Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 7

This show about headless ghosts marks the half way point.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day7/13Days-Day7.mp3

Although this show uses a song I've used in past Halloween episodes, it's just too good a Halloween song to leave out. And I figured there's going to be those who haven't listened to the past Halloween episodes. (Just search through the Halloween labelled shows to find the past Halloween episodes.)

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 6

Today's show deals with vampires.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day6/13Days-Day6.mp3

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 5

It's party time!



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day5/13Days-Day5.mp3

I'm glad I did these up ahead of time, although it still takes a little time to upload and post. But it gives me a good idea of what I'll need to do for Christmas. As with these specials, I'll probably post the night before since it makes it easier and it gives me more time should I forget to post. The slow part now is writing the poems but the recording and editing should go fairly quickly, provided I don't have a cold.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 4

This episode deals with giant monsters.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day4/13Days-Day4.mp3

I've been selecting the music for the Christmas episodes today. Some of the music I've used before but I like it enough to use it again. I felt it better to use good music that I've played before rather than newer songs that aren't as good. The big job now is writing the poems; I'm about a quarter of the way there.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 3

Today's show deals with ghosts.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day3/13Days-Day3.mp3

The downloads so far have been a little slow, but it's still early. I suspect it should pick up more next week as more people get excited about Halloween.

I've been considering some changes for Podcast Ping next year but nothing is finalized yet. I consider the feed a literary channel, just as I consider Blue Hot Gossip a comedy channel. It's easier than creating new feeds. I was considering doing a classic epic poem, much like Beowulf (only a little more modern) but that would depend upon how much interest it got. I also would like to do one of my novels, but likely not The Unstoppable Ride since I'm having a hard time finishing it. It would be one I've already finished. But that won't be until next year. For this year there's just the Halloween and Christmas episodes, with hopefully a New Year's episode.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 2

Here's the second of Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween. I had to re-record this episode a few times to get the voice right, although most of the episodes were re-recorded to improve the voice.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day2/13Days-Day2.mp3

I've decided to try and get these up the night before since it gives me more time should something go wrong like a server being down. And it allows listeners to get the episodes early enough, especially when the final day is Oct. 31st.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping's 13 Days of Halloween-Day 1

This is the first of the 13 Days of Halloween. The Count Cordova character comes from The Blue Hot Gossip Comedy Show, although I think I've only used him on one episode. It's a voice that I've had to work on and that I still don't have quite right; I was trying to avoid slipping into a hard Lugosi's Dracula impersonation.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPings13DaysOfHalloween-day1/13Days-Day1.mp3

I thought I'd get this up a little early. I'm in the EST timezone so I'm basically counting the days by that. I will try to get them up by noon provided all the servers are working okay. I may post the night before since it's a little easier than trying to do it in the morning. The episodes are finished so it's just a matter of posting them.

I've still a fair number of poems to write for Christmas, although it's hard to write Christmas stuff before Halloween. But I'll have a month plus whatever time before the episodes get posted so it shouldn't be a problem. I am reusing a few that I've written before but the majority will be new poems. The format still isn't finalized; I might have two songs per episode but I will have at least one. And while I would like to have a host like the Halloween episodes it might be too much work. I'll have to see how it goes.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping 56 - Jabberwocky and Filk

I had a few songs I wanted to get out so I squeezed this one in before the 13 Days of Halloween. Initially it was just going to focus on filk music, although Jabberwocky seemed appropriate, especially for the last song. And I don't know where the voice came from, it just seemed to come naturally as I read the poem; probably encouraged by the phonetics of the poem.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing56-Jabberwocky/pp56.mp3

This time around I used songs I gathered from various sources rather than just Mevio. I'll probably use more variety of sources in later podcasts, although that's not likely until next year. I've already got Halloween chosen and there's no shortage of Christmas music on Mevio. I still like Mevio because of the quality of the material. While there is a lot of material on other sites, it's not always podsafe and it's not always of professional quality. Some of it sounds like it was recorded by a cell phone at a convert.

Next episode should be the first of the 13 Days of Halloween on October 19th. I've just a few short scripts to finish and then all the recording and editing, which I'll probably try to get done this week. I've still to write any poetry for Christmas or to select any music, although I don't think I'll be needing scripts.

Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping 55 - The Ghost of an Anniversary

While I'm a little slow this year, I had to get one out for the anniversary.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing55/pp55.mp3

This year it's been harder to do a weekly podcast for a number of reasons. Mainly I don't have the backlog of poetry I had when I started, even though I've been doing classic poems this year. I also don't have as much time to work on it as I use to. Some of that is because of The Blue Hot Gossip podcast, which takes at least a full day's work (normally spread out over a period of time) to produce. And The Blue Hot Gossip has seen much better download numbers. After two years it's still rare for an episode of Podcast Ping to get more than a thousand downloads.

And if people aren't downloading the podcast, then it hardly seems worth doing. It would be better to do another type of podcast. Although I do like doing it, so I doubt I would stop, but I have to balance the amount of time I work on it with the amount of time and effort it's worth. I'm also been trying to get a company started which takes not just time but attention. And there's always the writing to work on which takes more time than I've been allowing and directly competes with time for writing poetry.

Even though I've only done a handful of episodes so far this year, I am planning on doing something special for Halloween and likely Christmas. I have been thinking of doing a Christmas calendar for a while and recently decided to do a test run by doing the 13 Days of Halloween. Starting on October 19th and running until the 31st, I'll try to post one short podcast a day. If it goes well then I'll do the same for Christmas, starting on December 1st. Provided I do those episodes, that will raise the episode count to over forty episodes for the year.

I've also come across an epic poem I would like to try doing, but I won't get to that until at least next year. And as all long time listeners know, these plans are constantly changing and what I plan isn't always what I produce. But I am working on the Halloween episodes so expect the first one of those, and likely the next Podcast Ping episode, on October 19th.

(I keep forgetting to mention this.)Podcast Ping is licensed under Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.

Podcast Ping 54 - Tyger, Tyger by William Blake

This time I decided to do a reading of Tyger, Tyger by William Blake. It's a little shorter than normal since I only used two songs, however both happen to deal with animals. I could have fit in three but the music would have overtaken the poetry.

I also decided not to do an intro for the poem. I couldn't think of much to say and I didn't want to just throw one in for the sake of having one.



http://www.archive.org/download/PodcastPing54-TygerTygerByWilliamBlake/pp54.mp3

I've had an idea for another podcast, although I will have to spend some time writing something up first. I've been experimenting with speech synthesized recordings of my blog postings and I might have a theme for another podcast. But I'll have to see how it goes. I don't want to drop Blue Hot Gossip since it's good for any comedy I come up with, and I'm not going to drop Podcast Ping.

Although I don't have a lot of free time right now for working on podcasts. I have tried to justify it by adding a little bit of advertising for my toystore into the podcast, but if the podcast isn't getting enough downloads that does little good. While I've been resistant to the idea, I might wind up adding a donation button.

My online toy shop can be found at http://patrickjmcnamara.webs.com.