"The only talk show worth watching"

Salon's Video Dog features the latest episode of DriveTime today -- check it out for a fast download!

They promote it on the home page: "The only talk show worth watching -- and it's not on TV."


Note: you may need to watch an ad for Basic Instinct 2 before entering Salon

Robots!

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Originally uploaded by ravijain.

I went over to the FIRST Robotic Competition this morning, at the invitation of a DriveTime viewer that was part of a team... so I got into "The Pits" ! Lots of excitement and as of 11:30 a.m. the robots had not taken over.

Blogger ---> Toilet redux

So a kind hearted individual sent me an email this morning with the subject header "You probably already know this..." -- the body of the email did not concern increasing my girth or potency, but rather informed me that DriveTime was "down"!!

Sure enough, the front page was a directory listing of files and folders (basic archive structure of a blog). I have no idea why this happened. I logged into blogger and republished the entire blog and it seems okay now.

But this -- on the heels of the inability for users hosting blogger blogs on their own domains to post images for days earlier this week -- makes me worry about the overall reliability of blogger.

Japanese DriveTime tribute

Jesse and Rahman -- two expats in Japan -- pay tribute to DriveTime in an episode of their video blog, Yamato Damacy.

It's longer than DriveTime (+17 minutes), but they're both engaging fellows. And Jesse (the driver) gives me a shout out in the episode!

"Two for the Road"

Listen to my conversation with Tony Kahn in a special mobile Morning Stories.
(direct link | feed)

Blogger headed for the toilet?

I haven't been able to upload images to any of my blogs for the past few days, and judging from the "chatter" on various boards, it seems this is a widespread problem.

More troubling is the fact that there seems to be absolutely no inkling of a response from blogger, despite many emailing them and posting about the problem. Hmmmm... this seems the kind of faux paus that could cause a shift in user loyality.

Memories of Shamrock Shakes

Aaron Hurley details his quest for a shamrock shake on his blog and it made me remember how excited I used to get over Shamrock Shakes.

I haven't been to a McDonald's since October 2001. Not for any political reason... probably more health consciousness.

But I dug out my photo album from college, when I too quested for Shamrock Shakes, and found this 1989 photo of a proud John Carrera and myself standing in front of the "Shamrock Shake" graphic.

Mmmm... green goodness!

New music trifecta

Last weekend I decided I needed an injection of new music into my routine, so I started doing some research to see what "the kids" are listening to these days. My research sources included Other Music's weekly updates (which make every release sound like the greatest sonic offering ever conjured), Pitchfork and various BBC music review sites. Plus I tried to recall whatever recommendations I'd received from friends.

After all that, here are the three CDs that I purchased (yes, I still purchase music -- and CDs too, call me a dinousaur).

Destroyer | Destroyer's Rubies

Okay -- credit where credit is due -- this was recommended by DriveTime cultural critic Peter Bebergal. I'm not at all familiar with Destroyer (or the brains behind it, Daniel Bejar) -- but it's been getting some good recommendations. On the first few listens, it's a little hard to nail down -- reminds me of Mott the Hoople, as well as other glammy kind of '70s sounds. Much has been written about the elusive lyrics... hmmm, I rarely listen to lyrics in the beginning, opting to go with the flow of the music instead. So I'm still deciding on this one!


B. Fleischmann | The Humbucking Coil

Again, I'd never heard of Bernard Fleishmann (aka "B. Fleishmann") but I liked the samples of this that I'd heard. Electronica sonics with some organic touches. I liked it enough on the first couple of listens and then gave it a listen while riding back to Boston late Friday night after giving a workshop in Quincy... and it was perfect! Good late night driving music.


Sybille Baier | Colour Green

The story behind this recording is what pulled me in -- in the early '70s Baier, a young german actress, was taken on a road trip through the Alps at the behest of a friend to lift her "dark and moody" spirits. After returning home to Germany, Baier wrote and recorded these songs in her bedroom on a reel-to-reel recorder. Only her family and friends heard her music until now. The quality is surprisingly good and her sad voice and simple guitar accompaniement are very engaging. It's a short CD (just over 30 minutes) but that's probably good as the music is cut from the same cloth. It had me hooked from the get go!

The David and Steve and Ravi Show

I'm going to be "co-presenting" a workshop this evening with David Tamés and Steve Garfield at the Pro Video Show down at the Quincy Marriott: The Rise of Citizen Media and Video Podcasting. It's at 7 p.m. in Salon 1.

It will be the first time I've been at the Marriott since Sonia and I had our wedding reception there last year. I might burst into tears of joy during the presentation (as part of my example of creating meaningful, compelling content).

David has a good game plan for the session -- Steve and I will contribute our own brand of "Vlogging 101" that we've been honing at such venues as WGBH and CCTV. The latter inspired what I call "desk-pounding excitement."

I can only hope for one-tenth of that passion tonight!

Update:
Steve's post about this made me realize I should mention that there is a $25 charge for the presentation (but there's lots of free stuff down at the show also).

Aussie Wildfire!

So the segment that Beyond Tomorrow did on DriveTime aired in Australia over night. They have a page set up now on their program archive, though you can't watch the segment itself. And they seem to think that DriveTime is called DriveTime TV... I don't see what TV has to do with this?



The Aussies are commenting like wildfire over on the DriveTime site. One anonymous commenter wrote, "They made you out to be slightly weird and crazy, but nothing too bad." That's good enough for me!

I've had to pull out my Aussie/English dictionary a few times:

"Mate" <---> "Friend"

"G'day" <---> "Hello"

"Oi oi oi" <---> ????

DriveTime makes MediaShift's Top Five

DriveTime is #2 on MediaShift's Top Five this week.

Updated DriveTime iTunes image

I've updated the image that the DriveTime feed pulls for iTunes.

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I realize all the popular podcasts have young women featured in their thumbnails, so why not have a thumbnail with a beautiful young woman?!

"Buckle up, viewers"

Jessica Berthold's piece on DriveTime for the Allentown Morning Call was picked up by the Baltimore Sun in today's issue. Any Baltimorians out there who can secure a hard copy for my archives?!

This story has legs!