Podcasting

My friend Dave and I started a podcast about a little over 5 weeks ago called "That's Good to Know." Its been a fun and sometimes tiring time for both of us. Dave is the tech guy on the show. He puts the themes together for each show and uploads them while I take care of the PR part of things.




Just a hint.....Dave is the one that is not Brian Bendis.

Before we started this show I had a long list of podcasts that I listened to on a weekly basis. Now I listen to even more. The difference now is I know some of the people doing the shows. I have talked to some through email, forums and even voice mails on their shows and am slowly getting used to calling myself a podcaster. Its alot of fun and one thing that I would reccommend to anyone who has the time and the equipment to do it. Just make sure you have an idea of what you want to do. If you need some suggestions or ideas listen to some of these shows and go to their message boards or email them. Once you get into podcasting you will never want out, except for those times when Garage band decides to die on you.

The Bucket - Jen and Corey's Weekly show. They talk about their lives, cats, and the Hershey Bears

GeekIntertainment -Randy and Wayne discuss everything Geek

Nowhere in Mulberry -The Mulberry Gang discusses things in the world of entertainment
including Smallville and 24

ifanboy -Ron, Conor and Josh discuss comics, mainstream and indy.

Diggnation -Kevin and Alex talk about some of the top stories from Digg.com for that week and occasionally get drunk.

Twit -Leo and his gang talk about issues in the tech world

Buzz out Loud - Tom, Molly and Veronica discuss tech news and even Snakes on a Plane occasionally.

The Video Game Show, 1up Yours, the OXM show, Gamespot presents the Hotspot, The Video Game Outstiders, and All Games Interactive are all great places to get your gaming fix.

oh and if you need some tips from Dave and I you can go to the That's Good to Know Blog or just subscribe right through itunes.

I never thought I would have something in common with Fred Durst

Its true, I Chris, Co-host of the podcast That's Good to Know, have something in common with Rock Star, well, performer, well, guy everyone knows by name Fred Durst. If you look at the pic here in this blog I think many of us do. It also shows that I know if it was me I would need someone to talk to her for me too, so from me to Fred, I would have asked her manager about her first too, good move.

Its good to know that even guys like that need some help with women every once in a while. Now tonight while I am playing Need For Speed or Halo I will think that I am one manager away from talking to Kim Smith....wait...thats not gonna happen. Oh well, back to my xbox.

Gaming....am I just a fanboy or is it that good?

When I buy a game it could be for many reasons. It could be because I read a great review on it from a couple sources I trust. It could be because I played the previous game in the series and loved it. Sometimes I just read so much about a game and hear so much on podcasts and tv shows that I just want the game and I buy it. And sometimes I rent them and like them so much I want to own them. The one thing that is the same no matter what my reason is for buying the game is that once I buy a game my goal is to enjoy it as much as possible and finish the game, if it has an end and hopefully enjoy it enough to play it over again several times.

Some games you buy, you play, you finish and then you trade in at your local store or you just let them sit. If you get a game that you want to finish again and you enjoy it as much the 2nd, 3rd and so on times through it then you picked a winner. In this case for me so far the Halo series has been that for me. I will be honest, I bought the first Halo used a week after I got my xbox at least a year or 2 after Halo was first released. I got it because at the time and to some it still is now, the face of Xbox gaming. I always loved shooters but thought most of that were just shootem ups and had no story, plot or anything besides big explosions and occasional blood. Now this may be the fanboy in me but I really got hooked on the story and the characters in the Halo series. Master Chief was the leader of an army that faced a force that looked like with its weapons and just pure numbers were going to wipe the humans out. Then there were scenes in the game where you beat the odds, like any other game but you did it with the help of characters that as the game moved on you began to like. Especially in Halo 2 when the fight is brought to earth and the Marines fighting along side show their pride and go out and fight even when giant 4 legged robots walk down their streets smashing everything in site. And I know alot of people didn't like this but seeing things from the other side made the story open up even more and showed a brewing civil war that I know will have a huge impact on Halo 3.

If Halo 3 is the end of the series I will not be upset, casue I know it will go out with a bang. If its not the end I hope the guys at Bungie can promise me one thing...no more cliffhangers. Well I am off to play some Halo 2. CYA

I've been Bricked!!!

Don't you hate when that happens? You playing Ghost Recon, you and 2 of your friends and out of no where....BANG...you've been bricked. Its the notorious Brick monster. Comes out of no where and takes you down before you can even turn to get a look at him. Sometimes you can go for 20 minutes without getting bricked but then other times it happens 1,2,3 and you and your two friends have all been bricked before you can switch controllers. What are we to do? How can we defend against this? Is there a way? Is there a person out there who can stand up to the Brick Monster? Can anyone one save us from its invisible terror?

The only way I can see us stopping this menace is......................................................................

*Signal Lost*

Comic books/xbox and dvds....have to choose?

Tonight I have a few choices to make and some made for me. I have research that needs to be done for our special Marvel Civil War episode of "That's Good to Know", that is the one made for me. But after that I have many choices. I can read part of the stack of comics I have. That should be done soon since this Wednesday "52" will be starting and that will be a weekly book that I will need to keep up on so I need to get my backlog cleared up. I do hope to get some Xbox in though. I am half way through Need for Speed: Most Wanted and I want to play some Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Well I guess I better get going or the only thing I will be doing is wishing I had done anything at all.

PS I promise my next post will be more then me having trouble deciding what to do.

ESRB/Government/Parents/somebody???

Ok. I was hoping I would not have to many rants that in any way involve politics but I had to say something about the video game ratings system as we know it after listing to the 1up Yours podcast and their talk about the Oblivion Mod for the PC version that caused the ESRB to adjust the rating on the game from T for Teen to M for Mature. Now according to everything I have heard the Mod makes female characters topless in the game by removing the bra function. Now I understand the decision to make it M based on this Mod, but in some ways it may seem not fair. One of the best quotes I heard on 1up was that "If you draw boobs on Jessica Alba in People it makes it a porn magazine" -Jeremy on 1up blogs. That is why I think there has to be some way to show that the game as it comes to you may be an M, but it can be adjusted by Mods and that may bring in more "Adult" content that will effect gameplay. This is similar to what happened to GTA in a way but GTA already had adult themes. Oblivion is a game that you should expect blood and violence in but not topless women, at least in the game as it comes from the creators before the MODS.

That lead to the Xbox 360 version being also changed from a T to an M. Now that I do not understand. The game from what I hear on 1up from John, the Oblivion guy on the show, makes it seem like an M rated game. Now I have no problem with it being rated M but I do have problems with it taking something like this on the PC version that in this case does not effect the 360 version to change the rating. The game is bloody and violent from what I heard on the web and podcasts and John on 1up says he was suprised it wasn't M from the begining.

The way games are rated needs to be improved if things like this are always going to come up and cause everyone to panic and in some cases government officials feel they need to jump in and "fix" things. Now here is the question everyone, parents, uncles, cousins, everyone who is involved in any child's life needs to answer: Do you pay attention to or care about what your child has access to, plays, listens to, watches, ect? I mean some parents, not all, but some use DVDs, videogames and music to babysit their kids or to keep them out of their hair. If you need the government to regulate what your kids can see and play with when it comes to video games then you need someone to explain that what your kid does, at least until they are 18 is your responsibility, thats why your called parents. There needs to be a major overhall to the ESRB so that when parents look to see what their kids are buying or already playing they can decide if it is right for them be playing it. We already have issues with DRM, and possibly tiered internet, I think we should try to handle the video game situation on our own, before we can't do anything without looking over our shoulders or asking for permission first. Some freedom that will be.

Swithpod is down for now

Did you ever plan on doing something, something fun, exciting and new, with one of your friends. You get together and you create a podcast. It almost feels like you just recorded one your conversations and tried to send it out for all the world to hear. Then something happens, the key to your podcast getting out there in our case, Switchpod.com crashes. Now it should be up soon, so hopefully our dream of having people listen in on our geeky comic/tv/sci-fi/cardboard cut out star trek comercials converstaions will still come true. It just feels like you did something big, like you taped the finally of your favorite show and you went home to watch it and the power went out. You know in your mind it was good but you still need to see it, and hope that all your friends that watch it thought it was good, and the blogs and message boards you read on the net thought it was good.

I hope that by the time our next show is recorded which will be Wednesday night, after Dave gets his haircut switchpod will be back up. I know, I have to explain to Dave that our podcast is an audio show and no one can see him, but if it makes him feel better who am I to argue. This delay though has given me time to try to make some new friends on podcast pickle and get some good advice too. First off, we should not "advertise" our show till after episode 5 by Steve from The Wickedly Good Podcast. At first that seemed a bit odd to me, but then it was suggested that we ask other podcasters to listen to and look over our show and give us their thoughts. These guys have been in the "business" longer then we have obviously so they could definetly help out and I will look into that. Next in the same forum thread Random from the Sturgeon's Law podcast and he suggested to listed to your own podcast. Now I will admit Dave and I had both been listening to it but I am not sure if we have been all that critical of ourselves. For us its hard since its coming out almost exactly how we thought it would. Just us talking about things we like.

For once something stopping a dream, even though it was a small one compared to others has helped me find ways to improve on it once we get rolling again. Podcasting is a fun and exciting thing to be involved in and I hope it never stops being like that.

Top 10 Movies that Should be Comics

Movies and comics have been longtime bedfellows. Just as more and more comic books are made into movies, a lot more films are also being translated into comic books. It began in the late '70s with Star Wars, continued in the '80s with Indiana Jones and has blossomed into its own sub-genre in the new millennium.

read more | digg story

When I first saw this story on Digg I thought it was gonna a be a list about the reverse, comics that should be movies. I was clicking on alot of stories when I first read it. The idea of movies being made into comics though sounds interesting to me. The first five on the list
10. Half Life/Deus Ex
9. The Transporter
8. Bourne Again *Bourne Identity, Supremecy*
7. Blade of the Immortal's
6. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I could see Half Life and Deus Ex being like a cross between Batman and the X-men. Deus Ex has some stealthy detective elements to it while at the same time you may get attacked by some monsters. Half Life is a you against the establishment kind of story, which is a small part of Batman's story on occasion, but other times you run around guns a blazing killing everything in site which is a theme that some comics like the Punisher use on occasion when he is pissed off. I could see these making a good comic as long as they made the characters deep and especially in half life made you like the characters in the resistance and feel for them when they were pushed back or seemed to be against overwhelming odds even when you know or at least feel they will win in the end.

9. The Transporter I can also see as a comic to a point. There are comics out there (from what I heard) like 100 Bullets that have self contained stories within each issue with some bits of a bigger story running in the background. That would work for The Transporter. It could be one story each month with the real deep background story of the Transporter developing in the background.

8. The Bourne Series I see as maybe a limited series once a year or so with the chance of being an ongoing series if the character of Bourne would be drawn out and given a chance to expand his character issue to issue and get closer to the truth while doing it.

7. Blade of the Immortal's
I have to be honest. I have never seen or heard of this movie.

6. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly I can see making a decent comic. There are a few western themed comics already out there. It could work since it already has a solid leading character, it would just depend on how the character was developed in the comic and always improved on each issue.

The next 5 are:
5. Unbreakable
4. The Princess Bride
3. Kill Bill
2. Blade Runner
1. Pulp Fiction

5. Unbreakable I can see being made into a movie but like most of the others listed before it all depends on character development. You would almost have to retell the whole movie in the first 5 issues or so and then move on and strengthen the characters from there. You would also have to be very careful what "villans" if that would really be what you would call them, could be added after the first story arc is over.

4. The Princess Bride is a great movie. I am not sure if it would make a great comic. It might make a good comic in the Teen Titans GO format but I would hate to see them look that cartoonish and not be drawn like they could be. I think its better off left on the big screen and on the shelf with my other dvds.

3. Kill Bill could only make a limited series in my eyes. I mean unless you plan on having her kill a 100 ninjas and some not so super villan every issue or two and always be trying to get to Bill, but that would get old really fast. Quinton probably could think up a good plot and group of characters for a comic, but this is not it.

2. Blade Runner could make a good comic. It is about a futuristic world and a small group of people within it. The base group could easily be expanded throughout the comic and other "villans" could be created after the actual movie story arc was completed but they would have to be deep and drawn out like the movie's story line was or the next story arc would never live up to the original.

1. Pulp Fiction to me would be like making a comic of the Sopranos. The jokes and one liners would still be there, but the attitude and emotion may not come across. I mean if you can show sarcasm, anger and other emotions felt by the characters in each scene well, you might have something. I think Pulp fiction would have to be almost to adult to be a good comic and is better off staying on screen.

Civil War on NPR

When it comes to interview that can peak your interest without giving you any specific details the interview today on NPR with writer Paul Jenkins and Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada. The only real information about Civil War they gave was that Thor may make an appearence even though he is not really around. Now this may be the comic fanboy coming out of me but I was still excited about Civil War after hearing the very short interview. To me it was more important that Marvel is getting out there. They are not just sitting back and letting the message boards, blogs and the comic store owners spread the word about what is going on in their universe. They are out there pushing on their own. Showing that this story has some real world connections. Also something that is obvious but the fact that this is such a huge story but there is not a true villan in this story makes it even more interesting. In the end someone has to win and no matter what there will be people on both sides of this in the begining and I believe some of them like the characters in the story will change sides as things move on. It will be interesting to see how they end it and what "collateral damage" is done at the end. Things will change each month but I can't wait to see how the Marvel Universe looks in the end.