Penmachine

No video yet, but here are some photos of my appearance with my co-host Paul Garay on The Lab With Leo yesterday, taken by Sean Carruthers of the show's staff:

Paul had better be careful with those heavy metal hand signs—then again, I guess they were appropriate in this case. And yup, that's my new guitar.

Labels: ego, guitar, ihr, insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, megancole, paulgaray, podcast, tv, video

I've listened to Leo Laporte's many podcasts for some time now, but before he started the This Week In Tech juggernaut, he was well known as a TV and radio host—which is still what he does for a living.

Leo's latest venture is The Lab With Leo, a syndicated technology television program available (so far) on G4 Tech TV in Canada and the How To Channel in Australia. While Leo is based in California, once a month he flies up here to Vancouver to record a batch of new programs.

Even though it started only a few months ago, there are already more than 30 episodes of The Lab, and today my podcast co-host Paul Garay and I were guests on two separate segments, about microphones and digitally recording guitars.

Those will be available online and on air in a few weeks, but if you'd like to see how things work, check out Paul's previous two appearances, courtesy of Google Video:

We also ran into our pal Megan Cole, who was recording a separate segment on the same episode. I'll let you know when the new material appears.

Labels: ihr, insidehomerecording, labwithleo, leolaporte, megancole, paulgaray, podcast, tv, video

I called Alison, the friendly radiotherapy support nurse at the B.C. Cancer Agency, today because it's been three weeks since my last radiation treatment, and I'm still on a slow pendulum between painful, aching constipation and painful, gassy cramps and diarrhea. It takes three to four days to go between extremes. The days in the middle of pendulum (like yesterday, or last Thursday) can be pretty good, but the others (like today, or last Saturday) are far from it.

As I suspected—and unfortunately—it's nothing unusual as far as radiation side effects go. My internal tissues are inflamed, and they take a long time to calm down. The radiation is still taking effect and killing cancer cells. So feeling like crap three weeks later is par for the course, and the summary is that I just have to ride it out. I spent the four hours between when my family got home and the kids' bedtime either lying in bed or in sitting the bathroom. I was no help to my wife at all. Luckily I was able to help put the girls to sleep at least.

I'm supposed to make a guest appearance on The Lab With Leo tomorrow. Things are improving somewhat right now, but I hope they improve enough that I can get myself the hell out of the house to get down there.

I hate this. Hate it.

Labels: cancer, colostomy, ihr, insidehomerecording, leolaporte, radiation

If you're looking for fun stuff to listen to or watch, I have some suggestions. In addition to the latest episode of Inside Home Recording (the podcast I co-host), which we released last night, my IHR colleague Paul Garay also recently appeared on episode #18 of The Lab With Leo, tech media legend Leo Laporte's new TV show, now available online at Google Video:

You should also check out the latest release in my wife's podcast, Lip Gloss and Laptops. She and her co-host KA have now reached 62 shows, putting one out pretty much every week since February 2006.

Labels: geekery, ihr, insidehomerecording, lipglossandlaptops, podcast, tv

We skipped an episode because of my ongoing cancer treatment, but now my co-host Paul Garay and I have finally posted Episode #41 of our podcast Inside Home Recording. It's extra-long to make up for the delay, and includes a bunch of recording industry news, letters and audio comments from our listeners, a new giveaway contest we're running till July, reviews of speakers from Audioengine, and (most interesting for me) the beginning of Paul's "MIDI 101" series on how the ubiquitous Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard arose in the early 1980s, and still persists today.

You can either listen to the show on the website or subscribe in a variety of ways. If you like it, by the way, we'd appreciate a review at the iTunes Store.

Labels: audio, ihr, insidehomerecording, podcast, recording