I’ve been having a run of bad luck with video lately. Rather, I’ve been screwing up, and I’m not happy about it. Of the last five videos I shot for Recordnet.com, three have had technical issues which I should have foreseen. A fourth was shot on my Flip cam. The fifth was OK, as it should’ve been; it was just a long interview with a subject sitting in a chair.

It’s at times like these (which have been few, thankfully,) that I’ve been turning to Vimeo.com for inspiration. The high-quality Youtube alternative features some inspiring artistic work.

I’ve long been interested in the use of code to create art. The idea that code could build images that are beautiful or visually striking fascinates me. That’s why Recordnet.com/Fireworks remains the project I’ve most enjoyed working on in my year of so as a Web content producer. It’s pretty, and the idea for it came in part from an art project: Plug-in Media’s “Pyro(technics) to the People.”

But I’ve also realized Recordnet.com/Fireworks has a glitch stemming from the fact that it was created in Flash using Actionscript 3.0. It’s intense – both graphically and in code (300 lines or so) – and as a result the display can quickly slow down. The user needs to repeatedly re-load the page in his or her browser to get the full effect.

Honestly, though, the glitch didn’t bother me that much. I’m still very proud of that project. At the same time, however, I thought it’d be great to find a language or programming system that will allow me to make Recordnet.com/Fireworks faster this July 4.

The finals of the newsroom beard contest were held March 5. Did I come back strong in the second half of the month to take the title? What did one beardless contestant do to charm the judges and earn accolades? And what about the nagging rumors about a performance enhancing substance? Watch this video for more…