Podcast

Podcast Reviews

X-Play Podcast
http://www.g4tv.com/games/xplay/

I chose X-Play's podcast as my first to review. X-Play is a show, one that I haven't watched in years, that reviews video games. Watching the video podcasts reminds me how much I enjoy listening to the hosts and their opinions on games. Through their videos you get to a good look at various gameplay aspects, and at the end they'll give a rating.

Sometimes there are reviews, other times there will be previews, interviews (that's a lot of 'views'), and they'll find themselves at gaming conventions to get a good look at what's-to-come in the gaming world. My only complaint is that the video quality could be better, but there's a chance that there's an HD option that I'm missing.


BrainStuff
http://www.howstuffworks.com/podcasts/brainstuff.rss

From there I checked out the BrainStuff. It sounded like it could be interesting, but I became wary when one of the podcasts was “What happens when you press Alt and F4?” and thought “Well gee if someone was asking that, why don't they just try it.” But not everyone is computer literate. But then you go to something like “What is dynamite? How does it work?” and isn't that just cool? I'm not sure if I'll continue to follow this one – it seems like a hit-or-miss, but from a creative writing view you could find some gems. It might not be worth the effort though, and I'm not sold on listening to the speaker.


Pet Food Alphas
http://petfoodalpha.com/

I did realize in my search for a third podcast to review that I preferred shorter podcasts. Getting longer than 15 minutes? Not in my preference. Nonetheless I settled back towards video games and checked out “Pet Food Alphas,” a podcast that discusses the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) Final Fantasy XI.

Admittedly it took me awhile to settle into since it took them a bit to settle into it, but it is one of very few FFXI podcasts that keeps up to date, and I'm not bored listening to them since I can complete understand what they're referring to since it's a strong interest of mine. Downside for me is the length – minimum time has been 23 minutes and maximum has been 2 hours and 21 minutes and in trying to listen to two different episodes I got distracted partway through or needed to do other things. I'll subscribe, but I'm not sure how often I'll actually listen.



I won't listen to any podcasts on my ipod; it is filled to the brim with music and audio books.

Interactive Map

View Health Scores-Saint Johnsbury, VT in a larger map

Our group did a map of restaurants in St. Johnsbury, VT. Of all the restaurants in St. J, one of the highest in regards to health score (coming second to Dunkin Donuts) is New Century Chinese, which I believe is one of the newer restaurants in the area, so it does make sense, but it did have the problem (as mentioned on the map) of bugs – flies, to be specific. Richard and I took a trip over – it has plenty of parking (though I was blind and it took me a few shots to notice the sign signaling to where it was). The decor was odd, but I've seen stranger. We were the only ones, so service was good. I noticed quickly the place-mats advertising Asia and another New Century Chinese in Woodsville, and after asking our waitress she confirmed that the owners were the same. The food was your average Chinese restaurant taste, nothing to special, but I preferred it over New East Garden and was a closer drive than the places in Lyndonville.

One of my favorites places for a quick bite to eat is Anthony's Diner, which I generally go to alone or with one other so I can always easily find a seat, but with larger groups on a busy day it could be difficult, and around this time of year there are tour buses coming into the area for people to see the changing of the leaves. The food is decent and in my price range, and I certainly prefer popping in most days instead of going to McDonald's right next door.

HW: http://nsnsports.net/nek Critique

http://nsnsports.net/nek

This site is very well organized. It has a fair amount of ads, but they don't make the layout jarring like they can on some sites. I love the drop-down feature for the menu, the pictures on the front are nice, and I like how the "Next Live Game" remains at the top of every page.

Now, it could just be my Firefox add-ons causing problems, but it looks to me the only video you can get is when something is on live, which I never found time to see. Archive pages have what look to me like you could play old video, but I can't actually get anything; I think it's just a picture placeholder, which is very confusing.

HW: Writing for the Web

Ticket for Dog Biting
Dog owner was ticketed after his mixed Chow dog bites a second small child, its first offense from a year ago. The child with a bite around the ear and neck was treated at Children's Hospital for minor injuries.


Ten Commandments Legal Battle

HW: CBSAtlanta.com Critique

CBSAtlanta.com

The first thing I notice when I go to this website is how it is easy to navigate. There are handy site links at the top as well as the bottom. The main page appears to have a three column sort of layout, which also helps it.

There is quite a lot of text on the main page, but that's to be expected as it's mostly links to news stories. I like that there are mini video camera images next to story links that have video, and if you hover over the "Most Recent Videos" it will pop up a small blurb about the video.

I think having the "What's on CBS Atlanta" higher up would be nice; it almost gets lost where it currently is, surrounded by news links, but I'm not sure where it could go.

HW: Pimp My Blog

In designing my blog I went with a background that isn't overcomplicated but still fits with the sort of "otherwordly" view of my mind, although it's making me futz with what I want the font color for the "About Me/Blog Archive/Followers" headings. I want something readable but I haven't settled on what that is yet.

The current picture is of a basket of kanzashi (hand crafted flowers made from ribbon) that I made, since I haven't decided if this blog will focus on writing or kanzashi or both (when it's not about homework assignments).

I'd like to maybe find a way to change the link list so that it stretched across the page without having to add links to do so, but the only way I think I can do that is going into the HTML. That's a bit out of my level. I also can't tell if the picture is aligning to anything. I wish it'd line up with the post box, but I think that would once again require to pick apart the HTML.

RSS and follow by email at the bottom. Still easy to find but I don't really want that on the sidebar. I might change my mind when I get more posts on the blog though. I curiously put in for AdSense but that takes 48 hours.

The title "gutting the imaginary" is how I often look at my creative writing - reaching into the innards of imagination and gutting it apart, displaying the results through text. It's become my identifying quote on the internet.