Quicktime VR of The Screen Savers studio

Here's a Quicktime VR picture of the Screen Savers set from my point of view at home base. (You need Quicktime to view this. If I've coded this properly, Quicktime should load automatically, even if you haven't installed it yet. The movie itself is about 1.4 megs so it may take some time to download it. Click on the picture and drag your mouse to move around in it. You can look up and down, too.) Thanks to Alex Lindsay of dvGarage for taking the picture. You can read all about it on The Screen Savers web page. (NOTE 7 Oct 2007: I'm trying to figure out when this is. This is the second Screen Savers set - Patrick Norton is already co-hosting, you can see his skateboard behind home base. We're already moved to Studio B - making room for Tech Live I guess - but lots of pieces are still missing, including the LAN party set, the spiral staircase, and the audience risers. The "babe corral" isn't finished yet either. The control room is visible behind it. You can also still see the old Money Machine set behind the cameras. This must have been very early on with the new set.)

No taping after all

No taping after all. The quake coverage went on too long. So now I sit around wearing makeup hoping someone will ask me out.

Seattle XP

We had a great time in Seattle. I flew in on Friday, taped a piece on Tacoma, the self-proclaimed "America's Number 1 Wired City." Then we did a show to tape on Saturday. The edited show will air on Friday, 10/19 and through the weekend. Uncle Paul's museum, Experience Music Project, looked great. Wait til you see how Microsoft's XBox looks on the wall sized screen behind us. We had a capacity live audience of about 300, pretty good considering that the Mariners were playing at the same time. It was so fun doing the show with a live audience. I would love to do it that way every night. Thanks to everyone who came to the show. The weather was awful. At the end of the piece I did in Tacoma there's rain dripping off my nose and the lettering on my microphone is starting to run. It was cold too. All the natives said that we had just missed beautiful weather. Yeah right. They probably say that to all the geeks. I flew back right after the show, so I didn't have any time to see more of Seattle. But I have a feeling we'll be back. Next week I'm flying to NYC to do Live with Regis and Kelly. They're doing a technology week. Bill Gates is on on Thursday 10/25 (XP day) and I'll be on the next day, Friday 10/26. I'm going to show Regis a bunch of tech gadgets. Should be fun.

Just when you thought it was safe...

Pat's still under the weather, so Pirillo's back for the Halloween edition of The Screen Savers. I lobbied for Kate Botello, but they decided to go with Chris again. How scary!

Black Friday

I've been in broadcasting for 25 years now. I've even been through layoffs before. But I've never experienced anything like yesterday. As many of you already know, TechTV fired 130 people on Friday - 25% of our work force. A great many companies have had to cut back in the past few months, and millions of folks have lost their jobs, but having it happen so close to home was a brutal shock and totally devastating. I was stuck in airports all day yesterday, trying to get back from Raleigh NC to the Bay Area. I spent much of that time on the cell phone getting updates as some of my closest friends were getting fired. I felt so helpless. I guess part of the reason these layoffs hurt so much is that TechTV is much more than a job for most of us. Rightly or wrongly, it has become a second family. Like any family it's frustrating at times. And painful. And intensely rewarding. But what a bitter blow it must have been to be so suddenly thrown out. Monday morning is going to be so tough for those 130 people. People who, for the most part, looked forward to coming to work, who believed in TechTV's mission, and who gave their all to make it happen. I don't know the names of all the people who were fired. I'm slowly learning who made it and who didn't. And each name added to the latter list is like a blow to the stomach. I know these layoffs were necessary for the channel to survive until better times. I know it must have been incredibly hard for management to do this. I also know that the people who are gone will go on to do great things - they're all wildly talented and bright. But it still hurts like hell. There's a thread on the message boards devoted to the layoffs: TechTV Shakedown. I hope you all will use it to share your feelings and offer support to the good people who were let go. There are still over 400 people who work at TechTV. We'll pull it together and continue to bust our butts to give you a channel we can all be proud of. But for a while at least, we're grieving the loss of 130 of our friends. Thanks for all your hard work and dedication, guys. I can't wait to work with you again. And I know we will some day.