Technically Speaking

So glad that there are pro’s around that take the time to do decent LoFi videos. If you follow me on twitter you have already seen these links, but figured I’d put all the videos in one post for you to view.

It was a decently attended show especially when you consider that there were two major mainstream artists in concert that night at Verizon and ScottTrade (CrueFest 2 and Green Day). That is probably about ~30,000 people spending concert money alone that night! Sorry, no videos of the opening local band – 714 or 715.

Supe – openers on the hed to head tour – from Tokyo, Japan!

Straight line Stitch – bad video, decent band.

Mushroomhead – you can tell they have been around for a bit, true pros at putting on a show you will remember!

These two were shot with a different camera, not the flipcam like the other videos.

(hed) p.e. – these guys are fun to see live, and they pull no punches on their political agenda, and are old pro’s like the other head in hed to head tour!

Technically Speaking – That is it! Wish I had better videos, but doing this for fun, not a pro like Bill Streeter and LoFiSTL. This was a totally true LoFiRexDixon bootleg production. Enjoy!

The news of the moment is that Twitter has been officially down for about 1.5 hours now, and looks like Facebook has suffered it’s own meltdown.

MySpace however seems to be rockin’ right along just fine. I haven’t checked any of the other social net’s – but it seems that out of the big two, the one that everyone has abandoned seems to be working just fine. A little too messy looking still, but hopefully in time the new leadership sees the error of the past administration that was in charge there.

It does bring up an interesting thought of maybe just possibly the social net revolution isn’t over quite yet. Stay tuned for sure, as with this mornings meltdown and people that can get in to update their fb status, all are crying that Twitter is down. Now I’m sure once everyone wakes up and the services come back, there will be a lot of analysis of this event.

Technically Speaking, a new social world is in order about right now; well if someone can tune the cloud, but as someone once already stated “You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!” >:-?

It looks like one of the leaders of the podcasting, blogging, videocasting movement if you will has decided earlier today that he had enough. He paid someone to trim his stream to a trickle. That almost sounds like a cheap porn movie title. In reality the stream became Scoble’s porn. He was addicted to it. Blogging, Podcasting, Videocasting, Twitter, Friendfeed, Area 51! Er, Building43! I think you get my point. Someone who has made his livlihood by living in the stream, drinking from the stream, has declared stream bankruptcy.

I saw that coming though. While certain people like Marshall will never unfollow you, there are others like me who have taken smaller drinks from the stream known as twitter, Friendfeed, blogging, podcasting, and videocasting. Sorry, no Area 51 for the moment for me! I’ve come to find that my current ratio of follow to followers keeps things interesting enough, yet not overwhelming. It also keeps my stream a worthwhile pursuit vs a living daily nightmare to even look at or make any sense of.

The bigger picture of course is the graphic I found earlier today on Seth’s site this morning. That is the question of the moment more important than any stream trickle trick. The main question that is brought up while we are in this downturn time we live in is where do we go from here. He laid it out in a very simple graphic on two axis that made sense. We see what works. We also see what takes longer to work and requires more work to get there. Twitter is something that worked due to Scoble and some of the early believers in it. They kept squirting their stream all over everyone, every single moment, every single day – until you just had to try it!

Technically Speaking, with Seth’s graphic from this morning in mind – A television show about a book reader that likes to IM his or her friends, while occasionally e-mailing a mysterious person they saw at the movies last weekend while they were tweeting someone from their cell phone and watching cable news and blogging their reaction to it – should go over like gangbusters! Wait for it… Wait for it…. >:-?

After I posted my last on the RiverCity Rage being in the IFL Championship game, I was poking around on KSDK to see if they had anymore news or articles on the Rage. I was impressed to find that they have a Minor League sports page!

Wow! I was thinking “they must have them listed here“. Nope. If you want a good laugh and to show you how out of touch the sports departments are concerning coverage of minor league sports in the supposed city that is known for it’s sports (that would be the big STL) – click on the STL SkyHawks for that example!

Don’t you love it? A link to a minor league basketball team that is some page not related to that team. Looks to be a splog. Yet, where is the link to the minor league indoor football team – the RiverCity Rage? I didn’t even bother to see if the other links work.

I thought the STL liked it’s sports championship caliber teams? No matter if it is pro, college or even high school. I guess the exception to that rule comes when it it’s a winning football team, yes indoor football is different, but I find it enjoyable to watch. Hey – when you consider the debacle we have had to watch as a football fan in the STL for the past few years with our supposed major league NFL representation, the Rage actually do things well on the field. Plus they win when it counts – the playoffs!

Technically Speaking, doesn’t surprise me one bit, as KSDK’s site has to be the most supposedly updated yet archaic example of good web design – they still have pop under ads as an example of what I mean, which annoys me to no end. When did that advertising trend end? Like 2002?

The RiverCity Rage went on the road to play the conference championship for the IFL United Conference and won 43-30 over the Wichita Wild in Wichita, KS Hartman Arena last night.

Unfortunately, the ticket to go to Wichita was cost prohibitive (around ~$800) to fly round trip and the drive is about 6.5 hours one way, so I stayed home and caught some online updates. One thing that I find surprising, especially as sports minded as this entire region of St. Louis can be, is that there is hardly any coverage of this very high octane St. Louis area indoor football team. They don’t just have offensive on their mind due to the nature of indoor football in general, but they actually have the right stuff that wins championships – DEFENSE!

In last weeks divisional title game that I attended, there was at least two times that I recall where the defense held their ground and gave the ball back to their offense on a turnover on downs! Defense again from what I read in the actual STLToday coverage this morning proved to be the winning formula for the Rage. Now again, here is the sad thing about this – the Rage are listed under “other sports” and you have to really search to find them. Not only that – they have to share the article with Venus Williams?!? WTF!

Rage defeat Wichita, will play for IFL title

The RiverCity Rage continued their unlikely playoff run Saturday night, capturing the Indoor Football League United Conference title with a 43-30 victory over the Wichita Wild in Kansas. The Rage, who lost four of their last five regular-season contests, improved to 11-6 and advanced to play the Billings Outlaws for the IFL championship next Saturday, tentatively scheduled for Billings, Mont. Billings (14-2) won 66-35 over the El Paso Generals on Saturday in the Intense Conference title game in Montana.

RiverCity’s Byron Jones returned the opening kickoff Saturday 59 yards to put the Rage on top. RiverCity quarterback Ben Sankey threw three first-half touchdown passes and Terrell Washington blocked and recovered a late field-goal attempt in the end zone as the Rage were up 36-14 with seconds to play in the opening half. Wichita (10-7) made its move in the third quarter, cutting the margin to 36-30 late in the period. But the Rage defense responded and RiverCity’s Randy Bell closed the scoring with a fourth-quarter TD run. (Joe Lyons)

The above quoted part is the only bit of Rage information you’ll find on the STLToday site this morning. Here is a team that is playing in it’s version of a Super Bowl if you will, on a much much smaller scale – yet receives the treatment of a high school team with it’s page 25 out of 22 page coverage and has to share their coverage with an article about a tennis star. Truth be told, I’ve seen the local high school teams receive better press coverage and treatment. Some will say, “Hey that’s St. Louis for you there, I mean – What High School did you go too?”

At least the Kansas news had a little longer article this morning. Admittedly if you dig hard enough, you can find smatterings of press coverage and stories on the Rage if you search deep for it.

I guess I shouldn’t really complain too much being that it’s considered a minor league sport at best. I do however agree with some commentary I found scattered on various forums on minor league sports had to say about the IFL needing to really update their web page. I think that having someone in charge of online media operations would be worthwhile.

I guess you will have a hard time convincing major league sports fans that the IFL is worthy of any coverage at all when your web site gives the illusion of being in the bush league. If you take time to view the team pages as well as the main IFL page, there is much needed done and a director of online media operations is a role I could see someone doing. After viewing a few of the teams and the main IFL page, you will either think the league is not worthwhile to watch and be a fan of, or in some cases, you’ll wonder when pages will be updated if ever.

The bottom line here is that the Rage are the heavy underdog team heading into a rough and tumble Billings, MT team in 2 weeks to take on the Outlaws. While they may be the underdog team, after attending the divisional title game last week, I have a feeling there will be a few Rage fans in attendance in Billings in 2 weeks!

Technically Speaking, anyone up for a road trip to Billings, MT in 2 weeks?