Scenes from an Austin Meetup

February 8, 2010 7:19 PM

A series of tiny interviews with attendees of the latest Austin MetaFilter Meetup. Hear the voices of divabat, immlass and spikedmajorhairydick, among several others! Thrill to stories of secret initiations and mysterious orangutans! Find out what MetaFilter has done for us lately! Listen for your humble reporter growing progressively more intoxicated as the interviews go on! It's 25 minutes of completely idle chitchat, friends -- CAN YOU AFFORD TO MISS OUT?!?

[Mods, please feel free to excerpt for podcast, should any part of this prove entertaining for anyone outside the participants.]

posted by slappy_pinchbottom to MetaFilter Gatherings at 7:19 PM (28 comments total)

Metafilter: Fear is what makes us great!
posted by The Whelk at 7:54 PM on February 8, 2010

I am your dog and egg video provider
posted by The Whelk at 8:05 PM on February 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Just like the Masons, mefites are everywhere.
posted by mrbill at 8:24 PM on February 8, 2010

That was fun. Great idea!
posted by ColdChef at 8:31 PM on February 8, 2010

....see now we need a handshake.
posted by The Whelk at 8:34 PM on February 8, 2010

Lots of fun, thanks.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:48 PM on February 8, 2010

That was really, really cool! I miss Austin.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:53 PM on February 8, 2010

Neat. Sounds good, what equipment did you use?
posted by erikgrande at 9:26 PM on February 8, 2010

oops -- wrong bat! batmonkey, not divabat. ....
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 9:27 PM on February 8, 2010

Thanks for doing this.
posted by Pants! at 9:56 PM on February 8, 2010

It's like Slacker, but with Mefites!
posted by armage at 11:26 PM on February 8, 2010

so ...it's like Slacker then?
posted by The Whelk at 11:33 PM on February 8, 2010

right on! you caught a lot of the flavour even with the shy shield going up for many as soon as the microphone appeared. what a fantastic way to spend a freezing afternoon.

ohmygoodness. where was my muzzle?!?
posted by batmonkey at 1:13 AM on February 9, 2010

The orangutan question.
posted by cashman at 5:42 AM on February 9, 2010

Man, now I wish I'd come. The Summer Camp Fair really kicked my ass, unfortunately. (8,000 neurotic parents, a million screaming children, and a camel!)
posted by restless_nomad at 7:03 AM on February 9, 2010

This is great.
posted by Jofus at 8:42 AM on February 9, 2010

This is awesome. I wish I hadn't been dealing with a dying car fiasco that day, but then, I hate the sound of my recorded voice, so I'm almost glad I wasn't there.
posted by MuChao at 9:03 AM on February 9, 2010

I normally hate the sound of my voice but I don't feel like I sounded half-bad there. Thanks for taking the audio and thanks for posting it!
posted by immlass at 9:33 AM on February 9, 2010

Oh lord: "The orangutan must be a big orangutan by now"

This statement is not reflective of my overall intelligence.
posted by fontophilic at 10:41 AM on February 9, 2010

Wooo! Well, that was blush-y. How fun! Thanks so much for taking this and putting it up. I'd love to hear ones from other cities.

immlass, you made me remember the CueCat. I don't know whether to thank or curse you.
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:54 AM on February 9, 2010

I normally hate the sound of my voice but I don't feel like I sounded half-bad there.

Me too! Must've been slappy_pinchbottom's fancy-dancy sound equipment.
posted by donajo at 12:47 PM on February 9, 2010

I also hate the sound of my own voice and thought I sounded halfway decent. Good job.

PS: The Whelk, thank you so much for the dog and egg video. It gave me something to talk about other than orangutans.
posted by malthas at 1:18 PM on February 9, 2010

I didn't post it originally but I couldn't find who did - I just remembered dogs, and eggs, and the video there of.
posted by The Whelk at 1:19 PM on February 9, 2010

Ah, okay, it was Damn That Television with the original quote, and barrett caulk with the video. So thanks are due to them.
posted by malthas at 1:45 PM on February 9, 2010

Gear! Very simple setup.

Single mic: Sennheiser e835, no screen -- employed technique of holding mic 2-3 inches under chin of speaker to eliminate plosives

XLR cable into digital recorder: Marantz PMD660

Recorded to mp3 (64 kbps mono), transferred by USB to laptop

Edited with Audacity to remove many minutes of umms and errrs

Re-encoded to mp3 (192 kbps stereo) and posted!
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 3:19 PM on February 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

Edited with Audacity to remove many minutes of umms and errrs

Which those of us who uttered them appreciated.
posted by immlass at 3:48 PM on February 9, 2010

slappy_pinchbottom said:
"employed technique of holding mic 2-3 inches under chin of speaker to eliminate plosives"

you made my lisp almost unnoticeable - great technique & thank you for explaining it!
i do wish i'd had a shut-off switch or something for the nervous logorrhea, but that's all me.

your questions should be made standard for these things, if anyone else takes up the baton. really gets the brain working on why we're here & getting together in person.
posted by batmonkey at 4:23 PM on February 9, 2010

I enjoyed this, thanks!
posted by misozaki at 5:41 PM on February 9, 2010