Yay, the phones work! Rowra, baby. When we hit the air at 8pm PST, you can give us a shout at 1-818-237-5533 or toll free 1-800-978-KSSX. (For the nerds out there, it was one silly switch on the main mixer)

Open the URL http://kssx.com:8000 or http://kssx.com:8000/listen.pls in iTunes or Winamp to listen to the stream now, or if you're in Second Life, IM Spin Martin for a teleport to the estate where the NYE party starts at 10 PST.

:-)

Point your iTunes, Winamp, or whatever you use to listen to a streaming station to kssx.com:8000.... you might hear some Indiefeed or something else. ;-)

Also, new podcasts up: the podcast from the House of Blues and the Day-After-Xmas podcast. Get yourself some of that. (Also streaming in SL, Spin Martin's Estate in Palulop (117/231))

PHONES WORK!!!, Now you can call in live, 1-818-237-5533 or 1-800-978-KSSX. And you know someone is gonna be busting out the hybrid podcast + live stream realtime rowra, baby.

Update Seems to be a little confusion about the event, apparently. The broadcast is STREAMING at KSSX.com:8000 and Second Life is only an added sumthin sumthin for those folks who live there. (Just 'cuz you CAN skim text, doesn't mean you should :P )



Live Broadcast/Podcast/Virtual Worldcast (Second Life). This New Year's Eve starting at 8pm Pacific/11pm Eastern, for six straight hours of live chaos. Hosted by Eric Rice, 'casted on KSSX.com. And when get closer to the night on the West Coast, we go crazy virtual with a sexy little table dancing, euro-dancing, money-making, dance party inside of Second Life...

Stream: http://kssx.com:8000/listen.pls
Second Life Party: Spin Martin's Estate in Palulop (117/231). Special Guest: Mori Simon ;-)

Time for some rowra.

Download and Watch the promo. Music used without permission... Come on, I gotta tell someone about Nickelback's only insanely rockin' song. :P

In a seemingly random conversation about bandwidth burn, Steve Garfield and I explored what comes after terabyte. It's Petabyte. Then to take it further, we made note that after peta, comes Exabyte (things with X are way more leeet, eh?). Then we have that Zettabyte (which looks odd with two t's thanks to Catherine Zeta Jones).

My favorite is Yottabyte, which is fun to say, although there's a need to make it a Yattabyte, for those that like the group Happatai from Japan (Yatta!) or more personally, if you are part of the Kenyatta Cheese Fan Club.

Honestly though, if your name is as awesome as Kenyatta Cheese, I'd certainly recommend demanding a -byte in your own name.

So, I'm hereby declaring the Kenyattabyte, a measurement of bandwidth burn that we might not see in 2006, but at the rate some of us are going, anything goes.

:-)

He got a toy camcorder for Christmas. He's learning how to hold it. When he somewhat gets how the LCD screen works, he starts to interview his brother.

All I did was plug it into the computer and uploaded the AVI file to Audioblog.com.

Amazing.

Share the podsafe music love *and* promo your show at the same time. I'm doing a podcast Friday night (12/23) at the House of Blues and looking for folks to leave a short message on our message line: toll free 1-800-978-KSSX (or 1-818-237-5533) between now and the time we post our show something in the wee hours of the 24th.

Tell us who is your favorite artist or band of the past year, and be sure to say who you are, where you're from and what your podcast or videoblog is (if you have one). We can't promise we can play all the messages, but we'll certainly try and give shouts to everyone leaving a message.

On behalf of Josh, Grog, tonyB, Irina, and Eddie, have a great holiday everyone, and here's to an awesome 2006.

Download and Watch the latest as Eric fills you in, on location from Orlando, FL. (Update: I forgot to post this to the videoblog category... duh me. Sorry about that.)

Hey wow, I'm a runner up on the Top 10 Sexiest Geeks list by Violet Blue... so, ok, top 20 ain't bad. Heh. Be thankful though, it would have gotten old with me running around going "I'm DEAD SEXY" all day long. (Does she know about my stripper videoblog (not me, dummies, the actual strippers)? Hrmm)

On the other hand, my two newest esteemed co-hosts Irina and Eddie made the list. So, dead sexy, by association?

For the record, I've been under a contractual obligation NOT to produce certain genres of podcasts for a while now. In fact, I've avoided it all together (barring our in-house music and Slackstreet podcasts).

Coming up in January '06, I'll be available to consult on and produce podcasts.

Ever since I was exposed to my first theme park, I've always had a certain penchant for the backstage mechanics of Hollywood and immersive experiences. In fact, this penchant was probably kicked into high gear when I took my first trip to a Universal Studios backlot tour in Southern California.

This is perhaps what shaped my career and my way of thinking.... design, communications, entertainment--long before I was a graphic designer nearly 15 years ago. Even my first professional webmaster job was one where I hoped to bring the Disney-esque magic and themeing to a kids' software web site.

Why is this important? It's important because I'm providing some different content on my second vlog, Backstaging, the DIY media making video podcast.

Instead of making my usual efforts to provide some sort of helpful how-to type of videos, I'm going to let this week be a sort of Inspiration Week. There's so much more to spending a week at places like Walt Disney World or Universal Studios... there's a plethora of Other Stuff--- the nuanced details of the parks themselves. I hope to make Backstaging more of a series of eye candies---epic visuals that we as everyday people might not be able to create--that will serve as powerful points of inspiration and ideas.

The videos (and the abstract Disney photos on my flickr pages) are the things that inspire me; these are the things I observe. It's a lens--- a mirror into my creative brain. These are the things that are present when I do any type of creative work.

And throughout all this, I'm doing a little bit of reflection on a variety of things--- Hollywood as a creative and historical symbol, not as an aging industry of business. I'm looking at epic firework displays (done over and over and over, nightly, without a flaw) and contrasting that to our day to day work.

Last, but certainly not least, reflecting on that one man that started much of this--- not just for his own empire of creativity, but also as the benchmark for everything else--- Walt Disney. Light years ahead of his time; multi-disciplined and multi-talented. He is attributed with the quote, "If you can dream it, you can do it."

This I believe.

...
Criminal. Hope. Work. Drugs.
Everybody has a story to tell.

;-)

It's not enough to just kick back and take a vacation-- no, if I can get work done out of having fun, I will. So to celebrate, I'm treating this next week as Theme Park Podcast and Videoblog Week. In actuality, on Backstaging, I'm going to treat this as "Inspiration Week" and you'll find out the how and the why. Just keep watching.

Also, there will be podcast-by-phone-delivered-to-phones over on The Eric Rice Show mobile edition, now available to those phones that can get Mobilcast.

And possibly around Wednesday, I'll be at Universal Studios Citywalk in Orlando. I'm thinking Margaritas at Margaritaville. Ping me in e-mail, or even call the studio line (1-800-978-KSSX). The message will reach me.

Gotta go. The flight was scheduled too early and too far away for my liking, so I have to be ready for the driver at threeeeeeeee o'clock in the morrrrrrning.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

'Nuff said. Go watch. jonnygoldstein.com: Rushkoff on Videoblogging

Also a cautious warning to the definition debaters.

Brilliant stuff.

I haven't seen Dave lately in any of the video conferences that the videobloggers have twice weekly. Of course, I've been absent on occasion, and perhaps he has too. Yet when I remember Dave's interaction, I remember him as articulate and insightful.

Now it's common for me to briefly glance at nearly every videoblog and podcast that exists--- I subscribe to very, very few (even fewer audio podcasts, but that's only since I have to review the ones I produce or manage).

Dave has a videoblog called 90 Seconds of Dave, the name you'd expect MOST blogs, podcasts and such to have. Except I walked into this vlog in the middle of either a grand experiment, or sheer genius. Filmmakers take note.

He's made a short film called "Lorem Ipsum", a term familiar to those of us who grew up as graphic designers or art directors. Not only is the work impressive and psychologically challenging, it's released over time---serialized---as if I have to wait for next week's episode. Which I did. And Lorem Ipsum became the first feed I refreshed every day (ARGH, no new episode$#&*#&!!11!!one!!).

It's completed now-- 15 episodes and an epilogue-- and I can't wait until I can pay for a full DVD version of this. Subscribe to it, watch it in order, leave a review in iTunes or comment on his blog. And then when you're done, watch the other stuff he's posting. The most recent video is another example of Dave doing his art, or as his post's title might be appropriately named: Extraordinary Things (2).

Come on people! Only 29 of us have proclaimed that we want to rock out with renewed authority on 43 Things. WTF?

I'll be willing to bet that if there's just ONE resolution you should make to yourself in 2006, that would be it.

Go. Now. And want it.

For all you blogosphere Second Lifers, I thought I'd throw this out there for you. I've got some waterfront property to sell you in a video game.

This is all very normal and might be weird out of context. Please bear with me. For those that aren't familiar with Second Life, I'll do my best to explain a rather complex thing as simple as possible--- but that's the problem. Second Life is complex. (if you just want the info on the land, scroll to the bottom of this post)

Second Life is a virtual world. It's a video game. Sorta. It's a big green earth (except in the snowy and beach areas heh) that is inhabited by the ultimate DIYers-- virtually everything in SL is made by the people who use it. You make an avatar of yourself any way you see fit. You can buy some land, and terraform it. You can build things, buy things. You can party and play in casinos. You can hook up or you can bring an entire research project and make it virtual. You can also game. Design a video game environment and shoot people. You can write game code.

What you do with it is entirely up to you. (How's that for a vague statement?)

Here are some examples of how *I* use it and how I've seen other people use it.

For me, Second Life is a creative platform, similar to how I might take up painting or knitting. SL lets me do 3D modeling like Blogger lets you do publishing. I've built the virtual version of Slackstreet. We have buildings and offices and soundstages and boats and choppers and swords. It's fact and fiction all rolled into one. Every one of us from the podcast is in the game, rendered to look like we do in real life. It's video gaming and machinima 2.0.

One of my neighbors is actually a group of grad students who are using it for rapid prototyping and collaborative research.

Other people dress up like furry animals and play house.

Some extend their 3D modeling jobs and make elaborate environments-- gothic cemetaries and castles.

Some people design and code weapons.

Some people make textures and clothing for people, sell them, and make a living.

Second Life is the ultimate in user-generated content.

And some people go for the hookup. It's chat and buddy lists and IM with fancy avatars. And landscaping. On the other end are people who want to get a little action, virtual or otherwise.

I'm also using it to pump audio and video in and out of the game. You've seen videos I've made in the game. I've taken real-world videos and ported them into screens IN the game. Same thing with podcasting. (Side note: In a round-about way, I can use Audioblog to record a podcast by phone and have the whole thing stream from my plot of land in the game.--That's complicated but fully automated. It's like Podcasting 6.0, forget all this 2.0 crap, I got a future to create, yo).

And unlike other games/worlds, Linden Labs, a company in San Francisco, encourages commerce in the game. So yes, I can take photos, and sell them as textures or clothing in the game. The exchange rate is around $20 USD = around $5000 Linden dollars which is exchangeable. And yes, people are making a living at this. (Heh, I suppose it negates my 'do you make money at playing video games' talking point on making money)

Naturally, in all of my travels and R&D, I've managed to collect some land (good land, for the SLers out there. Waterfront property on both sides of a protected waterway. In a low-lag sim.)

One of the things Linden lets you do is have your own sim (read: server) for whatever reason. Projects, entertainment, whatever you think you need an entire island for. We're getting a server to do some really awesome stuff. Can't hardly wait.

So, I'm selling off my land on the mainland. I've got tons of it. When you start with SL, you typically buy a starter land of 512 sq m. The land I'm selling in the sim of Myrtle (PG, next to protected waterways) totalls 22,336 sq m. Nearly half of the sim. I'd like to sell it all in one chunk, however, I might be interested in subdividing it. The selling price is around $14 Linden dollars per sq. m. The whole thing can be yours for around $300,000 Linden dollars (around $1200 USD).

If you're interested, e-mail me or comment. In the game, I'm Spin Martin. You've probably seen me and others on my Second Life photoset on Flickr. There's more stuff to come from a literary and performace angle, but that's the beauty of all things DIY. The only limits are my own.

To visit the land, go to Myrtle (221,58). Anything named "Slackstreet" in Myrtle is the land I'm selling.

Brought to you by our man Ben Williams of Digital Video Tips & Tricks: BeneathTheBeat.com

Beneath The Beat seeks to provide in-depth discussion exploring the authentic essence of hip hop culture. Hip Hop has a rich and diverse history, from music and dance to fashion and style. Its heart beats with a vital social consciousness and its voice speaks with articulate, powerful and creative expression. This is the very definition of art. Yet the art form of hip hop has been devalued by the juvenile and derogatory sameness favored by its commercial promoters, the media conglomerates. Beneath the Beat embraces the defiant spirit of hip hop's originators. By tapping technology, we offer a global independent voice, free from record label and big business imperatives.

Awesome!

Sing it with me! Download and watch the video of the complete six minute piece of dog sledding start-to-finish (some of this footage you've seen before on Backstaging.com-- this is a re-edit).

Video is 122 MB (or get the .torrent (Video was shot entirely on a Sony HDR-HC1 HD camcorder in below freezing temperatures) Tags: BlogsnDogs

A short clip Josh filmed of me screwing up the podcast intro: download and watch. It's good for the skin, and good for the soul.

I'm going to send this six minute video down the video feed, but I'll give everyone an early start: I've created a page for the vid over at Prodigem. Here's the torrent file.

If you don't know what any of this means, just keep watching my video area for a complete dogsled tour from the Blogs N Dogs conference in Banff, Alberta, Canada.