After a weekend of cooking, driving, and eating, Aaron and I drove up to Ann Arbor to meet a couple of podcasters, Erin and Noah — better known as the Ninjaconsultants.
It was a little awkward at first, meeting people we only knew from teh intarweb, but we all relaxed after a while. After we took a turn around Wizzywig and purchased our respective geeky otaku goodness (I got the cutest Nyanko Burger stickers and Post-Its and a Totoro wallscroll), we retired to a nearby coffee shop for some mobile recording.
We got some beverages and sat at a table in the back of the shop. After we’d all had the chance to get comfortable, and we finally got around to talking about some anime-related stuff (good fodder for Aaron’s podcast), Aaron busted out the iRiver and his new, handmade lapel microphones. We had two mics between the four of us, so Noah had the idea of clipping their mic to Erin’s wooden cappuccino stirrer and propping it up between them in his empty glass. We did the same, clipping our mic to both of our straws in one glass, making a bit of a bipodal affair leaning against the edge of Aaron’s cup. It may seem like quite the jury-rigged setup, but it worked smashingly.
We recorded for two hours.
We talked about all sorts of things: Star Wars, the homeless, anime conventions, public transportation, probably dozens of not-quite-related topics. (Aaron’s going to have a fun time sorting it all out later, so he can actually use some of it on his show…) But it was a really good time, as I’d hoped it would be.
Whether anyone’s interested or not, I’ll probably post a heads-up here when Aaron airs parts of the interview (and I use the term “interview” loosely). The audio quality turned out fantastic, we got a good amount of decent content, and Erin and Noah recorded a few bumpers and IDs for Aaron’s show. I think there’ll be a few fun one-liners he can use, too.
As we were leaving, I commented, “I feel so counterculture, podcasting from a coffee shop…”
Are you hip to it, daddy-o? Yeah.