Monday, March 2, 2009

In the Chamber: Just About Everything

We've experienced our second consecutive weekend of blog lag. No fancy get-togethers in New York City either this time to excuse us, we actually did it as sort of an aesthetic choice.

Those of you who have been reading this blog from the beginning have probably noticed we're slowly but surely getting things streamlined around here.

For instance, most of our reviews are going to be "Quick Hits." These are meant to be brief general impressions of one show on one particular day. As Toothy has already demonstrated, the reviewer isn't required to even listen to the entire podcast. But the reviewer needs to at least give some examples to show that he/she actually listened.

In addition to Quick Hits, we will have full reviews called "A Longer Look." These will be as long or as short as the reviewer wants but expected to be much more detailed and on-point. Several episodes should be considered to gauge the recent "flow" of the show as a whole. These are meant to be more about where the show is going overall rather than just looking at one episode in a vacuum.

Aside from the reviews, we have some columns:

Toothy is going to be authoring the "Mailbag" column.

PetePete is going to be authoring a column called "Transcribing Master" where he transcribes a bit of the spoken word from a podcast and then goes in-depth about possible meanings.

Fred is going to be authoring a column called "Delayed Recall." Fred has repeatedly told the four of us that his memory is excellent even as he approaches 71-years old. However, as we have learned in reality, Fred is quite forgetful. Therefore we proposed that Fred do an experiment called Delayed Recall where he listens to a podcast, doesn't take any notes, and writes about it a day or two later with his impressions. He's been a good sport to agree; should be a great read!

Melissa may author the "Reviewing the Reviewers" column on a permanent basis but she has a couple of other ideas that she's proposed which both sound interesting. We still need to speak as a group about it.

And finally I'll author "In the Chamber" which (aside from this one) is meant to be a quick column about which podcasts have hit the iTunes that morning and also "The Greater Good" which will be a general look at the blog, WoW podcasts and community discussion every Friday.

Here's what fired up at 9:00 AM EST:

Rawrcast - #8: Yummy PTR Cookies
Epic Dolls - Episode 61 - 3.1 Goodies and Guilds
Casually Hardcore - Masters of 5 - The Oculus
WoW Things Considered - Fired Up
Essence of RP - Episode 20? The Return
The Happy Hour Tavern - Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom
Octale and Hordak vs The World - Steaming Tangentials in the Storm Peaks
Blue Plz! - Season 3 Episode 20 Separate But Equal?
Warcraft Anonymous - Episode 66: Warcraft Anonymous Returns
Yet Another World of Warcraft Podcast - Episode #034
MaxSpeed - Moment of Silence

No doubt the WoW Insider show is close to follow too, as it is every Monday. Just wasn't there at 9:00 AM EST!

Another Ctrl Alt WoW should be out today too.

Best episode name has to go to Octale and Hordak!

Lastly, I know I have qualifiers all over the blog but I feel I need to say that we are rooting for every podcast. We're WoW fans. We like to listen and hopefully learn something, or at least have a good time while not learning! We're excited when iTunes queues up in the morning and there are several new shows to listen to. We're never going into any review looking to write a bad one. I don't think you'll ever hear a reviewer here use the phrase "I don't know why they are even doing this podcast" because we don't mean to offend anyone's personal preference, but you will get a completely honest assessment from our point of view which may conflict with your own.

We don't know anyone in the WoW community at-large so we have no vendettas or favors to repay or friends to pimp out and pump up. What we're hoping here is to eventually provide a service for readers so they can make informed decisions about what they should listen to out of the myriad of WoW podcasts out there.

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