Pongo!

Deborah here. I meant to send a picture of my dog to Staci so she could post it, but I forgot. So, thank goodness she made me an author, I'm posting a picture to make up for passing on my middle name.

Best. Dog. Ever.

Now yes, about 5,000 people are going to contradict me and say, "No my dog is the best dog ever!", but seriously. Look at that face.

Favorite color, Middle name, Pets

It's the first Ask the MADers response post! Thanks to Dave (of course) for sending in the following questions.

What's your favorite color?

Deborah: "Light blue has been my favorite color since...ever, but now I'm getting a bit tired of it. So now it's moved to light/medium green. And kind of purple. And also light orange.
Staci: Blue or green, the debate has been going on for years and I'm no closer to telling you which is my favorite.
Marshall: Yellow.
Sarah: ALL, but purple if she has to chose.
Sarita: Green, definitely.

What's your middle name?

Deborah: "I don't particularly like my middle name, so...pass?"
Staci: Margaret
Marshall: Claire
Sarah: Elizabeth
Sarita: "My middle names are Elizabeth and Mangalam."

Do you have any pets?

Deborah: "Pongo! (Australian Shepherd/Spitz mix.)"
Staci: Tuxedo kitty (yay) named Reagan, a guinea pig named Vinny, assorted fish.
Marshall: Beagapoo (Beagle/poodle) named Scoop, two cats named Boris and Stormy Llewelyn [This is Staci's experimental spelling of Llewelyn. It may not be correct] and several goldfish
Sarah: "Mischief, a mix with border collie, and like 30 fish (in my super large 300 gallon aquarium)"
Sarita: "Boots, a dog, a Labrador Retriever mix (maybe with hound?) and some fish( their names change randomly)"

Remember to leave us your questions in the comments!

Skype Us!

Good news: we've opened up yet another way of communicating with the MAD Podcast hosts. You can now Skype the username themadpodcast and leave us a message.

Another piece of unrelated news: The Ask the MADers segment is still going to be running, but unfortunately I'm still trying to collect the info from all our MADers. Right now I just need to find out Marshall's favorite color (sorry, I keep forgetting to ask) and then I'll post a response. Remember, we encourage listeners to start their own Ask the Listeners segments on their own blogs!

Ask the MADers

Bells are ringing and choirs are singing, there's a brand new bonus feature coming to this Behind-the-Scenes Blog!!

I'm introducing the 'Ask the MADers' feature to this blog. If you have a question for the MADers - any question at all (within reason and appropriate, obviously) - just post it in the comments and we'll all give you our answer. Favorite color? Favorite movie? Want our opinion on something? Ask away.

Comments are enabled so that anyone, even if they don't have a blog, can post, so don't worry if you're not a blogger.

Also, we'd really love to see a MAD Podcast community out there on blogger - so if you do have a blog and you're a MAD Podcast fan, answer the questions right along with us.

You can ask a question for a specific MADer, or to all of us.

Start asking those questions!

Listener Challenge....Kind-Of Winner

Hey everyone! Deborah updating again. Now that episode 4 has been released, we can now announce episode 3's Listener Challenge...Attempter? The challenge was to send in what song the intro to "Reign of Love" sounded like, and we didn't exactly have a clear winner. The best one, however, was Dave from Maryland's entry. He wrote:

Ummm...I'm not sure. Deborah mentioned something about 'Notting Hill' when she was talking about it in the episode so I actually went on youtube and searched the songs from the soundtrack...but none of the songs sound much like Reign of Love, sorry."

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Dave youtubed all the songs from Notting Hill to see if they sound like the song. So, although he didn't come up with a song, it was pretty awesome that he did that. So Dave, I dub you the Listener Challenge Attempt Winner...thing.

Remember, episode 4's Challenge is to dress up as a character from the Dark Knight, take a picture, and email it to us. Or to just email us. Or to spread the word about our podcast. Lots of options for everyone! Our email address is themadpodcast@gmail.com. So just open up your email, type in that address, and write to us!

-Deborah


EDIT FROM STACI:
It should be mentioned that Dave also added:

"but i DID listen to the full song, the coldplay one, to try and see if it reminded ME of anything but it doesnt. um... does it help if i think that he sounds a lot like dave matthews in the song?"

Which is a good attempt at guessing what Deborah was thinking. Good job Dave! And, as Deborah said, everybody else remember to email in their own submissions!

Among other problems

Soooo....

I was just nipping over here to put up a quick post (seeing as recording for Episode Four is now complete) when I realized that Deborah had aleady done it! Wooohooo! Heavens above, I knew it was a good idea to add more writers to the blogging team!

You may be wondering, however, why I - I, the obsessive blogger - wasn't there to make this post the moment it was necessary. Why I didn't write it on the day of the recording (Saturday, as it so happens).

Yeah, about that.

We finally recorded the show, but it comes with a snag. We got Sarah back (hooray), but, just in time for recording, I caught a reaaally bad stomach virus and there was NO way I could record. Never fear, our other four fabulous hosts and their dazzling immune systems were there to save the day, and our Dark Knight episode will be coming out soon - sans-Staci and thereby minus a lot of interruptions and rambling (sorry about that).

Don't get too used to it. I'll be back next episode, when we'll be discussing Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, and oh-what-an-episode-it-will-be.

Oo, by the way -- I've heard good things about this Dark Knight episode.


------------------
EDIT: Erm, by the way... Whenever it says "posted by toss the apple" on the bottom of a post, that's referring to Deborah. I know she said it in the post, but just in case you were wondering...

Audacity Troubles

Hi all, this is Deborah updating. You probably noticed on our last episode that my end was staticy. That, my friends, was due to Audacity (our recording program). My microphone would be off and it would record static. I have no idea how it started, since it was perfect the first two shows. Then suddenly, you can't stop the white noise. We recorded yesterday (hooray!!!) and my voice was accompanied by, of course, static. Talk about frustration. I decided to uninstall my Audacity and reinstall it after I sent my files to Sarita. Files sent, I uninstalled it then put it back on. I tried recording with my microphone off to see if it still recorded static.

It did.

*Insert frustrated scream here*

So I tried restarting my computer and recording. Still static. Then I start to play around with it, searching in the dinky little help menu and exploring different effects. Then I see a switch called "Output level". I move the little slidy thingy (despite running a podcast, I'm not good with computer terms) and try recording,

Eureka! The static was gone!

Then I try recording my voice. My voice did not record.

Now before you say "You forgot to turn your microphone on, dummy!" let me just say that I am not that slow. My voice did not record while my microhone was on.

Shoot.

Cue the beginnings of panic mode. I move the little slidy thingy up and down again. I move it to its original position. I move it to the opposite end of its original position. Still no voice is being recorded.

Then I remember, when I first downloaded Audacity, it had the recording device set as my nonexistent Microsoft Default Device. I rush to the menu and click on "Preferences." There, right in the middle of the screen, is the recording device setting, set as the nonexistent default. I turn it to my mic. I press record.

My voice recorded.

Without static.

Whoooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, that's all :)

Deborah

Pitiful attempt to make up for delays

What with all the horrendous delays and mishaps going on around the MAD Podcast studios, I thought I'd post a little bit of bonus content to help tide you over. The following is a Skype chat between Deborah and myself about the show. Keeping in with the oh-crap-delays theme, we're trying to figure out when to record:


Deborah: do you know if we're recording today?

Staci C: i hope not b/c if so i probably can't

Deborah: I don't think anyone can...
I *might* be able to, Sarita probably can't, and I haven't heard from Sarah or Marshall
so...another delay

Staci C: yay

Deborah: whooooo
*cough*

Staci C: sigh. oh well

Deborah: yeah
maybe we could do like, a really quick recording during a school day?
that wouldn't be great quality, though
and, you know, homework

Staci C: ermmm... maybe. i doubt it. this week i'm doing two HUGE lab write-ups

Deborah: ick
I have writer's block for my research paper, hence my availability to talk
and I can't find any legit sources with enough information

Staci C: im trying to do calculus

Deborah: ew
okay, let's aim for this friday to record, and we'll split up the editing and try to have it out by Sunday
and put emphasis on "try"

Staci C: good luck on friday, sarah's got marching band

Deborah: GAH
is it like, every single friday?

Staci C: for like ages yeah

Deborah: gahhhhhhhh
okay, i have to go back to writing
we'll discuss this with the group tomorrow


See what I mean? Loooooadds of delays.

Oh, sweet rantfest

I have a word for you. A word that describes the MAD Podcast's current situation. It's a fun word. Can you guess the word?

DELAYS.

Holy freaking crap, it is HARD to read "The Crucible", study Calculus, write up a lab report and record a podcast at the same time. I do not recommend that you try it.

School is slowly eating our souls (well, I suppose I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure the other MADers would agree) and Sarah can't reach for her microphone without the marching band people kidnapping her, so finding time to record is veeeerry difficult right now. Don't worry; this IS just a delay, I promise -- even if it's like the third delay in a row. We will find the time to get this show out, it's just going to take a while. Let us say that the world is OUT TO GET US. It is not our fault. Some external force is clearly trying to stop us.

I'll stop complaining now, I guess. I just wanted to let you all know what was going on (even if that's pretty much nothing). We can't thank you enough for being patient with us while we try to get the ball rolling. Remember -- this is all new to us. We haven't had to juggle the podcast and school before, so it's going to take us a while to work out a system, but things should smooth out sooner or later.

We apologize for the delays!

Nyeagh. Delays?

As you will know if you listened to Episode Three, "Viva la Violin," the next piece of media we will be discussing on the show will be the movie, "The Dark Knight". On the show, we also mentioned that this podcast will be bi-weekly -- which means that that episode is due out this weekend, right?

Well, school just started back up for all of the MADers and, up to the neck in essays and tests as we are, we've been having a bit of trouble fitting the podcast in. Don't worry - I'm not here to tell you that we'll be making it a monthly podcast. The bi-weekly shedule should still be in place, but you'll have to give us a few weeks to get back into the rhythm of school work and work out how to fit the podcast around that.

The five of us all went to see the movie together on Monday. That was the earliest we could schedule it, since we've all been so busy lately - and that means that the earliest we can RECORD will be this weekend. But of course, it takes hours to send audio files to Sarita, and then she has to edit. So... Don't be surprised if things are a little delayed this week.

The good news is that I can guarantee that this time we WILL be discussing what we said we'd discuss! Also, remember to start reading "Breaking Dawn" by Stephenie Meyer while you're waiting, as that will be the topic of Episode Five.