It has been one full year and four months, the purchasing of Final Cut and a camera, and 55 episodes, but we’ve finally attempted to acquire a good microphone for use with the show. On its way via the magic of UPS, the Canon DM 50 should arrive on Monday in time for the show that week.

As some of you may know, we attempted to use some wireless mics that ended up being absolutely worthless. I realize that the mics were somewhat inexpensive for the being of the wireless variety, but they seriously didn’t work as advertised. If you’re curious, don’t buy Gemini audio gear. I even tried to email them to ask what was up with my mics, but go no answer. Anyway, the result was that those wireless mics found a comfy place in my closet and I end up pulling them out every once in a while to see if they somehow fixed themselves (they don’t).

So what we’ve done this time is try a different approach. I would really like to have wireless mics (because wireless things are cool and useful), but they’re darned expensive. The DM 50, as you can see, is a shotgun mic that mounts to the top of the camera. It vampires the power from the camera itself, so no extra cables, and has three setting for recording audio: mono, 90° stereo, and 180° stereo. It should be pretty sweet.

Our little operation is getting closer and closer to being totally awesome. Stay tuned!

I would like to thank Baxter (that Andrew, or is it this Andrew…that’s really confusing…anyway, Andrew Martin) for filling the void I left all these months not writing. Sorry it’s been so long, but you probably benefitted as a reader by not having to put up with my crap. I’ve been busy with my job, but who hasn’t these days with the economy what it is. 

Well, Halloween is tomorrow (Candy, Candy, Candy!) and the election is Tuesday. I hope you’re registered to vote because this is going to be the biggest damn election of your lives! That’s right: BIGGEST! I just got my Obama button in the mail yesterday, but it should have been here a month ago. Funny story: apparently the US Postal Service left a truck load of these buttons in a back room somewhere and forgot about them. Thousands of people didn’t get their buttons on time (including yours truly) and MoveOn.org, who sponsored the buttons, had to expedite some extras to those who signed up for them. If you’re one of those people that this happened to, did you ever get the feeling that something fishy was going on? I mean, not to say that there’s actually some Republican conspiracy in ths country (because the last eight years of this government have been the most awesome in American history) but conveniently leaving many boxes of Obama buttons in a back room and forgetting about them doesn’t seem right. I swear, everyone is out to get Barack. Oh well. Enough about politics.

Enjoy the trick-or-treaters as they eat all your candy. Throw one or two of them off their game by giving them a rock. Do it. Give them a rock instead of candy. If it can happen in It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, then it can happen in real life.

Peace

As you might have already guessed (by looking at the site), we’ve changed the theme around a little bit. All of the old content, of course, is still on the site and searchable.

A couple of new things that you might see are the staff “currently reading” section, where you can see what we’re all digging on at the moment, and in the case of Joe and myself, probably what we’re going to be reviewing soon on the show. Also, I’ve put up an RSS feed to my much lauded Twitter account. Now you can see what I’m up too throughout the day (which I know is extremely exciting).

So that’s really about it. We’re hoping to implement some interesting things soon, so keep your eyes peeled. For now, though, let us know what you think and have a good Hallowed Ween!

Episode 55 of Pressed & Bound is online! In this week’s episode we review:

Books:

• War And Peace (Signet Classics)

Movies:

• Leon – The Professional (Deluxe Edition)

Right click and download the fifty-fifth episode here:

• MP4 306.4mb
• iPod 194.6mb
• MP3 25.6mb

Comments or questions? Email us at: pnbfans(at)gmail(dot)com

Due to a fluctuation in my flux capacitor, last week actually disappeared and episode 55 of P&B destroyed as a result.

LUCKILY,

I was able to save the video because I happened to run into my past doppelganger – who, since last week was destroyed, his physical being was shifted in time to this week – who was walking the down street confused and covered in slime (I really don’t know what happens during a time shift, but apparently it’s best to be in a capsule of sorts). He happened to have the camera we used to shoot the show and I was able to recover the tape. Unfortunately, I had to kill him to ensure no confusion happens in the future (well, realistically, one of us had to kill the other eventually; I just had more initiative [and I was less gooey] ).

So what does this mean for you? Well, basically it means that this week we’ll have both Episode 55 and 56 come out. As I type this I am uploading the video, so hopefully this will occur very soon. Thanks for your patience, and start carrying a knife in case you find your doppelganger from last week.

Alright, boys and girls.  It’s been a rough couple of weeks for updates, but here’s a big damn book for you.

Neal Stephenson is the author of Snow Crash, which Joe and Garret reviewed, and The Diamond Age, which I would love to write up sometime.  He’s a great author and has a huge, nerdy fanbase.  Today’s book, however, is why am not a drooling fanboy for him the way I am for Gaiman and Gibson. Read more…

Episode 54 of Pressed & Bound is online! In this week’s episode we review:

Books:

• The Face

Movies:

• The Believer

Right click and download the fifty-fourth episode here:

• MP4 394mb
• iPod 185mb
• MP3 33mb

Comments or questions? Email us at: pnbfans(at)gmail(dot)com

Episode 53 of Pressed & Bound is online! In this week’s episode we review:

Books:

• Lolita

Movies:

• Bruno Bozzetto’s: Allegro Non Troppo

Right click and download the fifty-third episode here:

• MP4 299mb
• iPod 177mb
• MP3 27mb

Comments or questions? Email us at: pnbfans(at)gmail(dot)com

Alright, I missed last week, and this post is… late. I promise this one is good, though.

Every time I write this little column, I have to decide what I should focus on out of the multitude of great material out there. So far, I’ve consistently tended toward choosing books or movies I haven’t heard anyone talk about in a while, and this feels good to me. Frankly, no one really needs to know what I think of what I read and watch, but if I can turn you on to something you haven’t heard of before, I’ve performed a worthwhile service. For that reason, even though I’m about to start reading Watchmen, I don’t plan to review it. Everyone who would care about it knows about it. Now, on to today’s review.

Ghost Dog – The Way of the Samurai is one hell of a thing. Read more…

Currently I’m trying to work out a good schedule for getting the show online so it will be more consistent. I know in the past couple of weeks we might have a show on Friday, then something on Thursday, then wait two weeks and see. We don’t really like doing this, so within the next couple of weeks we’re trying to cement down a good schedule so that you all can know that whatever time on whatever day, you can expect the show. So sorry for any inconvenience in the last month or so, but hopefully everything will be straightened out soon.