Last night, Jonathan Coulton (preceeded by the awesome OneUps and Frezepop) rocked the PAX 2008 house in the only way a bearded man with an acoustic guitar standing in front of a crowd of nerds can -- with clever puns and nerd references. Check out our highlights reel of the show, including:

• A "Still Alive" duet with Dr. Horrible's Felicia Day
• A more subdued, romantic "Code Monkey"
• A cover of They Might Be Giant's "Birdhouse in Your Soul"
• A sea of arms stretched out mumbling "eat your brains"
• Lots of great Coulton banter

We've embedded the highlights reel above. Check out the separate videos for "Code Monkeys" and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" after the break.

Last night we attended the first PAX 2008 concert, featuring The OneUps, Freezepop, and Jonathan Coulton headlining. There are a multitude of great moments (highlight reel to come later this weekend), but one thing that stuck out was Coulton's performance of "Flickr" and special song "Not This One," both songs featuring video accompaniment aided by sound guy Bart Brad. Check out the live performance, embedded above.

[Update 7:30pm ET: Our poker buddies at X3F let us know that the extremely impatient amongst you need wait no longer. That's right, "Still Alive" is available on Xbox 360 right now; unfortunately, PS3 owners still have to wait until April 17th. Go get it!]

This is a triumph! And, of course, by "triumph" we really mean "not an April Fool's joke." Harmonix has just announced availability and pricing details for the Rock Band release of Jonathan Coulton's cult hit "Still Alive": it's dropping tomorrow for the low, low price of $0.00.

Individual song

• "Still Alive" - Jonathan Coulton (0 MS points/ $0)

Video for this week's Rock Band DLC is after the break (including our own vid of Coulton performing the song in Rock Band live!). We're going to warn you now that the song is a spoiler for Portal, but if you haven't spent the three hours to finish Joystiq's GOTY by this point ... well, we're sorry. "Still Alive" will be available tomorrow on Xbox Live and on April 17 for PSN due to the store update.

On Friday night we were lucky enough to witness a pretty special event: geek-rock troubadour Jonathan Coulton performing his song "Still Alive" at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. There's nothing new about that, he's been performing it since Portal's release last year. What is new is that he was playing it in Rock Band, where it's due to be released as downloadable content, and we just so happened to get it all on camera.

Unfortunately, most of Coulton's Rock Band band wasn't quite up to his level, with the lone exception of ... hey, it's Mahalo Daily's Veronica Belmont, who you should recognize from her GDC videos here on Joystiq.

One of the Harmonix folks there told us the track was only in production for an unusually short six weeks, thanks in no small part to Valve's willingness (you might even call it eagerness) to license the song. They also said that, though nothing has been finalized yet, they're expecting the track to be attractively priced at $0.99 leaving you no reason to avoid it. High-def video embedded after the break.

It's hard not to love Jonathan Coulton (or JoCo), especially if you're a fan of Valve's Portal. The recent news that Still Alive will be coming to Rock Band as downloadable content was accompanied by JoCo's appearance at Valve's party on Wednesday. Mr. Coulton posted to his personal blog about the experience yesterday, noting that he 'only' got 95% vocals on the song he created. The question we've been asking ourselves is: who is singing the song on the track - Coulton or GLaDOS?

He also noted that Portal snagged the Game of the Year, Best Game Design, and the Innovation Award nods from the GDCAs. Coulton observed that BioShock had won the GDCA award for Best Writing, a merit he thinks should have gone to Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw's work on that quirky game about tests, thinking, and cake. Luckily for Wolpaw and Faliszek, they're the first winners of the (soon to be coveted) Jonathan Coulton award; maybe the GDCAs should rename the prize for Best Audio?

There are plenty of parties here at the conference, and they're usually not the best source of news. So imagine our surprise when we read this morning that Valve used their party on Wednesday night to let it slip that Jonathan Coulton's brilliant song "Still Alive" would be available as DLC on Rock Band.

As if that weren't face-meltingly cool enough, the announcement was made by Harmonix staffers who took to the stage to play the song on their Rock Band instruments alongside Coulton himself. When is it coming? We don't know. Will it been soon enough? No. It will not.

We've mentioned before that we worry the internet is close to killing the golden goose of Portal references, with no small amount of help from your friends at Joystiq. That doesn't mean, of course, that we're in any way tired of the game's big finale, Jonathan Coulton's brilliant song "Still Alive." YouTubers are just as smitten as us apparently, with enough covers popping up on the service for GameSetWatch to compile a Top 12 list.

We think their #1 pick is pretty much irrefutably awesome, leaving us to debate only which cover makes us the most uncomfortable. We have selected the video above, a heart-melting salvo of earnest warbling and ... props. Don't worry, sweetheart. It's called an awkward phase because it will, eventually, end.

[Hey visitors from Jonathan Coulton's blog! As Coulton himself pointed out, you probably shouldn't be mean to this young lady for sharing her song with the internet. She seems like she could be the world's sweetest human, and karma can be a real pain about stuff like that.]

As if the inclusion of Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode One, HL2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 in Valve's Orange Box didn't already represent one of the most incredible values in video games ever, they've just announced geek troubadour Jonathan Coulton (he of "Baby Got Back" and "Code Monkey" fame – WARNING: MySpace link) has recorded a "surprise" track to be included in that massive package.

But Coulton didn't go it alone. No, he had the help of the Valve design team (who are apparently fans, go figure) so we can surely expect something about Zombines eating your brains. At this point, with less than a week to go before the game's (games'? gameses'?) release, we're surprised the track hasn't already made its way to the seedy, illicit , peer-to-peer underbelly of the internet. Hey record industry, you should take notes!