So I was remembered I need to do an entry as it has been awhile. However I seem to have a bit of writers block. Yep I actually don't know what to write about. Which is quite odd given I always have something to talk about. Fortunately I sketched out an entry a while ago so I'm going to touch on that one. Which actually reminds me of a few media/podcast type projects I've thought about. Oddly as I wrote this, it's gotten much longer– web media shows may be coming your way...

So for starters, yes, I really sat down today without a really good idea of what to talk about. It happens. Granted I've thought of many good things to talk about over the past few weeks but I'm kinda over writing them down. If I don't write the actual text or at least an outline at that moment, it really never formulates to anything really good. Also there is a few things I could discuss, namely stemming from personal shit and discussions with friends but I don't have a full thought on them, and I don't feel like harping on it at this point in time. As in the title, writers block for blogs, I'm calling it "blog block."

Moving along! So media idea eh? So according to the last modified date in my notepad program I wrote about this on May 13th, which is 3 weeks ago. So my "brilliant" idea is a very simple podcast. I got to thinking about perhaps having a audio blog. Now if you think about it a podcast often can be exactly that, a blog but in audio form. Where this would differ is that I would record the same entries like this one which you are currently reading and make it available as a podcast. What's the point, well it's for one at this point it's just an idea. This idea stems from the same reason as to having audio books. Allows you to read when you otherwise couldn't.
Of course what I'm thinking about is how many people really read this blog in the first place and more importantly how many of them would like to/prefer to have it as an audio format. Of course why not just do a video? Which just shifts the whole thing over to a vlog, and so on. Eh, I think I'll stick to text for now.

Speaking of media and such I found (via a Facebook ad, yes) Reach On Air, which is a fairly decent web radio company based out of the UK. The cool thing is they run it like a real radio station, where you have programming slots and so on. Pretty spiffy. I'm thinking about perhaps doing a DJ show on the station. The big hangup is they have this special proprietary (and spiffy) software that connects you with their servers and has a master clock sync and coolstuff. The major perk to using their system is that like regular broadcast radio you start with a decent listener base which will hear you, rather than trying to establish a listener base. Also they deal with the streaming server, bandwidth, and so on.
These last points are a HUGE thing, because having the ability to serve out enough streams and have the bandwidth to host all of your listeners gets pretty big and expensive fast. So Reach takes care of all of that. Stayed tuned, there might be a regular mix show for everyone.
Along those lines I have really been thinking about seriously jumping onto the whole podcast/netcast bandwagon and starting some shows of my own. The major inspiration has come from Leo Laporte's TWiT network, namely his whole TWiTLive.tv rig where he broadcasts live from the "TWiT cottage" where all the podcasts are produced. This also coupled with starting to subscribe to various YouTube channels, such as The Philip DeFranko show (which is awesome, check it out) I kinda got to thinking "Well why can't I?!" Initially I thought to do a podcast/vlog on climbing, like climbing news, called perhaps "Crimp Now!" (A crimp is a type of climbing hold.) Or even CNN, Climbing News Network. Har har har. However the major problem with any of these things is having content. What do you have that other mediums/shows/programs don't? Same goes for blogging. So kinda putting that whole idea on hold.

However one project/show I am considering revisiting is Under Tunnel web radio. For those of you not familiar with UT, it was a web radio show/podcast that me and a friend Will did I believe my Junior year of college. The concept of the show was really anything goes, we'd play tunes, get instant feedback via listeners on AIM, so on. It was two hours of us just telling stories and dicking around. It was a lot of fun. Sadly the major downfall was that both Will and I were hugely busy and had major commitments which thus led to us having a hugely erratic show schedule. Bad programming will loose listeners, but also not knowing when they can next expect a show is equally as damaging. Thus we canceled the show after only 6 episodes, which actually was five months after the initial launch. Yes, shows were THAT erratic. If you want to check out the archive of the old shows you can find them here.
Now it's several years later, I've graduated from UCSC, Will has moved to Maryland which as you could imagine makes things a *bit* tricky. However fear not, technology is a magical thing and I have worked out how we can still do the show. Of course there are still other technical issues to be resolved, such as the main streaming server and such.

So there we go, new media ventures possibly loom on the horizon. If you have any thoughts, comments, or ideas in general on anything (namely the media stuff) please get in touch with me. Email, contact form, leave a comment, etc. Stay tuned! We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.