Check out the Royal Bangs performing a recent gig at the Pilot Light, and stay tuned for a new band video every day this week.

I’ll be blogging again throughout Bonnaroo, so bookmark that and my Bonnaroo Twitter feed for round-the-clock updates.

Recently, I’ve really been enjoying the connections I’ve made via Twitter to my home in South Jersey/Philly.

My two favs are the Philadelphia Inquirer feed, and another by book author Jen Miller, a Jersey girl who covers the heck out of South Jersey (my old stomping grounds). Both give me a good mix of local news and local goings-on, in Twitter-style brevity.

And both make me envious, yet exceedingly proud of where I come from. It’s amazing how often I need to defend my homestate and town. I’ve lived in five cities since I moved away from Jersey, and Knoxville, Tenn. is where I’m most on the defensive. Oftentimes, I’m talking to people who’ve never even been to New Jersey. Sigh.

While I love my new home in Knoxville and the fabulous things it offers (free, live music, top-notch concerts, fantastic friends/co-workers/family), it’ll never replace New Jersey’s spot in my heart.

Today, I watched one part of a new video-blog, in which Miller travels the South Jersey shore. I loved it, because it makes South Jersey look exciting and beautiful. She also visits The Pier in Atlantic City, the most upscale shopping destination in that part of the state and my favorite new place to visit when I head home.

She’ll be travelling South in upcoming episodes and will eventually reach my hometown of Wildwood. I’m a little nervous to see that one, since I get the vibe she’s not a fan. Wildwood definitely has it’s tacky, tourist-trap parts. But I can’t wait to see if she plays that up, or if she looks at it’s best feature: HUGE, free, clean beaches.

Either way, all I can think about now is my trip down the Jersey shore later this month. Thanks, Twitter!

Since I was almost two hours from work, I needed to continue to use the broken camera. I employed the “hail Mary” approach and prayed whatever I was taping included my interview subject in some part of the frame. His head was actually square in the middle of the shot. Not ideal, but at least he was there.

The assignment was a video profile of John Grant Jr. in the Songs of Appalachia video series I produce each month with reporter Morgan Simmons.

I shot and edited this video of the closure. It was really awesome to watch up close and happened surprisingly quick and without noticeable problems.

Find extensive coverage of the SmartFIX40 closure by News Sentinel traffic reporter Don Jacobs.

Someecards is nominated in the humor category for a 2008 Webby Award. As I eagerly scrolled to that section to cast my vote, I was shocked to see it was up against I Can Haz Cheezburger.

Obviously, I should have expected as much. But this could create an interesting dynamic in our online department at work.

I Can Haz Cheezburger is my co-worker, Jigsha’s, addiction and I don’t know which will win. The furry cats have a leg-up with the cuteness factor, but I would argue almost everyone can relate to someecards. It has an uncanny way of tapping into exactly how people think and feel, especially when they “care enough to hit send.” I think my boss is on my side, though.

Just last night someone who shares my addiction wrote me:

If you know a better Web site than someecards, let me know, because if I were stuck on a deserted island and could choose only one Web site, right now I’m picking someecards (with the New York Times coming in a close second).

Anyhow, these two sites aren’t without competition. The three other nominees are:

knoxnews/GoVolsXtra are finalists in best site design, best overall news site and best sports site in our circulation category. Jack Lail has more details on who contributed to this awesome announcement here.

Find a full list of 2008 EPpy™ finalists.

It was from a friend I don’t hear from often, so I figured I check it out. I’m always down for more time-wasting, social networking sites after all.

I would have clicked “sign me up” until I read the “About Us” section:

Tagged provides a fun, safe, and exciting environment for people to showcase their personalities and talents, and to connect with friends and meet new ones.

Fair enough, but then the kicker:

Tagged is experiencing dramatic growth Advertisers love Tagged because they get clear, uncomplicated access to our audience. Our team is dedicated to making every advertiser successful and can develop and support any type of ad campaign.

I don’t know about you, but I hate giving advertisers “clear, uncomplicated access” to me. I get enough SPAM and junk mail as it is.

And here’s the Wikipedia criticism:

There have been several critical articles[3][4][5][6] written about tagged.com’s policy toward their users’ email address books. These policies have been described at best as spamming, and at worst as phishing attacks.

Eeek!

I’ve been on knoxnews.com everyday for three years and have never had this kind of luck.

A co-worker passed along a blog link revealing that two of our online commenters found each other - and love - through the comment area on knoxnews.com!

I wasn’t looking.
Neither was she.
And it started happening.
I still can’t believe it.

Read more about the chance meeting.

They chose a question and had to get at least four responses. Students were asked to keep lighting, framing, background noises and a few other shooting tips in mind. They had one class to shoot and one to edit, using either iMovie or FinalCutPro.

As I should have expected, two groups had video files that could only be processed on a PC, not on the Macs in our lab. When we got to the PC lab, codec issues continued to prevent us from accessing one group’s files. The other group used Windows Moviemaker to edit for the first time.

It was frustrating for the group who had to sit through class, watching everyone else edit. But I let them know it’s very reflective of life in multimedia journalism. You never know if something screwy will happen to your tape, or if you’ll be asked to process a foreign file for the first time. The only thing I can guarantee students of multimedia is that you can never anticipate what you’ll be asked to do or what will happen.

My co-workers and I have a saying for the unexpected situations: Yay for freeware, shortcuts and not having a clue what we’re doing!

It sounds scary, but I’ve actually learned to enjoy it. I took the video files we could not access back to the office and wound up converting them using Ultra Video Splitter, one of the first video programs I ever used for RandomThis at it’s inception. I don’t even remember the last time I opened up the program either.

The group wound up getting a crash course in FinalCutPro and produced this video about the UT men’s basketball team in 20 minutes. Another group used FinalCut for their video on the election. They chose this program so they could fix sync issues with their audio and video. One group worked completely independently of any help and used iMovie to make this video on Candace Parker’s decision to leave UT early. Here is the second video produced in Moviemaker, also about UT sports. And lastly, check out this one on UT dining and health, also produced in Moviemaker. It has a nice surprise twist ending.

Last year, knoxnews.com won for RandomThis video blog.

See a full list of winners here.