On Saturday December 19th, I’m joining my friend Dave Moyer for the Bitwire Holiday Marathon. They’re going to live for 12 hours, starting at 6:00 AM Pacific, to celebrate the holiday. There will be contests!

I’ll be on during the 10:00 AM Pacific / 12:00 PM Central / 1:00 PM Eastern hour to discuss holiday gift ideas and take calls. You can join in by calling 888-334-4248, or email studio [at] holidaymarathon.com.

I’ll ALSO be on during the 12:00 PM Pacific / 2:00 PM Central / 2:00 PM Eastern hour along with John P. to record a Wealth Nation episode. If you have any business or financial questions, hit us up by calling the number above! You can hear the promo here.

Looking forward to chatting with everyone tomorrow!

Snug Wow, the Snuggie made of ShamWow material…

What are the Best Wireless Headphones (for TV and Radio)?

And the Consensus Is…

Keep in mind, I requested feedback on headphones that were NOT bluetooth or infrared. By far, the most suggested wireless headphones were from Sennheiser. Everyone appeared to be using different Sennheiser models, and this is one of those things that will depend on your budget, but any of the Sennheiser wireless headphones should be the way to go, especially their HD models.

Wireless still presents a lot of problems, so it made me laugh that a lot of the responses I got were “wireless headphones that WORK?”

What is “And the Consensus Is…”?

From time to time, I’ll ask you guys what the best product/service is to accomplish a particular task. Then I’ll gather up the responses from Twitter and Facebook and post the answer. When you need to find a product to make your life better, use the search box at the top, or browse through the “And the Consensus Is…” tag. If you want to recommend a topic, just ping me on Twitter or Facebook.

@cleasai sent me this photo on Twitter of a restaurant called Viet Cali. Maybe now I can have Pho anytime I want!

We’re having the Annual Streaming Christmas Party on December 22nd, and everyone’s invited!!! If you’re not familiar with our Christmas Parties, let me fill you in…

Geoff Smith

The first thing you need to know is who Geoff Smith is. A lot of you will know him and have enjoyed his music, and if you don’t know his name, you’ve probably heard his jingles. He’s an amazingly talented musician who made his mark on the new media world by creating jingles for different podcasters. Some examples are Drobo, iJustine, and TWiT. He’s also written and performed songs that make geeks dance, like Digg the Code.

One evening in 2007, Geoff tweeted that he was in his studio working on a new album, and he had Ustream going. Neal and I joined the chatroom at Ustream and I tweeted that I was watching Geoff work. Pretty soon, we had a crowd of people watching and talking in the chatroom, and Geoff wasn’t getting ANY work done! Someone asked if he could sing one of his songs so he did, then someone else asked if he knew the words to a Beatles song, and he started singing it. And that’s how the Geoff Smith Late Night Concerts began. It was pretty incredible to watch Geoff play the piano, sing, take requests from the chatroom (he knows pretty much every song ever made) and in addition to that, watch the chatroom explode with excitement. People loved “singing” along in the form of chat. It’s hard to explain, but when the night ended, people said it was one of the best experiences they’d ever had.

It became a regular thing. Geoff would jump on Ustream, everyone would join him and tweet they were there. Amber Mac, iJustine, and Leo Laporte have all showed up and enjoyed it as well.

Annual Streaming Christmas Party

Last year, we went to Nashville where Geoff lives and plays at the Big Bang Bar, a dueling piano bar. We set up all our cameras and lights, brought our Tricaster along, called in extra bandwidth for the night, and went live. 80 people were there in person to watch Geoff do his thing and request songs. About 7,500 people joined us on the Ustream throughout the night, and thousands more watched the recorded version as we streamed the concert during the holiday season. It was a night we’ll never forget!

Christmas Party 2009

This year, Geoff is joining us to do it all again! Everyone’s invited to the live stream, and we encourage you to spread the word so it’s a more dynamic experience!

The party will be December 22nd at 9:00 PM EST, 8:00 PM CST, and 6:00 PM PST (that’s 2:00 AM GMT, December 23rd). Bring your smile, bring your song requests and hook up your computer to good speakers!

Join the video and chatroom at CaliLive.TV

Switching Granny

In addition to the live stream, we’ll have some local friends here at the house joining in. We would love to be able bring Switching Granny (the official grandmother of GeekBrief.TV) and her husband, Tommy, back into town for the Christmas Party. It’ll cost $1200 for the flight. Dave Peterson, who is flying in from Seattle, has offered to cover their hotel. If anyone in the Geek Brief family wants to help make a grandmother’s holiday, email me, @reply me on Twitter, or leave a comment below.