Radio Free Burrito

Radio Free Burrito: Episode Twenty

Holy Crap, it's time for a new episode of Radio Free Burrito!

I must say, I'm pretty proud of my ability to get this one out on time. If I keep this up, I may have to remove the phrase "infrequently updated" from the show's description.

Show Notes:

• The logo was designed by WWdN:iX reader Marc, who asked that I not link to his "in progress" website. Thanks, Marc!
• Radio Free Burrito doesn't work as hard to earn its [EXPLICIT] tag as Memories of the Futurecast does, but it still manages to upset mom and get Twitter breakup messages from sensitive people. You have been warned.
• This week's theme music is Super Bon Bon by the legendary Soul Coughing, fronted by the equally-legendary Mike Doughty.
• On today's show, I read a story from the forthcoming special edition of The Happiest Days of our Lives, called Green Grass and High Tides Forever (and ever and ever and
• If you liked that story, you may want to check out the audio version of The Happiest Days of our Lives.
• Green Grass And High Tides can be yours for 99 cents at Amazon. That's, like, 10 cents a minute, which would have been a big deal in long distance pricing back when digital watches were a pretty neat idea.
• You know what's cheaper than building a time machine and going back to 1977 to watch Wizards ? Yep. Watching it on DVD right here in the future.
• I don't know why Thundarr The Barbarian isn't out in a deluxe Criterion edition, which it obviously deserves. We will just have to console ourselves with the Dungeons & Dragons animated series.
• The Dark Tower at Boardgame Geek.
• The Dark Tower online.
• The Dark Tower commercial featuring ORSON FUCKING WELLES.
• Flash version of The Dark Tower.
• This link that has nothing at all to do with The Dark Tower.
• This episode is just over 27 minutes long.
• This episode is about 26MB.
• This episode doesn't have artwork embedded, because I still can't figure out how to get it into the goddamn file without exporting as .m4a and converting to .mp3, doubling the filesize in the process. I mean, I could probably figure it out if I spent a lot of time working on it, but that's not nearly as fun as just producing the show.
• This is the end of the notes. 

Ready? Then put on your awesome dragon shirt and

Download Radio Free Burrito Episode 20

Radio Free Burrito: Episode Nineteen

Holy Crap, it's time for a new episode of Radio Free Burrito!

Yeah, it's two days late, but this time I have an actual note which excuses my tardiness ... but I can't show it to you, so you'll just have to trust me.

Show Notes:

• The logo was designed by WWdN:iX reader Marc, who asked that I not link to his "in progress" website. Thanks, Marc!
• Radio Free Burrito doesn't work as hard to earn its [EXPLICIT] tag as Memories of the Futurecast does, but it still manages to upset mom and get Twitter breakup messages from sensitive people. You have been warned.
• This week's theme music is a version of Surfin Bird by Pee Wee Herman. This is why.
• On today's show, I read the blog entry I wrote yesterday called there and back again. I'm not going to lie to you, Marge: I kind of dig the way it came to life. 
• If you like hearing me read my own work, you'll probably enjoy the audio version of Just A Geek, which is now available as an audiobook from Lulu, with the rest of my work. *ding!*
• I also played a song called Opium Head, which is the title track of the latest album from Solace. 
• You may want to find a way to sync Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite from 2001 with Pink Floyd's Echoes.
• This is what the Cinerama Dome looked like back in the day. (That picture comes from a wonderful blog post that Los Angeles history nerds will probably enjoy reading.)
• This page has everything you ever wanted to know about the Dome, including pictures of its construction, interior, and some famous 70MM engagements.
• I mentioned ambient music in my story. I love ambient, and here's an post I wrote a long time ago that's all about ambient music.
• The music I played underneath my story is called Red Shifted Harmonies, by DAC Crowell.
• This episode is just over 30 minutes long. 12 seconds over, actually. 
• This episode is about 28MB. 
• This episode doesn't have artwork embedded, because I still can't figure out how to get it into the goddamn file without exporting as .m4a and converting to .mp3, doubling the filesize in the process. I mean, I could probably figure it out if I spent a lot of time working on it, but that's not nearly as fun as just producing the show.
• This is the end of the notes. 

Ready? Then put on your headphones and

Download Radio Free Burrito Episode Nineteen. Nineteen. Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-Nineteen.

Radio Free Burrito: Episode Eighteen

Holy Crap, it's time for a new episode of Radio Free Burrito!

I'm not going to lie to you, Marge, I've been having a rough few days, so this show is uncharacteristically brief. Hopefully, it's still ... interesting. Hey, remember when I said "interesting" every five minutes on RFB? I don't really do that any more. That's ... interesting.

Show Notes:

• The logo was designed by WWdN:iX reader Marc, who asked that I not link to his "in progress" website. Thanks, Marc!
• Radio Free Burrito doesn't work as hard to earn its [EXPLICIT] tag as Memories of the Futurecast does, but it still manages to upset mom and get Twitter breakup messages from sensitive people. You have been warned.
• This week's theme music is Idioteque from Radiohead's Kid A.
• On today's show, I read an adapted excerpt from Just A Geek, which is now available as an audiobook from Lulu, with the rest of my work.
• I also played a song called Triforce, by The Mad Titans. I forgot to mention it in the show, but I wanted to say thank you to the band for releasing podsafe music! Maybe someone with Facebook would like to go to their fanpage and tell them that they're awesome.
• I believe that the Loudest Lawnmower in the World, which was busy being the Least Efficient Lawnmower in the World across the street for much of the afternoon, doesn't make an appearance on this show, thanks to careful editing and mic placement by me, Wil Wheaton.
• I'm not very funny this week. Hopefully, next week will be better.
• I also wanted to say that it really makes me super happy to know that there are apparently a lot of listeners out there on Planet Earth who look forward to Radio Free Burrito every week.
• This episode is just over 19 minutes long. 
• This episode is about 18MB. 
• This episode doesn't have artwork embedded, because I still can't figure out how to get it into the goddamn file without exporting as .m4a and converting to .mp3, and doubling the filesize in the process.
• This is the end of the notes. 

Ready? Then clap your hands and

Download Radio Free Burrito Episode 18!

Radio Free Burrito: Episode Seventeen

Holy Crap, it's time for a new episode of Radio Free Burrito!

I realize this will be played for an audience of eleven, because it's the week between Christmas and New Year, but it's important to me that I maintain my creative momentum, and I suppose a non-zero number of you out there in Internetland timeshift the Burrito.

Show Notes:

• The logo was designed by WWdN:iX reader Marc, who asked that I not link to his "in progress" website. Thanks, Marc!
• Radio Free Burrito doesn't work as hard to earn its [EXPLICIT] tag as Memories of the Futurecast does, but it still manages to upset mom and get Twitter breakup messages from sensitive people. You have been warned.
• This week's theme music is Dog Eat Dog, by Adam and the Ants, from the album Kings Of The Wild Frontier
• On today's show, I reach into The Vault for a story that is, on its surface, about an audition.
• I just realized that I didn't tell you what the audition was for. The, uh, thing is ... I can't remember. I know it wasn't for Heroes, though, because it went so well.
• I also reach into the expanded edition of The Happiest Days of our Lives for a story about me and my son that I stupidly cut from the Monolith Press edition.
• As I said, I have a virtual bookshelf with just about everything you could ever want to know (or tell your friends) about my books.
• On Twitter, ROBERTJON pointed to WFMU's Beware of the Blog as the place I found TV, That's For Me.
• This episode is just under 40 minutes long. 
• This episode is about 37MB. 
• This episode doesn't have artwork embedded, because I still can't figure out how to get it into the goddamn file without exporting as .m4a and converting to .mp3, and doubling the filesize in the process.
• This is the end of the notes. 

Ready? Then set your phasers to hilarious catch phrase, and

Download Radio Free Burrito Episode Seventeen!

Radio Free Burrito Archives: Episode Twelve

Holy crap! It's a new episode of Radio Free Burrito!

This show is all about Jonathan Coulton, because it's the First of May.

Show Notes:

• The logo was designed by WWdN:iX reader Marc, who asked that I not link to his "in progress" website. Thanks, Marc!
• I drop at least one F-bomb in this show, so you probably shouldn't listen to it around little kids, people with sensitive ears, or at work. Especially if you work in a daycare for kids with sensitive ears. (Hi, Agnes!)
• I encourage you to visit Jonathan Coulton dot Com.
• You may want to examine all the songs produced for the Thing A Week series.
• I know you want to give JoCo shiny gold rocks in exchange for musical and clothical items.
• The video for the Flickr song, as promised.
• Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise Crazy, but just be glad it's him, not you.
• Jonathan Coulton Tour information!
• Paul and Storm on the intarwheebs!
• I didn't bother with chapters and all that for this one, because I banged it out in about 30 minutes. (No, I didn't do it outside, despite the song in the show.) In fact, it's taken me longer to put together the show notes than it did to make the show. I think that qualifies me for several government jobs.
• My silly little news item came from Wikinews.
• Here's the original Misty Morning blog entry at WWdN.
• I got the address for the podcast about as wrong as I can get it without sending you to xkcd by instead. In addition to the Feedburner link (which is just the feed for my blog) you can check out all the posts tagged "podcast" here.
• Hey, did I mention that I'm going to be in San Diego this weekend?
• Radio Free Burrito is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
• This episode weighs in at 21.7MB and is about 24 minutes long.

I won't be able to update this post with mirrors, because I'm going to be in San Diego this weekend (see what I did there?) but if you make one, please leave it in the comments and I'll update when I get home from San Diego, where I'll be this weekend.

Enjoy the show, everyone!

Download radio_free_burrito_episode_12.mp3 

Radio Free Burrito Archives: Episode Eleven

Holy crap!

Look out the window for restless horsemen . . . it's a new episode of Radio Free Burrito, less than a week after the last one!

Show Notes

• I think we should just go ahead and give this podcast the [Explicit] label, if it doesn't have it already. Consider yourself warned.
• The logo was designed by WWdN:iX reader Marc, who asked that I not link to his "in progress" website. Thanks, Marc!
• Episode X let me get my podcasting legs back, so I felt much better with this one, even when I had to stall while trying to splat-tab into Firefox, where I saw that I hadn't pre-loaded my blog. Whoops.
• I put chapters, links, and images in this one. Yay!
• The full Code of Honor review isn't up yet, but you can read all of my TNG Reviews at TV Squad if you haven't already.
• When I mentioned all the great blogs at Wired that people may not know about, I forgot to mention GeekDad. It's not because I don't think it's a great blog, but because I took for granted that everyone reads it already. I also mentionedUnderwire, Listening Post and Threat Level.
• Here's the offending Alt Text column. Here's my Tweet. Here's my facepalm.
• You know you want to learn more about fabulous Palm Springs.
• Brad Sucks does not suck. You can listen to the album I Don't Know What I'm Doing at Magnatune.
• Mister Bungle is a shame, because he spoils lunchtime.
• I really do appreciate feedback; it makes me feel like I'm not broadcasting into an empty box.
• Radio Free Burrito is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
• This show is 18 minutes long, and weighs in at 16.6 MB.
• As always, let me know if you decide to mirror the show, and I'll update this post.

Thanks for listening!

Download radio_free_burrito_episode_11.mp3

MIRRORS

Radio Free Burrito Episode 11 from Brian

Radio Free Burrito Episode 11 from Media Pundit

Radio Free Burrito Episode 11 from Craig Steffen

Torrents from our good friend Brian May

High (orig):
http://athena.unearthed.org/torrents/radio_free_burrito_episode_11.mp3.torrent

Low (mono, VBR bit rate range 0-24, 3.1 MB):
http://athena.unearthed.org/torrents/radio_free_burrito_episode_11-low.mp3.torrent

Radio Free Burrito Archives: Episode Six

Here is Radio Free Burrito Episode Six, as the great ten-minutes-per day experiment moves on to day two. I've already figured out that ten minutes is just not enough time for a long-winded, tangent-prone guy like myself, so I don't know if trading off manageable time for more content is really worth it. We'll find out in a few days, I guess.

Thank you so much to everyone who has sent in logos! Holy crap, you are a talented bunch of people. I'm going to try on lots of different ones this week, send them all out on dates with the Crushinator, and figure out which logo will be permanent via a reality tv show in the coming weeks. If you haven't sent your logo idea in, please don't feel like you missed the boat; I'd still love to see what you guys come up with, and there's a very good chance I'll be able to use more than one logo for different things.

Show Notes:

• I am a moran. I know it's episode six, but I say "This is episode seven" at the beginning. Numbers, like math, are hard. I blame it on the date, the rain, and a bad spot of corned beef.
• The website I talked about is ChangeThis.com.
• My tune is called Heroes, and it was created in GarageBand. I may release it on its own at some point in the future.
• As I mentioned near the end of the show, I'll be offering a signed, limited edition chapbook preview of a few stories from Do You Want Kids With That at the convention this weekend. If I have any left over after the show, I'll sell whatever's left through my blog.
• The intro music is Atomic, by Blondie.
• Comments can be sent to podcast at wil wheaton dot net, questions can be sent to ask at wil wheaton dot net. Please use a descriptive subject line.
• The image I chose for this show was sent to me by WWdN:iX reader Chuck, fromairbrushmypic.com.
• Radio Free Burrito is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
• This episode is 10:19 and weighs in at 4.4 MB.

Anyway, here it is. Your feedback is always appreciated, and thanks for listening.

Download radio_free_burrito_episode_six.mp3

Update: Torrent Master Brian says:

Here's Episode 6? (You start off by saying Ep 7)

High (orig):
http://athena.unearthed.org/torrents/radio_free_burrito_episode_six.mp3.torrent

Low (mono, VBR bit rate range 0-24, 1.8 megs):
http://athena.unearthed.org/torrents/radio_free_burrito_episode_six-low.mp3.torrent

Mirror for the Low..
http://www.badmonkies.com/rfb/radio_free_burrito_episode_six-low.mp3

Thanks, Brian! And thanks for pointing out my lameness on the numbering. I've updated the show notes accordingly.

Radio Free Burrito Archives: Episode Zero

Well, here it is! It's alive!

As I wrote earlier today, "It will either be really cool, or the stupidest fucking thing in history, and I'll proceed accordingly." My initial feeling is that it falls somewhere in the middle: it's longer than I wanted, and it's a little unfocused, but I'm willing to allow myself the freedom to make as many mistakes as it takes to either come up with something cool, or accept that I just don't have what it takes to make a podcast.

Observations on getting this thing from my brains to your ears: I thought the recording would be very hard, but it was actually super easy. I've tried in Audacity several times before, and it never wants to work, so today I just followed the instructions from Apple for creating podcasts in Garageband, and it was simple and easy. But holy shit the converting and the uploading was so hard, I felt like I had no thumbs and an IQ of 24. I'm sorry to report that this episode is only available in the stupid, proprietary, Apple AAC format, but that's the only format I could get to upload (the .aiff file was over 300MB, and TypePad just wouldn't let me upload it. That was really annoying.)

So now I need to know what you, the audience, think. What would you like more of? Less of? Is it too long? Is it too narrowly focused, or not broad enough? Most importantly: when it was over, did you feel like I earned your 30 minutes, or did you feel like you wasted your time?

Heh. The last time I felt this nervous about releasing something into the wild, it was the first version of Dancing Barefoot. This is both cool and scary.

Afterthought: I just realized that I stupidly recorded this thing in super-ultra-hyper-mega-stereo, when nifty-old-mono would have been just fine. The result is a ridiculously large file (71.8 MB) which I can only leave up for a few hours before I blow through all my bandwidth. I'll see if I can convert the file I have to mono, and if not, look for Episode .05 to hit the airwaves in the next 48 hours. Yeah, I am really a moran. iTunes won't let me convert it to mp3, and Audacity won't even open it. So this file will stay up until about 8:00 PM Pacific time, when I'll have to take it down. If someone wants to mirror the file, go nuts. Gods, I am sofa king stupid. I blame my nervousness for this ultrarookie error. When you mock, please mock me gently.

AfterthoughtAfterthought: I owe Shane Nickerson a huge debt of gratitude, because he pointed out to me my stupid mistake. I'll reveal my shame a bit later on. In the meantime, here is a .mp3 file, which is much smaller: "only" 27.3MB:

Download radio_free_burrito_episode_zero.mp3

Oh boy! Several Mirrors!

Mirror one, from WWdN:iX reader buford: radio_free_burrito_episode_zero.mp3

Mirror two, from my friend Kathleen: radio_free_burrito_episode_zero.mp3

Mirror three, from WWdN:iX reader  UglyRedHonda: Unauthorized low-bandwidth-friendly re-encoding

And the coolest of them all . . . a .torrent. Man, do I feel like I've arrived now! Thanks, Brian! :)