– it’s bAAAAaaaAAAAAaaaaaCK!

I’ll tell you what, exactly, is back a little later.   But it should be relatively easy to figure out.  heh heh heh

I’m looking at my website stats this morning and I see something interesting:

There are no less than a half dozen episodes of the Various and Sundry DVD Podcast that are being downloaded about 200 times apiece this month.  To me, the podcast was always disposable — it’s meant to be listened to the week it comes out.  That’s about it.  After that, there’s very little use for it. It’s not even worth archiving for historical purposes.  I don’t get it.

But someone is listening.  About 200 – to a podcast that died a couple of months ago.

Should I bring it back? Maybe it’s worth doing a trial run of four weeks or so.  Since DVD listings are available far in advance, I could even record them all in one shot and release them weekly from there.

No promises, but let me know what you think.

In other podcasting news, I’m doing another interview with a pro this evening for next week’s Pipeline Podcast.  And no, I’m not naming names yet, but I’ll try to put out an excerpt over the weekend on that feed.

Those of you visiting from the world of comics might want to check out this week’s Pipeline Podcast that I just posted last night. Besides the usual weekly look at the week’s top ten new comic book releases, this podcast features an 18 minute interview with Image Comics President and SAVAGE DRAGON creator, Erik Larsen. We discuss THE SAVAGE DRAGON ARCHIVES, coloring, lettering, and more in a tightly-packed chit chat.

You can find all the show notes and the podcast, itself, at ThePipelinePodcast.com

Comments and questions can be posted over at The Pipeline Message Board.

My TiVo2 downloads RocketBoom and C|Net’s video podcast thingy for me, automatically placing it on my play list right alongside all the other TV shows I have season passes for. An off-line friend of mine is interested in a topic that RocketBoom recently covered, so I thought it would be a nice thing to burn the episode to DVD for her. RocketBoom — ever the pioneer of forward-thinking mass media — has blocked TiVo users from burning their episodes to DVD.

Fooey.

The more video podcasts I get into — including Cranky Geeks and DL.TV — the more tempting the idea of hooking a Mac Mini or older computer into my TV begins to sound. I wish TiVo would expand its offerings, or add the functionality in so that we might manually subscribe to those feeds, at the very least. Maybe with the LOST podcast moving to video format, they’ll start getting pressure to do that. Only time will tell.

(Right now, the LOST Podcast is still featured in TiVo’s podcast directory, but you can’t subscribe to it, as it’s changed to video format.)

No matter what music you choose for your podcast, you’ll get complaints about it.

You might have the kind of podcast that only three people subscribe to and that nobody ever comments on. The second you attempt to add theme music, though, you’ll be deluged with e-mails about how the music sucks and you should get rid of it. Not that they’ll have any suggestions as to what they’re looking for, but they’ll hate it no matter what.

I’m reminded of this now as I surf through the PodSafe Music Network in an attempt to find something to add to the front of The Pipeline Podcast. It’s a futile thing, but I like banging my head against the wall. What can I say?

• I’m not entirely sure I can explain what “Box Populi” is, but it seems to be some sort of all-in-one Linux podcast-recording device. I think.

• Was slightly frustrated with Cranky Geeks this week. Neil Gaiman was their special guest, and they were smart enough to skip some of the tech talk to discuss writing with him, and then move onto his views on the future of writing distribution and whatnot. But here’s the thing — they all asked him a question, and then either answered it themselves or explained why they were asking it before Gaiman had a chance to open his mouth. It was complete amateur hour! I’d expect that kind of behavior from raving fanboys, but John C. Dvorak has a certain journalistic background, as does Sebastian Rupley.

• In case you missed it: A special edition of The Pipeline Podcast went up this past weekend, wherein Jamie Tarquini and myself spent an hour chatting about the most recent edition of PREVIEWS. If you’re a comic geek who can’t get enough comics podcasts in his or her life, I would suggest this fine hour of chit-chat. Let me know what you think and we might be convinced to do it again. The regular edition of The Pipeline Podcast will be live tonight.

• Congrats to Brian Ibbott and Coverville for 250 podcasts strong and still going!

This week’s DVD lineup will be posted this afternoon. . .

Is Leo LaPorte the new Adam Curry?

I never had Tech TV during its hey day, so I have no built-in allegiance to LaPorte the way so many other podcasters do. And, honestly, the cult that’s starting to grow around him and the TWiT Network is starting to share some of the same qualities that grew around Adam Curry in the earliest days of podcasting. Curry’s popularity eventually led to a backlash, coupled with his business goals that many saw as “selling out” or abusing the good will the community gave him. I don’t think either of those are exactly true. I think Curry honestly likes the podcast medium, but has a different way of promoting it and making it successful than some others would like. I don’t think Podshow is evil. Others do. Sobeit.

LaPorte is a different case all together. Whereas Curry was sorta like the older brother we all looked up to, LaPorte became the friendly father figure. He’s the other Dad we all wished we had, with a warm demeanor and a certain “Aw shucks” country charm. In his interviews, he can play both good cop and bad cop — asking the interview subjects the most basic questions that you know he knows the answer to, while still sounding genuinely interested and slightly naive. But then he can get into a conversation about Ruby on Rails and Perl programming that give away his tech curiosity, if not any expert-level skills.

The reason I enjoy LaPorte’s podcasts is that he’s a radio professional. He handles himself well in the podcasts. He has a great voice and a great personality. It’s not that I have idol worship from some cultist cable show that appeared in half the country. I see him strictly as a podcaster having a good time. And that’s why I enjoy it. He also puts together a series of podcasts that interest me, none of which work as well without him as with him. (If only FLOSS Weekly would come out anywhere close to weekly.)

If he becomes someone’s crazy definition of “de facto podcast leader,” then let’s just hope it doesn’t go to his head. After all, for all the big talk of podcasting, it’s still a fairly small phone to swim in that’s already seen a change or two in “leadership.” That’s the thing about the ‘net – everything is transient.

If anyone knows a link to a site that has tips on editing an interview in Garageband across two tracks, please drop me a line or post the link in the comments below.

It’s tougher than I thought.  It’s way too easy to end up with something out of synch because of the way Garageband leaves gaps when you delete portions of tracks.  And I can’t seem to work out how to delete the same section across two tracks at once, which is annoying.  I’m sure there’s a simple way to do that somewhere, though. . .

• Here’s a fun Flash toy. It’s not a game. Just draw a line and click play to see a little sleigh rider ride your line.

• CBS now refers to its podcasts as “[tag]Netcast[/tag]s,” but they haven’t updated been quite as thorough about their naming convention as you might think. The instructions for using their service speak of downloading a podcasting application. Whoops.

• Facebook now has open registration. If I were a college or high school student, I’d be ticked off over this one.

• Good thing SCRUBS doesn’t start until the new year: Nurse Carla fell and broke her pelvis. Her shooting schedule is being reworked around that.

• BOSTON LEGAL — still one of the best shows on television — breaks the fourth wall, and usually when you least expect it.

• Finally, [tag]Nintendo[/tag] [tag]Wii[/tag] owners will be able to download the Opera web browser for free through next June.

• Nellie McKay’s new album is finally coming out in October. …and there was much rejoicing. (Thanks for the pointer, Trip!)

* And don’t forget that the new Weird Al Yankovic album drops today! (Yeah, that’s right. I said “drops.” I’m hip to MTV’s jargon, yo. Would you prefer I use “streets?”)

• The 50 Worst Things to happen to music.

• Memorizing multiplication tables is more informative to a growing mind than this diagonal method of multiplication.

• What do you want to be when you grow up? A podcast entrepeneur. This girl’s making $40,000 a year working part time — and she’s still in high school.

• My People: Google Maps takes picture of car accident aftermath and miles-long traffic jam in Belgium.

• This week’s DVD list highlights will be up a little later today. It’s next week’s release list that has all the highlights, though. . .

• this new image of The Face on Mars just makes it look even creepier, like a face being pulled out of the sands below it. Weird.

• The Wallflowers’ Jakob Dylan did the theme song for SIX DEGREES, the new ABC drama. I didn’t watch it. Did anyone else?

• Ricky Gervais is done podcasting. I couldn’t get into his podcast when it was free. I listened to the first two or three, but that’s about as far as I got. It did fairly well as a pay concern, though, so somebody was listening. . .

• 1,000,000 [tag]Wii[/tag]s will be available when [tag]Nintendo[/tag] launches the system in November. Why do I still get the feeling that you won’t be able to get one if you haven’t pre-ordered one already. Has anyone here pre-ordered theirs yet? I haven’t, and I’m getting nervous now.

• Open question to one and all: Are there still Day Traders out there? During the Dot Com boom time, there were always stories of people who stayed at home all day to play the stock market to make their millions. (Or, occasionally, thousands. Or, mostly, lose money.) In any case, with the market not being quite so gung ho anymore, are there still day traders around?

• Best thing about iTunes 7: When I hit the subscribe button for a podcast in the iTunes Store, it subscribes me in the background and downloads the most recent podcast. In iTunes 6, it switched back to the Podcasts library and logged you out of the iTunes Music Store, where you had to go back to searching around for podcasts again. This is a lot more efficent now.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Various and Sundry DVD Podcast hasn’t gone up this week, nor will it. I never recorded one, which makes it tough to post one. The podcast will return next week at some point with an announcement of some sort.

How’s that for a series of vague generalities, masquerading as a blog post?

Great. Now I’ve gone meta.

This is the 72nd DVD [tag]podcast[/tag]. Six minutes, roughly, and 2.7 MB.

Listen directly to the MP3 file.

Show notes: Mostly TV shows again, including lots of [tag]ALF[/tag], more [tag]Avatar[/tag], new packages for [tag]Buffy[/tag]; plus, [tag]Numb3rs[/tag], NightStalker, [tag]Joey[/tag], Roller Girls, and more.

Subscribe via iTunes, or use this RSS feed for your other podcatching client of choice.

Vote for this podcast: PodcastAlley.com Podcast Pickle

Read about this podcast in PODCASTING HACKS.

Where to find release lists: DVDJournal’s release list TVShowsonDVD.com – monthly release list

Where to find more information on these movies: Internet Movie Database

E-mail me at AUGIEDB at GMAIL dot COM. Or leave your comments in the comments section of this message.

This is the 72nd DVD [tag]podcast[/tag]. Seven minutes, roughly, and 3.3 MB.

Listen directly to the MP3 file.

Show notes: [tag]Boston Legal[/tag] and [tag]Samurai Jack[/tag] lead the way, with Wings, X-Men: Evolution, [tag]Deadwood[/tag], Cheaper By The Dozen 2, and more following behind.

Subscribe via iTunes, or use this RSS feed for your other podcatching client of choice.

Vote for this podcast: PodcastAlley.com Podcast Pickle

Read about this podcast in PODCASTING HACKS.

Where to find release lists: DVDJournal’s release list TVShowsonDVD.com – monthly release list

Where to find more information on these movies: Internet Movie Database

E-mail me at AUGIEDB at GMAIL dot COM. Or leave your comments in the comments section of this message.

This is the 71st DVD podcast. Seven minutes, roughly, and 3.5 MB.

Listen directly to the MP3 file.

Show notes: The new Mystery Science Theater 3000 release is the highlight, plus Hill Street Blues, EZ Streets, too many unnecessary special editions, The Producers, and something called Something New. There’s a lot of bass in this here podcast. It sounded so much better in Garageband until I exported it to MP3. UGH.

Subscribe via iTunes, or use this RSS feed for your other podcatching client of choice.

Vote for this podcast: PodcastAlley.com Podcast Pickle

Read about this podcast in PODCASTING HACKS.

Where to find release lists: DVDJournal’s release list TVShowsonDVD.com – monthly release list

Where to find more information on these movies: Internet Movie Database

E-mail me at AUGIEDB at GMAIL dot COM. Or leave your comments in the comments section of this message.

Tags: DVD, podcast