The Butter Stand

What a trip. What a ride. As we wrap up our work on our long anticipated radio show, I feel that it would be nice to take some time to reflect on our work. Our group, Two and a Half Men, has put in the necessary time and effort to produce, what I feel to be, a brilliant show. It all started with an idea. No show will ever be great without a great idea. It has to be something that people are interested in, as well as something that they can relate to. Our topic does just that. We interviewed people who we felt were extremely wasted, blacked out to put it more concisely, and then followed up these interviews by finding those same people when they were sober and asking them the exact same questions. To be perfectly honest we had no idea what we were going to make of these interviews. We just decided to wait and let the material guide what the show would be about. This proved to be a successful technique and one that I would recommend because it allowed for far more flexibility in the project.

There are a few other things that I feel made our radio show successful, and I truly believe that they are necessary to make any show successful. I have three helpful hints for anyone attempting to produce a show. The first would be to make sure you work with people you get along with, can trust, and can have a good time with. In a group project such as this one, I cannot imagine working with people I did not know. It makes it so much more enjoyable for everyone involved and it takes a lot of pressure off the individual. The main reason I liked this project so much is because I got to work on it with two good friends, which made it fun to work on and much easier to get things accomplished. The next tip I would give would be to make sure you find interesting and funny people to interview. I cannot stress this point enough. The people we interviewed absolutely made our show what it is. If it were not for their clever insights, their hilarious antics, and their ridiculous comments, our show would be incredibly boring. You need to find people who you know your audience will be able to connect with. This is absolutely vital because if you fail to accomplish this, it will not matter how clever your topic is, the audience will lose interest. My final piece of advice would be to get the interviewing out of the way as early as possible in order to allow for the greatest amount of time to be spent on editing. Interviewing is the easy part. The editing involves so much more because you have to pick out the music, choose what interview material you want to include, and turn the show into what you want. This is something our group should have done a better job of doing.

Looking back there are some other things I think we should have done differently in addition to allowing ourselves more time for editing. Some examples would be getting a more diverse group of interviewees, spending more time on the music selection, and picking a full man to work with us rather than the half-man Trip Dudley. Overall, I really enjoyed this experience and I hope that in the future I am somehow able to do this again because I know I would be able to do it better.

Another day, another blog. It's weird not knowing what to do with myself after my 10:30 class. Usually I can just go back down to my room and play some games of hockey or take a nap before practice. Now that we have class I feel confused. But I have used this time to do some work for my upcoming exams. Just think how much I could have accomplished if we had class every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Nah, not worth it. I just got a kiss on the lips. I think I know now why I had trouble blogging consistently; besides the laziness I think it might be because I really don't have anything to talk about. To tell you the truth I would much rather listen to people. So Dr. Gilbert you should know that I read everyones blogs at least 5 times a week, that should count for something right? See you all, one last time.

Not to be a kiss ass or anything, but I would like to thank Gilbert for not conforming with the rest of the Denison intelligencia and loading us up with more fucking work than we know what to do with. I can hardly deal with the work I have in three classes, and I don't even want to think about how bad my life would suck if I had to deal with another one. So thanks for that. Not much else has entered my mind since I last blogged about two minutes ago. Hmmm. The half-man of our group, Trip Dudley, is still alive and kicking despite the fact that he is only half a man. Our radio show should be pretty sweet, we got some hilarious interview material, and all we got left to do is bring it all together, which pretty much means we have the whole damn thing left to do. That will be all for now. Hey don't forget to make a note of this teach, two blogs in one day holy shit!

Dedman has really gotten after the blogging after a long absence. I really admire the way he has tried to catch up and wish I had that same desire. Sad to say, I do have a life and catching up on my blogs hasn't been as easy as I had originally hoped. Had a great weekend, the team advanced to the conference championship, finally got the opportunity to get really wasted and I took advantage of that. I'm also happy to see that Haley hasn't given back the ring despite some heavy advances by Shamrock. My workload is ridiculous this week but I really don't even care. Baseball is the only thing on my mind and that could mean my downfall. Only the future shall tell. Take care friends, good luck with all.

I just realized that I hadn't blogged about Brian Regan's proposal last Saturday afternoon. I would just like to congratulate him again. Coming in and meeting him my freshman year I never thought the day would come to be perfectly honest. He had no game, was obnoxious as hell, and quite frankly I thought he might be gay. But I'm glad he found a girl who can keep him in check and one that he can abuse at the same time. Now that this proposal, one that I was instrumental in help planning, has gone public I would expect to receive some recognition when this thing hits the national newspapers. I'm not kidding, USA today might actually pick up the story, wow, they must be getting really desperate for material. But seriously congrats man, way to think it through, and nothing but the best. Bye

I'm back baby. Well it has been a long time, a real long time since I last blogged and this is the official beginning to my comeback sessions. I just want to start off by apologizing to Dr. Gilbert for my sebatical from the blogs, I meant no disrespect. I've been busy as hell with work and trying to graduate on time. Put all that work and add countless hours spent on baseball (#5 in the nation) and it adds up to be really hectic, you'll just have to trust me on this one. All the work, at least the work for baseball, is really paying off as our team is doing incredible. My teammates have made this season the best in my career here and I'm really going to miss hanging out with them next year, even you Dedman and Rios. This is just the start of my comeback/coming out of blogger retirement display so stay tuned for more meaningless mumbo jumbo.

Since I can't seem to be able to listen to another This American Life show I am going to blog about the one we listened to in class on Monday.

I found this to be the funniest episode so far this semester. It managed to take what seemed to be a pretty lame subject and turn it into something interesting and funny. What I got most from this episode, however, was just how important it is to find a clever and loqacious person to interview. The person interviewed about the phone message made the interview what it was. I know now that for my groups radio show we will attempt to seek out the most witty people out there in order to make our show the best it can possibly be.

We're back from Georgia with 2 wins baby. I just wanted to apologize for saying that Regan cried during the movie Miracle. He didn't in fact cry at the movie. However, today he did cry to me when he yelled at me for claiming that he did cry at the movie, I don't know which is worse. Anyway, as usual I don't have much to report. When we were down in Atlanta we had the privilage of visiting the home of Todd Pitt and stare deep into the eyes of his glamorous yet sexy mother. While at his house endulging in some delicious food I came to the realization that although I previously thought my mother was the best at embarassing her son, I was wrong. As soon as Pitt's mom brought out his stuffed animals I realized he must have been embarassed much more than I ever was. But I guess that is the job of a parent and it only makes you stronger Pitt. I still want to do things to her though. Just kidding, later all.