Behind the Scenes: The JBlogosphere Podcast

Shushan Purim Sameach!

Happy Shushan Purim to all of you celebrating Purim today in cities that were encircled by walls at the time of Yehoshua Bin-Nun! That includes, Yerushalayim, Hevron...and some say Teverya...Yaffo...and Cleveland.

The bleary-eyed look on my face has nothing to do with my alchohol consumption on Purim yesterday, rather from staying up waaay too late on Purim night working on the "podcast."

Speaking of the podcast, I would like to comment a bit about it.

First of all, this was without a doubt, a collaborative effort. All your submissions is what made it alot of fun, and your gentle proddings (Nu, is it ready yet?) is definitely what pushed it to completion.

There were many times I thought, "shouldn't I just go to sleep and finish this on Shushan Purim, who would care?" But I got an earful from my co-conspirator Ezzie, who put a heck of alot of time in this as well. Without Ezzie's prodding and publishing on GCast, this would never have gotten finished. Thanks Ezzie! (or maybe not?)

This is truly a JBlogosphere production, and I think everyone should have a laugh at the podcast.

Now...I must apologize to a few people.

1. As Motzei Shabbat drew late and my eyelids were getting heavy and droopy, not every audio submitted made it in. I'm not talking about the Jewbiqitous women, who recorded about 10 takes of their show, or the 27 boring DovBear impressionists, or the submission from an Arabic sounding person who would probably have been on Haman's losing team 2500 years ago. No, all those were left out intentionally.

However, probably about 10 didn't make it in for purely technical (read: sleep deprived) reasons.

I realize that as we say, "Kol HaHatchalot Kashot" (All beginnings are difficult), this being the first JBlogosphere Podcast, it was VERY difficult. So, we will try to break the recordings down to easily manageable 15 minute segments, as well as verifying the recording quality. We'll also add in the missing segments, and edit it to be clearer, sharper, pithier, and worthy of the Holy Hyrax's poster. (You should know he probably spent more time on preparing that poster than Ezzie and I spent on putting the podcast together).

2. I certainly hope that no one was offended by anything on the podcast. We tried to review everything to ensure it was not worse than PG13, no bad language and not directly insulting to anyone (well, JoeSettler certainly had fun at my expense, but thats a different story).

Of course, all that excludes a particular public official. Our crack(pot?) legal staff checked every audio posting to ensure she couldn't sue us for slander, libel, or grand larceny. Without a doubt, she was the shining "star" of the production, and while we abhor her legal attack aginst JBlogosphere bloggers, we do thank her for the opportunity to have some Purim fun at her expense.

3. Anyone else to apologize to? Hmm - not that I can think of. Oh wow - I just realized the "24" segment of RenReb vs. Jack Bauer and the Hooked on Phonics Monsey Edition came out scrambled. I'll try to fix them NOW (just worked with Ezzie on this...changed the encoding scheme...they will be up soon!)

So, on to some more credits. (This is like the extra DVD you get with a movie, the "BONUS" material.

Check out this email I got yesterday from FrumSatire. I sent him email weeks back asking for a podcast submission, yet his email were rather terse (though he did give me a hat-tip for something I sent him).

Dude, first of all do you know it took me a few weeks after your initial email to figure out that you were Jewish and not a very friendly palestinian- I was thinking the whole time how to go about asking you why you loved Jews so much.

Then I read the story of how you became the muquata...

I guess that's one more reason to change my blog name from "The Muqata" to something like "24 hours a day @ The Shomron CTU"

And now...some credits: (read them in Star Wars fashion, with them scrolling off into the distance...hum the theme music in your head)

Ezzie: Post Production Manager par-excellence. Plus, he riled up the troops to get people to send in submissions, got the gchat stuff worked out...without him, this simply would not have happened in time for THIS Purim.

AirTime: AirTime pushed me last week with a bunch of submissions that helped alot. Actually, alot of the idea of a podcast came from him a year ago.

R' Gil Student: Gil was the FIRST person to send me a submission after claiming he was extremely busy, which proves the adage; if you want something done, ask a busy person for help.

Jack the Waffle Guy. All those waffles I made for Jack finally paid off, and he was without a doubt the person who called the GCast hotline the most.

The BatTaz

Chana and SJ and Meanderations (wait...is that the whole brainy trinity :-) ?? and thanks for the intro/post-script!)

Annie and Harley from Jewbiquitous

Wawaweewa Kasamaba!

Reb Chaim HaQoton

The Rabbi Without a Cause

AskShifra (Got any questions? Best time to ask is 18 minutes before Shabbat...)

Chaim from the "Life of Rubin"

Orie Yenta

JoeSettler (I sound NOTHING like that in real life)

EmahS

Amshinover (Amshi DOES sound like that in real life)

Ayelet from May Cuties

Phish and BEC from BEC's Universe

David Linn from BeyondBT

MeAnder (The Muse)

Meshugana Mommy

CosmicX

Raggedy Mom

BenChorin

Neil Harris from Modern Uberdox

The very very holy Maggid of Bergenfield

Still Wonderin'

Sarah from Sarah's View

Shoshana from SweetRose

DaBoyz of 905

CroMagnumMan

TNSPR from How to measure the years

The HolyHyrax (who hangs on at Serandez and the Muqata) (HH has no blog...he just hangs out here)

TAFKAPP from Going Slightly Mad

Krum as a Bagel

Steg, The BoroPark Pyro

Sowhaysonata

The Sabra from Altishalioti

RenReb, Orthomom and Phil.

And I'm sure I missed a few here...please drop me a comment and I'll add you as well.

The good news is that Ezzie and I have fixed and added a bunch more...should be up today. Watch this space!

Happy Shushan Purim,

Jameel








Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael