Monday, October 20, 2008

#3 ExtraLife Radio

It's been a long time since I put out a Podcast Review but I am obliged to cover Extralife Radio, not only because it is very awesome but I recently made a donation to the show. Making a donation means that your name gets read out at the top of the show, so I've posted a short clip from show #197 where the legendary Scott Johnson says my name- woah!



More after the jump...

I'll keep the review itself pretty short as it seems that the show is planning to end after episode 200 (technically one episode away, #199 was just released!). It's a big shame as it is a great show, one of the podcasts I really look forward to listening to.

But I've just realised I haven't mentioned what the show is about! OMG! At its essence, the show brings together three webcomics in a discussion over the week's "geek" news, whether that be recent film releases, video game previews, comic-related stuff etc. They include some personal stories as well, plus there's also a fair amount of banter thrown in too for good measure. The host is Scott Johnson of myextralife.com fame and he is the regular participant (as well as host, did I mention that?!), hence why he has lended the name to the radio show/podcast. The two other most regular appearances are from Brian from comicscoasttocoast.com and missiondeep.com and O(bsidian) from commissionedcomic.com. There are of course other guests on the shows, most notable Randy Jordan (aka Randy Deluxe) from the Instance (a WoW themed podcast which Scott also runs) who joins in to throw in his two cents usually about films as he's a massive film buff.

In short, it's a great show, more often than not released on a weekly basis, has a duration of just over a hour most times (although it can vary) which is great for my commutes. In addition to plugging the podcast, go check out their individual websites if you're into webcomics at all, it's very funny stuff. While initially I couldn't stand O at the start who always seems to cut across people and comes across as obnoxious; now I can fully appreciate what he brings to the table, plus more often than not he mixes it up to cause conflict and doesn't really mean a lot of it. That being said, I probably like O's comic the most. Scott's comic is what got me into the podcast and that was through his comic because of all the wow-themed comics he did many years ago when I was a World of Warcraft junkie (free at last!)

In conclusion, it's a fun, light-hearted show where three like-minded individuals come together to chat and joke about all stuff geeky which suits me down to the ground. I wholeheartedly recommend it!

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Where would you sit?...

I went to a house party that was being hosted by an old friend, Marsh, or as I had to teach myself to say Chris as noone in Worcester (where he's currently studying) know him by the old name we used back in school. Anyways, the house party was a lot of fun, although too much drinking led me to forget exactly how it all ended but good none the less. It had all the makings of a good party; drinking, drugs and a large number of strangers to meet.

One rather cool thing that happened which I felt needed to be blogged about was a little conversation I had with this guy Kwan (don't know how it's spelt sorry) about some behavioural psychology which I do find very interesting. Anyways, not sure how we got talking about it but I posed a scenario to him, which I will repeat here:


You get on a bus and there's an attractive girl (or guy, whatever works for you) sitting in one seat. Knowing this, where would you sit?


I posed this to Kwan and I made a decision myself. Make yours and hit "read more" to see if there's some mutual thinking going on. I'd be curious to know what people chose.

It is was rather spooky, Kwan gave his answer: opposite and one row back. It was a proper woah moment, as I thought the exact same thing. I thought that was awesome and we tried to reason why - you wouldn't sit in front of the girl as you wouldn't be able to see her without obviously turning round. But why not directly behind her, or even opposite but on the same row?
It's no secret that I'm a big podcast nut and I would love to find a podcast that discusses this kind of stuff - unfortunately the couple I've tried haven't been that great.

That being said I did ask Chris later that evening, and he replied again opposite, but two rows back. The bubble had been burst but still he half agreed, so I'm clinging on to the victory.