Friday, December 31, 2010

Rish's voice on "Doctor Who" audio drama

Rish recently voiced a character, Jerome Caldehay, in a "Doctor Who" audio drama entitled "Might of the Stormy Sea" over at www.dwad.com.

We're not really conneseurs of audio dramas over at the Dunesteef (in fact, we can't even spell "coneseuer"), but J.W. Smith and company really do a bang-up job on this one. Check it out, and find out how awful Rish's English accent is.

Or, if you're in a generous mood, find out how convincing Rish's English accent is.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

That Gets My Goat 17: I'm Goin' To Disneyland!

So, Big took his family to the Magic Kingdom. Was it all it was cracked up to be? And can Rish find an opening to make an offensive remark, here and there?

Let's hope so.



Oh, and before the claws come out, yes, it was Tommy James that sang "I Think We're Alone Now." You are indeed smart, as the Emperor has forseen.

Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Rish reads a story on "Podcastle"

Unca Rish here. I was really pleased to be given the chance to read a holiday story on Podcastle (and vexed when they said they'd already asked once and I hadn't responded), and it turned out to be "The Christmas Mummy," by the lovely Heather Shaw and the almost-as-lovely Tim Pratt. And hey, they rated it G.

Go over and give it a listen. If you've ever wondered how horrible the show would be if it was all-Rish-Outfield-all-the-time, this is your chance to find out.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Retraction

Big here.

At newspapers, sometimes they screw up on the details of a story, and print something incorrect. Then, when they discover their foul-up, they have to print a retraction to inform everyone of the misinformation, and get the truth out there in its place.

Well, for the first time, I have to come on here to print a retraction for something that I said in our most recent episode. That's right, I blew it. I had the chance to be a real podcaster and I bleeeeewww it! If it wasn't such a big deal, I'd probably just let it ride, and never mention it at all, hoping that nobody noticed, and nobody would say anything. But this is really important, and I need to clear it up.

So, in our conversation, I mentioned to Rish that as he performed the part of Reginald Thracken in "Dax Plays Faire" he reminded me of the character Monterey Jack from Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers.


I'm not sure how I could have been so wrong. It wasn't Monterey Jack that I was thinking of at all. Monterey Jack is Australian. He may be big and mustachioed*, but that's really all he has in common with the guy I was in fact thinking of.

I had for some reason confused the picture in my mind. The cartoon character that had actually come to mind was Chief Quimby from Inspector Gadget.


As you can see, they both like to wear a shaggy mustache. So you can see where I might get confused. And Chief Quimby also smoked a pipe all the time (or he may have only held an unlit pipe between his teeth all the time. It was a kids show after all, why would they have a character that smokes? These days, the pipe would be out altogether. Can you imagine that kind of crap slipping past the censors and busybodies? How did they get it past them in the eighties, I wonder). The pipe may be the reason that I imagined Reginald Thracken as Chief Quimby. The entire time that Rish read Thracken's lines, he kept sticking a tootsie roll left over from Halloween in his mouth, pretending it was a cigar or a cigarette or maybe a PIPE!! Apparently, doing this helped him get into character.


It's still really weird that that is the image that came to mind. Someone else in their comment said they imagined Dax as David Boreanaz. That makes so much sense. But what kind of world does Dax live in when his chief is a cartoon character. What is this--The Last Action Hero.

Anyway, sorry to have led you all astray like that. It's a good thing that we got it all cleared up though. It's a real load off my mind.

* Mustachioed is one of those words that just needs to be used more often. It's just so great...er...wait, that's not what I meant to say. I mean, don't use mustachioed more often. In fact, I might reject a story simply for using the word mustachioed instead of the phrase, "he had a mustache," that everyday, normal well-adjusted people would use. It's not as high up there in the list of my pet peeves as the word 'said' when used in a phrase like, "the man had a mustache. Said mustache was big and bushy." Wow, now that I really hate. But mustachioed is pretty bad too.

Friday, December 17, 2010

That Gets My Goat 16: Goin' Southbound

Huzzah! Big is back from his trip to Nevada and Southern California. Will he have something interesting to say about it? You be the judge.



Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Whoops

Rish here. Big and I got together a few days ago to record us talking about his recent trip to Southern California. We made fun of Californians, his children, our old age, the Disney corporation, Big's girth, his wife's name, the updating of Disneyland rides, mannequins with boob jobs, my own Disneyland experiences, and the contemplated sort of thing you'd never want to hear someone in a Goofy costume say.

Well, during the middle of our conversation, I got up to go to the bathroom while Big paused the recording, and then we started back up again, really getting into the swing of things. Man, it was some of our best stuff ever, and Big was actually crying from laughter toward the end (I don't know if that had ever happened before, in all our times doing podcasts). We got to the end of the two hour show, content that we had created something quite magical . . . when Big discovered something truly awful . . .

Unfortunately, the pause button was somehow still on from more than an hour before, when we'd stopped for a break and to look up the name of an obscure Disney character. All of that material was lost.

It was a bummer, and something we've had happen before (though not exactly under those circumstances). Big was really upset about it, and required that we walk three miles in the middle of a chilly December night to cool down. Afterward, we did attempt to recreate that conversation, and recorded another hour or so on the same subject, but it wasn't quite the same, and a lot of the inspiration had faded.

Ah well. I guess that sort of thing happens. It's all for you, Wendy.

Rish's voice on "19 Nocturne Boulevard"

Once again, Julie Hoverson over at "19 Nocturne Blvd" has cast me in one of her audio dramas. It's a very small part, a suspect in a man's murder named Peabody. In this one, she asked me to do a sort of Sydney Greenstreet voice for my character. Check out the episode "Seance" to see if I pulled it off.

Once again, I have no idea how Julie manages to write, direct, edit, score, and perform in these dramas, month after month (heck, she even did the artwork). Oh, and her show has a cool, ominous theme song, if I've never mentioned it before.

Friday, December 10, 2010

That Gets My Goat 15: Strangers In The Night

For a couple of weeks, Big and Rish are holding off on the complaints and talking about things that are on their mind. In this episode . . . Uh oh, stuttering, karaoke-singing Rish Outfield is thinking about romance. What could possibly be worse?

Besides people who love cats, that is.



Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Why No Episode?

Thought I'd post this on both my own blog, and the Dunesteef blog, since it's about me personally and the show too.

I'm here to beg your forgiveness. I continue to underachieve. It's been quite a dang long time since we put out our last episode, and it's all my fault. I hope none of you have gone into any sort of withdrawal. Some people have claimed that such a thing could happen to them in emails that they've sent in, so I'm praying that I don't have guilt to deal with too.

Why is it taking so long? Well, the second Broken Mirror episode it turns out is more than a short story. It falls soundly in the novelette category. The story is 10,000 words, which makes it one of the longest stories we've ever done. I think only "A Place So Foreign," by Cory Doctorow and "Casts A Demon Shadow," by Derek J. Goodman were longer, in all 85 or 90 or whatever episode were on. So, it's taking me a long time to edit my way through this story.

Add to that, my family and I took a trip to Las Vegas and then Disneyland this past week. So, I just plain wasn't working on it for that week. I'm back at it, and I have a strategy that I may put into action to try to get double the work done on the story, editing both the sound effects as well as the story reading at the same time. Normally I finish editing the story reading before I start on the sound effects, so doing this could save a decent amount of time.

Anyway, that's my deal. I'm excited to get this story done, and get the next Broken Mirror done as well. I hope you guys like to listen to them as much as I like to work on them. Broken Mirror is one of my favorite things of each year, and I really look forward to the reaction.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

A day late and a pound short

Not too long ago, one of our lovely listeners asked us to record a promo letting people know of an event she was organising in England (Reading, to be more exact). We were happy to oblige, but since she hadn't provided us with an outline or script, we created one of the worst commercials ever (I say "one of" because I listen to local radio, and their commercials are often worse).

Oh, but it doesn't stop there. Big went off to Disneyland, and when he returned, we discovered that the event had come and gone, with nary a word spoken of it by the Dunesteef. Could it get any sadder?

Well, for my birthday in 2004, I invited a bunch of co-workers to come out and celebrate with me . . . and nobody showed up. Sad now?

But our listener, who goes by Unascertained, forgave us, and even asked if she could still hear the promo. I figured it was the least we could do, so listen and . . . enjoy?



Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

That Gets My Goat 14: What's A Writer Do?

For a couple of weeks, Big and Rish are going to hold off on the complaints and talk about things that are on their mind. This week, Big talks about encountering a professional writer (or mayhaps, "professional" writer) at a party, and the thoughts it prompted.



Right click HERE to download the episode, select Save Link As, and save the file to your hard drive.