Sidepodcast

Daily: 6th September 2009

There was little in the way of F1 news yesterday, and by little I mean absolutely nothing. Hence there was no F1 Minute either, which is annoying, because I do like doing those 60 second snippets. Anyway, here are some of the things that did happen yesterday and we are therefore still talking about:

• We completed our first Sidepodfilmclub live commenting experiment yesterday and it was loads of fun. I don't know what it'd be like to catch up with the film comments after the movie has ended, but if you want to, the thread will live on here. Don't worry if you missed it, we will definitely be doing another one soon.
• We suddenly got excited about F1 drivers on Twitter, although there have been a few of them tweeting for a while now. With the arrival of Vettel, it suddenly seemed like this might actually take off. We blogged it, naturally, but we'd also love to hear your thoughts on drivers and their microblogging habits.
• As it's such a quiet weekend, if you're at a loose end, check out a new page on the wiki: Rural Racer. It's not a great game, and I only really say that because I am useless at it, but I'd love to know what you think of playing games on the wiki, and keeping track of how well you're doing within the page. If I can find more racing games that are available to embed, I'll pop them in there too.

That should do it for now. Here at Sidepodcast Towers, we're working on behind the scenes bits and pieces today, which is always fun. I'll see you in the comments.

Sidepodfilmclub - Talladega Nights

Welcome along to the first ever Sidepodfilmclub evening. As there is no live show this week, we didn't want to leave you without entertainment, and thought it would be fun to watch a film together. Although we have done a few small trials of live commenting TV shows in the daily threads, this is the first time we are trying to be organised about something. It's going to be brilliant.

We've chosen a motorsport related film for the evening, although I'm afraid I have to admit it does involve NASCAR. It seems to have quite a few fans in the comments, though, who have been quoting the film all week since we first suggested this idea. Here's some more information about the film:

• Name: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
• Stars: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan
• Director: Adam McKay
• Duration: 1:47:55

The best place to join us for this evening's event is the Live Commenting Live... Thing. We have embedded a clock set to London time, and when it hits 20:00, everybody needs to start their engines films. I imagine we should also take bets on how far apart we will be by the end as well.

Once we're done, let us know your thoughts, maybe even give it a Sidepodfilmrating, which we can compile over on the wiki.

I'm really looking forward to sharing this film with you, as neither Mr C nor myself have seen it before.

Daily: 3rd September 2009

Well, it was all go yesterday. Even when there is not a huge amount of F1 related news, we still find plenty to blog and talk about. Here are some of the things under discussion at the moment.

• If you haven't already, make sure you listen to the latest Aside with Joe show, ably edited by Mr C. I say ably, it took him twice as long as it should, but perhaps the results are twice as better for it? Either way, if you want the inside scoop from a man who knows what he's talking about, tune in to find out what Joe things about everything F1 right now.
• Here at Sidepodcast Towers, we will be watching a motorsport related film on Saturday evening, and we want you to join us. You can read more about it on the introductory post, but a quick recap: Talladega Nights, 8pm UK time on Saturday. Be there or be square, as we live comment our way through the first SidepodFilmClub movie.
• Finally, a little bit of link love, as Lou posted this in the early hours of last night. It was in the comments on two daily posts and has now made its way into a third! If you haven't seen it already, please check out Lou's tale of getting onto the podium at Valencia. After Rubens had been there, of course.

That'll do it for now. Don't forget that if you spot a topic that really deserves a thread of its own, away from the daily, let us know and we'll post a breakout thread for it. It's quite an honour, and only the best stories get this treatment! I'll see you in the comments.

Introducing SidepodFilmClub

If you have been following my personal blog, you'll know I've been live commenting my way through films in a series I like to call Film Watch. The idea is simply to watch the film, make notes as you go and publish them later. It is a lot of fun to do, but in traditional Sidepodfashion, we want to take this to the next level.

Last week, Alex was off sick from work and in an effort to cheer him up, he and I watched an episode of Friends in sync, and live commented our way through it. Watching a programme apart but together. This was also really fun, and sparked an idea in my head. Why not combine the film and Friends experiments and live comment an entire movie?

There is no live show this weekend. Instead we are going to live comment our way through Talladega Nights. Yes, I know, it's a film about NASCAR, but we wanted to make it motorsport related, and I've only heard good things about it. If you would like to join in, there are just a few things you need to know.

You'll need your own copy of the film. We'll be renting ours from the iTunes store.

The film will begin at 8pm Saturday 5th September. The exact mechanics of how we'll all start at the same time are yet to be decided, but it will probably involve us shouting: GO! And everyone pressing play. High tech!