Late Night Worker Gallery

After Hours
This was our first round submission. Though it didn’t do well in the popular voting, the judges apparently liked it enough to get us into round 2.

Office Clash
Our second round submission took second place, and thus grabbed on of the three slots available to entries from our month to compete in the final 2007 competition.

Granny’s Day Out
This is our entry in the final competition for all entrants from 2007. We have yet to hear back whether we have won anything.

So there it is. I’m a bit excited by how well our movies have been doing, especially as I understand the prize for winning the final competition is rather more substantial than the bits of cash we have been awarded so far. So enjoy the movies, and I’ll let you know if we win anything.

And hooray: someone is doing it. The name of the game is “Guitar Rising” (guitarrising.com). You’ll be able to plug any electric guitar into your PC with simple USB to 1/4 inch interface. You’ll get 30 rock songs to play along with, at five levels of difficulty, and even with variable tempos so you can learn at your own pace. The first release is due out in time for this Christmas, and I’m sure if it’s successful, you’ll see expansion packs with more and more songs.

So for all you guitar heroes who wish you could translate your gaming skills over to actually performing real songs for your friends, get excited. This game is for you.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/index.jhtml

For those of you who have heard of them but haven’t yet figured out what they are, podcasts are basically the internet version of Tivo. Most podcasts I am familiar with are very similar to radio talk shows: a group of people just talk about something interesting for an hour or hour and a half. The thing that makes them podcasts is that you don’t have to tune in at the time the show is broadcast. Instead, you use a program like Apple’s iTunes to “subscribe” to the podcast. When you turn on your iTunes, it simply downloads the latest episode of the show, and you can listen to or watch it whenever you want.

I have three recommendations for Podcasts available through iTunes.

ONE
This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte

If you’re a technology geek, but you get tired of having to read the trades to keep up with the latest news and gadgets, this is the podcast for you. Every week, Leo Laporte and a panel of select technology journalists get together and just yap about whatever has happened in technology during the week. They’re up to date on the latest new devices that are getting buzz in the industry, as well as the legal, social, and political issues that come up in internet and technology circles. Best of all, they keep it funny. Recommended for all ages, but if you didn’t really care about the release of the iPhone, this probably isn’t the podcast for you.

TWO
Diggnation

The founder of Digg.com, Kevin Rose, and his goofy actor friend, Alex Albrecht, spend an hour each week discussing the most interesting stories that have appeared on Digg since the previous show. They do it while consuming a very large amount of alcohol (which was generally donated to the show by fans or sponsors). If you don’t know what Digg is, see my earlier (Oct. 20) post about it. Kevin and Alex manage to keep it pretty funny, although sometimes they’re just dumb and somewhat poorly informed. This is a good podcast for those of you who can plug your earphones into your computer at work and need something to keep you awake while you execute the daily mindless process your job requires. Be forewarned: these guys know some harsh language and aren’t afraid to use it.

THREE
Keith and the Girl

If you were offended by the language in Diggnation, you’ll think Keith and the girl are the anti-christ and his girlfriend. Keith Malley is a New York area comedian who, with his girlfriend Chemda Khalili, discuss news, events, and just the vicissitudes of their own lives. Keith’s parents are devout Christians, while Chemda’s family are a mix of Persians and Israelis. Neither set of parents has ever heard the incredibly raunchy podcast their children currently produce, and Keith and Chemda often discuss their need to keep it that way. The two tend to wax very direct as they discuss their sex lives, use of controlled substances, violent altercations (though not with each other), crappy day jobs, and often poorly informed opinions.

Most episodes have a guest-host, such as gossip queen Patrice, aging (and often drunken) rocker Brother Love, or advice guru Dina (who is actually just a hick from upstate New York).

The charm of the shows are, in my opinion, Keith’s acerbic, poorly informed but often well thought out, Brooklyn-accented rants on whatever topic they happen to be discussing at the moment. These topics are not things your grandma would feel comfortable listening to (unless she used to be a fishnet-stalking wearing barker in front of an Atlantic City casino and carried a pool cue to discourage the gents who got too fresh), so don’t listen to Keith and the Girl unless you have thick skin and cynical sensibilities. Nevertheless, I generally think it’s a riot, and have very successfully used it to help me through the duldrums of repetitive labor in front of a computer.

A last note on iTunes
If you’re interested in trying out these, or any other podcasts, I recommend simply using iTunes. If you don’t have it on your computer already, go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/ to download it. Once it’s installed on your machine, turn it on and click on the podcasts section. Do a search for the name of the podcast or the subject that interests you. Click “subscribe” next to anything you want. From then on, whenever you open up iTunes, it will automatically download the most recent episode of the podcast that you don’t already have.

Pandora.com is one of the coolest websites I’ve run into on the internet. If you don’t know about it already, just go to the site and follow the instructions. Pandora has you name a song or artist you like. It then goes through a massive library of music to find other songs that are similar to what you have specified. Then it just starts playing them for you.

It’s like a radio station that you yourself get to program. You can even specify different “stations” for different moods you might be in (in other words, if you’re not in an Ozzy Ozbourne vibe, you can always make a new station and put in “Luther Vandross” as the artist that Pandora will find similar music to). When you hear a song you like, you can give it a thumb’s up, and it will be added to the station as an indicator to the system that it should find more music like that one. If you hate a song, you can thumb’s down it so it will not play again.

If you work in front of a computer all day, especially doing work that’s repetitive or mindless, this might be the website for you. Just plug in your earphones, and run Pandora in the background. You’ll hear old favorites as well as new stuff you’ve never run into before.

http://www.pandora.com

As a side note, Pandora’s days may be numbered. The US Copyright Royalty Board raised license fee rates recently to the degree that many online radio stations can’t make enough money to be able to pay for the songs they play. So far Pandora lives, but it may not last.