Nerd News in Brief

For those too busy with matters of genuine importance to hang on my every word via Twitter, this week I began transitioning to a new job. It's an interesting position that's much more tonic to my unique skill set, but the changeover itself has resulted in me actually having to work while at work. *gasp*

Hopefully, I'll be able to smooth things out quickly and get back up to my regular level of output here at the blog, but, in the meantime, blame any temporary disruption of service on the heartless American nine-to-five.

What a way to make a living!

• My GF is…: Props to Church for turning me on to Dale Chase's ode to lady programmers "Coder Girls." Peep the video on YouTube and score the lyrics from Dale' site. You'll be glad you did.
• Just Like You and Me: Also, just in time for Drunken Podcasting Month, Church ran across this veritable jewel of the internet. Brothers and sisters, I present to you Geeks Who Drink. Essentially, it's a traveling pub quiz that kicks traditional bar trivia right in the nuts. If you find yourself in the appropriate geographic area, definitely check out their shit.
• (Bad) Horsing Around: PAX attendees are encouraged to seek out those wild lads from Epic Default Productions at this year's gathering. They'll be hawking sweet merch, conducting live interviews and, of course, pranking the hell out of the greater Seattle area. It's what they do.
• Life is Grand: If you've already bought a copy of the self-titled debut from Sea-town's own Supercommuter, prepare to buy another. Wheelie and company have recently announced that they plan to donate all profits from sales of the project to the Child’s Play charity.
• Wrock This Town: Also from the great state of Washington comes news that Jarod (of AlienBobz) has made available three more outstanding live sets. You can hear The Parselmouths, The Whomping Willows and The Remus Lupins' performances from this summer's Wizard Rock spectacular at Bellevue's Lake Hill Clubhouse for the low, low price of free at Archive.org.
• Riddle Me This: And on the Wrock front, the delightful ladies from Riddle™ have recently unveiled a brand new site. And not to discount the musical talent of Georgia and Victoria, but it has the most adorable flash intro ever. Ever!
• Powered Up: RapReviews' Hip-Hop Shop podcast recently featured an interview with none other than Random. It includes a half-hour Q&A plus 3 songs from Mega Ran 9. What's not to love?
• I'm V-Pain. You Know Me.: I guess this hardly rates as news anymore – much in the same way that the sun rising in the east isn't wholly unexpected – but Phoenix loves Maja! Seriously, y'all, dude is all over the place. Check out his most recent profile in the New Times. At this rate, he will be governor of Arizona by year's end. Mark my words.
• Join the Swarm: Arguably this week's biggest piece of nerd news concerns Pensacola's imminent Nerd Invasion. NerdRockstar and Scrub Club have engineered an event so massive it will take four theaters of the Silver Screen Entertainment Complex just to contain it. Music, magic, mirth and… booze are the orders of the day this November 6th and 7th. Details are available at the official event site, and proceeds from NerdRockstar's current wicked t-shirt sale benefit the event. So go read up and then buy some shit!
• Trock Out with Your Sonic Screwdriver Out: Taking us home this week comes a metal remix of the Doctor Who theme that my boy funky49 hipped me to. It's by Daniel Cripps, and an MP3 of the track (and lots of other cool stuff) is available at his site.

Playing Catch-up

It is apparently kick-ass new album season, and I'm having a little trouble keeping up. Thankfully, I have friends who care enough to keep me from slipping too far behind. My boy Anthony, for example, was kind enough to point out a few fine new projects from the realms of chiptunes and VGM that I may have missed.

The first, of course, is the epic 8-bit Miles Davis tribute Kind of Bloop. Sure, I mentioned it in passing, but the album is deserving of far more direct praise. To that end, I not only recommend that you snag it (for a mere 5 bones), but I'd also highly suggest you check out the GM4A interview with project coordinator Andy Baio and chip musician DisasterPEACE written by everyone's homie Zen Albatross.

A similarly epic undertaking that I've discussed with various friends and scenesters but somehow neglected to pimp here at the blog is Bad Dudes/OneUp Studios' Chronotorious compilation. Headed up by the mysterious Mustin, Chronotorious boasts 15 rearranged tracks from epic Square RPG Chrono Trigger. For $12 you get the full boat on a limited edition CD, with the forthcoming Amazon MP3/iTunes release trimmed down to a scant 10 tracks. There are only 1000 of these bad boys, so snag one now while they are still easily… snaggable?

Lastly but not leastly is a release that has somehow managed to stay totally under my musical radar – I blame old age and my current preoccupation with work (yuk!) – Armcannon 2: The Return of the Attack of the Legend of Pizzor. To know Armcannon is to love Armcannon, and to love Armcannon is to give them $12 plus shipping for their first official full-length. If you love videogame covers, buy it for their ambitious reinterpretations of NES classics like the Rygar and Kid Icarus medleys. If TV or movie themes are more your thing, then snag it to hear their takes on the music rom Ghostbusters or Power Rangers. And if neither of those concepts tickle your fancy, then why the fuck are you reading this blog anyway?

An Exercise in Excess

Last year I created my own fake holiday. Why? Because this is the internet, a place where you are perfectly at liberty to do ridiculous shit like that. For those who don't remember (or chose to forget), I called my baby Drunken Podcasting Month. A fairly self-explanatory moniker, it simply challenged podcasters to get drunk before/during one or more of their recording sessions in the month of September. A handful of shows took the Drunken Podcasting Month challenge, including my own Radio Free Hipster, and much mirth was made.

This year, I'm bringing it back, like sexy, but I need your help. If it's just me and my special DPM co-hosts Church and Matt getting drunk on the virtual air it's a concept, but if other podcasters participate it's a movement. Last year's Grand Champion Drunkcaster, Meg of Brilliant Gameologists, will be unable to participate in this year's event, so it's up to the rest of us to drink more, talk louder and vomit extra violently. It is surely a daunting task, but I think we can do it if we all keep our bleary eyes on the prize.

Via to the magic of Twitter, I've been able to connect with lots of other great podcasters - @jonnynero of Epic Default, @mutantpop of Radio Clash, @jayslacks of the 10 o'clock Podcast, etc. – and I'm hoping I can sweet talk them into getting crunk for the cause, but, much like the Blues Brothers, I need you, you, you.

If you are a podcaster, why not get drunk? If you are a drunk, why not try podcasting? If you are a graphic designer, why not pitch me a snazzy Drunken Podcasting Month logo that participants can use to promote the event? September comes but once a year, but the shame and embarrassment you'll feel from having all of the wired world hear your intoxicated ramblings will surely last a lifetime.