Well, here it is! It’s alive!
As I wrote earlier today, "It will either be really cool, or the stupidest fucking thing in history, and I’ll proceed accordingly."
My initial feeling is that it falls somewhere in the middle: it’s
longer than I wanted, and it’s a little unfocused, but I’m willing to
allow myself the freedom to make as many mistakes as it takes to either
come up with something cool, or accept that I just don’t have what it
takes to make a podcast.
Observations on getting this thing from my brains to your ears: I
thought the recording would be very hard, but it was actually super
easy. I’ve tried in Audacity several times before, and it never wants
to work, so today I just followed the instructions from Apple for creating podcasts in Garageband,
and it was simple and easy. But holy shit the converting and the
uploading was so hard, I felt like I had no thumbs and an IQ of 24. I’m
sorry to report that this episode is only available in the stupid,
proprietary, Apple AAC format, but that’s the only format I could get
to upload (the .aiff file was over 300MB, and TypePad just wouldn’t let
me upload it. That was really annoying.)
So now I need to know what you, the audience, think. What would you
like more of? Less of? Is it too long? Is it too narrowly focused, or
not broad enough? Most importantly: when it was over, did you feel like
I earned your 30 minutes, or did you feel like you wasted your time?
Heh. The last time I felt this nervous about releasing something into the wild, it was the first version of Dancing Barefoot. This is both cool and scary.
Afterthought: I just realized that I stupidly recorded this thing in super-ultra-hyper-mega-stereo, when nifty-old-mono would have been just fine. The result is a ridiculously large file (71.8 MB) which I can only leave up for a few hours before I blow through all my bandwidth. I’ll see if I can convert the file I have to mono, and if not, look for Episode .05 to hit the airwaves in the next 48 hours. Yeah, I am really a moran. iTunes won’t let me convert it to mp3, and Audacity won’t even open it. So this file will stay up until about 8:00 PM Pacific time, when I’ll have to take it down. If someone wants to mirror the file, go nuts. Gods, I am sofa king stupid. I blame my nervousness for this ultrarookie error. When you mock, please mock me gently.
AfterthoughtAfterthought: I owe Shane Nickerson a huge debt of gratitude, because he pointed out to me my stupid mistake. I’ll reveal my shame a bit later on. In the meantime, here is a .mp3 file, which is much smaller: "only" 27.3MB:
Download radio_free_burrito_episode_zero.mp3
Oh boy! Several Mirrors!
Mirror one, from WWdN:iX reader buford: radio_free_burrito_episode_zero.mp3
Mirror two, from my friend Kathleen: radio_free_burrito_episode_zero.mp3
Mirror three, from WWdN:iX reader UglyRedHonda: Unauthorized low-bandwidth-friendly re-encoding
And the coolest of them all . . . a .torrent. Man, do I feel like I’ve arrived now! Thanks, Brian! 🙂
Wil,
That was friggin’ awesome. I agree with one of the previous comments – once you got into storytelling mode, you were off to the races. Your enthusiasm really shone through. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Home run, bro.
About the length: I had no problem with the length (no, you weren’t rambling), but as someone who (for reasons which are WAY too long to go into here) still only has a dial-up connection, Thank God for UglyRedHonda’s low-bandwidth recoding. That would really be a boon to those of us stuck in dial-up.
Keep it up, Wil. You’re doing great.
~Rob Chambers,
Los Angeleno currently in exile in Dallas, TX
One of the dlls that come with audiograbber helped my audacity to convert large wav files to MP3 files. Pretty easy to copy from one folder to another. And easy to figure out which folder to copy to.
I realize you have recorded it to audio file, but is there typed conversation? Because I’m deaf and I would like to be able to read the whole 30 mins on radio. Can anyone else help ? I would appericate it.
This? was awesome! You could have kept going as far as I am concerned, the 29:48 flew. Your voice was made for this…please keep them coming.
Wow…could you possibly have more of a “radio voice?” I predict that this will lead to a paycheck-generating formailization (is that a word?) of RFB. This exceeded my expectations, by alot. I laughed and I cried. It was better than Cats®. I’ll listen again and again.
Well done.
Love it! I’ll echo everyone else and tell you that you have a great radio voice. In addition to having a great radio voice, you also have been able to transfer your voice to text so well over the years that it felt like I was reading a bunch of WWdN entries rather than listening to some podcast, even with all the f*ckups. Keep on ‘casting! At least until the new year. I’ll be getting an iPod for Christmas. 😉
Iceriver:
It’s not perfect (missing/bad punctuation), but here’s a transcript:
http://roach.wordpress.com/2005/12/03/ radio-free-burrito-episode-zero-transcript/
Michael
Hi Wil! I just signed up for account to post comments, mainly because I felt like I had something to say finally. I’ve been lurking around since the original first incarnation of your site.
Anyways, I just wanted to put in my own $0.02 on the podcast, although it will echo most of the sentiment on here already. I thought it was brilliant. You do have a strong voice for radio and those 29 minutes went by so fast I felt like I wasn’t getting enough. You do have a gift for storytelling, be it in long prose, on stage, your blog, or in podcasts.
Hope I didn’t come off as some kind of slobbering fanboy. Good luck on your future endeavors and keep doing the podcasts! I’ll keep downloading them and listening.
Nice first podcast, Wil. You did good.
Nearly 20 years ago, I used to watch you on STNG with my church’s high school youth group (who were probably just a tad younger than you at the time). Now after 20 years, I’ve been catching up on what’s been going on in your life. Great story. I think you sharing your life via blog and now podcast, the good and bad, is fantastic.
I’m about to launch my own podcast documenting being a dot-com CEO and then rebuilding from scratch. Sounds lame, hopefully it’ll be more than that. http://www.weav.fm
Take care and best wishes.
– eric
RFB:0 = Brilliant! If that was a P.O.C. episode, I’d say concept proven with gusto!
Really enjoyed listening to the podcast. I look forward to the next one. 🙂
Wil,
As a radio broadcaster for over 35 years, I can tell that you have a natural talent for this. Being a successful actor doesn’t mean that you can communicate in a radio/podcast format, but you did an excellent job in your first effort. I really enjoyed the “Slinky” stuff. I’m 57 and remember the commercial and the product vividly, since I had one of the original copper ones. I had to save up from my 50 cent a week allowance for one and had it until I moved out of my parents house in my 20’s. One suggestion, keep it as fun and lighthearted as this first one. The Acme sketch is a great idea, and I’d really love to hear you talk with Anne on the cast.
Well done. Keep it up.
FABULOUS podcast!!!
I like the half hour length. Don’t get too short.
You ROCK!!!
Great Podcast! Love all of it. Hey do you want any cool music for the show. I can send you some of my own mp3’s of my band. Legendary Ausstralian Ska band, The Seen. Dont worry I am the copyright owner. I give you complete permission to use it for podcasts. Let me know. [email protected]
I absolutely loved this! You make it just too easy to get distracted from work!
I also really like your voice. I was a HUGE Star Trek fan when I was little and totally in love with you 😉 but until now I only knew your german dubbing voice.
I will absolutely tune in to every ep from now on, thanks for the great time!
Wil,
I really enjoyed this. The half hour format is perfect! (But then, I have DSL. With dial up I guess it wouldn’t be so perfect.) You have a very personable, storytelling voice. It’s why I always looked forward to your audioblogging.
I would love to pimp my sites during subject pauses.
Wil,
really really enjoyewd the podcast, and hope its gonna be the first of many!
How great, Wil! I really enjoyed it. I even LOL’ed a couple times! The length was perfect. It didn’t seem too long because it was all interesting… there weren’t any moments where you were just filling time. I think if you cut it shorter you wouldn’t get to talk about some things you probably really wanted to get in, and if you tried to get them in it would just seem rushed. As for WHAT you should talk about, I think that should be left up to you. For years I’ve enjoyed reading your blog, even when its about poker (which I’m not into), because of the way you tell the stories. You make them interesting, which will make the podcast interesting. I did really like the question and answer stuff. I’m going to have to think of a question or two for you! I’ll be looking forward to the next episode!
wow!
That was amazing!
Like everyone else said, I think the podcast is an amazing experience and I can’t wait till your next installment.
Also, the slinky song is AMAZING! I keep going back to it and playing it over and over again. 🙂
Thanks! 😀
psst: Give me more!!!
Just another comment to say that I loved hearing this! It went by really fast, and was very interesting. Can’t wait for your next one! =]
Hey, Wil,
Great to hear you instead of just read you. Good podcast, fun concept.
For hosting, try http://libsyn.com. They’re cheap, and have no bandwidth caps.
Keep on ‘casting!
Rob
–Rob LeFebvre
http://theancpodcast.blogspot.com
[email protected]
Wil,
Ever since I listened to the audio version of Just A Geek I was hoping that you would jump onto the podcast bandwagon soon!
BTW, I had already read JAG but when I heard that you were doing the audio for it and adding extra stuff I had to have that too, and your reading was so good it didn’t matter that I’d already read the book. 🙂
As to the length that your podcasts should be, I listen at work so the longer the better. I’m thinking that about 6 hours each should be good. *grin*
I’ll be looking forward to the next episode of RFB!
~Sharon
one of the TWiT 3%!
ScreenCastsOnline, that show is how to podcast with a mac. Thought it might be useful, and make it a bit less painful. I can’t wait to listen to the result.
Thanks!
Wil,
Definitely don’t edit. We get a lot more of your innate sense of humor coming through that way. It makes you even more loveable.
God…slobbering fangirl…
Keep it real, man!
“That makes two stupid..three stupid fourstupidfivestupid MANY stupid things…”
You are AWESOME. I’m so looking forward to the next episode.
Blah, I suck. I listened to that part like 4 times and I still quoted it wrong.
I wanted to say thanks for telling us about Mike Doughty. I was a huge Soul Coughing fan back in the day and wondered what happened to them. Now I know.
Downloading his albums from iTunes at the moment while listening to Radio Burrito Episode 1.
Tiny Radio Free Podcasts
I absolutely loved the podcast! Please don’t limit the time to 10 minutes….30 min. was perfect.
I loved it!! The length is good, I don’t want it shorter. I have to go listen to Episode One! Great idea Wil.
Love the podcast Wil! Don’t worry about the length. As been said before, pick a topic and go with it.
From the Basement #2
028_from_the_basement_0002.mp3 – 14MB – 39:41 As always, thanks for stopping by. It’s a full show of rambling from the basement today. I hope you enjoy. – Intro – music from Rose’s show – Dawn and Drew gift exchange: from Asians…
Wil,
Loved the podcast! You should absolutely keep it up. And I think thirty minutes is the perfect amount. I listen to fireflytalk which is usually about an hour long, so don’t worry about time. I’ll definately be looking to see when I can download episode one. I got really excited for you when you had your great day and being from Wilmington, NC (lots of stuff is filmed here) I meet a lot of actors and actresses but I think I might go all drooly fangirl if I met Sean Maher too…or anyone Firefly related. Keep it up!
Ensign Crusher, set phasers to “All In”!
(Alternate title: OMG, Wil Wheaton blogs and plays poker online!) Wil Wheaton, who most people know as either Gordie in Stand By Me (IMDb) or Wesley Crusher on Star Trek, has long since left those roles behind. These days, he’s…