Series of Unfortunate Events. In more ways than one.

The next episode of the MAD Podcast will be discussing A Series of Unfortunate Events. The plan was to record today, but we've run into some... well, unfortunate events.

Sarita isn't going to be on because she hasn't read the books. Sarah is doing something today and can't record. Marshall, Deborah and I were just going to do the show with the three of us, but now Deborah can't record. Which means it would just be me and Marshall.

Now, we've done two shows in the past with only two hosts on them, and they've been quite successful. In fact, from some of the listener feedback we've been getting, they were two of our most well-liked episodes. But we're hesitant to do it again this time.

This episode will be discussing both the book series by Lemony Snicket and the movie starring Jim Carrey. We're really excited about this episode, because of the four MADers who have both read the books and watched the movie, two of us favor the movie and the other two favor the books. Unfortunately, as it worked out, Marshall and I both like the movie better. So the whole books-vs-movie discussion we had planned is going to be pretty flat if it's just the two of us discussing.

As such, we've decided to postpone recording until next weekend. This means that the episode will be delayed by another week, but we think it'll be worth it if we're able to have some conflicting view points.

Send in your thoughts about the Series of Unfortunate Events book series and/or movie to themadpodcast@gmail.com and we'll include your thoughts and ideas on the show.

We're BACK

Today Sarita, Deborah and I recorded Episode Nine (we've decided to consider the Twilight movie episode as a full episode). The show was about the musical 1776.

Unfortunately, Marshall wasn't with us due to technical difficulties, and Sarah had a scheduling conflict. Deborah, Sarita and I were all exhausted from partying on New Year's Eve (I got three hours of sleep. Ugh), so if we're repetitive on this one, just know our brains were NOT functioning normally. That being said, I think it went pretty well; we tried to be as energetic as we could, and there's an extended outro involving a lot of off-topic discussion (oops).

Look for Episode Nine on iTunes (and our official website, link in the sidebar) soon!

Aaand we're back

Today is December 1st - which means that NaNoWriMo is officially over.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, NaNoWriMo is a program during the month of November where you attempt to write 50,000 words in only 30 days (incidentally, I recommend this for anyone even vaguely interested in writing. To say the least, it is a real experience). I've been participating in NaNo for years, and this year was no different.

The problem with NaNo is that it kind of consumes your life, and so I apologize for the lack of blogging this past month, which Deborah pointed out in the last post - I was busy writing. (As a matter of interest, I will shamelessly brag to anyone who will listen that I managed 101,046 words, making me pwntastic).

But now that NaNo is over and December is here, things should get moving again pretty quickly. I'll be on the blog a bit more, for one. Also, for those of you who haven't checked your iTunes, Episode 7 (the one about Dr Horrible) was just released, so get to listening! And as always, send us your listener feedback.

We are planning on recording Episode Eight - about the musical 1776 (which is about the declaration of independence - I mean, come on. Awesome) sometime this weekend, and that will be edited and out within a week or two of recording, depending on how crazy school gets.

And check this out - you can expect super ginormous LOADS of bonus stuff coming from the MAD Podcast very shortly. Let's just say we're going to give you guys one heck of a Christmas present - we have several very important announcements to make.

Keep an eye on this blog, because I'm going to make the first of those announcements here very shortly. It's kind of long, though, and I have to get confirmation from the other MADers that we want to post about it now - but it should be out by the end of the week.

And... I'm not saying anything, but you might just see a Bonus episode of the show sometime in the near future. A very special Bonus episode.

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.


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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...

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!

Numero freakin' TRES, baby!

That's right! Break out your party hats and your confetti, people, because Episode Three of the MAD Podcast was released onto iTunes earlier today.

Episode Three: Viva la Violin features awesome discussion on Coldplay's latest album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, a song spotlight on Viva la Vida, and a spectacular BRAND NEW SEGMENT - a fantabulous commentary of the music video for Viva la Vida!

This episode was extremely fun to record. We got it done in record time - if you consider that Episode One took about seven hours to record, Episode Two took about three hours to record, and this episode took about one and a half hours, it looks like we're on a roll! Splitting our recording time in half with each new episode, we're becoming much better at churning out the audio without churning out the technical drama.

Speaking of technical stuff, I've just finished listening to the final, edited version of Episode Three, and I'm happy to say that our spectacular editor, Sarita, has really laid the smack-down on those audio problems. Expect this episode to sound much more crisp and professional, with each of the podcasters' audio at the same loudness. Yay! Sarita = awesome.

We certainly didn't reign in the fun on this episode, either. There's lots of joking around (but hopefully not excessively so. Remember, we rely on feedback from you listeners to help us gauge how much is too much and how much is just good fun! Tell us your thoughts at themadpodcast@gmail.com). There's also lots of... well, violins. Listen and you'll see what I mean. Deborah = awesome, too.

Thanks for listening!

Oh yeah! Update to end all updates!

This picture was taken on August 18th, 2008:

Well, actually I scanned my dry-erase board, and it's kind of crooked but I really don't want to have to scan it again.

There are two things that you will notice about this dry erase board. The first is the giant, demonic red number seven. That was the number of days until school started as of yesterday (I'm running a Countdown to Doom. I have four dry erase boards in my room, one on each wall, and they are all currently bearing horned number sixes, which is actually a bit disturbing.)

The other thing you will notice is the little reminder I wrote to myself, in my horrendous handwriting.

WE RECORDED YESTERDAY!!!!

If you went and checked out our new official website at http://themadpodcast.libsyn.com/ (I've just put a link to it in the sidebar as well), you already know that because of last minute problems we changed the subject of this show's discussion from "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" by Mark Haddon to Coldplay's new album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. (Don't worry, the TCIOTDITNT episode will appear some time in the future) The episode should be released later this week (weekend, possibly Friday). I'm sending my audio files to Sarita as I write this post.

The episode will be shorter than our usual ones, and certainly shorter than our Special Edition Twilight podcast. However, we did manage to get in some pretty good discussion. Aside from the main discussion, you'll also be listening to a Spotlight segment, plus you'll be introduced to a brand new segment! It's so awesome I don't want to spoil it here, but after the episode is released I might talk more about it. There's also a new Listener Challenge.

Now that you've got all the good news, here's the downside: this week we're missing one of our fabulous co-hosts. Sarah has been abducted by marching band and won't be appearing on this episode. However, she WILL be coming back soon, so don't worry!

And as if all of that wasn't enough of a huge update, we've also decided officially on the topic of our next two shows. Episode Four will discuss "The Dark Knight" (the new Batman movie) and Episode Five will discuss "Breaking Dawn" by Stephenie Meyer, as a followup to our Twilight Special Edition (beware: spoilers will abound!) There was a whole lot of confusion about what we were going to discuss after Episodes One and Two, hence all the last minute changes, but this time we've got things more securely under control and you should be able to count on Episodes Four and Five being on those topics.

The winner of last episode's Listener Challenge has been decided. We forgot to mention it on the show, but each episode we'll anounce the winner (we did remember to do that part, at least!), and then we will post their entry on both this site and the official libsyn site (link in the sidebar). However, since Episode Three hasn't come out yet I'll hold up on posting the entry... When the episode is released, we'll reveal the name of the winner on both sites and post the entry for all to see.

Phew! How was that for an update? I'll get back to you with some recording stories and behind-the-scenes bonus features; right now I'm trying to decide how much to reveal here before the episode is released. I'll probably come back with some tantalizing hints, for now. Until then,

-Staci

MADers on the move: yay!

Brace yourselves, listeners: you are about to be smacked in the proverbial face with a truck-load of awesome.

Today we recorded!

The plan, of course, was to record both the Prince Caspian episode and our special extended-edition Twilight episode, and then spend the rest of the week editing them so we could get both out before August 2nd. Unfortunately, we were faced with literally every possible technical difficulty on the planet, and - needless to say - that didn't happen.

However, we successfully recorded ALL of the audio for our premiere, Prince Caspian episode. As I write this my audio is being sent to our fabulous podcaster and super awesome editor, Sarita. Deborah's has already been sent, and, against all odds, things are getting done!

We recorded for about seven and a half hours today just to get the hour and a half of Prince Caspian audio, so we're all kind of drained. We also managed to record a 20 minute rant fest about our technical difficulties, which you can look for in an upcoming mini-episode. Since our priority is to get Caspian and Twilight out, the minisode won't come out until afterward, but it's pretty funny. Keep in mind that we were VERY frustrated.

More good news: recording for the extended, special edition Twilight episode is scheduled for 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, so we should be able to have that episode out before Breaking Dawn is released. Hooray!

Ack, my throat is really sore from seven hours of recording.

Hurrah, movement!

You will be happy to hear that, finally, things are getting done!

Sarita and Sarah are both back from vacation, which means that recording is made possible. Last minute planning is underway, and literally minutes ago Deborah and I were constructing an outline for our first main discussion.

Marshall needs to get her mic fixed and Deborah and Sarita are going to watch "Prince Caspian" again as a refresher, but recording is scheduled for Friday. We're going to do a recording marathon and record the first two episodes.

We have officially made a decision concerning how we will be discussing the "Twilight" series. As August 2nd is just around the corner, we are going to release a Special Edition, super-long episode discussing "Twilight", "New Moon" and "Eclipse", with speculation for the upcoming "Breaking Dawn". With any luck, we will be able to edit and release this episode around the same time as our premiere "Prince Caspian" episode is released.

This, obviously, causes significant changes to the previously released recording schedule. We are still unsure what the next couple of episodes will discuss; however, "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay is still on our list of discussion topics, as well as "The Curious Incident..."

Once a more definitive recording schedule is created I will be sure to post it here.

Thanks again for your cooperation!

Sluggish

The MADers have been experiencing severe problems in recording.

Essentially, Sarita is on holiday in Conneticut and can't record. Sarah's entire summer is spent either visiting family in Michigan and heaven-only-knows-where-else, or at band camp. My uncle is visiting from Scotland and he's taken my room, which means I'm locked out of my recording studio.

The idea of the MAD Podcast has been up in the air for a very long time now. Planning started months ago, and we've recorded what is technically our first episode, discussing the movie "Across the Universe". But we recorded before we were really ready, and we experienced so many problems editing and transfering audio files that before we could really finish the episode, the school year was ending and Exams were upon us.

In the panicked haze of studying and the joyous celebrations that followed thereafter, the podcast was put on the back burner. We simply could not handle the MAD Podcast, not when we were so busy. So we laughed and shrugged it off and told ourselves that once summer came, we would have all the time in the world.

We'd forgotten about vacations.

Sarah, for one, is probably busier in the summer than in the school year - she's running all over the country visiting family and going to band camp. Sarita also goes on vacation, and I just got back from St Augustine, Florida. We thought that homework was bad for keeping us away from the podcast - but at least during the school year we're all in one place.

The work being done on the podcast currently is sparse. I've got the blog up and running, though the website is still under construction. We've decided not to release the "Across the Universe" episode, and we'll be saving it as a bonus feature for later. A lot of planning has been done about segments and how the discussion will be set up, and we've all gone out and watched "Prince Caspian", which will be the subject of our first episode, together. We've all read the first four books that the show will discuss. Nonetheless, no recording has been done.

The problem is that, since it's the first episode, we really need everyone to be on the show. After that, it won't matter if a few of us can't always make it to record, but it's important that we're all there in the beginning, to introduce ourselves. And because of this, we're having trouble.

So, to summarize the mood in the MAD Podcast Recording Studio: SLUGGISH.