Cocktail Confessions

Crackpot

Here is the long overdue is a 30 minute podcast catching us up the last 3 weeks of Big Brother season 11.

I didn’t really realize how hard it was to keep up with this once a week and before I knew it, time slipped by pretty fast and I was three weeks behind.  To those that have sent me e-mails asking where they are, I’m happy you find them somewhat interesting enough to point out I’m behind. 

For this recap, I was surprised how hard it actually was to try and remember all the stuff that happened.  Needless to say I cut alot out just to get to six pages of written notes.  That works out to be about two pages per televised episode.

Anyway, suffice to say Chima is a crackpot and I’m glad her days are numbered.  Natalie the gnat is annoying and has a warped sense of reality when it comes to the game….she forgot she’s actually playing a game and takes everything so personal and now that Jessie is also gone, Natalie actually has to start playing her own game and not riding on his coattails.  The funniest line from her was this week when she says she was ‘running’ the house…..LOL….No ‘Gnat’, you weren’t, Jessie was manipulating everything and you were his ‘Yes’ girl.  Then to hear her explain and actually convince herself of the truth of her ‘alterted’ facts is mind blowing.  I told Monica I don’t even think Gnat can comprehend her own reality right now.  Jeff of course is level headed, and Russell has calmed down quite a bit.  Michelle is finally emerging as a player, and I give props to Kevin for being a very smart player, but he’s just hooked up with the wrong people.  Finally, my thoughts on Lydia are really shifting now.  Her messianac complex when it comes to Jessie is down right disturbing and she’s next for the loony bin.

Anyway, enjoy….

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Disaronno

Okay, I know I start this podcast by calling it number 7, but in fact it is actually episode 8.

I wanted to try something in a new direction, and seeing that I got some favorable response from a Facebook entry I posted recently on a grilled steak sandwich recently, I decided to devote an episode to basic grilling.  I’m not sure I’d call it Grilling 101, because I could talk on and on in regards to different subjects as it pertains to outdoor grilling, but I thought this was a good place to start, especially for those that are just sick and tired of plain hot dogs and hamburgers or may be afraid of the grill.

I’d be interested in what you think about this episode.  It ran a bit longer than I initially expected, but I’d like to think there’s a lot of good information in this episode.

Disaronno (pictured) is an Italian almond tasting liqueur which strangely does not have any nuts it anyway has an alcohol content of 28%.

Show Notes:

• 01:11:  Intro Song: Holiday for Strings (written by David Rose, performed by The Voice of Walter Schuman).  I ripped this segment from one of my Ultra Lounge CD’s.  I like it because it has a real ‘camp’ factor to it, and should transport you somewhere back into the early 1950′s.
• 01:55:  Disaronno liqueur and A&W root beer cocktail.
• 04:35:  Grilling 101 (charcoal v. coal, picking oils, cleaning, meat choices and quick grilling tips)
• 31:10:  Grilled steak sandwich recipe.

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Casey faces eviction in week 3

 In this Podcast recap I run down episodes 7, 8 & 9 from Big Brother season 11 on CBS.

I played a litte bit with the settings on Audacity (recording software) and how I did my recording.  Seeing that this is just a recap and nothing fancy, I recorded this in mono (single channel), and tried to cut to the chase in many instances of what was going down in the house.  This made for a leaner and overall shorter podcast both in size and length.

But long story short: Ronnie is an idiot, Jessie loves Jessie but not as dumb as he looks, Russell is a snake, Casey is getting the short end of the stick, Kevin is smarter than he lets on, Chima is starting to chill out (for now at least), Lydia is a whiner, Michelle is a cautious kiss-ass, Jeff is sane, Jordan is not, Natalie likes to stir up trouble.

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Da Comrade!

I’m very excited to present this episode to you all.  I was finally able to get my childhood friend Brian Liles over for my first guest podcast, and hopefully we’ll do plenty more together in the future.  It was actually pretty easy to accomplish with just one microphone and turned out better than I anticipated.

So, here’s the setup…A few of my neighbors (Chip Beef & Ryan) and Brian went out earlier in the day to have a mess of hot wings and beer over at Wingstop.  Between the four of us we ate approx. 100 buffalo wings of various degrees of hotness (including the habenero induced ‘Atomic’) and went through at least five pitchers of beer.  Afterwards, Brian came over to my place, we cracked us some 22oz russian beers called ‘Baltika #3 ‘(4.8%), and sat down for this very podcast.

Brian has his own site dedicated to his love for offroading and his FJ Cruiser.  Go visit him at Brians4x4adventrues.com or click on the link in the right margin under my favorite links.  As I post this episode, Brian is actually on another roadtrip in Canada and he’s been updating his pages as well (finally).  You can see some gorgeous photos over there, but anyway, on to my show:

Oh, and the bumper music today is ‘Back in the Saddle Again’ by Gene Autry, so dig it!!

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Ronnie - Not a Jedi.

This podcast episode is indeed published out of order  as I haven’t finsihed editing episode 5 yet (w/ guest Brian Liles & the Grand Canyon), so don’t fret.

After a few false starts, I did this one again in one take, so it may sound a little rough around the edges.  I still feel I need to cut this down in length as even I was surprised it was close to another 1/2 hour.  But it was trying to condense the highlights of three hour long televised epsiodes into a sub 30 minute podcast.  It was a tad bit scripted (5 pages….ugh) as I had to write notes for each episode that aired so I could remember the sequence of events.  Maybe next time I can cut it down to three pages or so and get it closer to 20 minutes.

As always, feel free to leave comments below, or write me at cocktails1@hotmail.com.

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Here it is, Cocktail Confessions podcast episode #4, our recent trip to a sweltering 113 degree Fahrenheit Palm Springs run.

In listening back, I have to say I’m a bit embarrassed with the many  “Um’s” that spill out of my mouth.  I’ll have to work on that.  Anyway, this episode clocks in just shy of 35 minutes and I discuss a detailed day by day account of some of the sigths we saw and places we ate at.  Unfortunately we did not make it to the aerial tram and ride to the top of San Jacinto, but we all agreed that perhaps we’d like to go back later in the year when it’s a bit cooler.

<<Additional pictures to be added here later from Webshots gallery>>

Show Notes

01:50 – Shocktop Belgian Ale is the drink for this epsiode.  Spiced Belgian White Ale with hints of corriander and orange citrus.

04:30 – Our road trip begins and we have our first set back when we get to Redlands, CA and discover Slim Piggins BBQ has recently closed down.

07:44 – Pull into Palm Spring and have a nice lunch and drinks at the famous Las Casuelas on the main drag.

08:56 – Arrive at the retro and swanky Orbit Inn.  We enjoy the pool, modernism design, free sake Orbitini’s at happy hour, and gourment continetal breakfast.

13:32 – Dinner at the Kaiser Grille is mediocre at best.  You live and learn.

14:40 – Monica plays the one arm bandits at Spa Resort Casino while Jayson, Albert & Lisa hang out in the lounge and listen to coverized funk.

17:05 – Visit to the Living Desert Zoo where it was 113+ and some of the exhibits were closed like the LGB G scale train I was so looking forward to seeing.  The train exhibit reopens Oct. 1, 2009.  We take plenty of pictures of wild cats, reptiles, birds and more (to be posted later).

25:35 – Very delicious goat cheese tamales and excellent bbq lunch over at Babe’s BBQ in Rancho Mirage.

26:53 – 1/2 priced Sunday dinner at Oceans 111, where the drinks are large and the taste is just as big.

29:00 – Last night stargazing under a clear sky and a motel to ourselves.  Looking forward to coming back later in the year when it’s a tad cooler

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Big Brother 11 cast

Until I either: A) get a portable recording device, or B) can convince my neighbors/friends that my upstairs spare office/studio is not that scary of a place (despite copious amount of posed Star Wars action figures and comic books lying about), I have to rely on myself to provide a little audio content to ensure I have regular podcasts.

With that in mind, and the fact that continual practice will hopefully make myself somewhat nasaly voice sound somewhat more comfortable on the mic than Obama does on socialism, I decided to do another impromptu recording session last night on the first week of Big Brother 11.

Why Big Brother?  Well, I happen to like ‘good’ reality television like Survivor, Amazing Race and Big Brother…..not the pseudo train wrecks like ‘I Love Money’, ‘Flavor of Love’ or the myriad of other degenerates that VH1 can coax out of the shallow end of the gene pool.  Basically you have 13 strangers that live in a house together with no contact from the outside world, and each week through a series of challenges and nominations, a house guest is ‘evicted’ for the next 2+ months until 1 is left standing and wins the money.  Obviously there’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s the general gist and concept.  It’s a wildly popular show not only in the U.S., but has spawned Big Brother’s counterparts in many other countries around the world.  The bonus to those shows that are absent here in the U.S. is that many of these countries have much more lenient Standards & Practices and much less in the way of censorship, so viewers can expect a bit more nudity and house guest hook ups.

Anyway, this episode is a bit longer than I anticipated, clocking in around 25 minutes and I give a little background and introduction on the individual house guests and explain a little about how this season is set up into the various ‘cliques’.  This recap covers the first three episodes of the show from it’s July 9th preview through the 1st Veto ceremony on July 14th.  It’s a bit early right now to discuss in much depth how things are settling out between house guests and individual strategies, but clearly a few standouts are already forming in brainiac’s Ronnie and Chima, outcast Lydia, and the whole entire athletic clique (I predict this group will be the subject of it’s own eventual demise based on the arrogant personalities of three of its four current members).

Bear in mind that I’m still getting use to this whole recording thing, and after listening back to it once (and I didn’t edit it one iota…it’s 100% raw) I need to adjust my mic levels down a bit, I get tongue tied a few times, and there’s a bit more “um’s” that I’d like to admit to.  But please enjoy and as always, feel free to leave comments and criticisms by emailing me directly at cocktails1@hotmail.com or sound off in the comment section below.

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Here’s the semi-official episode #2.  The guest that I had planned for the day had to reschedule so I took the time to put out a slightly longer solo episode today of me just burning off some rants and discussing Guinness Draft beer.  Think of this as an extended ‘test’ podcast as I continue to work out some kinks.  Just raw speech, sorry no music this time around.

Show notes:

:01 – Welcome and introduction to this episode.

1:23 – Guinness draft.

2:50 – History on Guinness.

4:15 – General ranting

4:40 – Grocery store parking in red.

5:19 – Texting or calls during movies.

6:35 – Work related calls.

12:02 – Rancho Santa Margarita trash receptacles

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Overflowing trashcans

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First of all, I’d like to thank all of my friends who have so far visited my page and took the time to download or listen to my first trial episode and provide either words of encouragment and some helpful feedback.  Personally, I’ve been both excited and frustrated with this experience. 

The positive part is the feeling that I am indeed learning something new, and get to enjoy messing around with the technology and flexing a little bit more of my creativity.  For those that think I have ADHD, well maybe I do, and this is just another outlet for my sometimes idle mind.  I do have a lot of great friends and stories and I only get more excited when I think of future episodes when one of you is sitting across from me on the mic, sharing a beer, and just shooting the breeze.

The frustrating parts is the amount of work leading up to this and the continual tweak and modifications.  I really didn’t realize how much goes into a podcast, let alone oen that garners others people interest and word of mouth.  If you think about it, there are many components in the production of a blog: style, hosting services, various software applications, plug-ins, editing, feeds, post production, transfer and exportings of files, ID tagging, audio conversions, etc.  It can be really difficult when you discover than ‘current’ manuals are hard to find, and many things that appear to be compatible actually aren’t. 

You have a vision of how things are supposed to look and work on paper or in your head, but in actuality it doesn’t always pan out.  I’ve run across obsolete plug-ins, technical hurdles, vague or non-exsitant instructions, false data capturing and statistics, and more passwords and logins than I can shake a stick at.  To illustrate, despite how ‘easy’ various white papers say how easy it is to podcast, here are the various components I work with just to get this far:  GoDaddy as my hosting site, WordPress as my main blogging software, Audacity as my audio capture and editing device, FeedBurner along with Google accounts to provide an enhanced RSS feed, BluBrry as an embedded flash player and download tool.  That doesn’t even incorporate the various plug-ins: wordpress statististics for data capture, Social to share posts on social networking sites, and a few others.  Each time you install one, you need to make sure that it not only looks right on teh main page, but that it is compatible and actually works as described.  Easier said than done.  There were plenty of installs, just to rip it back out and look for a comparable alternative and I’m sure there will be more of that in the future as well. 

But for now, it looks as if I have the main gist of everything working properly.  The last two major hurdles, which so far appear to be the most daunting to date is the ability to learn MP3 ID tagging, not just for Windows (that’s easy), but the scripting/coding for iTunes.  Once that is done, then it will be submitting the appropriate feed to both Microsoft Zune and iTunes to have them be approved and available for everyone to subscribe from there.  The good news is I did a prelim test last night with iTunes, and it did indeed detect my feed and registered my episode (sans artwork and proper tags, but it is there in its raw format).

So on to the other stuff:  I added the first episode to the ‘Podcast‘ page.  This is where all epsiodes will reside via a download link without all the show notes, links, pictures, etc.  Think of it as the one-stop-shop for past episodes.  I also added another page, ‘Patrons‘  in which over time will be populated with a few lines of guest biographies and headshot pictures….just so you can put a face/name to the voices you may hear.

Whew, that was a mouthful.  Now hopefully from here on out, I’ll get to the fun stuff and leave the majority of this techo crap and geek speak behind. 

Now, let’s look forward to the next episode, so stock the fridge with some cold ones.

This is the first ‘official’ episode of Cocktail Confessions.  (Will be added to the ‘Podcast Page’ later)

After I added some into bumper music, I tried to re-level the sound to take out some ‘pops’ and practive yet another fade out up to the point where I begin talking.  I really need to print out an Audcaity manual.  I also to wrote down time stamps for parts of the show to include in the notes listed below.  I then added links to the various notes as well to give more info where applicable.

I think the hardest thing right now to conquer is the ‘feed’ process.  iTunes uses a differing tagging method that traditional MP3 podcasts as well as how to include ‘coverart’ for the podcast.  In uploading the raw MP3 to my hosting file, for this episode I didn’t get much into the tagging for either Zune or iTunes.  So I guess you can call this a ‘raw’ MP3 export.  (I promise, I won’t always be this technical, but I’m doing this because I know others are in the same boat as I, and want to learn this as well.)  Anyway, you should take the raw MP3, then ‘IDTAG’ it before uploading to yoru hosting server, then finally hit ‘publish’ and make sure the appropriate feeds pick up on it.  Blah, blah, blah….. 

Episode 1 – Show notes:

0:23  Welcome to the show and discuss format.

2:25  Email and welcome critique’s.  Write me at: cocktails1@hotmail.com

3:21  Intro music is ‘Cancion Del Mariachi’ on the Desperado sountrack.  Performed by Los Lobos and Antonio Banderas.

3:43  Negra Modelo beer is discussed.

4:28  Grupo Modelo Brewery.

4:50  Story on how I discovered Negra Modelo.

6:58  The Hangover

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