Archive for February, 2011

Recently posted on Sorgatron Media

Mulango Akpo-Esambe of Mangtoons.com takes us on a tour of the Toonseum in Downtown Pittsburgh, PA! We checkout the comics, people, and upcoming events during the Blogger Blast in early February and have a chance to talk with Executive Director of Toonseum, Joe Wos, and the special guest for the evening, Doug Bradley. Better known to some as “Pinhead” of the classic Hellraiser series!

Stay tuned in the coming week for an extended release of our conversation with Doug Bradley about the Toonseum, what he’s been working on, Soccor, and the “new” Hellraiser flick right here on SorgatronMedia.com!

This was the first in what I hope to be a series of videos covering what’s going on in the area that doesn’t quite fit in with the shows we’ve been doing thus far. Sort of like when we visited the Freak Show guys for Stuff a Bus.

I had the fortune to be able to get Mulango last minute, who fit in as someone who produces his own web comic, and is a student of animation (he’s officially a 3D Animator by trade). This Blogger Blast event (that took place all the way back on February 2) was a pretty novel event. Walking in, the patrons were handed a small package that was a little different. A tiney, bulky envelope that made me scratch my head. Turns out, the little envelope had, as Joe Wos explained during the presentation, a Toonseum flash drive, business card, and several free passes for the Toonseum for givaways on our respective blogs.

It was a great event to check the place out.  I’m a big proponent of the idea that you have to show people what they’re getting into.  I might have reservations about just heading down to check out someplace like the Toonseum.  Now, after going down and talking with people involved in it, and seeing the space, I’m a bit more excited, and willing to keep tabs on, the stuff going on down there.  Hopefully, with the bloggers and videos like the one I’m posting, people will have a chance to explore it digitally and be more likely to come in.  This is something I like to promote with all of those session videos from Podcamp Pittsburgh.

All together, I’m pretty happy with the results. Here’s looking to cover bigger events in the near future.

What events should we be covering in this fashion?

AwesomeCast 38: Now with more Watson
Another great show where we welcome our robot overlords. It was great to catch a little bit of the historic Watson Jeopardy right before the show. It’s also been great to have our new run down system that Chachi is keeping alive that AJ brought in in my absence the week before.

Wrestling Mayhem Show 257: Leave No Rock Behind

A nice, tight show with the core group after the long winded TNA hat-a-thon that was the week before without me. We really locked down a flow this night, giving me a decent time on the post-production (and some much needed sleep I usually don’t get on Tuesday nights).

While I still want to work Chachi into starting the AwesomeCast edit during WMS, leaving some of the final touch ups and WMS audio posting to an earlier rise Wednesday morning worked out really well.

Another issue has been my recent decrease in my Verizon FIOS package. My main goal was to lower some cost. Cancelling the land line, dropping to the standard package so I can still see my Penguins and Monday RAW. Unfortunate side effect? The bundle drops me from a healthy 25/15 upload/download flow to 15/5. And that 5 is more substantial than I expected. Uploaded the video versions of the show are now a set it. Forget it. Make a sandwich. Make dinner. And done! Ouch. We may be justifying a re-upgrade in the near future…

Chachi Says 22: Please Don’t Kill Us

It’s clear that the G2 isn’t holding up with some motion.  Lessons learned.  Either way, it seems that his previous series about robot domination was a tremendous precursor to the Watson hoopla that carries over from AwesomeCast

Music Funtime Show 33

No subtitles!  This was a weird week for me.  I picked a random Austrailian pop song, and one song solely for the Walker Texas Ranger sample.  And somehow, that fits my tastes to a T.

Chachi Plays for Kids

It doesn’t end!  Not only did Chachi have the completely dynamite idea to do a time lapse of the ENTIRE 24 hours of play, which shrunk to only 13 minutes at the limit of what Final Cut Pro would do for a Speed Change, but an email came in from City Councilman Bruce Kraus inviting Chachi down for a proclaimation honoring his efforts.

And your mom said video games wouldn’t accomplish anything.

AND that’s not all! While I don’t have the usual tired podcasting aftermath video from last Tuesday night, I do give you…a cat in a box…ready for shipping…

For a long time, we have been fans of alternative music games in the Sorg household. Back at our townhouse, we were huge fans of Dance Dance Revolution to the point that we were buying the larger, plush, pads and wearing them out. When Guitar Hero showed up on the scene, about the second one that came out, we were hooked. That plastic guitar was the sweetest thing to play with to the determinant of My wife and my actual musical training in our education days.

When Harmonix dropped the Guitar Hero franchise to Activision, but moved on to create something grander in Rock Band, the writing was on the wall. Activision would do what it usually does with a hit, and over saturate the marked, splitting developers amongst the franchise, and generally doing a disjustice to awesome.

And finally, with a whimper, a franchise dies.

Just over a month or so ago, my best friend laid out an idea for a 24 hour gamathon for charity.  I am pleased to say that it came to fruition, and with a good bit of success.  It was amazing to see everyone in our little social media community come out to support the event.  The Wrestling Mayhem Crew was live in the chat room the whole weekend.  Everyone came out to see the spectacle that was Chachi camped out in Ninja Entertainment on Smithfield St.  Chachi managed to get press and raise over $3,000 for a great, local cause!  There are plenty of pics and videos on the Facebook page, but here’s a little timelapse of the entire 24 hours for your enjoyment!

This week, we had some new challenges to overcome. The first, by far, was what happens when I get sick, as happened to a severe degree early in the week. I’ve gone the better part of a year without being so sick that I literally could not function in any regard. It hit me so hard Monday night that I was unable to even comprehend watching professional wrestling. I took Tuesday to myself and called in Chachi to fill in. He has been attending the studio since the beginning of the year in order to learn the ropes in cases just like this. So I dragged my sick butt downstairs and set things up for him, and watched the show unfold without me on my living room television upstairs.
AwesomeCast 37: ChachiCast
This was one I was least worried about. Chachi is fairly ingrained in the technology conversation here, and AJ stepped up and did a run down for the show to help out. The show flowed really well and the conversation was great.

Wrestling Mayhem Show 256: Nutter Butter
Again, I tossed it to the Mayhem Crew to help Chachi with the flow of the show. The show went long, TNA was complained a bout a bit more than I would have liked, but there was a long line of heated conversation to keep things rolling.
Chachi Plays for Kids

The rest of the productions for the week were skirted in favor of proper preparation for this insane endeavor.  The setup was quick and rolled right into it.  We brought a mini version of the studio and a couple of micas to keep the show streamed to get people interested in checking in with the man as he takes on his 24 hour challenge.
The event raised over $3000 for Make Room for Kids, well beyond Chachi’s $2400 goal.  It gained awareness to the patrons and was a good time for all involved.  Stay tuned for something a little more in depth on this, and some sort of recap video in the near future.

AwesomeCast 36: Where’s Egypt
This was a weird reverse-meta thing.  I received Chachi’s episode the day before, even though it was going up two days later, and touched base with his smartphone conversation.  It was interesting to draw some content from that.  AJ is fast becoming a mainstay on both this and Mayhem.  He, like me, has a genuine enthusiasm for both technology and professional wrestling, and it’s nice to have someone just up the road that can participate in studio like this.
Wrestling Mayhem Show 255: The Road to WrestleMania Goes Through Oregon

Chachi discovered Oregon Trail on Missy’s iPad, which he usually uses for the show.  This is basically a love fest for Royal Rumble once again.  We do love us some Rumble…
Chachi Says 21: Join the Future

Chachi is gearing up for Chachi Plays and poses the above question of “why aren’t you on a smartphone.”  A wholly one sided discussion, but an interesting question.  And no, we’re not sponsored by Comcast (you’ll see on the video)
Music Funtime Show 32: Opening Homicidal Nerds

AwesomeCast 35: Not Yet Pulled From iTunes
Another episode where we invited AJ in for the one-two punch.  This is what happens in a “there’s no news” week.  Which is odd, since I felt like we had plenty to talk about.  Poor Rob, though.  He was joining us from one of his new gigs at the Cotton Factory, which we wondered where the chinese child labor was being kept.  Another fun show keeping with the style I think we’re building on that’s it’s own, I hope.
Wrestling Mayhem Show 254: 1-900-WRESTLEFAN
For those that aren’t aware, a good bit of the between show segments are being recorded for posting on our iPhone and Android app.  We recently started the “WrestleFan Project” based on his video blogs introducing us to her cookie stand friend.  This lead to the most sidesplitting funny stuff I’ve had on here in a long time.  Somewhere, we ended up breaking out into song with AJ chiming in.  Tremendous, and likely making it worth the 1.99 for the app for most.
Chachi Says 20: Chachi Plays
Chachi finally unveiled his charity event.  I remember ages ago when I was trying to convince him to do a video podcast based on his personality and the following he’d garnered on Twitter.  It only made sense to get him on video, if only for five minutes a week.  Now we get 24 hours of him playing video games for charity.  Who knows what’s going to come next after this one’s done!

Music Funtime Show 31: Nerdcore and Orchestral Culture

I enjoy putting a little bit of synergey across my shows now and again.  This time, I was able to feature Walt Ribeiro’s music from ForOrchestra.com, some more from Scrub Club, and Jonathan Coulton in advance of his concert Friday night.

It was a rather late night for me this past production Tuesday.  So much so that it was well after midnight before I got to editing.  That’s where Johnny Mnemonic came in handy.  This flick is supposed to take place in this 2010s, so it was a good chance to compare notes on the future from the future…