Echoes, Nathan P Butler

Kia ora

Yesterday I started and finished the Podcast novel Echoes by Nathan P Butler.StarWars fandom will be aware of who Nathan Butler is as he appears to be active in the star wars fan space. I think this is his first Podcast Novel. The plot is basically a detective story,

• girl found dead in a bath
• girl is the girlfriend of a US senator
• absolutely no clues at the murder scene
• a ” deep throat ” character
• homeland security are involved
• prime suspect is dead!

Its a bit of a stretch to call it a novel its more of a novella. It was hard to warm to the characters as the character development was not detailed enough. As a podcast novel one frustration was that each individual podcast was too short. 20 episodes some only 5 – 8 minutes long. My personal preference is 25 to 35 minute episodes. At times it felt I was listening to more intro and outro than story.

On the positive side, I did enjoy the story and the twist at about two thirds through was enough to re energise my interest, and its a twist that was well executed, was not telegraphed and turned this detective story into something completely different.

As part of the closedown the author states that there will be more books in the series and that really interested me. Taking note of the fact this was podcast in 2006 I was disappointed to see that the promised book wasn’t produced and that there was no website to keep up to date with news. Perhaps the dark force has captured Nathan.

iPod for Spoken Word as well as/not Music

Kia ora

It seems like I have had an MP3 player for ever, but in reality that’s not true. Years and years ago I have a very small capacity MP3 player, it was so primitive,it used SD cards as memory. Most nights I used to plug the card into the PC and if I was lucky download an album onto the card. An album was about the limit as the card was only 512.

Next came the iPod but only after son #1 had tried it out first. I went for the big one and got a 20GB that would be well enough. Currently I am struggling with 60GB and will at some stage in the future switch to the 120GB or bigger if they have one. Which raises an interesting side issue, why does the big one come in only two colours, I would love a 120GB RED one.

Somewhere along the journey I switched from Musicmatch to iTunes. Until this past two weeks that had seemed like a great idea, and in reality it still is.

When I got my iPod it was just for music, I hadn’t even thought about Audiobooks, Radio, Podiobooks, Podcasts. I didn’t even conceive of there existence. How things have changed, when I get home from work I start iTunes up and most days about 10 podcasts will download. More than I can ever listen to, but I am hopeless at culling! Last year I said I would never have more than 600 podcasts on the system waiting, then I increased the limit to 1000, currently I have 1200 waiting. Apparently it will take me 24.96 days to listen to the lot and in that time about another 200 will come in, that’s if I don’t subscribe to more!

Looking at the stats on iTunes i have

• Podcasts 24.96 days outstanding
• Music 49.58 days outstanding
• Video/Movie 2 days outstanding

On the positive side of this I very rarely watch TV anymore, thats not hard as there is **** all on these days.

I am stunned by the range and quality of content available to stick onto your iPod. Four of the podcasts I currently have on my iPod are

• 5 Live daily – Daily Football podcast (BBC) http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/fivelive/5lfd/rss.xml
• 65 Below – Podiobook by Basil Sands, really enjoying it. http://www.basilsands.com/ 
• Crimewave.com – Noir Crime Stories – http://crimewav.com/
• The Archers – BBC Rural soap – http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers/index.shtml

That’s only four of the podcasts currently being listened to!  As mentioned previously

• 5 Live is a daily football update, sharp and snappy about 20 minutes of news and views. 
• 65 Below is an action thriller podiobook based in Alaska, I have really enjoyed it. I will give a brief update / review later in the week.
• Crimewav is a weekly podcast and the stories are crime in nature and often has a noir feel to them. Stories are usually about 30mins which is great timing for me regarding travelling time.
• The Archers, I love my daily rural soap.

Dave A

2008-10-18 Football Podcasts

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You will have gathered by now that i am a Liverpool FC fan, simply the best football / sports team in the world. Being about as far from Liverpool as it is possible to get on the planet, the internet plays a core role in my support of Liverpool and the sport in general.

From a community perspective I am (and have been for years) a member of Koptalk.

• http://www.koptalk.co.uk

The site has its critics, and like all forums has some real idiots on it, but hey why should that stop me. Its where I go and it does for me.

From a podcast perspective there are 3 / 4 that I listen to

5 Live – From the BBC. 1 have subscribed to the 5 Live Daily podcast. This is daily except Saturday, which in itself is strange as that is the day when you get and need general football news. 5 live is usually around 30 mins and as such is a good listen as I wander into work. Of all the football podcasts I subscribe to this is probably the most serious. ) Well it is the BBC.

Football Weekly Extra – Usually about 35 mins and hosted by Jmaes Richardson. This is a twice weekly podcast, a format that allows it to preview the next weekends game and look back on the last weekends game, although informataive there is a tongue in cheeks aspect to the podcast. Although there is no love for Liverpool its good entertainment. You will find the podcast as part of The Guardians stable of podcasts. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk )

Koptalk.com – Koptalk has an irregular podcast, it is no scripted has low production values, and is Liverpool from a fans (fanatics ) perspective. Definitely not politically correct but a bloody good listen.

Yellow Fever – ( http://www.yellowfever.co.nz ; ) . This is the podcast from the fans site for the Wellington Phoenix. Wellingtons team in the A-League. Its a fans site, and a fan driven podcast (hosted by a professional broadcaster ). Great fun and worth the time.

Anyway that’s all for now.

Dave A

2008-10-16 Mid Week Internationals, Podcast Review

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Yesterday I was saying I didn’t give a toss about England and here I am all chuffed because England have won, that’s 12points after 4 games, best start to a world cup campaign since 1970 I think. The good news is that Gerrard scored a goal. England won 3-1, and all the England goals had their genesis in Liverpool city. Gerrard and Rooney (2). Rooney is not a bad player even though he plays for the scum. I have just watched the goals on You Tube all good, but the Rooney goal for number 3 is class.

We can forget about the Internationals and concentrate on the EPL the proper stuff. We are all waiting to see what the injury toll of the games is, rumour would have it that Babbel, Torres and Keanne are injured following their games for Netherlands, Spain and Ireland. Lets hope not, an injury list like that will dent our Premier league hopes.

I’m still busy fixing up iTunes, I am up to the “R’s” now, next playlist to be reconstructed is Rory Gallagher. My next problem will be to try and sort out how the data is organised in folders, I seem to have a hell of a lot in “compilations”, I’ll bet there is something I have to change somewhere. Then it will be a case of moving it all around without causing the grief I am going through now.

 

One Planet- I started this gig with the intention of writing, talking about some podcasts. I have just finished listening to a fantastic series of four programmes about migration, the migratory paths and the problems these animals have.

The BBC has a stunning website with so much free and fantastic information and content. To find one planet head to www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice then look under Podcasts. One planet is an environmental broadcast. The 4 broadcasts on migration are hosted by Brett Westwood. The four subjects are

• The Monarch Butterfly
• European bird migration
• Elephant
• Greenland White Fronted Goose

This was a stunning series, I was amazed to find out that since 1994 nearly 80% of European migratory birds have died. The way we are changing the planet is affecting migration. One irony is that one bird that in some places is on the endangered list (Canada Goose) is now causing huge problems for the Greenland White Fronted Goose. Mans intervention with the Canada Goose has caused the Greenland Goose to decline to way past endangered.

Anyway the monkey is off my back I have at last reviewed podcast. More to follow I am sure

Dave A

Kia ora

Kia ora

Hopefully I have this thing sorted, I was told it was intuitive, well not so intuitive that I haven’t gotten lost occasionally.  I’ll just make sure this is sorted then I’ll have to find something useful to say.

My name is Dave and I was born and dragged up in Liverpool, England. Home of the greatest football club in the world.  I am a child of the 50′s being born in 56, and my musical tastes certainly reflect being around in the 60′s and 70′s. I moved out to Wellington, Aoteroa. I have been married for over 30 years (to the same person) and have two adult boys (20 & 16).

This blog is not going to be diary, although there could be elements of that in here. The intention is to chat about books read, music listened too and in particular ” new media” .

Catch you all soon

Dave