Just in case you missed the announcement because it was buried in another post, the Stilgherrian Live Eurovision Special is tonight.

I’ll be joining my special guests Nick Hodge, Snarky Platypus and maybe even the reclusive Mark Pesce from 7.15pm Sydney time.

If you’re on Australia’s east coast, set your TV to SBS and we’ll provide the added commentary. If we can figure out some way of synchronising the video for everyone else, we’ll let you know.

Also, yes, I know that Eurovision is really already over. However the SBS telecast is delayed so Australians can enjoy the drama in prime time — so please don’t spoil it by telling us the winner.

The “normal” Stilgherrian Live will return at 9.30pm next Thursday night.

Episode 47 of Stilgherrian Live, the Cheap Edition, is now online for your viewing pleasure.

Actually it has been since shortly after the program finished on Thursday night, and you could have just gone to the channel page to watch it. I’ll sort out a better notification system when I get back from Africa.

Except you don’t know I’m going to Africa, because it’s SEKRIT.

There was another strong field this week for “Cnut of the Week”, too.

I thought Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would score more votes for the federal budget, but no. After winning last week, he only came in 4th (20%). ABC TV came in 3rd (24%) for choosing not broadcast the controversial mock anti-discrimination advertisement on The Gruen Transfer.

We had a draw for first place: Scott Swabey’s nomination of “all marketing peeps for their continued insistence on trying to find a way to control/monetise the social media movement” and Wolf’s nomination of “everyone on Twitter that [sic] kept reposting the #fixreplies even after twitter did… you all look like a bunch of whining idiots now” (28%).

Visually, “everyone on twitter” was represented by a social network diagram and, in our usual tasteful way, “all marketing peeps” by a tapeworm.

I particularly like the tapeworm, don’t you?

Meanwhile, congratulations to Wolf, who won a t-shirt from our friends at King Cnut Ethical Clothing — and a big raspberry to Gedulous who would’ve won if he were watching the program when his name was drawn from the Cocktail Shaker of Integrity but he wasn’t so we had a redraw and Wolf won instead so there nyer.

The Stilgherrian Live Eurovision Special is tonight from 7.15pm Sydney time, with special guests Nick Hodge, Snarky Platypus and probably Mark Pesce.

The regular old Stilgherrian Live will return at 9.30pm next Thursday night.

• The Twitter backchannel | Memex 1.1: A explanation of why Eurovision is the perfect Twitter event. This bookmark is dedicated to Mark Pesce.
• Virtually on parity | Steven Poole: Magnificent deconstruction of how Microsoft re-wrote an article about "misunderstood" features in Windows Vista.
• Alternative boondoggles | Charlie’s Diary: If the $523B to $3T spent on the Iraq War was put to some useful purpose, what could it achieve? Interesting suggestions, and trolls in the comments are dealt with swiftly.

Well the new computer certainly helped!

Replacing the obsolescent PowerBook G4 with shiny new MacBook Pro meant there was enough processing power to run everything for Stilgherrian Live Alpha episode 4: audio without breakup, a separate monitoring mix, drop-in videos, vision mixing… and even a two-camera shoot!

Content? Yeah there was content…

I talked about Mobile Content World, the gayness of Eurovision, Miranda Devine, the Politics & Technology Forum and the nature of broadcasting. And there was a fantastic song at the end.

The live audience reached 34 people at its peak, I think. It adds an interesting dynamic, though I’m still suffering from information overload trying to keep track of the chat and doing my own vision switching.

I’ll post some further thoughts some time in the next few days.

Episode 5 will be live on the Internet on Thursday 5 June at 9.30pm Sydney time.

Last Sunday’s Eurovision at the Pub was a fun night, but it didn’t go as planned. We couldn’t get the Uconnect free wireless Internet access extended past 8pm, and my computer died anyway. So no live audio commentary or even Twitter from me. I also shot some video which will be edited into some semblance of… something… on the weekend. The Snarky Platypus explains the concept of The Mid-Tempo Gap.

Only hours to go! Eurovision at the Pub is tonight at our local “Irish” pub, Kelly’s On King, 258 King Street, Newtown. The SBS broadcast starts at 7.30pm, but we’ll be there from 5pm or so to, um, ensure sufficient fuel for a long evening of big hair, tacky costumes and dodgy choreography.

There’s a Facebook event page, but even if you don’t use Facebook please RSVP here or to my Twitter stream or somehow. The more confirmed guests, the more free stuff the pub gives us.

I’ll be Twittering the event, as will many others, with the tag #eurovision. If I have enough bandwidth, I’ll also provide an audio commentary via Ustream.

• The Newseum: The interactive museum of news, including "today's front pages" for 500+ world newspapers.
• TV Fugly Awards: An "alternative" to Australia's Logie awards for TV.
• Eurovision Song Contest – Belgrade 2008: Official website of the Eurovision Song Contest.
• The Bugle | Times Online: Weekly news satire audio podcast from the UK.
• The Paranoid Style in American Politics: Richard Hofstadter's article from Harper's Magazine, November 1964. Paranoia Politics isn't new.
• Twitter Rulez! (via Todd Langowski) | Newick: An apt sign spotted in workplace.
• Plugger: Australian Business News: A customisable aggregator for Australian business news.
• Secondary DNS Service: An inexpensive service which provides secondary domain name servers.
• The seriously inconvenient truth on drugs | the Daily Mail: UK Daily Mail columnist Andrew Alexander puts a cogent case for the decriminalisation of recreational drugs.
• A second summer of love: 20th anniversary of acid house: The Guardian's retrospective on the acid house Summer of Love of 1988.
• The Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report 2008: A 20-page report on the state of the open source software world in Australia. A freely downloadable PDF and is redistributable under a Creative Commons BY-ND license.

Eurovision for Geeks! After an evolving conversation on Twitter, on Sunday 25 May we’re organizing a night at our local “Irish” pub, Kelly’s On King, Newtown, to watch the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. The delayed broadcast starts 7.30pm Sydney time on SBS TV, so we’ll be avoiding spoilers. We’re probably also organising a live Internet link-up with pubs in other cities — because we can. Details to come later, but is “Eurovision for Geeks” an OK name? Geekvision?