What's up with "Going it Alone?"

Ok, someone out there needs to fess up. What is the deal with "Episode 31: Going it Alone?" This episode continues to get WAAAAAAY too many downloads for an episode that came out 3 weeks ago.

Is there some Focus on the Family type group out there that is sharing the episode as some sort of modern day morality play? Maybe a church is circulating it amongst its members?

If so, that's totally cool, but we should warn you to not let your members listen to any upcoming episodes...

Seriously though, I am curious. Does anyone know why this episode is getting the attention it is?

Thanks

on my way to greece

to do some research. I'll be there for the better part of the month of July. Plans are hazy as of yet. Internet access will be spotty. I'll try to post updates here because mass e-mailings of stories from ones travels tends to piss ones friends off. then again, if I don't post, assume I'm having a great time, because, why wouldn't I be?

A very nice review in AllEver.com

AllEver.com is a very neat news source blog by journalist, Pavlos. I'm not sure how he writes as much as he does, he's basically a one-man newspaper. It's cool. Anyway, he does a regular column called "Podcast Wednesdays," which he had abandoned for a while.

Well. It's back.

And his first featured podcast? Oh yeah. Catalogue of Ships.

Check it out here

And click on his Google ads to help us thank him. It really makes a difference.

In the Washington Post!

No, not Catalogue of Ships, though I tried really hard to get the reporter to mention us. But there is a nice article that prominently features an interview with yours truly here

Gearing up for July

Dear friends,

We need some help. Coming up very soon are the Pod Cast Awards. As I'm sure you know, we work very hard week after week on this show, and it is a labor of love. No money, no nothing. It would mean a whole lot to us to get nominated for one of these awards.

I'm not going to make a real push until July, when the nominations are actually open, but I would like to make a big screaming push to spread the word about the show to all your friends. The more listeners we have going into July, the better shot we have at getting nominations.

For what it is worth, we are hoping to be nominated in the "Best Produced" category, that is, unless anyone can explain what "Sound Seeing" is. That sounds interesting too.

Anyway, we would really appreciate you all spreading the word. Thanks!

I saw David!

We did not realize this until it was almost time to say goodbye, but David's trip to the D.C. area marked the first time we have seen each other face to face since we started Catalogue of Ships. It was kind of mind-boggling to realize that we had produced 31 episodes without ever being in the same city.

Anyway, it was good to see him. We went to a Nationals game and made Episode 32. It was a good time. I'll post a picture soon, I promise.

In this episode, David talks a whole lot about America's Young Theologian, an old friend of his from highschool. He also mentions our friend Natsu of the excellent experimental theatre company Live Action Cartoonists.

UPDATE 1: America's Young Theologian posted a great pic of himself and David at a Georgetown bar on his own blog. Thanks for the plug, Dan!

UPDATE 2: Here's the picture, taken by JoAnna, at the Nats game.

New Website

Hey, all. I didn't have anything to do today, so I did a complete re-design of my personal website

I made it much simpler and straightforward. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

on teaching and re-viewing

I was blown away by some of my performance students work today in class. They are really starting to get it: Their work is much more connected, invested, and, well, interesting that it was even a few weeks ago. The thing is, it *shouldn't* be surprising. ( After all, I am the one with the power and I tell them what I like, *of course* they do more of it.) Still it is quite a thrill, like I gave them parts of me to hold on to and now they are giving it back but with their own spin so its more alive than it was when I dolled it out. Its not the ONLY thing that happens in the classroom, and probably not even the most important, but it is a nice thing to take note of on a rainy afternoon. At any rate, that's what it feels like when Mike is done re-mixing an episode and then again when you give us re-views. so, um, thanks.

Getting Soapy and "Google Earth"

One ongoing discussion David and I have is about how we can get his voice recordings of the stories to be better. Whenever he sends them to me, there is a substantial background hiss. We have worked on this for a long time, but with his equipement (which is allegedly pro-level stuff: SM-58 microphone and a nice m-audio DI) it doesn't seem to be a possibility. It stresses him out because I whine about it every week, and it stresses me out because I always end up devoting way too much time to EQing out the hiss, and always end up damaging his voice to some degree.

Well, finally this week I broke down and purchased a piece of software called Soundsoap, or something, from BIAS. It works very well at noise reduction. It's not perfect, but it is a HUGE difference(as you can hear in this weeks episode), and only takes about 2 minutes to attenuate properly. So from here on out, David should sound much clearer, which is great.

I will also be going back and "re-mastering" all the old episodes (well, probably not 28) so that they sound better. It won't all be done at once, and I will be working backwards. Hopefully I will finish sometime in July. I'll let you know.

On a completely different note, someone charted on Google Earth the Catalogue of Ships.

If you haven't played with the Google Earth software before, have fun. it's a blast.

The best 7 minutes of audio EVER!!

Catalogue of Ships received this e-mail yesterday:

"I just wanted to let you know that I plugged your show on the most
recent episode of my podcast. I do "The Best of the Left Podcast" and
I talked about CoS at the end of the 5/30 show titled 'Everything was
all right... He loved Big Brother.'"

Now, it is always appreciated when our FRIENDS TALK ABOUT US. But this was a little different.

Jay, the author of the e-mail, runs the "The Best of the Left Podcast" which weeds through all of the left-wing talk shows out there, and gives us the meat every day. I have no idea how this is legal, but it's a neat thing to do nonetheless.

So on yesterday's show, "Everything Was Alright... He Loved Big Brother," Jay found himself a little short on time so he "plugged" his new discovery, Catalogue of Ships. Plugged?!!! PLUGGED!?!? No. Jay talked about Catalogue of Ships for seven minutes!! In the previous 43 minutes of the show, he played 8 "Best of the Left" segments which comes to an average of 5.4 minutes per segment. And then he talked about Catalogue of Ships for SEVEN MINUTES.

Jay, that's not a plug. I don't know what that is. Seven minutes is longer than several of our episodes!

And not only was he verbose in his comments, he got it. You know? He understands what we are trying to do with the show. Even the Christmas Episodes, and the notorious Episode 28!

So, Jay, thank you so very very much!

It's just a shame that we are both hardcore Bush apologists.