The Return of the Applesack: Kickstarter and other fun things!

Joe is back! We spend our time today talking about Kickstarter and topics of awesomeness. We go from talking about the Ouya, to the Oculus Rift, to cartoonist John K. and other cool things we've seen come out of Kickstarter (Scream Park).

As always you can follow Joe on Twitter @joeapplesack and me @therssfeeds. Now sit back and let your brain be filled with awesome!

SPAAAAAACE!!!!!! (Is Patrick still here?)

Curiosity Rover, Doctor Who, and many more awesome things today on the Audio Feed!

Patrick and I got a little carried away with our Whovian talk on this episode, so poor Will didn't have much to say, but we were able to have him provide some excellent color commentary with his malfunctioning mic/connection. I could have edited it out, but it was far too funny of a sound to just have to myself.

Also I, Will, and Patrick (possibly some other people...) will be going to New York Comic Con and walking the floor October 12th! If you want to come and join us in this funness, let me know! This is going to be my first Comic Con experience, and it looks like it's going to be a fun one. Any advice you have for surviving would also be appreciated.

NOW GO LISTEN, CONSUME, AND ENJOY! (all hail the Hypnotoad)

Teh Sack Attack

More Audio Feed to continue to make your ears happy! Today we increase that happiness when I'm joined by a great friend, and very funny guy, Joe Edelsack! His voice can sooth the savage beast, and his Tweets (@joeapplesack) have been known to cause great amusement. Listen. Enjoy. Thank me.

If you have ideas for, or want to be a part of, future episodes feel free to let me know (@therssfeeds) and I'll try to work out how that can happen! 

Yay and...stuff.

Audio Feed - Look Out Guys, We're Dealing With a Badass Over Here. (SPOILERS BELOW)

Here's a new episode of the Audio Feed! Now with extra hosts! Will and I are joined by our friend Patrick for another point of view. There are a few spoilers in the episode though, so if you care about not knowing how the Mass Effect series, and the show Legend of Korra, ends please feel free to skip over this.

Actually don't skip over this. Listen and have it spoiled. We're more fun anyway.

The Audio Feed- Take 1

So I decided to take a whack at this whole "Podcasting" thing, and recruited my younger brother to help out. This is one of our first attempts at doing this, so the quality is not the best, but hopefully that will change with subsequent episodes.

The podcast doesn't really have any particular theme to it, as I'm sure you'll notice, but it's an interesting hodgepodge of topics and thoughts. My hope is that for future episodes I'll have other people on who are unique in their interests, so we'll be able to make this whole endeavor even more random and entertaining.

Thanks for tuning in, and enjoy the first episode of "The Audio Feed"!

Music

I think I've done postings like this before. I know that I've talked about my own musical journey a bit, how important I think music is, and how polarizing music can be.

That being said, I think that everyone has a bit of music within themselves (even if they don't know exactly how to express it).  That expression can take so many different forms, from just the simple taping of a finger on your thigh, to a tapping of your foot, to air guitar/drums, to full on singing. I find myself doing any one of those things whenever music is playing, and really enjoy watching people out and about doing the same.

I know that I'm not alone with that enjoyment.

When I was traveling back from Hungary, I was standing in line to get my boarding pass at 5AM after being up for the last 24 hours. Of course I had my earphones in and was listening to music in an attempt to keep awake. One of the other people in line turned to me and smiled saying "You're a musician aren't you? I can tell because musicians can never keep still when listening to music." It's true though. As musicians we're trained to feel the music as it's being performed. We're taught to let the music be a living thing that moves and breathes like anything else. It's only logical that we'd continue to do that while we listen music, as well as when we perform it.

Everyone has music that moves them in some way, shape, or form, and just like personalities, no two people will have the same taste in music. What moves me might just be completely dead to somebody else. The important thing is the fact that there is something that moves you. Something that grabs you and makes it so you can't sit still. Something that makes your day better, no matter how good or bad it was before that.

That's my challenge to everyone and anyone that reads this. Find that music. Find that something that moves you, that grabs you, that makes you smile no matter what. When you do that, do me a favor: listen to it and just go with what you feel. Don't feel inhibited or shy about what you want to do. If you want to sing, sing! If you want to drum on a table top like an idiot (as I do so often) do it!

Don't let your own mind get in the way of you enjoying the music as much as you can.

Modern Technology and Us

When was the last time that you wrote a letter? Not an email, not a text, not an IM. 

A letter. 

I get emails on a daily bases, texts on an hourly basis, and have instantaneous IM conversations throughout the day. I don’t see these people though. I’m communicating with them, staying informed, but I don’t see them. It’s personal and impersonal all at the same time. 

Think about how you feel when you get an email. If you’re like me it’s just a little notification that pops up when I get an email. I don’t have a feeling of “Yay an email!” or any other form of excitement. It’s just an email after all. Same thing for texts or IMs. 

There’s no sense of it being special. 

Now think about the last time you got a letter from someone you care about. Your name is handwritten (usually) across the envelope and you can feel the thickness of the paper within. You can almost feel how important you are to the sender just from the amount of paper that’s within. You know that person took the time to sit down and write out their thoughts to you. 

Physical letters have become something special, because we now have to “take the effort” to actually handwrite something. I’m much faster at typing something than I am at handwriting the same thing. It’s just something I spend more time doing, so handwriting something really is more “special” than just typing. 

Now it’s a bit ironic that I’m talking about not using technology to communicate on a blog, which is a large technologically based communication tool. I’m not against using technology for it’s intended purposes. Facebook has kept me in touch with people I never thought I’d be talking to all across the world. Texting has been a great way for me to communicate with friends, and IMs are a convenient way to “talk” to people wherever they are. I just have to make sure that I’m not just relying entirely on those technologies to communicate. It can be horribly impersonal to just communicate through technology. 

So I’d like to issue a challenge everyone who reads this blog. Go write a letter. Doesn’t matter who the letter’s to, but write the letter and mail it. 

I’ll bet that the person who receives the letter will feel like they’re way more special to you than if you were just to email it to them.