TheXodcast Episode 1

So, ThePete and Sisi get inspired and sit down for 22 minutes and 6 seconds to entertain you...we hope. It's a bit odd, and we hope to make it oddererer. ThePete says the "F" word by accident so the podcast is rated PG-13! LOOK OUT!

Play it or download it HERE.

To subscribe to future episodes of TheXodcast use this link in iTunes or your favorite audio podcatcher.

UPDATE: Thanks to the name "oddcast" being so incredibly common (a fact we didn't fully realize until after we recorded the show) from now on this podcast will be called TheXodcast. Alas, inside this week's episode, we still refer to it as TheOddcast. We're lame, we apologize. :(
-ThePete

So, I'm Developing this Puppet Show Podcast Idea...

...and I figure, everyone and their uncle has a video podcast these days, even me. However, I have lots of ideas for lots of stuff--including podcasts. As mentioned in the headline, I decided to do a puppet show.

I figured, though, that I couldn't be the first person to think of doing a puppet podcast and I don't want to accidentally do what someone else has already done, so I checked around. It turns out a friend of mine who was actually in my play last year is developing a show called The Felties. However, he has no episodes done yet. Andrew Moore, that's my friend's name, also did (does?) a HILARIOUS puppet podcast featuring those bodiless animal head puppets you get at the zoo or amusment parks. It was (is?) awesome--he had them paraphrasing Shakespeare. Bloody brilliant if you ask me. It's called Disembodied Animal Head Theatre and you can check it out here: http://daht.blogspot.com/

And check out the latest episode at YouTube.Com here.

For a while it looked like he wasn't doing any more episodes but I just checked the site and there's a third episode up. I hope he does more...

Then I remembered a podcast I watched just once a few months ago--a thing called Puppet Rapist. Now, this is a podcast that is just as dark and just as well done as the title suggests (some moron isn't going to be interesting enough to come up with a title like that). I just watched episode 4 now and I have to admit it rocks. The production values are very high and while I don't like the lead guy's understated performance, the puppets look great and the story is brilliant.

Between DAHT and Puppet Rapist, I began to feel pretty intimidated. While DAHT is super low budget, it is very sharp and smart. Meanwhile Puppet Rapist is 75% perfect with the only bad stuff coming in with the acting (but I'm a grissled MST3K veteran so I can handle bad acting--and the acting is not even THAT bad on PR). However, it's at this point I consider Cakey.

Cakey is a show that I'm sure would be a big hit with the Adult Swim crowd--a crowd I don't count myself among. Cakey has a great premise--an alien that just happens to look like a cake is stranded on Earth where he befriends a young boy who has an aging disease (which allows him to be played by a 20-something). However, the execution is kind of boring. In the episode I watched the lead kid is getting all F's and his teacher wants to talk to his dad. Alas his dad is freakishly obsessed with his looks (which is damn funny, I admit) and refuses to go because he is too fat. So, the kid dresses up Cakey and pretends he's his uncle.

Essentially Cakey ends up being just another stupid sitcom with a "hillarious" premise. The sad thing is, the rest of the show is not so hillarious (without the quotes) to me. It's still worth checking out if you enjoy the Adult Swim type humor.

Now I'm not feeling so intimidated anymore. Time to start writing down some serious ideas for that puppet podcast... and by "serious" I mean, funny...

The 5 Minute Show Episode 17

Here it is! It's The 5 Minute Show for April 24, 2006! It features our most STUNNING and holy guest YET! You won't believe who it is! But have FAITH! Download or stream it now and be closer to You Know Who!!!

t5ms20060424.mp4

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

It's a 14.6MB mp4--enjoy it and be holy!

The 5 Minute Show Episode 16!

One of the things I do for fun (and for practical video production experience) is produce a video podcast for ThePete.Com called "The 5 Minute Show." Usually, I write it in a few hours every Sunday morning and then shoot it with the help of my wife and a couple of our friends.

This week's show was a lot of fun to shoot. See, we found these three kittens under our building and TheWife got inspired to write a whole 5 Minute Show about fighting the ill-effects of overdosing on TheCute. In fact, she even hosts the show giving me some much-prefered time behind the camera. :) I think you'll agree that she's a great host.

Anyway, here it is!

t5ms20060417.mp4

It's a 14.3MB mp4 which should play just fine in Quicktime 7 or on your 5g iPod or your PSP. Please let me know if you have any trouble playing the clip. Also, let me know what you think! :D Watch for another episode this coming Monday and you can check out older episodes here:
http://thepete.com/tag/The+5+Minute+Show

and at Archive.org. I'll be posting all episodes to Google Video, YouTube.Com and DailyMotion.Com, soon.

OH and you can subscribe to t5MS here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/thepete/t5ms

13 Strikes (Against Bush)

I posted this on my main site back in December, but I thought it might be worth reposting now. Check it out:

13 Strikes Against Bush:

1) 911 was allowed to happen. Existing FAA regulations could have minimized the death and destruction on that day, but they were not followed. Either Bush deliberately made 911 worse by ordering those regulations ignored or his administration is incompetent for not following regulations. Remember Paine Stewart's plane?

2) Iraqi WMD were never found. If we wanted a democracy in Iraq it would have been cheaper in money and blood to pay Saddam $200 billion to institute one (you don't think he'd agree to lick our boots for that much money?).

3) Iraqis didn't welcome us with flowers and candy as was promised. "I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome." -George W. Bush, 12/05

4) The Iraq Attack (which Bush didn't mention was illegal) didn't go smoothly and quickly came to cost hundreds of billions, instead of just billions. Either Bush and Company are deliberately lying to us or they are idiots.

5) "We'll get Osama dead or alive." Bush once told us. Then he decided the man who killed 3000 people on 911 was a non-entity only to change his mind again in early 2006. (Updated 3/3006)

6) Bush's government cut funding to New Orleans levees because, like when the hell is a really bad storm ever going to hit that city? His government then botched relief efforts. Either the Bush 43 Administration is racist, classist or are fools.

7) The Taliban have not been vanquished from Afghanistan. Do a Google News search and see how vanquished they are. In fact, they just attacked a girl's school and NBC just aired an interview with a Taliban biggy-wig.

8) Iraqi insurgents were NOT in their last throes (throws?) as Dick Cheney promised us. The guerilla war that has been plaguing the US occupation was predicted by the so-called "nay-sayers" who also suggested we wouldn't be greeted with flowers and candy.

9) Iraqi insurgents are actually locals and NOT Al Qaeda or other foreign fighters, contrary to the Bush 43 Administrations claims. See, locals fighting us are bad because they're what you call, uh, freedom fighters.

10) We were told that medicare bill would cost $400+ when it actually cost $500+ and Bush hid that fact before the vote.

11) Bush created commercials that he had distributed as news stories to news shows around the country. Said "news stories" weren't sourced to the USG and Bush claimed they were still legal because they weren't slanted in favor of the Bush programs they "reported" on. However, according to the General Accountability Office, they are illegal because they weren't sourced to the Bush 43 Administration. Do a search for "covert propaganda" at www.GAO.gov for more on this.

12) The Bush 43 Administration seems to think torture is a good way to extract intel. It isn't, nor is it moral. What's the point of living with morals if you're going to ignore them when your life is threatened?

13) Bush tells us that spying on Americans is neccesary to keep them safe. How does taking away our rights secure them?

13 Strikes against Bush.

Are we going to let him finish playing the game?

GREAT PEAK OIL PRIMER VIDEO

Wanna learn about Peak Oil? Check out the video on this page at WCCO.com. They did a pretty well-put-together special report on it that breaks the issue down pretty nicely. Check it out and if you're really brave keep up with Peak Oil in the news by checking out the Peak_Oil community at LiveJournal.Com.

Even if Peak Oil isn't happenning, it's probably a good idea to play it safe and pretend that it will. When we do, we'll reduce our reliance on foreign oil and the air we breathe will be cleaner. Both are good things, don't you think?

Republicans Vote Down the 4th Amendment (sort of)

It's amazing what you find on the 'net. I had a brainlock while doing my last post on McClellan leaving his job and had to look up the 4th ammendment to make sure I had the right one when I stumbled across this web page on the personal site of Michael DuVernois, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Here's what the page says:

February 7, 1995 - House Republicans Vote Down Fourth Amendment

During the debate today over the House Republicans' bill about the Exclusionary Rule, the House Black Caucus introduced an amendment to the bill that the Republicans promptly voted down. The amendment turned out to be the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, verbatim. The House Republicans were "chagrined." The vote was 303-121, meaning that a number of Democrats joined the Republicans.

Now, I checked the main page of DuVernois' site out and I can't tell if this is a joke or not. I looked it up on Snopes.Com and found no myths mentioning the 4th ammendment. Googling the headline at the top of DuVernois' page on the voting down of the 4th ammendment and got this page at CIOS.org, which the server at CIOS.org won't let you view unless you are a member. Luckily, Google's cache let's you view it without joining anything. Here's what's on that page:

Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 21:09:17 -0500
[from] ai182_at_cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Wayne Draznin)
Subject: 4th ammendment

Got this off of the Viscom list. Thought folks would be
interested.

Wayne Draznin

Subject: Republicans Vote Down 4th Amendment in Bill of Rights (fwd)

This is a repost from:
Don Pratt
Syracuse University

---- Forwarded message ---
Date sent: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 08:54:34 EST
Send reply to Association of Black Sociologists


Here is a little tidbit that should cause everyone on this
list to say Hmmm. a funny (as in "disturbing," not
"hilarious") anecdote: i didn't hear about this when it
happened.

February 7, 1995 - House Republicans Vote Down Fourth
Amendment

Once again, here I go including something not strictly Newt.
Gingrich is however the leader of the House Republicans so
... During the debate today over the House Republicans' bill
about the Exclusionary Rule, the House Black Caucus
introduced an amendment to the bill that the Republicans
promptly voted down. The amendment turned out to be the
Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, verbatim. The House
Republicans were "chagrined." The vote was 303-121, meaning
that a number of Democrats joined the Republicans.


Here's the Fourth Amendment:

Amendment Article 4

Right of Search and Seizure Regulated.

The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


Hard to believe they didn't recognize the language. I hope
they were all thouroughly embarrassed.

Dan

-----
forwarded by Wayne Draznin

I'm the one who changed the "@" to "_at_" in the above email address just in case it's still good. Anyway, so I thought that was pretty interesting, but the trail basically goes cold with the above email. I've found exact duplicates of the email here, here, here, and here. Just for fun, I'm going to try and reach this Wayne Draznin guy and ask him about this. More on this as I learn it!

UPDATE:
Ah, shit--Draznin is dead. He died of cancer back in 2001. I'm pretty sure this is the right one since he was in Cleveland and so was his email address. I found this page which talks about a memorial art show for him, including some of the works he created while dying of cancer.

Oh well... maybe somone will do a search and stumble across this post and clue us all in.

RUMSFELD DOESN'T CONSIDER DOING WHAT'S RIGHT

When a huge stack of generals say you suck the LEAST you can do is CONSIDER quiting. Of course, the below screengrab comes from News.Google.Com earlier today. Yes, that's Rummy wiping the retired-general-spit from his eye...

What a bunch of cocky sons-of-bitches the Bush Admin are. Can you believe this? After all the total cock-ups they've committed all of them have the gall to not even THINK about the POSSIBILITY that they suck or that they've made a mistake?

Oh, I get it! Rumsfeld is holding out for his medal. Tennet got one, so it's only fair that Rummy get one, too.

SCIENTOLOGY ONLY GETTING WEIRDER

So, I finally got around to watching the Scientology-themed episode of South Park ironically titled "Trapped in the Closet." The title is ironic (if you haven't seen the episode) because, in the episode, Tom Cruise is told he's a bad actor. He reacts by hiding in the closet of one of the lead characters and won't come out. Several times, various different characters say things like "Tom Cruise, will you please come out of the closet?" and "Tom Cruise won't come out of the closet!"

Too funny. The other thing about that South Park episode was that it details what Scientologists actually believe--according to the writers of South Park, anyway (though I must admit I believe the show is accurate based on my previous reearch). This includes all sorts of wacky crap--like the idea that human bodies are actually possessed by alien souls trapped here on Earth by the evil lord Xenu.

Well, just when I thought the "religion" couldn't get any more absurd, Tom Cruise is in the news again. Check out the screengrab I snagged off of News.Google.Com just minutes ago:

Yep, you read it right--Cruise is planning to eat her placenta!

Pardon my French, but FUCK!

That's SICK SHIT, right there, man!!

Here's a message for all female actors out there who might end up getting cast opposite Cruise in a film--that mouth you're kissing HAS EATEN KATIE HOLMES' PLACENTA!!

YUCK!

If that doesn't make you consider a career change (or at least consider turning down a role) I don't know what will...

UPDATE: OK, I've learned he was just kidding. That's good... still he's a freak. :)

Ooo, Me Likey the Dark Layout! :D

Welcome to my Blogspot blog. I will likely be cross posting a lot of stuff from my website here just to help get my writing in front of more people. It's all about the networking!!