Synthesizing Stories on Bad Metaphor 11

bm11.jpgWith some of my online homes I’ve been quite active and with others, not so much. One of the things that is quite enjoyable to do is record audio podcasts with my son John. We started doing the Bad Metaphor podcast (an audio podcast) a few years ago and would sporadically update it. Due to some perfectionism and procrastination the output has grown increasingly infrequent, but John always wants to create more, so we’ve started recording podcasts again in a more casual way to try and get them done and up more often.

The wonderful thing about technology is that it advances and makes things easier and cheaper all the time. So last weekend we sat down on the floor with my MacBook Pro, my Zoom H2, and John’s Nintendo DSi along with a stereo omnidirectional microphone from Giant Squid Audio Lab and we recorded a new episode of Bad Metaphor in Soundtrack Pro. The neat thing is that we were able to do some multitrack recording right to disk with the audio from each of us going to separate tracks and the music going to a stereo track. This means we can adjust the levels after the recording and also means that it is much faster to edit. It’s a setup that works and I’m really glad that we figured it out and I hope that we’ll be doing a lot more soon. So go on over and take a listen to the under 8 minute episode 11 of Bad Metaphor: Synthesizing Stories where John plays some music using his Korg DS-10 emulator.

November 21, 2009 , , , , , ,

The Return of Bad Metaphor

bmlogo144.jpgA few years ago my son John and I started an audio podcast called Bad Metaphor where we talked about technology and growing up and any other things that John was interested in. But we procrastinated and while John kept working on different themes and came up with topics, I never got around to actually recording more of them.

The site lapsed (it was built using Typo) and I stopped updating it. But in the new year I resolved to start it up again and I dusted off the site and now Bad Metaphor Episode 10: Procrastination is out in the world. The archives are also available, so now it’s all up and running and we will hopefully be able to keep up with a regular publication schedule and rebuild our audience. In the whole process I found that I really love WordPress (it was ridiculously simple to set up, so now I have two sites running two separate installations of WP), but that setting up an audio podcast now seems to be more complicated than video. The hosting provider I used before isn’t doing it any more and there aren’t a lot of free places to host audio files (with one very notable exception). The files are all hosted in the Internet Archive, which is faster than it was a few years ago and it’s where I like to put stuff to share. Continue…

January 23, 2009 ,

Bad Metaphor #8 – Camping

Things don’t always turn out the way that you plan which most of the time is a good thing. Hitting a home run every time would start to get boring after a while as Buck 65 says. The big Summer of adventures that John and I planned changed a lot, but we’ve had some fun. I wrote about our rainy day in Fundy and our abbreviated adventure on my Vox blog, but we also recording some audio that has made it into our eighth Bad Metaphor, which is about Camping. You can see the pictures from our camping and hiking in Fundy on Flickr and I may be uploading some video snippets from the still camera to my blip.tv blog.
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August 21, 2006 , , , ,

commandN Episode #58

The 58th episode of the video podcast commandN is live and ready for download now. I’ve been helping tape the segments from Halifax and have made a few appearances as well. Since it’s the Summer and I’ve been on vacation, it’s been possible to spend a bit more time working on the segments and that means that we’ve gone to some interesting locations and continue to shoot in ways that are more fun. If you haven’t looked at commandN yet, it may be a good time to check it out to get caught up with technology trends with a Mac flavour. In this episode Jeff and I did the webPICKS segment from Halifax where I talked about Dabble, which is a great way to find and share video. We shot it in the Hydrostone neighbourhood, which has some neat views of the city through the trees.
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August 21, 2006 , , , ,

Bad Metaphor and Camping

It’s Summer and it’s time to hit the road and do some camping and Bad Metaphor podcasting too. John and I will be camping in Fundy National Park and you can follow along by checking out my Vox blog as well as the Odeo Bad Metaphor page where we may podcast from the phone. Full podcasts will follow later, but for now it will be brief.

July 20, 2006 , , , ,

Bad Metaphor 6 – Work

Last month I took John in to work and we recorded a podcast at the Halifax Downtown Site of the Nova Scotia Community College where I work. Bad Metaphor 6 – Work is finally edited and uploaded and you can listen to it now. I give John a tour and we talk about work. If you haven’t checked out Bad Metaphor yet, you should take a listen and subscribe to it as we’ll be making more podcasts during the summer in an attempt to document our adventures.

May 28, 2006 , ,