Plurktalk is a weekly live videocast that I do with several of my friends from Plurk. There’s more about it at this link. The first hour or two of the show is fun, joking around and personal stuff, mainly. Recently, we have been staying late into the night, often until one or two in the morning, talking about serious things, like what makes guys act like guys and gals act like gals? Are we what we are, in the main, due to nature or nurture? You know, things like that. There are not many of us that late, and we are not looking for a lot of new participants at this time. It gets complicated enough as it is.

For the show on July 22, I am going to try an experiment. We are going to read a text and form our discussion loosely around the parts of the text that strike each of us as being the most important and meaningful. Those will probably be different parts. That’s what makes this so much fun.

The text is the final book by Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, published after his death. It is a short, direct, to the point text that discusses every facet of our society as it exists today. Whether you agree with it or not, it is astonishingly intelligent and thought-provoking. The people that will be participating in the discussion will, of course, need to read the book. That would be helpful for those who just want to watch the ensuing mayhem and participate in the chat room, as well.

So far, the discussion panel on camera will be made up of myself, @pritcharddesign, and @Willfall. If you wish to participate in the discussion, you must be able to stay awake for the hours between 10:00 pm Central on June 22 and 1:00 am on June 23. You must read the book noted above. And you must be willing to appear on camera. If you think you would like to do this, send me a private plurk and I’ll think about it. No guarantees. Stickam gets way laggy with too many people on video.

Everyone is more than welcome to come to the first couple of hours of the show as usual, on or off camera and in the chat room. The chat room will definitely remain open during the Late Night portion, and you are welcomed to participate fully with us in that way, to comment at will and help us discuss the issues in that way. We will all be watching the chat window. That is how the big kids usually do it, I’m told. Still, only the selected few will be able to be on video or on microphone. If this works out, I’d like to have different guests on video each time we do a themed show, in addition to the usual panelists. We would love to have you on the show. The last few discussions have been fascinating. This one promises to be even better, and livelier.

Plurktalk is a weekly live video Webcast, ostensibly hosted by me but in truth made possible by a faithful group of attendees and occasional visits from other Plurkers. Sometimes we even talk about Plurk on Plurktalk. More often, it is the lives of the people in attendance and the vital matters of the day, with a liberal dose of (sometimes) bawdy humor.

Regulars, just now, include @pritcharddesign, @andex, @Lchamp, @HighDef, @planetKnit, @Willfall, and @nethead, who has been missing a lot lately due to family health issues, plus @bigdoc, who has had a lot of over-the-road and drunken debauchery issues. Over the time that we have been doing the show, there have been a largish number of other plurkers that have been on the show, especially when you consider the family tree of shows which preceded Plurktalk and in which I was involved.

The show occurs on Stickam, which results in some challenges. Some people have a hard time getting in sometimes, others occasionally get flung out into cyberspace in the middle of a sentence. But it is the best group videoconferencing software that I have found for free. There are windows for six live video feeds from participants and a chat window for those that choose not to be on camera or mic. The interaction level is high.

When I first started, we tried to hold the show to an hour in length. As I relaxed the format, it grew to two hours or a little more. Lately it has been running later and later. The show last night went until 2:30 in the morning, my time, for a total length of 6.5 hours. We covered approximately 4,826,081 subjects during that time and people typed or spoke about that many funny lines. We also talked about some serious things, as we almost always do.

If you would like to watch a Plurktalk, feel free to come to stickam.com/Plurktalk at about 8:00 Central time any Wednesday. If you want to participate, and you are very welcome to do so, join stickam and send a friend request to user Plurktalk. Remember to let me know how I know you. This is all free, by the way. None of it costs anyone anything, and most would agree that it’s worth the money.

For updates, watch Plurkiverse.com.