by the way, but I click-through a lot) is powered by a widget. The ones at the very top here aren't formatted properly at the moment, but they're put together by Feedburner (which Google owns now, by the way) as a way to boost traffic to individual entries. For me, they're convenient little tools which can at a moment's notice scroll through the latest offerings. But, will they boost traffic for the various offerings of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network? Will they add more subscribers? I'm writing to hopefully begin a conversation amon

Went to see the Simpsons movie

The wife and daughter were at church, and I decided to go ahead and catch one of the early morning shows of The Simpsons Movie at the Regal downtown. It was the first time in a very long time that I went to go see a movie by myself, and I thought it would be worth the trip. I've been a fan of the Simpsons since the first season. I never really watched it on the Tracy Ullman show. In recent years, it's no longer necessary for me to watch every new episode, and I almost never watch it in re-runs anymore. So, why pay money to go see the movie? For one, I thought it would be nice to see it in an actual theater for a change. The last movie I saw was Hot Fuzz earlier this year. I've not really wanted to see much of anything, as I've been busy with work-related things. But, I think I might have been the only person in the theater by himself, which made me feel very self-conscious. When I was single in the late 90's, I saw everything that way, and didn't really mind s

Places29 video on Channel 10

Charlottesville Tomorrow has placed its first video on Channel 10, one of the City's cable access channels. If you tune in at this moment, you'll see our video of John Giometti's presentation of the transportation study that's part of Places29 . They will be running this periodically over the next two weeks, and we'll be giving them more content as we film other events such as this.

Ten things I learned from the L.A. Galaxy/Beckham press conference

I was just watching the press conference at which David Beckham was introduced as a member of the L.A. Galaxy. It's about sixteen and a half minutes long, and was kind of entertaining. But, as I'm sure you're not really going to watch the whole thing, I thought I would provide ten things that I learned while watching. 1) Alexei Lalas seems well-groomed to play the role of booster for this team. 2) The sponsor of the L.A. Galaxy featured on the jersey is Herbalife. That's an odd choice for a main advertiser. 3) L.A. doesn't much care for their mayor. When Antonio Villaraigosa took the stage at the end, he was booed . The article goes on to say it may have been because the Mayor is a Chivas supporter. 4) Beckham almost called his sport "football" but corrected himself quickly. He said he'd get used to it. 5) Speaker after speaker makes reference to how this will build the sport of soccer in the future. I will likely watch a few matches. I also like how

Thoughts while doing maintenance

It's Saturday, and I'm feeling lazy, but I have at least eight projects to get to at some point over the weekend. But, my three computers are so laden with sound files that I don't really know where to begin in terms of organizing them. I've got audio from the last eight years waiting to be archived. It's amazing just how much stuff is on the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. I currently have audio files on three servers, and I'm trying my best to consolidate them to one place. This is a grueling process, but it's necessary so I can save a little bit of money on my server costs. Right now, I'm paying way too much. I've forgotten so many of the stories that I've posted the site. As you may recall, the original idea was to have the site be a place to go for original stories. Since getting out of the radio business, it's been harder to be efficient in terms of getting new things posted to the site. I've still got a large backlog of things

Come on CONCACAF, do a better job!

It is June 24, 2007, and all I want to know is what channel today's Gold Cup final between the U.S. and Mexico. It's on at 3:00, and I know they're showing it at the Shebeen, but I'd rather just watch it at home if I had the option. So, I want to know if it's on ESPN or the Fox Soccer Channel. So, I go to the CONCACAF website to find out. Of course, the CONCACAF site is not using video very well at all. There's a very small video box on the left hand side of the screen that plays a video announcement of what teams are playing in what divisions. That's all well and good, except it's the final day of the tournament. They've not even updated the video. What's more annoying is that as you navigate the website, the video plays from the beginning. It's very annoying. This should be a major tournament, and it could be if they would simply use the web matter. Why are they not selling live streams of the matches? Why are there no archives of the matc

Video builds the radio guy

I'm watching the tail end of the debut of Max Headroom, one of those shows from the late 80's that seemed so amazingly different, refreshing. The premiere revolves around an advertising conspiracy that's killing people. When I was a kid, this seemed so futuristic and somehow important. A television show was critiquing television practices. Now, the irony comes in because I'm watching this show on Joost , which is a new service created by the makers of Skype and KaZaa. There's advertising, of course, but it seems so seamless, you hardly notice it. A friend of mine sent me an invite today, and there's a ton of content here that I can watch legally, as often as I want. And, the picture is pretty darned good, full-screen. Everything is changing, and changing fast. Steve Safran of Lost Remote was recently a guest on Coy Barefoot's show and continued preaching the gospel of convergence, and Joost is so far the best (legal) implementation I've seen. It lacks

Reason #62 why Coy Barefoot's show is awesome

As you know, I produce the podcast for Coy Barefoot's show. At the moment, I'm watching the Daily Show, and Jon Stewart has Alan Brandt, the author of Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America. The cool thing is, Coy had him on his show in early May. He gets so many great guests on WINA's Charlottesville--Right Now, and it's well worth listening to, either on WINA from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, or on the podcast courtesy of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network . Now, if I can only find someone to help us produce Coy's show. I have ten files sitting waiting to be produced and uploaded. I'm almost done with a major project producing U.Va's Reunions Weekend 2007 podcasts, so I can hopefully get to some of them. I'm willing to train anyone with an interest in multimedia experience.

And with that, it's back to normal

This is what I've wanted for a year and three months - a draft of Spaten at Court Square Tavern. I'm sitting at the bar, where I've sat many many a time before late at night, and this time I'm just a customer. A paying customer, even! This doesn't really feel real. The place is mostly the same, though it's completely different. It's certainly not going to win awards with the young hipster crowd, which is probably why it's so enjoyable for me to be here now. The major difference is that I'm here at night and Bill Curtis, the owner, is here. I never saw him up here ever in the old days, except occasionally late at night, or maybe at the beginning of a shift. Now I have a sense he'll be here an awful lot. And that's not a bad thing at all. I'm so happy to be here. I've ordered my second Spaten. I think I'm going to really enjoy it here again. It's not like any other Charlottesville bar. I don't know what it is, exactly. I nev

BlogNetNews goes local - what does it mean?

BlogNetNews is another group that seems to be trying to make some money off of aggregating local content. They're now aggregating the same blogs that cvilleblogs.com collects. But will any of this actually correspond to higher amounts of traffic? I'm now part of two organizations that use local blogs to reach people. I created the Charlottesville Podcasting Network and now work as program officer for Charlottesville Tomorrow . Both entities would benefit from extra traffic, as it would be good to reach out to new eyes in our attempts to increase public participation in civic and cultural society. But, I worry about groups that suck up feeds without asking for permission. I hope that it will be easy to determine if this does result in extra eyeballs, or if it will just mean the eyeballs currently engaged are just shifting the way in which they receive the feed.

Friday Night Relaxation Writing

It's Friday night! We just got back from the Pavilion, and Atomic Burrito. My eyes are burning and I'm listening to Davie Bowie's "Life on Mars" through Rhapsody, as I'm all nostalgic for the show I've only just finished for the first time. "Life on Mars" is simply the best show I've watched in a very long time. It confirms what is my emerging theory that television shows today should be compared to more like novels than television shows of days gone by. It's a very puzzling show, in that the ending really doesn't satisfy on the first view-round. The show is about a Detective Chief Inspector for the Manchester Police who gets hit by a car, and wakes up back in 1973. He's not sure if he's time-traveled or if he's in a coma and dreaming the whole thing. But, everything is completely alive for him, and it doesn't stop. Over the course of 16 episodes, Sam Tyler tries to understand what's happening, and helps introduce

The Original Point of the Internet

Waldo Jaquith posted a neat article today about the early history of the Internet, back in the days when you would find out what's new in the world by clicking What's New here and there. At the height of the dot-com boom, I was the editor of an online What's New page that kept people up to date on the latest changes in government positions across the U.S. I worked for a publishing company that maintained directories of local, state and federal officials. They still keep the page up to date . This was my first real job after college. I went from an intern at WVTF to an intern at New Hampshire Public Radio, and then surfed around in restaurants up there for a while, as well as a stint where I worked in Lynchburg for my father's company, trying to learn how to become a manufacturing kind of guy. When I was there, I used the web to surf for music, as this was in the days before WNRN took over Sweet Briar's radio station. You could get great concerts intact, like I'

Court Square Tavern opens this week!

They said it couldn't be done. Or, maybe they didn't say that. But they could have if they had wanted to. But, Court Square Tavern has risen from the ashes and opens this week in its new, shiny form. There's a brand new kitchen, two LCD televisions, a new standing bar in the back, a revamped menu, wi-fi access, eight taps of beer, more than a hundred kind of bottled beer, and a very different look and feel. In short, to my eyes it is absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait until it's really open for good. Right now, hours are limited. It opens for lunch tomorrow (call first to confirm) and will be open in the evenings beginning later this week. And, possibly best of all - there is a petition to make the entire place non-smoking. I think this will be a good thing, and if you feel the same, make sure you sign the petition. Bill Curtis joked that he would abide by the petition if it gets more than 50 signatures. I predict that it will. This is such a good thing for Charlott