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Showing posts from April, 2007

New Dinosaur Jr. album shatters my worldview

Beyond goes on sale on Tuesday . This is a big deal to me. Dinosaur Jr. is the best band of the 80's, hands-down. The three albums where it was J., Lou, and Murph, well, they made an emo-boy like me very happy as I went through my nineties, slowly unraveling their psychic bullshit, as Lou and J. went their separate ways. They're back together now to make money, and you can't fault them for that. The tracks on the new album so far seem alright, though you can tell they're all older now. "Almost Ready" works, and I still can't believe J. let Lou sing a "Dinosaur Jr." song again after all the crap that went down. Is it any good? These reunion bands tend not to make new albums. Personally, Lou's turn on the one track I've heard sounds good, but it's still not vintage. It seems like a reunion album, and that's okay with me. The Guardian article quoted above casts it in a poor light, sort of. Not sure. I'm still waiting for a new P

The reports of podcasting's demise may be exaggerated

One of my Google News alerts is "podcasting", which you cna imagine seeing as how I run the Charlottesville Podcasting Network . My anecdotal reading on the news trend on podcasting is that the medium had an initial flurry of optimistic and enthusiastic stories two years ago, followed by a series of gloom and doom articles. And now, the trend seems to be cycling back the other way. Here's a sample of articles from today's alert: Podcast Is the Next Step in Broadcasting ( Daily Nexus student newspaper ) They're Not Just Play Things ( Chicago Tribune ) Fast selling iPods make podcasting popular (Arizona Star-Tribune) The long view is going to support my notion that podcasting, and whatever it evolves into, will be an important way to get information about the community. That's why I formed CPN and will contine to maintain it, even as I take my new job with Charlottesville Tomorrow . I'm always looking for volunteers to assist me. There's a lot to lear

Tragedy at Virginia Tech provokes reflections

Like many of you, I've been glued to the media today. I first heard about today's horrible tragedy when I got the daily news briefing from WVTF. There was something about a shooting at Virginia Tech. This was just after my news shift, and I was in the process of disconnecting myself from the Internet for a tiny break. I had planned on walking my dog. So, it went to the back of my head. I don't really consider myself to have much of a connection to Virginia Tech anymore. I graduated with a degree in history and political science in 1995. I made myself leave the summer afterwards, because I had seen so many people just stick around town, caught in the gravity well of a lovely, quiet small town. While I enjoyed Blacksburg, I hadn't had the best of experiences at the school. I always regretted not applying to the University of Virginia, and I had my first career disappointment when the upstart college newspaper I ran went out of business. I don't know why I chose Virgin

Major tragedy at Virginia Tech...

One of the worst school shootings happened today in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech. The Roanoke Times is reporting twenty people dead. I'm shaking. This is where I went to school. I'm only blogging to give the link to the Roanoke Times coverage... Warning. Some of the pictures are awful... http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/breaking/wb/113294

WNRN: Newsreaders wanted immediately

As regular readers of this blog may know, I'm news director at WNRN , and thus responsible for getting news readers behind the microphone. More importantly, I'm responsible for getting volunteers to give up some of their time in order to be on the radio. I'd like to make the case once more for why you should at least consider this opportunity. Newsreading is an awesome responsibility, and the model at WNRN is one with a lot of merit. Citizen/volunteer news readers, making sense of the world and writing quick blurbs so listeners can be informed about what's going on. More people should know how to do this, so that they can know exactly what goes into a good newscast, and what the "news" actually is. That will then allow them to demand more from other outlets. To read the news, you must be fair, objective, and thorough. Newsreading at WNRN is not an opportunity to have your own personal soapbox. Many a volunteer has been let go for doing this. WNRN has thousands

Test of yet another player - Podzinger

Podzinger is a neat way to search for content inside of podcasts, either audio or video. Of course, you can find material posted to the Charlottesville Podcasting Network through here as well. They make ad revenue off of my content with absolutely no way for me to get at any of it. The odds of someone coming across this material and then subscribing to my feed are very low. So, how does one aggregate an audience? Does the multiple platform have serious holes? But more importantly, can I use their technology somehow to enhance the delivery of my product? Let's try that player first. If you're reading this in an RSS reader, I suspect you'll have to come to the site, but I could be wrong. "washington irving" Charlottesville Podcasting Network - Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving If you like American history, this is a very interesting show. Listen, however you choose to do so. Edit: Interesting. The URL it provides for the content is the podzinger

Douglas Adams and the Multichannel Future!

The new science fiction magazine Darker Matter is using a forgotten interview with Douglas Adams as the source material for a new three-part series with the creator of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy . If you're a fan of Adams, it's well worth taking a read. There are lots of words of wisdom to be had here, but I was very interested in how the article draws out the idea that Adams was ahead of his time, operating in multiple formats on multiple platforms. Hitchhiker started off as a radio show, and quickly became a record, a book, and a television show. Adams described how each medium had different traits. Moving from radio to television, you can take most of the words with you. When you move on to the big screen, you have to start leaving some of the words behind and filling the gap visually, because film is primarily a visual medium. It becomes a different thing. I wasn't certain that could be done until I saw the stage show. That quote is from the second part of the s

CPN passes two years and 1,000 posts

I've not written anything to mark the two year anniversary of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network . Nor have I written anything about our passing of 1,000 posts. So, this is the post that satisfies those requirements. I had planned to record a podcast to celebrate 1,000, but couldn't find the time to finish it. Things have been busy over the past two years, and I'm pleased with the results. I've just begun CPN's first off-line marketing campaign of our history. Be on the look out over the next week for fliers that will go up over town. Every week for a month I'm going to print one out that lists three or four of that week's events. We've also begun posting events from the U.Va Law School as well as the Miller Center for Public Affairs. I'm hoping to recruit new volunteers to record more community events. I'm no longer able to go out in the evenings, mostly because I wake so early to work at WNRN. If you're interested, please contact me. An

Trans Am plays Satellite Ball Room on April 11

Trans Am is playing the Satellite Ball Room on April 11. Ryan Murphy has a fun interview with them in the Cavalier Daily . I'm a fan of the band, but I've not kept up as I've gotten older. And, of course, the idea of going to see a show these days fills me with fear, rather than a sense of giddy anticipation. Sometime in my late twenties I decided I didn't like going to see live shows. I suspect I know why this is, though I don't know if I want to really write it down. One of the only cassettes I still play from time to time is Trans Am's first album. I got a copy from my friend Jeff at the tail end of a Rope Goat Clan session he shared with me. Murphy describes in his article how the band came about as a reaction to Pearl Jam and other grunge bands tinged with prehistoric emo. "We hated Pearl Jam and insisted on playing hard rock without an emotive vocalist getting in the way," [band member] Manley said. I've really got to overcome my fear of goi

VABook 2007: The Trials of Lenny Bruce

I recorded several events at the Virginia Festival of the Book, including this event on Lenny Bruce. This was held at the City Council chambers. There was no tech on duty, so I plugged into their board and ran sound. Most people who set up sound in public events don't pay attention to how the audio sounds in headphones. They only care about how it sounds in the front of the house. So, I would say the sound quality on this is better than most podcasts of panel discussions. Anyway, this entry is really a test of the Odeo player. Odeo isn't really alive. The management is waiting to sell it to a buyer, but no one really sees much value in it. And this is a shame, because there's a lot of stuff on here, and Odeo is a good way to browse through things. It's also an easy way to get an embeddable player. But no one uses it! I think this is because there really isn't that much demand for audio-only presentations. Audio got skipped over by video, which currently is what mos

Radio program on differences between English and Scottish humor

As Virginia celebrates its 400th anniversary, Britain is marking 300 years of union between England and Scotland. The BBC is marking the Act of Union with a series of programmes, including one I just listened to about the differences between English and Scottish humor . In general, both countries have a lot to laugh about class, though that's markedly more so in England.

More experimenting with Flash players

Yes, I know, it looks incredibly unprofessional of me to post messages such as this one letting people know that I still am looking for more ways to implement audio. I'm not a programmer, but I am trying a few things out to make it easier for people to hear some of the audio I've helped record in the last few years. powered by ODEO (I can't get my custom player to work, so I will leave this one up from Odeo, which seems to be updating again. I guess it's still alive?) To make this a real blog entry, I will say something about my day. I slept in today until 9:00, which is a very long time these days. I was at WNRN four days this week. I've also been very busy. Crazy busy. And there could be some interesting changes ahead for me. Today we went to Maharajah for lunch, and then the mall, and then the pet store. We bought a new leash for Billy. His other one went missing. Billy is also going to get shorn tomorrow. He's incredibly wooly at the moment, very matted. I a