BOaCS2Ep4 - Cohost FTW

I decided to change things up this week and add a little more into this weeks episode due to the fact that I’ve been gone for a while. So I decided to bring my friend into the show and he did pretty good. There were some issues he had but nobody is perfect the first time they step up to the mic. We were going to record on two separate mics on two separate computers, but as it turns out the extra mic I had that I let him use worked a lot better than mine. Just an average little voice chat mic that you stick to the desk or the side of your computer and record for voice sessions on Yahoo Messenger or something. So my mic is going to sit in the bottom of my desk until I find a purpose for it and i’m just going to keep using the other mic. He only started recording when he introduced himself so I had to use what my mic picked up. So in the beginning of the show you hear what you’ve always heard for the most part. And then when I switch over to what his mic picked up you hear what the blogcast is supposed to sound like. And since I’ll be using that mic next week the show will improve and Ben might come back for next weeks show as well. So here is this weeks show and the bonus content should be up by the end of the week, at least before next Monday. I’d like to thank everyone for listening

Timeline
0:00 Intro
01:30 Sorry for the delays
03:05 Whats been going on in my life
04:35 Double Trouble: This is the year of the podcaster
06:40 Introducing my co-host
07:53 I think Nintendo has been slipping
18:00 WTF of the week: NYC gamer kills cab driver because of GTAIV
23:30 I fire off some F Missiles at Fox News, CNN, Jack Thompson, and that other dumb bitch who’s name I can’t remember
26:10 I should have been a weather man
29:00 Chasing The Bard
33:00 Morevi Remastered
34:54 The Metamor City Podcast
37:20 Murder at Avedon Hill
39:30 Underworld is underrated
42:30 Prince of Persia Sands of Time being made into a movie
50:30 More on the technical difficulties
52:30 Bonus Content - Novel Reading Promos
54:37 Morevi Remastered
56:00 Chasing The Bard
57:20 Outro

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A delay

I’m sad to day that the production of the next episode of BOaC will have to be delayed. I still have not figured out the problem with my file server. Everything from season one is uploaded on that same server and plays for me just fine. But the first three episodes of season two will not play at all, and will not submit to iTunes.

That and there is company over today and though I could probably stay in here all day long and computer away, I’ll just bet you that the second I pull out the mic and start recording somebody will come barging in.

I know I told you last time when I said the computer was being sent away that if this was late I’d give you some very cool extra stuff. Well I will have this episode posted by tomorrow. And I will have some extra content later in the week. No later than Wednesday or Thursday.

Fuck you Boxstr.com,

Fuck you. A lot. With something pointy.

I figured out the problems with my iTunes and everything else. Apparently none of you have even been able to listen to the episodes I’ve been submitting. They just buffer, forever and ever. And that’s why they don’t go to iTunes. They don’t play. And finally it was P.G. Holyfield who points this out to me. So it turns out that Boxstr.com the website I use to store all my show content is hoarding all of my uploads like a greedy, greedy Jew hoards a pile of pennies. You click play and it buffers to no end, you try to download the episode and it tells you no. Hell it does the same thing to me, it won’t let me view the damn things. AND I CREATED IT!!

Long story short I am very fucking pissed off at this. So if anyone knows how to fix this, or knows of an even better free site. Feel free to let me know.

BOaCS2Ep3 - An Interview with P.G. Holyfield

Sorry this one is late. At least its still Monday when I’m posting this. Late last night I got to sit down with P.G. Holyfield of the “Murder at Avedon Hill Podcast Novel. The interview did run long, three hours, but it seemed to be over in a second. That is just how awesome to talk with this man. I hope you enjoy it, because I sure did. First off I want to apologize for a few things. 1. The audio quality is bad. I figured out what was wrong with my mic. The DB Boost was up 20 DB and and that’s why it was picking up everything. I turn the boost all the way down and it works just fine. Its quiet, but that’s no problem with me by myself because I can fix that in editing. P.G. requested that I turn my mic up because he had problems hearing me. You’ll notice in this interview that the white noise is continuous throughout the episode because of the fact that this audio is all from me, I did not mix any audio from P.G. during editing. This is because my earbuds are so freakin loud that my microphone not only picked up my audio, but his as well. So this was a great interview, if you can get past the white noise. Another thing is that the next episode will be delayed three days to a week simply because of the fact that I sent the computer in to be serviced today and I wont get it back for a week. And while its being serviced they are going to wipe the hard drive. So when I get the computer back I’m gong to need to spend a couple of days restoring programs and backed up files and such before I can even get any material with which to record. I’m actually updating and posting this episode on a friends computer because all of my own audio files and such are on a portable hard drive. So the next weeks episode will be posted the middle of next week or the following week. If I post it a week late I will release a bonus episode later on that week with some extra material.

Here’s the show.

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BOaC S2 Ep2 - The Worst Episode Ever

00:00 Intro
01:30 Technical Difficulties
06:30 Issues with iTunes
08:00 Double Trouble
10:20 Chaos caused by a storm in my neighborhood
13:02 Gas is going down
14:60 The current round of “Citgo funds terrorism” emails
18:25 Six plants that will grow anywhere
22:08 “Nevermind” baby now 17 and a teen spirit
23:41 OMGlists “8 villians we’d like to see in the next Batman movie”
25:13 Five rare and expensive Nintendo DS games
27:21 McCains “Surge” success story a lie
32:24 A thousand appologies
33:42 Double Trouble Promo
36:28 Metamor City Promo
38:52 Outro

This officially is the worst episode I’ve ever put together, recorded and produced. Ever. I’ve had plenty of technical difficulties and other kinds of trouble but I still feel that I could have done better with this episode. I really do. I’m not trying to cop out of this, I barely even want to accept my own apology and the excuses I gave. I promise you listeners that episode three will be better, I promise. I would like to than Spaztastic Sara for the designing of the iTunes cover art. Music kindly provided by Libertine Leech www.myspace.com/libertineleech.

See you next week.

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Help me cause trouble.

Anybody who has known me since the beginning of the year knows how big of a podcast nut I am. Oh believe me anybody that offers up an ear to me will have it talked off non stop about podcasting if I get the chance.

Podcasters likeTee Morris, Pip Ballantine, Chris Lester, Seth Harwood, and last but most certainly not least the Future Dark Overlord himself Scott Sigler have been people that I’ve talked about on a regular basis to anyone who would listen when the subject of podcasting came up.

When April rolled around I sent emails to everyone I knew about Scott Sigler’s hardcover release of Infected. And I would even tell my friends, professors, and people that I didn’t even know about it if I didn’t have their email address. Once when in a bookstore applying for a job I convinced my friend to buy “Infected”, (later he ended up not getting it due to a lack of funds, but at least I was able to talk him into it.) and in the process talked one of the employees up about podcasting. The ones that I listen to that she might like, where she could find them, the ones that had books in her store. And she was convinced that I was the kind of person who knew what I was talking about and that I should in fact work in that store. Lets just hope that I get a call back.

I’ve also converted a few people I know to the world of podcasting, including my good friend and former driver, as well as two of my professors from last semester. So today I’m here to give you an earful on how you can help me cause trouble. And not just any trouble. . .

Double Trouble.

That’s right, what all started off as “Billi’s Crazy Eights”, Tee Morris’ marketing plan for the release of his newest Billibub Baddings novel on 08.08.08 and a coordinated Amazon Rush on that date.

Amazon Rush for those of you not in the know, is a tactic utilized by podcasters to get all of their fans to go to Amazon.com and purchase the book on that date in a mad dash to rocket their book to the top of its respective sale charts on Amazon Books. A tactic like this has proven very successful for podcasters like Scot Sigler, Seth Harwood and Matthew Wayne Selznick and his book.. Because talented podcasters have a large fan base they always have hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are willing to do this. Because you give something away for free if someone loves it, they are going to want to own a tangible copy of that thing that has been given away for free and that’s why this marketing strategy always works.

But why is it being called Double Trouble if I already said it was going to be called Billi’s Crazy Eights you ask? Well because August 8 of 2008 just so happens to be Pip’s birthday, and rather than Tee and Pip constantly ribbing each other on twitter, (well ok, ribbing each other more than usual on twitter) they decided to join forces and release

Billibub Baddings and the Case of The Pitchers Pendant

and

Digital Magic

on the same day, at the same time, as part of the same Amazon Rush. To my knowledge a strategy of this magnitude has not been pulled in the podosphere so it is sure to be EPIC!

You would think that this would be enough of a task for these two amazing podcasters but no, they are further compounding on the fact that if you give something your fans love away for free, they will surely buy a tangible copy of it later, they are releasing both of their novels in .PDF form for free. Absolutely and 100% free of charge for anyone that clicks on the download link.

And since I am committed in helping Pip and Tee to cause Double Trouble, I am providing the download link for both novels here on my blog.

Don’t say Billi don’t take care of his own.

and don’t say that The Dark Goddess doesn’t provide for her court.

Join Tee, Pip, Puck, Billi, myself, and scores of others supportive of this cause at Amazon.com on 08.08.08.

Here is the official promo:

BOaC S2 Ep1 A new introduction

Despite all of the difficulties that I had to face to get all of this put together I finally got it all finished up.

Timeline

00:00 Intro

01:30 Introduction

10:35 The Japanese love steroids

14:10 Nerds with way too much time on their hands

15:38 The most epic job ever

17:50 In regards to the circulating “Gas out” emails

20:32 100 goals in 100 weeks

22:57 Your daily does of what-the-fuckery man gets sentenced to 42 years for faking a heart attack in court

25:55 Global Warming causes kidney stones

33:53 Max Payne is PG-13

36:12 Thank you to

-Tee Morris for helping me with skype

-Spaztastic Sara for designing my cover art

-Podcast Junky for answering my iTunes questions

-Pip Ballantine

and

-Chris Lester for helping me with my mic troubles

39:37 BOaC Promos

40:00 That’s all folks

40:24 Promo for The Billibub Baddings Podcast

42:55 Promo for Murder at Avedon Hill

45:33 Outro

Download!

New Promos for BOaC Season Two

I’ve encountered a few audio problems the last couple of days while trying to record but I refused to let that stop me. I spent some time here and there during various parts of the day recording things here and there. I managed to get the intro and outro recorded. I also recorded a bumper and two promos. Those are the two promos that will be featured in this post. Let me know what you think of them. Tell your friends and if you have your own podcast feel free to use them.

BOaC Promo 1

Download

Use my voice promo

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Mic Troubles

At first I thought the strange white noise that I was encountering during my recording was just me losing my mind. But after more recording today I encountered it again. Its not any sort of outside interference its a problem with the mic. I had Pip Ballantine listen to it as well and she confirmed that she heard it as well. It could be a problem with my mic, it could be a problems with the connection. I dont know what it is. If anyone has any ideas or solutions please let me know. I will post some photos as well as an audio sample for anyone who would like to take a stab at this problem. Its not going to affect my recording. I’m going to keep on trucking to release this podcast on schedule and Keep recording until I fix the problem or replace the mic when I can afford to. Here are the images.

Here’s some free stuff, keep buying our smokes

Today The Girlfriend Lady and I received a package from Kool, the company that makes menthol cigarettes, and we don’t even smoke Kool’s. Inside the package was some coupons and one of the strangest free items I’ve yet to receive from the tobacco industry. What I recieved was this:

Xeos Micro Speakers. Now I’ve received a few things from tobacco companies over the last couple of years. Lighters, ash trays, cigarette cases, coupons, the usual stuff. But I’ve never recieved speakers. They work surprisingly well for micro speakers. They provide really good sound when plugged into my iPod. The sound quality from my laptop is ok. The speakers that come standard with the Laptop are better simply because the speakers I was sent dont have a bass control so the sound quality is a bit off when being used as computer speakers. But if I didnt have any speakers at all and needed external speakers, I’d use these before buying a set. The package came with three AAA batteries and all the necessary cables. and its all conveniently packaged inside the speakers, a button expands the speakers creating what the box calls an “acoustic chamber”, and within these chambers on the left and right speaker are slide-out compartments, one for the batteries, and one to hold the cables.

These are some very good speakers, I’ll put good use to them. I can’t say that I dont appreciate the free swag. But is it really necessary for the tobacco industry to send consumers, even when they dont consume their particular product, free speakers? Or any of the stuff they send as gifts for that matter?

When I was younger I remember my father saving the bottom of his Marlboro packs and trading them in for duffel bags, jackets, inflatable rafts, and whatever else Marlboro offered in their catalogue. And even up to a few years ago it was still an option. Even Camel had an online casino that you could use to redeem the “C-Notes” Included with every pack. I collected these as I smoked Camel at the time. I had one hell of a collection, saving them in a coffee can until I turned 21 so that I could send them in for my own duffel bag or inflatable raft.

But I began to notice that Camel stopped packaging their smokes with “C-Notes”, and Marlboro ceased to produce their packs with the “Marlboro Miles” stamp that you could tear off and save. I sadly discoverd that it was, for better lack of a word, outlawed to provide this service so as to not encourage non-smokers, and possibly children from smoking just so they could redeem their proofs of purchase for their own inflatable raft.

Is it right for the lawmakers to do that? To say that you can’t have your own bartering system with your consumers. Was it another ploy to get people to stop smoking, similar to the constant increase to the “sin tax”?

Who knows, I’m not necessarily posting to debate that decision. I want to know what your opinion is. Was it wrong for this practice of trading in collected portions of cigarette packs and trading them in for novelty items and ash trays with your brands logo stamped on it? How do you feel about it now that in lieu of the bartering system, companies now give items away for free with coupons as promotional items?