5 posts tagged “thisweekingeek”

TWIG Is BACK! 60,000 Hits and 2500 downloads? WHOA!

May 9, 2007
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Hey guys

Birdman reporting in from the NEWLY moved in TWIG studios and finally getting around to getting the equipment wired and the debts paid off for the new stuff and figuring what wires and cords go where but we are comfortably getting settled into our new surroundings.

So anyway, I am back from the week and change hitaus and it finally feels good get to back on the horse and get back to work. Which means I have a slew of emails and phone calls to return and see what I can to get my charity event moving a bit further along. I have made some progress and gotten some confirmations but I'll have to make some additional follow up emails and phone calls and work with Andy Walker and see what I can find our little geeks fundraiser.

I am excited for this event to happen as I see it as a major step in Steve and I's career as broadcasters. Speaking of that, I have applied for a scholarship from Native Affairs which would outfit us with new media equipment worth 5000 bucks. I am fairly optimistic about being able to receive this and with that, we'll get some snazzy new equipment and really take things up a notch and increase our media presence.

This summer is already shaping up to be fairly busy and already I am thinking of applying for the Canadian Television Fund and seeing if we can take TWIG to a broadcaster like G4 or even someone like City or something like that. It'll be a project that I'll develop as time goes on and who knows it could be something to do after I am done school. I also have been toying with the idea of a TWIG movie....or more like a documentary and have it be Steve and I's evolution from podcast to Broadcast or even something like our trip across North Amercia to the San Diego Comic con or some HUGE geek event and have it be our adventure and see where it goes.

Alot of this depends on luck and happenstance but I am a huge believer in that good things will happen if you work hard enough at time and are persistant. I said to Steve, a few weeks ago, prepare to be famous and I most certainly meant it....i intend to be successful before I have a diploma....I have a grand vision and I believe I already have all the right people in my life to make it happen....

So this is down time? I don't like it

May 2, 2007
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Hey guys,

Birdman reporting from a hacked wireless internet connection...that's right thanks country bumpkins.

Anyway, I have been home for a few days here in Shallow lake and just the very thought of being without internet is damned frightning. I mean, imagine being disconnected from the world and that is almost pure hell for someone like me who is permenantly jacked in the www all the time.

However, I have been making some headway into getting done for TWIG, yes even on vacation and hitatus I am still working as hard as ever. I am attempting to get some giveaways and some people have saidn yes and some people have said no...I can't reveal who they because that would be unprofessional but you know how it is

It looks like the TWIG studios should be up and going in about a week's time and I already have secured my new microphone, an Electrovoice RE510....a sexy as hell condensor microphone and even a cute little mic stand. So that also comes into play what am I going to make the TWIG studios going to look like, I really haven't put alot of professional thought into that other then the tech specs....which will be a dedicated MacBook Pro and our mixer and our mics and hopefully we'll get some really nice digital audio equipment like a Marantz recorder or something similar so that we can do RENG stuff.

Man, I just realized that is a huge run on sentence....

I want cereal.

It's so weird having all this down time, waiting for my exam marks to come in and see how i did after year one, and prep for year two and that means getting my A game ready....and that also means programming an entire summer's worth of shows which is worth it to me in the end.

I'd like to pitch TWIG to CBC or something like that and have this show carry on as far as it can. I am hoping Steve and I will cut a new demo to get picked up for next season's on CRNC 90.1 FM, then again I don't see why we would not get picked up from our win at the awards show this season.

I know we have alot of summer programming coming up and alot of cool interviews and hopefully some cool giveaways and with our launch part at Mt Bellies with Littlegeeks.org.

Wow, I kinda realize that I never quite switch off....even when I am sick.....yeah I am still without a voice and with some kind of an "itcis" or something

Anyway.....likely will find something to do with my vacation time....

TWIG & Pure Pwnage Toronto

Apr 16, 2007
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Hey guys,

Mike "Birdman" Dodd reporting in from yet another long weekend in Toronto but as always it was fun as hell.

So Steve and I headed down to T.O and stayed with my friend Brent from (www.closetgeekshow.com) and we had an adventure with Pierce and Megan who were our drivers and our entainment.

Still, to summarize a chunk of that night, touch Megan and Brent's knees and they speak in tounges and scream, so damned funny, I was hard not to wet myself from laughing. Still, we had a blast and we headed to Geoff and Jeremy's place from Pure Pwnage and it was a surreal experience.

Now, I'll admit, I had only seen the first episode a few hours before we headed over to their house and it was a neat experience all things considered. We had met them while they were editing the episode that was to premiere in less then 24 hours and he was editing on Adobe Preimere.

So Brent, Snowball and myself arrived and we conducted the interview and you can listen to that so I won't go into too much detail here but I'll say ANY host who supplies energry drinks to guests is a KING in my books.

Afterwards the trio of us headed back to Brent's place for punch and pie....well not really but anyway, it was a well deserved rest and funny conversation.

As a side note, eating two day old pizza will NOT kill you

Saturday was the day....and of course, I was up early and doing PR stuff at 9 am while Steve and Brent slept till Noon and 2pm respectively.

We spent the better part of the awake time trying to decide weather we wanted food or wi fi, but we were able to find both which was nice at the Fox and fiddle near Bloor st, I think. Regardless, had a wicked lunch there and then proceeded to head down to the Bloor st Cinemas and get our backstage entrance.

Just prior to going in we got to hang with the voice of the TEH MASTERER, and it was a surreal experience to meet one from the cast who was UBER approachable. We must have talked with Bill for like 15 minutes.

I simply cannot believer how popular this thing actually was...it actually blew me right away.

Steve,Brent and I got in early to help out and move T shirts and other merch into the Noob Store and it was work to help our new media friends and it was fun.

We got into the preimere and eventually it started and we watched a few of the previous episodes before the new season two start.

Now this is really the first time I got to watch some of this stuff and honestly I am glad that i got sucked into it at this time, more specfically the end of the first season one with the cliff hanger is what got me .

Now, I am NOT going to into what happened in the episode as that would make me a "Noob" and let me tell you some of that slang is kinda catchy.

So I'll close this blog entry in a second or two, cause this Pwn'er has to get up for a job interview in the morning but I will expanded upon the Pure Pwnage experience as seen thru the eyes of a "noob" but let me tell you one thing

I think I am in for the full run now....I joined the gamer army and even bought a shirt and may get thier full range of gear...what can I say?

They....

PWN"ed the Birdman....

Signing off for now

TWiG @ Podcamp 2007 PART DUEX---BIRDMAN EDITION!

Feb 27, 2007
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Evening ladies and gentleman and all other sorts of genetic mutations out there in the Blog O' sphere

As you have read in the part of one of these entries, We attended PODCAMP TORONTO 2007 and it's was very cool and so I shall continue with the Breakdown of the rest of the conference....

So here we go.....PUNCH IT!

Mike "Birdman" Dodd and his interpid co host and personal savior Steve "Snowball" Saylor headed back to thier lair, which was temporarily in the hotel @ the Comfort Inn Suites and getting to check in was a mess and a half to say the very least....easily a boot to the skull to those of you that know me personally it was restraint and not anything else holding me back there...

So we arrived and got into a room which was ALOT larger then we expected but lacked one vital component that we needed.....internet access without wires....of course we did not have any RJ-45 cable on us so...we had to mosey down to the lobby and begin the geek process there.

Down in the lobby we ran into a few more fellow podcasters and there is where we began our plan of attack for the evening which was to include a round table show....which is now AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD via Itunes or at our website www.thisweekingeek.net

and of course, party it up and schmooze @ C'est What in Toronto which is a local bar/pub/cool place to go.

We had dinner with Andy Walker from www.labrats.tv and Gary Marriot from www.littlegeeks.org and Steve whose last name escapes me but he was a wicked funny guy. I'd also like to mention that Andy is a RIOT! He was poking jokes left right and centre and joked about clan XBOX and made up some other really funny one liners. It was a blast to be had before the real show really began.

Earlier in the day, Snowball and I had joked with one of the organizers if we could MC the evening and figured they would have already asked one of the more established audio podcast guys to do so but in the end....we got a surprise vist from our friend Brent from

http://closetgeekshow.com/

We got offically asked to do the MC'ing for the night and Snowball and I excited looks of "WTF" and then argeed to do so....and did we mention we had about 20 minutes to prepare for something like this and all we had was a set list and some names to go from. We sat down at our table and of course, logged what we could from our lap tops and went promptly into updating and while doing that planning as well

Eventually the time came and The Birdman and Snowball made thier TRUE Podcamp 2007 Debt, which did I mention was LIVE streaming to the Internet....to COUNTLESS people listening at home. As the song goes....we stepped on stage.....

and then there was.....

So we started out our set and I should mention that within a day or two, we will have clips of our MC audio which we were able to capture thanks to Doc Wu from http://wnypodcast.com/

Actually moments before I stepped on stage, I had to call someone and tell them what I was about to do and when I had to do something important, I immediately thought of them and that person knows who they are.

So we hit the stage and run some of our usual witty banter back and forth and of course, play it up as if we're actually recording our orginal show

We opened up for Sean McGaughey whose music can be found @

http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/bands/600/

His duct tape song was amazing :)

It had the whole bar going there for a little bit and it was a bit of a tough act to follow up.

However, his music was great and he was an awesome and friendly guy and I hope we're able to play some of his music on our podcast or perhaps do what Brent does and offer a mix tape every so often

So we returned to stage and then it clicked in that WE were being broadcast LIVE to the Internet and it was time to step things up a bit and of course, that meant hamming it up like you have come to expect from Snowball and I. This time we were setting up for the Band Uncle Seth from http://musicface.com/uncleseth/

They set up and just BLEW away the audience with thier set, I loved the singer Tara's voice and the guitars behind her were absolutely AWESOME

These pics were taken by Myself of course

Suffice to say, it was awesome and I really enjoyed it and my throat was hoarse from screaming that loud during that concert. I just realized, this was my first concert where I did not sustain any real serious injuries...woo for me!

Podsafe music from now on.....

After a huge round of applause and cheers, we returned to the stage and immediately asked ourselves, how in the hell are we going to follow that up? However fortune favors the unprepared and we had 20 minutes of time to kill before

Nurse came on stage from http://www.myspace.com/nurseband

TWiG basically went into what was more or less an impromptu show with no show notes or anything else, just us on stage while they set up. This was unexpectedly long set and we just had to keep adlibbing and so we talked about our show, Niagara College, our change from TV to Radio likely and all sorts of other things and eventually Nurse got involved and joked around with us but it was awesome in the end. It was like speaking to the world when you were in front of that mic and just letting it roll and not once did I become nervous or really stumble for words. It was that moment that I realized how much I love being in with an audience.

Nurse came on stage and literally shook the place with the power contained within thier instruments and it was more my speed of music which is loud and rawking :)

I went upstairs to get a coffee to power my body which was only running on 6 hours of sleep in 48 hours and I could feel the music from the building next door in the coffee shop.

It was awesome :)

Anyway, TWiG came back and finished our set with the club and we thanked everyone who showed up and we bit everyone a good night for a few minutes....

THERE IS STILL MORE TO TELL!!!!

So stay tuned for PART THREE and our regular episode which will be made available for download tommorow afternoon and maybe some new content also available :)

This is

Mike "Birdman" Dodd signing off for now!

TWiG @ Podcamp 2007..Birdman edition

Feb 27, 2007
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Greetings everyone out there in the blog o' sphere

This is Mike "The Birdman" Dodd reporting in and blogging from this past weekend from PODCAMP Toronto 2007 and finally I am well rested enough to write down all the experiences that Snowball and I had.

However, expect Snowball to give his own report on this later on but for now...

Here is a Birdman's tale...

The weekend began murderously early....5 am early....more or less came at little too soon as the Birdman was out the night before taking in the experience that was Welland.

Regardless, Snowball and I hit the road to Toronto and headed west towards the city and all the wonderful early morning traffic to which there was surprisingly little. Our thoughts kept wondering what would this conference be like when we arrived, I mean what did we expect, how would we be received and in short, we were a little bit anxious.

We did arrive at the conference very early at about 930 am or so, which was when registration was to begin and we got our name tags and immediately began working on some our exclusive content. We did meet a few nice people just milling around and of course, I noticed cameras.....now I love the cameras...and of course that means me clowning around. It was especially cool for me since, this whole thing and every room was broadcast LIVE over the net

So we arrived here @ http://podcamptoronto.pbwiki.com/

So of course, a full hour before the opening ceremonies began, believe me, people knew who we were, and if not from business cards then from my and Steve's antics on the floor

So anyway we hit the conference room where all of us had gathered and the opening ceremonies began and immediately, we decided to take the room's energry up a notch. The Presenter Leesa noticed my screaming and whooping immediately and that really set us apart at the conference and people knew us as "The guys from this week in Geek" and "The Birdman" and "Snowball"

So we took in a few of the presentations before lunch and definately make some new networking connections with such podcasters such as

Brent from http://closetgeekshow.com/

Not exactly the most flattering picture of Brent, but it does demonstrate his whackiness.

and another wicked cool Podcaster

Vergal Evans from http://www.lx7.ca

We did learn alot from these presentations and how to build our audience and what it means to brand our podcast and what we're aiming for our community and our audience in general.

In fact, you can likely SEE us

in here

http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/pcto2007day1/opening.mov

and here

http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/pcto2007day1/rcc361s01.mov

We did hit the floor after lunch to wonder around the floor and began to make more friends and make our selves more of a presence and people immediately knew who we were. So while we were there on the floor, we got to meet Andy Walker of www.labrats.tv and that experience was well worth it and Gary Marriott from www.littlegeeks.org and we got to talk with them and as it turns out Snowball works with these people. It was such a view on the inside for me and it was an experience I will not soon forget.

One of the highlights of the day was running into Amber Macarthur ( http://ambermac.typepad.com/ )

who is from G4 tech Tv and now of CITY24

This was a pic taken of us with Amber, and Andy and

Tara from Uncle Seth ( http://musicface.com/uncleseth/ )

We got to conduct a mini interview with her and record some promos for our show and our new intro,etc. I'll admit that I have had a HUGE crush on Amber for a while and this is the first time I have ever been kinda shy,I guess and that is such a weird feeling...so enough of me gushing. It was a fantastic experience and I really enjoyed working along side some industry professional

and