Podcasts I love: Pseudopod

Posted on By Wil

Here's something that you probably don't know about me: Ever since I was a kid listening to KROQ on my Walkman[1] I've wanted to have my own radio show. The idea of playing music for and talking to people across the airwaves remains a dream of mine, and it's why I occasionally do my own Radio Free Burrito podcasts.

I remember when Podcasting was just getting started, back in those 8-bit days when we all thought that our digital watches were a pretty neat idea. I remember feeling really excited about the opportunity to create my own radio show, and gleeful that I lived in the future where that sort of thing was possible.

I don't produce nearly as many podcasts as I want to, but I listen to a bunch, and every day this week I'm going to share one of my favorites with you.

Today's entry is something I love, that probably wouldn't be able to exist in any other medium at any other time: Pseudopod.

Pseudopod "brings you the best short horror in audio form, to take with you anywhere" and it's pretty damn awesome. Every week, they release a new short story, entirely for free. The stories hit way more often than they miss (and that's really just because of personal tastes; the readers are all fantastic and the writing is always very, very good) and they range from short, 10-minute distractions to 45-minute journeys to Places Man Was Not Meant To Go.

Some of the stories are very disturbing — this is horror, after all — but I have yet to hear one that's gory for gore's sake, or disturbing for the sake of being disturbing. Some of them, like Clockwork, aren't even scary; they're just cool.

One of my all-time favorites was released last August. It's considered flash, so it's just 8 minutes long, but not a single moment is wasted in a story called Scarecrow, that was unexpectedly powerful and moving. Now that I think of it, that was the story that convinced me to add a Pseudopod subscription to iTunes, so maybe it's a good place for you to start if you're curious.

As I said above, I don't think Pseudopod could exist at any other time, and it showcases something I love about Podcasting, blogging, and other forms of new media: while Pseudopod would have a very hard time drawing enough listeners in one geographic location to maintain a not-in-the-middle-of-the-night slot on old terrestrial radio (not because it's not good, but just because there aren't that many people who want to listen to this sort of thing in a major market like Los Angeles, I'd guess) there are certainly enough people scattered across the planet to make up a huge audience that can support them and make their efforts worthwhile.

Yes, it's pretty awesome to live in the future.

Next time: embiggen your brain in just a minute.

[1] Imagine an iPod that plays cassette tapes and radio stations cloaked in static and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it was, kids.

there’s a preview of part one neil gaiman’s batman story online

Posted on By Wil

Did you know that Neil Gaiman wrote a two part Batman special? It’s called Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, and starts at issue 686. It’s coming out very soon, and .

I’m a life-long Batman fan, and I’ve been a Neil Gaiman fan since I read the first issue of Sandman the day it went on sale. American Gods remains one of my all-time favorite books, and I loved Coraline so much, I devoured it in about 3 hours, pausing only when stupid real life demanded my interaction.

I sort of know Neil, since he wrote the introduction to my book Just A Geek, so last week he sent me a preview of the first part of his two-parter. (via a DM on Twitter. I know, right?! I love living in the future.)

I can’t get into any specifics, but I can say that it has the same “wow, this is just phenomenal” feeling as Killing Joke or The Man Who Laughs. Andy Kubert’s art is brilliant and Neil’s story and dialog are fantastic. Speaking as a fan of Neil’s work and a Batman fan, it was very satisfying, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the second part.

this is probably the closest i’ll ever come to having something in common with stephen colbert

Posted on By Wil

Operation Crazy Awesome Idea is nearing the “Time to find out if this is crazy awesome or just crazy,” moment of truth, so that’s where I’m sort of living at the moment. I also have a writing deadline in two hours, so I’m trying not to run around my office waving my hands over my head and screaming like I’m on fire.

Um. Not that I have any personal experience in running around offices while set on fire and — I’ve said too much.

So, while I work on these projects, please enjoy…

Let the Colbertification Begin!
This is one of those things that I should have thought of on my own, but was actually suggested by a whole bunch of different people on Twitter and here in comments. As always, you can click to embiggen at Flickr.
Stats say there are like … an insane number of first-time visitors lately. If you’re one of them (thanks for coming by!) and you want to know what this is all about, you can check out evil and awesome (but mostly awesome) which tells the story of the Infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher, and in which my already nerdy office gets a little bit nerdier, which tells the story of the paint by numbers version of the photo of me holding the Infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher.

Phoenix Comicon Rock Band Video Roundup

Posted on By Wil

Crazy ideas that may or may not be crazy are taking up pretty much all of my free time this week, so my Phoenix Comicon trip report will have to wait until Monday, but since I promised to deliver a Rock Band roundup before the end of this week, here we go.

First up is Karen B., seriously rocking to You Oughta Know. Funny story about this: right before we started playing this song, I said to her, “You know, you have to sing ‘thinking of me when you fuck her,’ even though it’s going to say something like ‘think of me when you carebears’ on the lyrics.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said, clearly uncertain about using the potty mouth.

“I will totally take all the wrath if anyone gives you shit for it,” I said. “Trust me, you have to do it.”

“Okay,” she said.

When the appropriate moment arrived in the song, she belted the FUCK out of that lyric, and I peed a little. Awesome.

Next, we have a little story that I told the kids after struggling through Give It Away, which is totally not a “1” on the Drums, contrary to what the game claims:

THE BEAT, WE HAZ IT!:


Tararebeka shared this picture of me pretending to be cool at the end of the night:

And this picture of me not even trying to hide what a total dork I am just before I pretend to be cool:


Check out Joe’s awesome rock face and stance behind me! FTW, Joe. F.T.W.
You may want to check out Tararebeka’s Phoenix Comicon Rockband photoset, especially if you’re me and you had so much fun that you want to remember what it was like. If you were there, and want to tag yourself, that would be awesome.
Okay, next we have another angle on the now-legen…wait for it…dary Livin’ on a Prayer:

I find it moderately ironic and exceptionally funny that the song I really didn’t want to do ended up being the one that’s viewed the most times, and is actually my best performance of the night. Now I’m stuck with it. Damn you, Bon Jovi. (Not really. Call me. Mean it!)

Here’s a short clip that Ken from XCast put up. It gives you an idea of how much fun we were having, even when we weren’t getting the rock on:

Here were are nearing the end of the evening. If you ever wanted to: 1) Hear me make a Star Trek joke about an Offspring Song or 2) watch a bunch of guys dressed up as EM EFFING GHOSTBUSTERS play that same song, this is the clip you want to see:

And, finally, here is the finale. I can’t sing Steve Perry to save my life, and I wish the vocal track from my Mic was turned all the way off, but at this point, it’s not even about sounding good or even looking good; at this point it’s all about having fun and finishing an epic night with motherfucking JOURNEY, goddammit:


One last time, I want to thank Sean from Harmonix for supporting this event, Lee and Joe and everyone else at Phoenix Comicon for giving us the room and the time to make it happen, but most of all, everyone who came out to be part of the event. It was something really special to me, and though we’ll certainly do this at future cons, this is where it all began and you were part of it. Tell your kids and make them jealous.