Month: November 2011 (Page 2 of 4)

As long as the lock out is going on I may as well put down the things that I’ll miss from the NBA season when it doesn’t happen. I’m pretty sure Bill Simmons already wrote something just like this but I hate that nigga, so fuck him. I’m jacking for beats on this post. Plus I didn’t read that shit because of my limited intellectual capital.

Slim trash diet.

• Eddie Curry showing up looking slimmer than he’s ever been in his life. After about 3 weeks of higher than average numbers everyone will realize that without his weight he can no longer just stand in the paint like an immovable object. A week later the “why is Eddie Curry getting benched?” stories will start and a month after that he’ll be showing up to games with Popeye’s crumbs on his shirt. I don’t even know what team Curry is on right now but I bet it’s some sort of restaurant. Now we’ll never get to see what skinny Eddie Curry was capable of.

Don't get use to Paul wearing a Hornets jersey.

• Chris Paul reminding everyone that he’s easily the best point guard in the NBA as he put his wares on display to try to get a team to sign him in the summer. The Paul to OKC trade rumors will start then they’ll be followed by the Paul to New York rumors. After that we’ll have the Chris Paul to Los Angeles rumors, Paul to the Clippers, Paul to Orlando, Paul to The Bucks and eventually we’ll have Paul to the Hornets. Why? Because the new collective bargaining agreement will probably have a franchise tag that keeps these interesting trade team ups from happening EVER AGAIN!

• Side note: Am I the only one who finds it odd that Chris Paul doesn’t have a nickname? Who is the last great point guard that we had in the NBA who NEVER got a nickname? John Stockton? I’m at a loss. He didn’t even get the “first initial – last name” treatment like Derrick Rose.
• Side note 2: Tye Diamond reminded me that his nickname is “CP3” but honestly isn’t that just fucking lame? Doesn’t he deserve something awesome like “Magic” got? Maybe “The Nut Cracker”. Yeah let’s go with that.

This was the happiest he was all year.

• The Tracy McGrady resurgence / collapse on the Miami Heat. It would take about 3 months to realize that the T-Mac we grew to love in Orlando has been long since done. Once most casual fans who make up most of Miami’s fanbase realize that Tracy actually played last year for the Detroit Pistons the novelty will wear off and his back will start getting all “Coach K” on him. I’m going to miss the slow turn from hope to outrage to utter sadness at T-mac let’s everyone down. I really wanted to hear the first “aww” of the crowd as T-Mac decided to go for the finger roll even though he’s on a fast break all by himself.

He'll get around to working on it next off season.

• Rajon Rondo STILL missing jump shots. At this point I don’t know if we can even explain how and why Rondo’s jump shot is so bad. The key to stopping the Celtics has been the same for like 4 years now. You just back all the way off Rondo and dare him to beat you with the jumper and he can’t do it. Even still before the all star break we’ll be hit with at least 75% of Celtics fans trying to convince us that THIS is the year Rondo has that jump shot working. They’ll tell us stories of off season shooting sessions, shooting coaches and a new form on his jumper before eventually giving up on him around March when NBA teams get serious about making the play-offs. Also some of the older Celtics will be doing their typical “coast until we have something to play for” routine putting extra weight on Rondo’s shoulders to carry the team with scoring.

Still much more comfortable doing THIS than playing defense.

• Carmelo and Amare leading the NBA in dunks and points scored by 2 players on the same team while also leading the NBA in dunks given up and points scored by the guys they should be guarding. It’s great that NYC has some star power back in their city but good grief I’m sick of Knicks fans spending 90% of the season trying to buy into D’Antoni’s style of run and fun basketball like the play-offs will be played at a break neck pace. When it’s down to half court defense and offense Amare and Melo are going to start looking a lot less dominant. I still think the Knicks would’ve approached 55 wins or more this season.

• Side note: I still think the Knicks should’ve kept Felton in that deal with the Nuggets. Not sure what that would’ve cost them but Billups is way too old and not versatile enough to really run this offense how it should be run. I also think Billups has no chance of defending the quicker guards in the East.  Denver has to be looking to trade Felton or Lawson this year right? It seems redundant to have them both on the roster doing damned near the same thing.

I think he wore this when he handed out turkeys for Thanksgiving in the Indianapolis projects.

• Whatever is going on with Zach Randolph’s “drug kingpin” of Indiana case that people always seem to forget about. At this point I’m feeling like Z-Bo is Kaizer Soze. How else do we explain him getting a pass on allegedly having a fleet of SUV’s with hidden drug compartments and still not having a trial yet? Last year was Z-Bo’s Kobe moment where he was out there acquitting himself on the court nightly. If the case still is hanging over his head maybe he can win MVP this year?

I’ve had a few podcasters ask me what all went into the new clearer and richer sound of the podcast. I’m writing this blog post to give you a quick run down. If you have questions leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them there. We use Audacity (a free program) to record our shows.

We used to record with a Blue Snowball USB microphone. It was very simple. You plug it in and it does it’s thing. The only thing you have to adjust is the mic volume on your computer. It has 3 settings for different recording set ups. So it’s great for people sitting in a room having a conversation OR one person talking directly into it. The sound quality is very good for a mic that’ll run you between $75 to $100. In order to record things like news clips during the show we’d have to play it on our computer stereo and turn the volume up so the mic would catch it.

The new equipment is a bit more complex. The main gem that we have is Alesis MULTIMIX8USBFX 8ch Mixer W/ Fx Usb Audio Interface.

The instructions that come with it are very simple and it works like a charm. With this we can play audio straight through our computer. The settings are all built into the board. It also has some features like echo and sound effects but I don’t fuck with that stuff.

Now because we have a mixer we had to get some condenser mics. These mics work off of phantom power which means it’ll work with this mixer as long as you have the phantom power switch to the “on” position. One of the mics we got off of Best Buy brand new. The other two we got used.

This is the used mic we got it’s called MXL 990 Condenser Microphone

We bought one that came in the case with a shock mount. This is good for sound quality and stuff.

Of course you’ll also need mic stands, mic cords and a few other cords that will connect things to your head phones or speakers. This will vary by our individual set up. All of the input and output interfaces on this mixers are 1/4 stereo connections which is a pain in the ass because you have to go buy converters for all of your equipment that uses plain old regular jacks.

I also have to buy this headphone splitter thing because with the new setup we can only hear each other if we’re speaking into the mics while wearing headphones. Of course this means we have to get a four way splitter which is like $50 or something. Then we can finally split the signal 4 ways and get Will and Justin back in the studio with us.

That’s a down and dirty explanation. If you have really specific questions I suggest you Google them first but if not then just leave a comment here and I’ll answer what I can.