Ursus Pacificus

I was offered by YouTube an opportunity (as “newsundies”) to participate in a test program which would allow me to upload videos longer than 10 minutes.

For nearly a year, I’ve been doing NewsUndies shows oriented toward YouTube’s 10-minute limit, often throwing out perfectly good bits to get my shows to fit. I looked forward to the opportunity to participate, but it would take me a little while to get a show put together that fit. There’s something of a pipeline to NewsUndies production, and a substantial amount of planning and research goes into each show, so if a show is planned for 10 minutes, making it substantially longer is non-trivial.

I did, though, put a 13-minute show together (NU1005), and uploaded it. Uploading it took forever, and once it was uploaded, YouTube delayed its release to verify via email that I either owned the copyrights or had written permission from the copyright holders of everything in the video. As a result the show came out late.

This week’s show was made late, because I was planning on uploading a 13-minute show, but when I went to upload it, I was informed that the >10-minute program had ended, and I was thanked for my participation.

That’s poo.

So, now I have a longer-than-ten-minute show, all edited and rendered and everything… and I either need to cut three minutes out of it (no small feat) or cut it into two parts (which requires, essentially, re-editing the show). Either way there was re-editing and re-rendering involved, and by then it was midnight.

I opted for the 2-part route… It’s an inelegant solution, but I wanted to get all that material in there, and YouTube kinda left me twisting in the wind on this one.

So, bottom line is: This week’s show is late , and late shows don’t get watched, thanks, again, to YouTube.

Wow!

I’ve been invited to join the panel on a local radio show, called Freethought Rhode Island. The weekly show is put on by members of the Rhode Island Atheist Society and the Rhode Island Skeptics’ Society.

You can listen live on radio in the Providence, RI market on 88.1 WELH-FM

You can listen live on the Interwebs at http://bsrlive.com/

…and you can download the podcast after the fact at http://www.freethoughtri.com/

The live broadcast and stream starts at 9:00 PM EST

It’s a call-in show, so… listen, and call in!

Here’s a promo I put together for Unexpected Company, a local Improv Comedy group, here in Warwick, RI.

First show to use the new “Mm-hmm-Prompter”… A rousing success methinks! Still a few kinks to work out, but mostly awesome!

…if I do say so myself…

which I do.

This is the prototypey, proof-of-concept-ish stage of my “prompting device”

Next stage? Find a way to mount the camera and the prompter to one frame, and somehow be able to pan/tilt/elevate the whole mess.

Simple.

Buck, Jim, Tom and I got together and recorded a theme for the upcoming revamped NewsUndies intro. You can listen to it here: Dummyhead Songs Page

Like it? Hate it? You can comment here, Tweet us at twitter.com/newsundies, or email undies@newsundies.com

Hi… Well… this has been a big week in the NewsUndies world…

New dressing for the NewsUndies set is a big thing… with new lighting and so on.

The production process has become quite a bit more refined, and the likelihood of more InfoThongs has increased due to the way stories are selected and written.

There’s new graphics, added to (and thematically related to) the current new graphics package, and more to come.

There’s now a NewsUndies section in the UrsusPacificus KitschKave! You can get your NewsUndies goodies there! I did

There’s a new intro in the works, and a theme song. How about THAT?!

Probably the biggest thing is that NewsUndies now has its own YouTube channel. It’s at http://www.youtube.com/newsundies. This does not impact the www.newsundies.com website… it just means that if you want to see NewsUndies videos on YouTube, from now on, you go to the newsundies channel in stead of the ursuspacificus channel.

First up, NewsUndies finally has kitsch of its own:

Then there’s the KayakKave’s new design:

Finally there’s the “something wicked” design;

Stop by and pick up a gift for the Significant Other or Wee Ones (if you have any).

Hey, everybody!

In an effort to make NewsUndies easier to find (and share) I’ve spun them off their own website: www.newsundies.com

So, just for the record, the full-blown NewsUndies show will be weekly from now on, with new shows posted on Friday.

You can still see all the NewsUndies on YouTube, and new shows will be announced here, with links to NewsUndies.com, but the embedded videos will no longer be here… They’ll be at NewsUndies.com, and on YouTube.

Thanks for watching! We’ll see you next week on NewsUndies… all the news that shouldn’t be news!

Well the Dummyhead guys have been in and out checking out how everything fits, and having their pictures taken.

Some of the new photos:

The new layout looks something like this:

The new studio layout does a lot to help reduce the apparent clutter in the room.. Much of this is accomplished through the “island” plan. The desk (which houses the D-3200 recorder and the computer), the drum kit, the organ, Paul’s guitar rig, Jim’s bass rig and practically all the mics are gathered aroud the center of the room, and all situated to have the performers facing “in”, rather than “out”. There are 4 vocal mic positions (one with a TalkBox tube), and mics on the bass amp and two guitar amps. The Hammond and the drum kit are wired straight into the D-3200 (stereo). There are headphone drops all over the place. Buck’s Epiphone amp is in the lower-left corner of the pic.

Any individual pic will not show the plan in its full glory, because the room is so small, but this arrangement makes what appears to be the best use of the available space, while still permitting walking room and space for sound to resonate, as needed.