Bob Dylan Slept Here

Yeah, I'm not really going to write about the Bob Dylan show last night, would have loved to have gone and reported back to you people about it, but Ol' Bob and Willie charge a little to much for my blood.

What I would like to write about is Podcasting. One thing I find interesting about Podcasting, is how it is billed as this new fangled technology, or new outlet for people. Hey, look, the technology for recording your own radio show, or spoken blog, or whatever you call it, has been around for a very long time. The ability to share this recording as a .wav file or .mp3 with people has been around since the introduction of the internet(I do realize mp3's came some time later.). When the first mp3 players started hitting the market in 1998, the technology was there for listeners to take your prerecorded files with them whereever they went. Of course nowadays some people I run into think that digital music players are a new thing ushered in by the Apple iPod. Being a music lover, I jumped on the mp3 player bandwagon back in 1999. Back in those days of Napster, I would commonly search around for ripped audio books, comedy, and other spoken word files. Some of them were people dicking around having their own homemade radio show. So Podcasting is nothing new, and guess what, you don't need a iPod to play a podcast wherever you go. While I do like the iPod and have become an Apple fan over the past year and a half, I don't own an iPod. I have the same RCA Lyra mp3 player that I bought back in 1999 shortly after graduating from highschool, and I still use it. I can't really call it an mp3 player anymore, because it only plays Windows Media Audio(wma) these days. [This has to do with an early implemented RIAA safeguard against music sharing.]

I don't have anything against podcasting, podcasters, iPods, Apple, or any of that. I just find it funny that people get all worked up over something that has been possible for almost a decade. Just goes to show how fast humanity is to get with the program.

Oh, and why adopt the name Podcasting? For one you're not broadcasting, it's prerecorded media; second, it's not something limited to iPod owners only, anyone with some kind of digital media player can take these "shows" with them. Hell, if you really wanted to, you could burn it to a CD and listen in your car, or portable CD player if you haven't made the leap to digital file players yet.

Well that's my rant for today.

Asylunt

Saving the lives of Helpless Carp!

Well yesterday, Atomic and I went out to shoot some video of the river front area for a project we are working on. At some point we decided to take a break from shooting and go chill by the river. As I was sitting there, I noticed a huge carp gasping for air in a shallow section of the river. Being the humane bastard that I am, I went over to help it get to deeper waters. I kind of zoned into my own little world while helping this giant fish move downstream. Before I knew it, a few people had gathered around the banks and were watching and encouraging me. Then they pointed out another fish that was in need of help a little ways upstream. I was still helping the first fish at the time, but then I started to go back and forth between the two fish. Nudging them in the right direction with a small stick. I eventually get the largest fish to the river. A small group of people up on the stone arch bridge were watching and started applauding. Atomic laughed a little and he said I was a Hero. I hadn't even really heard those people applauding until he pointed them out to me. I look up and give a wave. I think some guy snapped a picture of me, that or he was watching with binoculars, I couldn't really tell. Well I go back and help the second fish and the people along the banks were complimenting me on being a good samaritan and shit. Eventually the crowd disperses a little and I go to put my socks and shoes on. While i was sitting there putting them on, I noticed about three to four more fish getting caught in the shallows. As soon as I was done tieing my shoes, I get up and tell Atomic we have to go before I get stuck here helping hundreds of fish with an audience.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for helping the fish, but becoming the center of attention and feeling pressure to help every fish that came my way isn't something I wanted to get caught up in. Maybe I'll go back in a few days and just do that all day. Get a net and bucket and become the guardian angel of River Fish or some shit. Anyway, if you are down by those big concrete childrens blocks below the Stone Arch Bridge, give those fish a hand! Save the Fish!

I mildly enjoyed being recognized by those people though, especially for something I just started doing not even thinking anyone would notice.

Asylunt

Pocket Pirate Radio

So yesterday Atomic pm'ed and notified me that he wanted to escape the city. I was game, yet I was a little shocked to learn that yesterday was Friday. I've lost all bearing of time since the 4th of July. He had mentioned Duluth, which sounded like a fun place to head out to in the late evening. Well Atomic has a very Geek side to him that not many see, and he got caught up playing some online game. This made our departure time later than originally anticipated. We had to do some running around for errands and whatnot. I was experimenting with broadcasting my own radio station from Atomic's car. I had recently dug up an old FM transmitter that I had acquired several years ago. A cheap one used to broadcast your CD or MP3 player to a car stereo. Apparently I had gotten ahold of an item that is quite desired in the hacking circles because of a few hacks one could do to increase power and broadcast range. See for yourself http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/20/44/ . I have that exact same model. The purpose of this experiment was to see about rigging a small but slightly more powerful pirate radio signal for the Strategic Beer Command's trip to the Nevada desert. SBC radio, it shouldn't be a problem to do. We'll be travelling through some of the most lonely and desolate places of America. Places where there is maybe 4 or five radio stations, if that. And most of them will be of the farm report or Jesus Freak nature. So our own little micro station shouldn't harm anyone. Besides the FCC would have to track a relatively small signal while we were continually moving. But that was the plan anyway. This preliminary test worked well, and improvements to my design are being worked out. Anyone got a cheap four track mixer with a mic input so I can do some real broadcasting on the road?

Back to the mission at hand.

Duluth was dropped in favor of something closer, we thought we'd give the Farmington Nike Launch facility a try. Well at some point we stopped and chilled with the Guys from starvinggeeks.com(The site is down now). We watched a snippet of a movie shot in their living room. A decent production, that was fun to watch while we had some chicken. This diversion didn't get us any closer to the Farmington site, yet I wasn't complaining. These guys were like the LoneGunMen, monitors and touch screens, and network cables all strewn about. A rack full of networking hubs and other gizmos that blinked and carried about transferring the 1's and 0's of their operation. After awhile they were accustomed to our presence and settled into their game of Mafia Network. At this Atomic and I decided we'd better get on our way, we wanted to shoot some video of this Nike Site. Then we realized what time it was, a little later than we had thought so we resigned to cruise around Atomic's old stomping grounds. After getting eaten alive by mosquitos near Minnehaha Creek in Minnetonka, we get inspired to price a decent inflatable raft. so we were off to find a Wal-Mart. This journey took up the rest of our night and we eventually wondered all the way to Coon Rapids. Wal-Mart sucked on raft stock, seemed everyone bought rafts for the 4th. So we made our way back home in the wee hours of the dawn. A night of aimlessly wandering behind us. Wandering like we so often do without a set destination. Good Times.

Asylunt

Asylunt's Back Hallway

Well, I made the page public today. Check it out if you're a random blog reader.
www.asylunt.net.tc

I need a job! Find me a decent paying job!!!

Besides doing web work and looking for a job, I've been caught up in the world of Zombie Flicks. A friend of mine from Missouri and I are working on a script that we hope to start production on next year. It's called "River of the Dead". I often have trouble following through with a idea because I make it too original and out there, so Matt and I began thinking of a somewhat easy, yet marketable genre to dive into. well Zombie flicks seem to be making a comeback, and Zombie flicks seem to do better on a limited budget. You could make a pile of garbage and still get a cult following if you at least made it to distribution.

So I have been watching damn near every zombie movie I can get my hands on lately. "Return of the Living Dead" is still my favorite, outside of the Evil Dead flicks.

Anyone got any input on favorite Zombie flicks? Anyone wanna be a zombie and will work for food? Fill out those damn comment forms people!

Asylunt out

There's been reports that you need my e-mail to leave a comment. I think the problem is that you are selecting the e-mail blog link instead of just clicking the underlined Comments link.