ChatRoulette - Exactly What It Sounds Like

It's 7:20 pm in Moscow - do you know where your children are?

As I went through my Monday drive mental checklist this morning, I stopped at one nagging item - "must nurture blog."

But this is easier said than done.
For one needs something to write about in order to write.
And I know as soon as I get into the office, I'm likely to come under heavy fire that will not let up until sometime Friday when I lock up for the night, so the opportunities for a moment of precise clarity leading to a worthy blog post are few and far between.

Needless to say, I arrived at work without a topic.
Well, I was thinking of interviewing Steve, but I'll save that for another day.

As I dove into my morning mash of news and tweets, it hit me square in the face.

Enter ChatRoulette to save the day.

What is this? I thought. Another breakthrough social web platform–and I've not heard of it.

How is it possible?

I read the New York Magazine article about a 17-year-old Russian kid who, out of boredom, built the site for random video chatting with strangers.

If you don't like what you see, all you have to do is click next to get a new stranger from somewhere else in the world - before they do it to you.

Brilliant. I thought.

Exciting. I imagined.

Gotta check this out - I did.

And what I got in my five minutes on ChatRoulette was a lot of quick images - mostly guys and most of them jerking off.

Next, next, next...

A guy, wearing a furry raccoon hat with murder in his eyes, stares back at me - next.

A woman, no that's a guy with breasts, next...

A sign - "show me your tits", next...

And then I arrived at something different - like a bad art installation.
Are those giant bags of cocaine or is it seat cushion stuffing set against an aluminum foil backdrop?

The chat started as words appeared on my screen - the stranger on the other side asked me "know what this is?"

"Clueless," I responded.

Next - the stranger disconnected.

Clueless, and happy, I thought.

Ethos CRS: e-Learning Down Under

"Chas Savage," sounds like he could be a rock star or a superhero, and he may very well be that in the business of training Australian professionals to do a better job of speaking, writing and presenting in whatever business it is they do.

This time last year, Chas was running his business, Ethos CRS, from his home in Canberra and barely had a website of his own.

Today he has 20 professionals working for him in an expanding office and he's attracting the attention of top government agencies with his aim to do big things for Australia.

One of those big things is the launch of a complete e-Learning program, "From Grammar to Clear Writing," slated to go live this spring.

This, is where Ethos and Artgig intersect.

We've become perfect partners, a super duo poised to deliver on-demand learning in a series of interactive lessons to businesses and agencies who recognize good training is good business.

I like Chas, and it goes beyond my inherent soft spot for all things Aussie. Chas is smart and sharp and honest and he does what he says he's going to do and that is admirable.

And this is exactly what he said he was going to do when I met him a year ago on a Skype video call, arranged by Lis.

He just needed some help putting the "e" part in e-Learning.

So I showed him CMEpilot, our mature, proven e-Learning platform developed for continuing medical education training and certification, here in the States.

We'd always envisioned the platform as something that could be re-purposed pretty easily for other industries and to be honest, it was begging for a refresh.

Chas took one look at it and he was sold.

Of course, he has his own ideas about the form and function of his training program and that's where we begin making beautiful music together.

For starters, we threw out the standard Flash slides and talking head modules and built some really slick custom interactive engines - all in JavaScript.

And, knowing Ethos' attention to detail, we designed their course to be almost entirely content-managed so they can go in and edit the front-end to their hearts' content.

And the cherry on top? The admin dashboard allows Ethos to access all the stats involved by user and organization--who goes to the e-Learning site, certifications and user tests, and e-commerce transactions.

It's a complete system, and it works. With all the right technology behind him, Chas and his team are sure to be the U2 of business and government training in no time.

Ethos CRS Website

Monster Australian Wasp Attacks Spider!

Imagine stepping out of your house in the morning, only to walk straight into this rumble on your front doorstep.
Just another day in Canberra for Lis.

Leaning heavily on our Aussie team for content as we work on several top secret projects.

Chris Tarry - Always Fresh

Our favorite Canadian bassist and all-around creative force, Chris Tarry, is at it again - we just pushed the latest website update live and you should go there right now to check out a LIMITED TIME OFFER to name your price for downloads!:

Still here?

Let's continue this conversation over at Chris' site - where you can soak in the new layout and get all the news and features you can handle in one big Tarry-sized gulp.

GO!

christarry.com

Guest Blogger Concert Report: Big Day Out, Australia

You say your 25 minute drive to work this morning took an hour and forty-five minutes because it was snowing?

Then you might be slightly jealous to hear it's summer in Australia.

And slightly more jealous to hear the Big Day Out music festival in Sydney rocked and you missed it.

But all is not lost.

Artgig has a team on the ground down under and our guest blogger, Hallie Bruce, has filed a report from the trenches to satisfy your craving for vicarious sensory overload.


Big Day Out - January 23rd 2010

The heat didn’t stop the masses from storming the second day of Sydney’s Big Day Out music festival and it certainly didn’t stop the bands from tearing the music scene up.
The lineup was crazy. The performances were totally awesome. The crowds were crushing. (Thankfully the heat broke halfway through the afternoon with a downpour that drenched Olympic Park.)

Karnivool, Aussie progressive rock band, belted out smooth lyrics to deep alternative guitar riffs, Hilltop Hoods rapped out their famous harmonic hip hop, and Rise Against rocked out to some bone-shaking punk rock tunes. Even Lily Allen, not my favorite, sounded great, borrowing fellow Brit Dizzee Rascall, another Big Day Out-goer, for a song or two.



An attraction frequented by my brother was the Silent Disco, which provided headphones and different music to each participant who entered an interesting throng, each dancing to a different set of tunes.

The Mars Volta for sure was a huge lure for Big Day Out crowds, and the pit was filled to the brim as they entered on stage and began their famous improvisational set, delivering an amazing hour-long show. Cedric writhed like nothing else on stage, and the improv was completely on par with--if not better than--the original tracks. It was not a gig to miss.


But by far the set that took the cake was Muse, who entered playing “Uprising”, their newest and greatest single, projected up on three split screens set up alongside the stage and accompanied by a fierce laser lights show. Although the arena was enormous and the acoustics suffered greatly for it, the power of their sound was unmistakable. Performing hits like “Time Is Running Out”, “Hysteria”, and “Starlight”, the crowd was whipped into a frenzy. But who wouldn’t be, when Matthew Bellamy and crew are standing right in front of you, serving up some of their best music? They were joined by Jet’s Nic Cester for a cover of AC/DC’s “Back In Black” in homage to Australia’s hosting of the 100th Big Day Out since Nirvana first played in 1992.

The night ended with a spectacular fireworks show, the colors and thundering explosions bringing to an end a most fantastic Big Day Out indeed.

Twenty-Ten: Welcome to the Future!

I hope in all of your New Years celebrations you didn't take a big swig from a beer only to find it was someone's ashtray because that's just disgusting.

But in all likelihood, you didn't, because people don't smoke in the future.

How else do I know 2010 is officially the future?

My dad just got a shiny, new Ford with a built-in satellite radio and he's not afraid to use it.

He even called me from his cell phone yesterday to tell me he was listening to an English soccer match in the car.

Later that night, he emailed me to tell me "The Hurt Locker" is playing at Jacob Burns.

It wasn't too long ago that I got him a shiny new portable satellite radio–minus the car.

The look on his face as I extracted the tangle of radio, antenna, wires, and plug from the box said it all–I may as well have pulled a little green martian out because it was entirely alien to him and he surely wasn't about to touch it.

He was positioned squarely at the perimeter of the technology boom, sensing the shockwaves emanating from the youthful, geeky core, but still peering in safely from the outside.

No more.

My five-year-old nephew has the Disney website bookmarked on the family computer.

My four-year-old son beats my ass in Wii Tennis.

Technology is woven into the very fabric of our daily lives.

3D TV, your car reading your tweets to you on the morning drive, flexible paper-thin e-readers–oh my!

Seamless integration.

Now where's my Apple Tablet?

Looking forward to twenty-ten.

Lake Trout Concert Report

The concert report has been postponed due to weather.

Here's a picture instead.