Here's another little project I did for school.  Not brilliant, but rather clever:

As I may have mentioned, I'm currently in the Media Studies and Production course at Lake Superior college since August.  I just today completed my second project for Video Graphics class.  Came out kinda cool.Since I can, and since I haven't done a podcast in a long while, I decided to put that video out on the feed here.  Dunno if anyone will see it go by.  UPDATE: I finally decided running my voice audio through Levelator wasn't cheating.  I'd do it for work, why not do it for school?  Glad I did.  Made a real improvement, I think.See ya around campus!

Decided to try a Grizzly's Growls the old way I used to do it.  Turned out pretty good, I think.Part 1 -- A Hell of a ThingMy rant about taking a beginner's writing course -- blatantly swiped from my blog."We Dream For Jeanne" from Spider RobinsonPart 2 -- Thinking in PicturesThis video stuff is very new to me, and now I'm learn to do it professionally?  Yikes!  A bit of story about my life in pictures.Part 3 -- Bits and PiecesI've gotten pretty good at all those little bits that get added to podcasts.  There's a story behind that.

"Feedback PSA" from NobilisAnd Finally...Comments to 218-234-CALL, [email protected] or here at the website.Theme: "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod.Closing Music: "Vampire Hotel" from Chris Kirby.

Found this on the website of someone I like and admire a lot, author

Spider Robinson. Jeanne's his wife, and they're having some tough times.------HELP JEANNE STAY HEALTHY

This

year a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Andresz Busczowski, helped Jeanne

Robinson beat back a rare and virulent form of biliary cancer. But it’s

so rare even he can’t say how much time he‘s bought her, how soon it

might recur. For technical reasons she is not a candidate for either

radiation or chemo. Her only hope for longterm survival is therefore to

reboot and reinvigorate her failed immune system. She needs special

therapies and meds, extensive diet and lifestyle changes, and a stress

level as close to zero as possible. All those are expensive, none are

covered by even Canada’s excellent medical care...and like many artists

today the Robinsons were already running on fumes financially.

But

Jeanne, a Soto Zen monk, has been spreading love and kindness in all

directions for a long time. So her Buddhist sangha in Vancouver, her

neighbors on Bowen Island, and friends as far away as Florida have all

spontaneously come together to raise funds to help keep her around as

long as possible. Your participation is welcomed. A Bowen benefit

concert, “WE DREAM FOR JEANNE,” will be held at Cates Hill Chapel at

7:30 PM on Friday Sept 18 details here; cheques may be made out to Jeanne Robinson in Trust

and sent to Mountain Rain Zen Center, 6183 Fraser St. Vancouver, BC V5W

2Z9; goods or services can be donated for eBay auction by contacting

Jan Schroeder at , and PayPal donations can be sent to http://wedreamforjeanne.blogspot.com/.

Jeanne's Paypal account is here. Send via paypal to [email protected]

I spent a couple hours very early this morning doing a live show with my new Birthday Present, a Behringer PodcastStudio Firewire Bundle, trying to stream over BlogTalk Radio with that.  Didn't work out well.  Too many stages."Tom Cruise Crazy" from Jonathan Coulton"God Is In The City" from Nicholas Howard"Re: Your Brains" from Jonathan CoultonMentioned "The Takeover" from Mur Lafferty.  Played the promo from her book, "War," the fifth book in her Heaven series."Ain't So Bad/Radio Mix combo" from LeVar Thomas"Queen of Me" from Natalie Brown"Carry the Light" from Kelly Richey"Chiron Beta Prime" from Jonathan Coulton (I'd forgotten it's a Christmas song.  Oh, well!)"Wasted (Crunk mix)" from C.B.Y.A."Come Clean" from Chris Kirby off his "Vampire Hotel" album"We're Goin' to the Dells!" from The Great Luke Ski off The FUMP"Oh No!" from Kaiser Cartel's "March Forth" album"Lift This Fog" from Chris Kirby"Baby Got Back" from Jonathan Coulton (a bit different from the original version!)"Big Fish Lazy River" from Owen Poteat"Ain't Like We" from Shalone's self-titled CD"In My Dreams" from Natalie BrownThat's all.  Took me two tries to get the shownotes and file uploaded.  Not a good tech-day for me, I guess.Thanks for listening!Theme: "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod

Back on July 30, I ended up doing an extra-long show on BTR, because I wanted to fiddle with VAC, Virtual Audio Cable, a utility for manipulating audio inside my computer rather than using a mixer.  It didn't work well enough for my purposes, but that might have been my own limited understanding.As a result, I ended up with a bit over an hour of fairly interesting talk and pleasant music.  Waste not, want not.This show includes:My opinions on what it takes to make a good podcast.  Kali from the "Flaws and All" show on BlogTalk Radio (@yourggkali on Twitter) had asked what I thought she could do to make her show better, and I wanted to devote some time and serious thought to giving an intelligent answer to that.Music from LeVar Thomas:  "Come With Me," "Don't Give It Away," "Get You Home," "Gotta Love You," "Mean to Me" (from Hellz Yeah, featuring L.T.), "Now Get This," "Pause," "So Funky (Re-Mix with Carter)," and "What Love Feels Like" Music from Natalie Brown:  "Let's Just Waste Some Time," "Love Has Finally Called My Name," and "In My Dreams"Theme: "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod

Had a nice long chat with Kali (aka YourGirlKali) from the "Flaws and All" show on BlogTalkRadio, and Rhonda Carpenter of the Podioracket podcast and author of "The Mark of a Druid," about podcasting, promoting podcasts, and related self-promotion.Brief call-in from "CRC the reliever" who also has a show on BTR.Discussed recording and swapping promos with others, leaving voice comments and blog comments.  Suggested K7.net, Snapvine, or Google Voice for a voice comment line.  I mentioned I'd recorded a comment line reminder for the Dawn & Drew Show which has worked out for me.  Noted that podcasters are generally happy to play your promo, if you're willing to promote theirs, and happy to play any voice comments (including mention of your website) that are meaningful about their content.  Mentioned producing some content for the Bloodthirsty Vegetarians podcast, with the similar  results.Oh, and I won a book on Podioracket earlier, by Brian Rathbone, called "The Dawning of Power."  Another on-topic example, since the book giveaway was a promotional effort for Brian's book.  (I look forward to reading that.  And I like winning stuff.  Thanks, Brian!)

Brought up blogging about others' podcasts with the same idea in mind.Talked about the usefulness of Google Alerts for keeping track of what people are saying about you, good or bad.  (Yahoo Alerts can serve a similar purpose.)Discussed recording audiobooks for Podiobooks.com, and how doing those had helped promote my podcasts, and vice versa.  (I have five on there now, and I'm working on my sixth.)Is there such a thing as Too Much Promotion?  Our take was that the key is to produce valuable content, make useful comments, add value to the podcasts you're appearing on or mentioned on, and that indirectly promotes your show(s) without getting too annoying.  (In my humble opinion.)  And if other podcasters do the same for you, they promote themselves without annoying your audience.Rhonda presented author Seth Harwood's appearance on PodioRacket as an example on how to promote without being "excessively annoying" (Fidonet folks will recognize that phrase).  I brought up singer/songwriter Natalie Brown's appearance on my show as a similar example.  I also discussed playing LeVar Thomas' and City Haze's music on my show while commenting on that on Twitter.Rhonda suggested using Ping.fm for making one post to multiple sites/accounts/outlets.  That can be important when you're doing a lot of shows -- as I am, for example.  And of course, producing a lot of content can help promotion in itself.While I took a break, I played a tune from City Haze called "On My Way," featuring LeVar Thomas.  (See the promotion-related tie-in, right?)Since I use Skype for my BTR shows, I can also use a utility called Callburner to do separate mono recordings of each side of the Skype call, making it easy to edit, especially to add better-quality music to the shows.  We also discussed editing for podcasting, and what Rhonda and I both use for that (as lots of podcasters do), Audacity -- free and effective for podcasting.  You can spend more, if you like, of course.  We're both happy with the latest Beta, 1.3.8, though technically 1.2.6 is the latest Stable version.I suggested voice acting as another option, though that's certainly not for everybody.  (There's a Yahoo Group for voice actors, by the way.)I complained about the audio quality on BTR's archive recordings for music (though they're fine for talk, I suppose).  I suggested getting a better mike.  Rhonda's suggestion was a phone headset for BTR shows.  I was thinking more of an inexpensive mike, and Rhonda's suggestion there was a Snowball USB mike, which can be gotten fairly cheaply.Other recommendations: "Podcasting for Dummies," by Tee Morris, Evo Terra and Chuck Tomassi.The Yahoo Group for PodcastersLeo LaPorte's TWiT podcasts, since Kali lives fairly near there, and some of the local podcasting groups in the area, including the one Matthew Wayne Selznick is in.We talked video streaming, including what Phil Rossi did for the release of his novel, "Crescent."We also discussed recording old Public Domain books as I do, and what an all-around outstanding fellow I am at doing that.  I agreed humbly. :)  But I gave much of the credit to my Samson Zoom H2 Handy Recorder, which is wonderful for a guy with a bassy voice like mine, and worth every penny my sister spent for my Christmas present.Thanks again to Rhonda Carpenter and Kali for talking with me so long.Lots of show notes, but it was after all a two-hour show!

Haven't been doing regular Grizzly's Growls shows for a while, and I wanted to try some things.  Direct download link from Archive.org.MUSIC FROM:The Funny Music Project Nicholas HowardOwen PoteatLeVar ThomasNatalie BrownJonathan Coulton"USF'n'A" from the FuMP - BalderBox"Blood from a Stone" from Nicholas Howard"Blue By You" from Owen Poteat"Goin' To The Dells!" from the FuMP - Luke Ski"Can't Hide From Love" from LeVar Thomas"Come Closer" from Natalie Brown"War of the Ages" from Owen Poteat"RE: Your Brains" from Jonathan Coulton"Run Away" from Natalie Brown"Ooh Girl" from LeVar Thomas"God's In The City" from Nicholas Howard"Draining the Lizard" from the FuMP - Nuclear Bubblewrap"In My Dreams" from Natalie Brown"Sweet Pea Blues" from Owen Poteat"Ain't So Bad" combined with "Ain't So Bad Radio Mix" from LeVar Thomas"Cthulu Fthagn" from the FuMP - Tom Smith"Things That Used To Be" from LeVar Thomas"Just Another Day" from Owen PoteatPromo/Contest for "The Fox" from Arlene Radasky"There She Goes Again" from LeVar Thomas"I Wonder" from Natalie BrownThanks for listening!Theme "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod

From my live BTR discussion with Martin Waxman of Palette PR and the "Inside PR" podcast.  We focused on how PR techniques can be useful for Regular Folks, not just big companies, major celebrities, politicians and religious leaders; some are, for example, useful in job hunting (which I'm trying to do), and promoting podcasts (which you may have noticed I'm also trying to accomplish).Bottom line it's about (1) building relationships with the media, and (2) your story -- determining what it is, how best to explain it to reporters et. al., and why it's news.  Martin seemed to think my show having listeners in 80 countries or so (assuming I'm understanding Google Analytics) is news.  He gave me some pointers for dealing with local newspaper reporters, and possibly radio.  And I made some excellent points about web page SEO, newspaper writing, and press releases, doncha think?We also talked about: Social Media Releases; Shel Holtz' recent helpful blogpost on that topic; Todd Defren's design of the format; Canada Newswire and PR Newswire, that distribute them; being patient with reporters, especially about deadlines; and the importance of research, followups and thinking long-term.Takeaways: Building relationships, and knowing why your story is a story.  And I really oughta work harder at promoting my podcasts.Thanks, Martin, for devoting a half-hour of your Sunday to this important topic.And I have listeners in 88 cities, in 19 countries.  Oops.Theme: "Hot Swing" from Kevin MacLeod.