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 | Walt Disney World Monorail in EPCOT. Orlando, FL July 23, 2006 |
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March 19, 2007Confab #38The latest installment of Confab (made fresh this mornin'!) is Transit Geek Heaven - all Viaduct, all the time, with me, Richard, Jeff, Keith and Will. (Naturally, I'm not for a rebuild.) Give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 19, 2007 8:41 PM. March 12, 2007Confab #37Today's episode of Confab is taken from our March 8 recording; it kicks off with a contentious, back-and-forth about unions and labor, moves into a discussion on public schools, and closes with a discussion of good blue-collar jobs vs. going to college after high school. (See also: bluecollarandproudofit.com) Give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 12, 2007 8:48 AM. March 5, 2007Confab #36Today's episode of Confab is Part II of the show recorded on February 22, and it continues our talk about Apple TV, Comcast, new media, business models, and the like. (And, personally, I really like it.) Give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 5, 2007 5:03 PM. February 26, 2007Confab #35This morning's episode of Confab was taken from last Thursday's recording - and it's a hoot. There were six of us on the show (including long-time listener, first-time Confabber Aaron), and we blew through 50 minutes by chatting about terrible Web sites, the Nintendo Wii, and Apple TV. So much fun. Give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 26, 2007 9:45 AM. February 19, 2007Confab #34A short, specific, and subdued Confab this week on the homeless problem in urban areas, and what to do about it. (And, like last week, this show was recorded during the February 8 Confab, so I'm not on it.) Give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 19, 2007 9:18 PM. February 12, 2007Confab #33I missed the show (being in Europe and all), but my fellow Confabbers got together on the 8th and pulled off a brainy, low-key show about the health care system. Give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 12, 2007 9:28 PM. February 5, 2007Confab #32The usual weekly episode of Confab (#32) went live this morning. Taken from the January 25 Confab, the show discusses the American automotive industry, innovation, and how the hubris of "leading" companies often causes them to make mistakes. Give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 5, 2007 7:31 AM. January 29, 2007Confab #31Another Monday, another episode of Confab (#31, if you're counting). This show was taken from the January 25 Confab, and it's spent arguing about - wait for it - jaywalking. Really. It runs about a half hour; give it a listen, or subscribe through iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 29, 2007 11:28 AM. January 22, 2007Confab #30Episode #30 of Confab went live this morning. The show was taken from the January 11 Confab, wherein we chat about the iPhone, Britney Spears, and Iraq. It's a quickie, too -- just 26 minutes. Give it a listen! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 22, 2007 12:42 PM. January 16, 2007Confab #29Just a quick note - Confab #29 hit the wires yesterday. If you're getting it through iTunes (and you are getting it through iTunes, right?), it'll be automatically delivered, but if not - visit the site and download away! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 16, 2007 3:18 PM. January 8, 2007Confab #28Another Monday, another installment of Confab (#28). Like #27, this show was taken from the December 28 Confab; we talk about 2006, 2007, and poke a little fun at Richard (who apparently got a bit more into the wine than he'd realized). You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 8, 2007 8:18 AM. January 1, 2007Confab #27This week's episode of Confab went live this morning (and if you look at the posting time, you'll get a sense of when I got back from the New Year's bash). Recorded during the December 28 Confab, it's nearly an hour of nonstop conversation about burnout at work, teed off by the article, "Can't Get No Satisfaction." (And it may sound like Brian and Richard are ganging up on me and Jeff, but, really -- it wasn't like that.) You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 1, 2007 5:49 PM. December 26, 2006December 21 ConfabAt long last, another episode of Confab is up and online. Woot! We missed our last two regularly-scheduled shows due to weather (snow and storms, respectively), so put together a show last Thursday on what is normally an off-week. As luck would have it, we had lots of friends in town for the holiday, and wound up oversubscribed -- too many heads, not enough headphones. So Richard and I kicked back on the floor of his apartment, wine in hand, and just enjoyed the show. The results, predictably, were great (we have interesting friends). You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 26, 2006 11:44 PM. November 21, 2006November 16 ConfabI was finally able to make Confab last Thursday (being out of town has put a crimp in my ability to podcast), but the show was as much fun as ever. Vaitkadamus couldn't make it, so we welcomed Matthew Price to the show -- and I was finally able to get caught up with my old friend Chris Bushnell while Jeff and Richard bickered. (This was also the first Confab I've mixed down since moving to the MacBook Pro, and hoo boy GarageBand runs smoothly with the Core 2 under it!) You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 21, 2006 9:05 PM. October 10, 2006October 5 ConfabThursday's Confab was a lot, lot, lot of fun - seven of us, plus an exotic collection of beer, and - apparently - everyone had enough to eat, because the blood sugars were a-flowin'. We spent a lot of time on "money stuff" - investing, retirement, and the like - but veered off into Jeff's explanation of the dark side of Canadian health care. Crazy. You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated October 10, 2006 8:18 PM. September 9, 2006September 7 Confab ("Confab 2.0")Confab was quite a bit different this week - we've made some big changes that we now refer to as "Confab 2.0." The bulk of improvements were driven by listener suggestions - we wanted to spend more time highlighting the fun, interesting, or thoughtful bits of the evening's conversation. To that end, we're now making use of cross-fades, have done away with the classic "go around the table and introduce yourself" beginning, and will be doing a better job leveraging the Confab Web site. The result is, I think, a much better, punchier, and more-relaxed podcast. (It also means that Confab is truly "made" in the editing room - Keith and I were up until 12:45 this morning getting the final cut all together.) You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated September 9, 2006 8:48 AM. August 25, 2006August 24 ConfabLast night's Confab was a total gas, just a free-flowing good time that veered from the 'life in a glass box' question of blogging to bad bosses. (Oh, and we got an update on Richard's online dating situation.) The house was full, too, with Keith, Brian, Goldy and Schelley joining me and The Huff. You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated August 25, 2006 9:49 AM. August 11, 2006August 10 ConfabWe had two Confab first-timers on the show last night - Nick and Rachele - and welcomed back Elaine, who'd been absent for the past couple of months. This show was very much a reload of the last one, with a spirited (if not terribly illuminating) discussion of online dating, social norms at public events, and 'girls that are sort of like guys'. I went for a ham-handed segue into real estate (I'm in the market), but it, well, um, fizzled. Still: a fun Thursday. You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated August 11, 2006 6:40 AM. July 28, 2006July 27 ConfabThe hour we allocated to last night's Confab blew by, with a fast-n'-furious conversation about blogger payola, Richard's Garmin Forerunner 305, dogs, online dating services and personality tests. I can't claim any of it is deep, hard-hitting, issue-driven talk ... but I confess to laughing out loud when I did the editing last night. Hopefully it'll give you a giggle or two as well. You can get the show here, or through automatic subscription in iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 28, 2006 10:54 AM. July 14, 2006July 13 ConfabAfter being out for the past month (and missing two shows) with my travel adventures, it was great to slide on the 'ol headphones last night to record Confab with Richard, Allie, and Andy. The conversation ran from the state of TV today to "The Millionaire Next Door", but, as always, the hour blew by. The show is available on the Confab site; otherwise, be sure to subscribe in iTunes! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated July 14, 2006 6:26 AM. June 16, 2006June 15 ConfabAlthough I couldn't participate, Richard, Jeff, and Keith held Confab last night, and invited four folks to join them - Leslie and Kevin Wagner, John Costello (aka "Man of La Muncha") and John Hayes. The show's pretty good - very funny, actually. (Maybe I should leave town more often?) Anyhow, if you're subscribed to the show in iTunes, it'll download automatically; otherwise, feel free to visit the site and check it out! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 16, 2006 11:46 AM. June 2, 2006June 1 ConfabLast night's "Confab" was a lot of fun - in addition to Richard, we welcomed Elaine and Kevin back to the show, and Char came by for the first time. (And as usual, the hour went by in an eyeblink!) The two remaining June Confabs are on the 15th and 29th, but I'm out of town for both of them - Boston for the first, and London for the second. Richard's got a great series of guests coming on in my absence; I can't wait to hear how the shows turn out. You can get the show through iTunes, or via direct download (1 hour, 3 minutes; 44.2 MB). Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 2, 2006 9:48 AM. May 19, 2006May 18 ConfabLast night's Confab was low-key, fluffy, and totally fun. In addition to Richard and Jeff, we had Allie back and welcomed Schelley to her first-ever show. (It was suggested that we do an all-girl Confab ("Confemme"?) - we're putting the booking together, so if you want to join in let me know.) The show is available through the site (34.4 MB MP3, 58:05) and on iTunes. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 19, 2006 7:47 AM. May 4, 2006May 4 ConfabYet another crazy Thursday (I rushed downtown after finishing up a Microsoft UW alumni thing - I'll blog about that later), and yet we still managed to pull off a (very subdued) Confab. We're back on Thursdays (and missing Keith, who is enjoying new daddyhood), welcoming local liberal blogger David Goldstein to join the usual suspects (Richard, Jeff, and Brian). The show is available through the site (36.3 MB MP3, 53:39) and on iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 4, 2006 11:13 PM. April 13, 2006April 12 Confab"Confab" is moving to Wednesdays for a while, and our first Wednesday-night installment was last night. We had a full house - seven people - and the conversation was, as usual, fast, furious, and funny. Big welcomes to first-time Confabbers Mollie Bradley-Martin (aka "The Liberal Girl Next Door") and longtime friend Sara Lingafelter. You can read about the show on the Confab web site, or just grab the MP3 (56:21 mins, 67.6 MB). Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 13, 2006 10:11 AM. March 24, 2006March 23 ConfabA busy Thursday for me (work's insane right now), but we managed to get together to Confab ... and we had seven folks on again. Crazy! Danika joined us for the first time ever, and we welcomed back Jeff (at last!), Allie, Brian, Richard and Keith. The show is available through the site and on iTunes. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 24, 2006 12:00 AM. March 10, 2006March 9 ConfabAnother Thursday, another Confab in the bag - and we had seven (!) folks on, including regulars/returners Richard (who is now blogging!), Keith, Elaine, and Adrianne, as well as newcomers Will Kelly-Kamp and John Kaufmann. The show ran a little longer than usual (one hour, five minutes), but that was because we were having such a great frickin' time. So sue me. Feel free to grab the show through iTunes, or click over to the Confab Web site. (Oh, and be sure to check out this "Ask A Ninja!" bit. It's awesome.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 10, 2006 10:32 AM. February 24, 2006February 23 ConfabLast night's "Confab" is now available - you can download it from the Confab site directly, or, if you've subscribed to us in iTunes, it should download automatically. As usual, we had a lot of fun, and, as usual, we wound up on some wild tangents. We wound up spending the first half of the show talking about interviewing at large companies (Google, Amazon), and somehow circled into the mindsets of the East vs. the West. Oh, and Iraq. Give it a listen, and let me know what you think! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 24, 2006 11:10 AM. February 20, 2006Confab's In iTunes!Oh, and speaking of Confab - we got ourselves listed in the iTunes Podcast Directory over the weekend. Subscribe at will! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 20, 2006 6:25 PM. February 11, 2006February 9 ConfabWe're shaking up "Confab" a bit, tweaking it to see if we can make it even better. The show's been moved from Tuesdays to Thursdays (scheduling), and we're now experimenting with intermissions, music beds, and a few other things. The vote's not in yet on which of these changes we're keeping (we have some ideas for the next episode already), but the session from two days ago hit the Web early this afternoon. It's worth a listen (24.5 MB, 38 minutes). One sad note about this episode of the show: software bit us. We've been using the new podcasting mode on GarageBand to do multitrack recording, and it's wonderful. Problem is, the software craps out and stops recording at an hour and ten minutes. This isn't a big issue when we're keeping Confab to under an hour, but when you add intermissions and whatnot - well, we lost a good chunk of the end of the show, and had to truncate it. Which sucks. Live and learn, I guess. UPDATE, September 6, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 11, 2006 11:17 PM. January 25, 2006January 24 ConfabLast night's session of "Confab" was an awful lot of fun - we had a full house and a great time. We also had three first-time guests: Patrick, Kevin and Leslie. After some great listener feedback, we've decided to keep the shows to under an hour. Last night's clocked in at 58 minutes - and you can get it here (38.5 MB MP3). Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 25, 2006 6:32 AM. January 11, 2006January 10 ConfabHot on the heels of my crazy Disney vacation, last night was the latest session of Confab. Despite my fatigue (flying takes it out of me every damn time), the show was a lot of fun to do. There were just 5 of us, and the conversation rambled from Pat Robertson's insanity to the futility of political protest today. The show is 1 hour, 21 minutes, and you can get it here. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 11, 2006 9:24 PM. December 28, 2005December 27 ConfabLast night's Confab is now available. We had a full house (myself, Richard, Keith, Elaine, Brian and Adrianne) and a very good time. You can get the (1 hour, 39 minute) show by clicking here. (62.3 MB MP3) I've had a number of my friends ask about getting Confab automatically through iTunes. We're currently in the process of hacking the show's RSS feed so the iTunes Music Store will add it to its directory. In the meantime, you can manually add the show to iTunes' podcast system. It's pretty easy:
That's it! iTunes will then begin downloading the latest installment of Confab to your drive. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 28, 2005 10:35 AM. December 14, 2005December 13 ConfabWe recorded another Confab last night, and it's online now. There were five of us (myself, Richard, Keith, Jeff, and Elaine), and we (once again) found a way of amusing ourselves for an hour an a half. Give it a listen! Thanks, too, to everyone for the positive feedback about last week's show - remember, if you're interested in sitting in with us sometime, just drop me a line. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 14, 2005 7:27 PM. December 4, 2005ConfabI'm thrilled to announce that I've started podcasting. Last spring, a group of us were trying to put together a "salon" for friends, and friends of friends. The idea was to get a bunch of folks together to talk about ideas, issues; basically, stimulating conversation. However, when the concept ran smack-dab up against the steely-cold reality of logistics, scheduling, and whatnot, it died. Well, a few months ago, Richard proposed that we start a podcast. The idea was intriguing, but I wasn't exactly sure what we were going to podcast about (I mean, does the world really need another podcast about movies, technology, or politics?). But as time went on, and we tossed out ideas, we came to see that it might be fun to resurrect the salon idea, making it smaller, more intimate, and, ultimately, recorded to disk. We call it "Confab" (yes, it's short for "confabulation.") This "first" Confab is really the third one we've recorded (as with so many things, the third time's the charm). Our initial effort, done on October 25, was a raw prototype ("Is this gonna work?"). We learned a lot from the session, and learned even more about GarageBand. Mostly, though, we got excited - people came out of the session pretty amped up. The second try, on November 8, was more of the same. A few great lessons, more great conversation. And thus, November 29 - Confab v3 - is here for your listening pleasure. If you listen to the show, and like it (or hate it), let me know (and if you'd like to come participate in one, let me know that, too!). I'll confess that the show (like this blog) started as a fun idea, a labor of love - and that's all. We have no real ambitions, here, save getting together with cool people every two weeks to chat about ... whatever. Enjoy! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated December 4, 2005 8:22 PM. |