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Dawn-a-pa-Drew-za 2007

I spent a soggy yet awesome weekend camping at Dawn & Drew‘s farm in Wisconsin last weekend for their first ever Dawnapadrewza (aka a nice excuse for Dawn to gets lots of birthday presents). They’re awesome as were all the people I met from around the country. On the last morning, after my keys were securely extracted from the trunk of my rental car, I shot this short video of my last moments. Featured are their four dogs Spec (smallest dog, biggest cock), Zoe (the retarded mom), Hercules and Raisin (the kids) and a nice egg & maple sausage breakfast that the enchanting Rinne cooked up. Good times indeed. I hope to see many of you new friends at the Podcast Expo next month.

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When was the first time you were touched by the Squid tentacle?

That is the question I asked a cross-section of freaks at the Laughing Squid Paradise Lost party. Knowing Scott Beale and the communities that he has tracked over the past 10 years, I thought it’d be fun to find out how people first crossed paths with the entity known as Laughing Squid. Some people first knew of the Squid from what was originally called the Alpha Squids mailing list, some people know it as the generous web host, some from Burning Man, others from Scott’s event photography and even some newbies only from recent parties. The answers are as varied as the people brave enough to offer them up.

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Rachel demos the KGB at Paradise Lost

Scott Beale does it again, throwing the only party that matters in this town. Ritual Roasters which is embedded at Flora Grubb Gardens where the party was held, were serving some interesting liquor packed coffee drinks and shots. Here’s a quick video of Miss Rachel Amazonia along with Ritual’s Eileen giving a demonstration on how the KGB shot is constructed and consumed. Shot on the awesome waterproof Sanyo Xacti E1 that Japanese videoblogger superstar Tajee hooked me up with.

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Blogerati Night at the SF Symphony

Blogger night at the SF Symphony
photo by George Kelly

My pals Liane and Kevin tipped me off to a special “citizen media” night at the San Francisco Symphony last week that Kevin organized. Now I don’t normally clock up a lot of ear time with classical music generally, but l can throw down to some Tchaikovsky and Strauss now and again. As luck would have it, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet and Strauss’ Don Juan were on the bill this evening.

I invite Audra and we show up at the appointed time outside the side entrance to the Davies Symphony Hall. There’s maybe a couple dozen of us milling about until we are escorted into the famed Green Room where Pepperidge Farm cookies and wine await. Yes, this is a high class affair. The carpet is green but not much else, thankfully. After an introduction from the Symphony’s Communication Department, we get our complimentary tickets and head up to our seats in the orchestra section.

Good seats, beautiful hall, the band, I mean orchestra is already seated and ready for the conductor to enter. He does and we get under way with Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy-Overture. I’m digging it but I can’t seem to stop my mind from wandering. I keep thinking about work related crap and repeatedly try and eject such thoughts from my mind so I can fully take in the romance emanating from the stage.

I look down and notice a brass plaque on my seat with David Packard‘s name engraved on it. I ponder if the famous HP co-founder had ever plopped his cheeks in the very seat in which my cheeks now sat snug. Just as I think that might be a weird thought, the first piece seems to quickly end.

After Don Juan, it’s intermission and we hurry back to the Green Room for a meet and greet with the short, young conductor James Gaffigan. The polished communicator from the Communications Department does a lot of communicating, leaving only a enough time for a couple of questions before Mr. Gaffigan has to hurry back upstairs to prepare for the second half of the program. There’s also a horn player from the orchestra present, who’s name I missed. He sticks around a bit longer and takes on a few more questions, some regarding the influence of online communication on the orchestral fraternity. No, he doesn’t have a Myspace page but his 13 year old daughter does.

The second half of the program is a long and often energetic piano concerto by Rachmaninoff entitled Piano Concerto No. 3. The pianist is a young and beautiful Venezuelan graduate from Juilliard named Gabriela Martinez. (She has one of the cleanest, easiest to read Myspace pages I just discovered). While the accompanying orchestra are all glued to their sheet music, Ms. Martinez nails the highly technical concerto from memory. A brilliant performance, easily deserving of the four rounds of applause she garners.

We stick around for the open Q&A with the conductor and Ms. Martinez and then a few of us head off to Sauce for a late night dessert. This was the first time I’ve experienced the SF Symphony in her home and I am dully impressed. I think I could really get into this.

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Last Chance to Save Internet Radio

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Some bad news today in the fight to save Internet radio. Turns out the courts denied the stay of the royalty rate increases set by the Copyright Royalty Board. If this stands, all Internet radio stations will be out of business as of this Sunday, July 15th. Read Rusty’s analysis of the situation and then PLEASE CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN TODAY! SERIOUSLY! This is huge and grassroots action is critical to get Congress to act.

MyBlogLog Recruitment Video

I’ve been doing some freelance video work for a new recruiting startup out of Montreal called StandoutJobs.com. This is a pretty cool concept for both potential employees and employers. It gives employers another avenue to hire skilled people and it gives potential employees a way to get a sense what a company and future coworkers are like before even applying for the job. Here’s the first video I did for MyBlogLog, a startup of 7 people recently aquired by Yahoo! They are looking for engineers. Lots of them.