Tag: binaural

Smoking and other disturbing thoughts.

Rich Pav 18 Comments

OK, here’s what I’ve learned so far from this exercise.

  • Before hitting the record button, I need to blow my nose so I don’t punctuate every sentence with a sniffle.
  • When the record light goes on, my brain passes gas. Just call me Rich Pavlov, why don’cha.
  • My inner chickenshit weasel wishes I had said “five” instead of “fifty.”

I think the highlight of this show was the Adam Curry MomentTM when I wasted about 500 man minutes of our collective time by rummaging though my pockets for my subway pass.

I talked about quitting smoking by associating the thought of lighting up with other really disturbing acts you could just as easily do. It’s probably mild compared to other podcasts, but I hope I don’t traumatize anyone unnecessarily.

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Little mistakes, huge consequences.

Rich Pav 11 Comments

Here’s episode two of our recently launched babble-a-thon. A couple of months ago I made a huge mistake at work. The worst I’ve ever made on the job. Funny thing is, it was caused by a very minor error. And I can’t elaborate. But recently, someone else in Japan made just as small of an error that had enormous repercussions.

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A Musical Interlude

Rich Pav 2 Comments

Show notes, photos and links later. I’m goin’ to bed.

Street Performers

Now, I know someone out there is going to be tempted to post something negative about them because they didn’t sing and play every single note perfectly. The way I see it, they’re simply amateurs enjoying themselves–just like me.

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The HairCutCast

Rich Pav 11 Comments

Wow, youse guys are so lucky! Two and a half podcasts flom Japan in one weekend! Oh how I envy you.

There are photos in the gallery. The truth is they’ve been there for quite a while.

Some of the topics of discussion I had with the woman who cut my hair:

  • I am a podcaster. That’s why I took all those photos while I was waiting, and it’s also why I have microphones in my ears.
  • She never heard of podcasting, but she knows about MP3 players.
  • She said, “So this is kind of like watching a video clip filmed while riding a roller coaster and feeling like you’re there, eh?”
  • She’s still using Windows 98. Needs to upgrade but not looking forward to the pain of transferring all her programs to a new computer. The other day she cut a guy’s hair who said he has three PCs that are still running Windows 95. I said he must really like it.
  • Until 8 years ago, it was illegal to run a shop like QB House because of strict sanitary regulations. Also, the minimum price for a haircut was regulated. ($30-$40 minimum) In fact, the association for hair cutters still requires members to fix their prices. QB House isn’t a member.
  • The 300th QB House in Japan will open soon. There are stores in other countries too. She mentioned Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
  • You get to keep the comb.

QB House links:

  • Business is booming. The number of customers is in orange, the number of stores in blue
  • The “service unit.” Nice and sterile sounding, eh? You can hold your mouse over areas of the image to see explanations most of you won’t be able to read. But it’s cool because it’s in Japanese, right?
  • The next generation cutting station will include a video monitor to bombard customers with advertisements deliver various information to customers.
  • Employment info. Full time employees make about US $22-45,000 a year. Part-timers make $10/hr and up, which means the company is really raking in money, but keep in mind that rent and electricity here are quite expensive.

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The Frogcast

Rich Pav 14 Comments

Pretty self-explanatory, this one. Last night I attached my earbud microphones to my glasses with rubber bands to minimize the “cranial backwash,” walked outside to the rice paddy next to our house, sat there quietly for about 10 minutes or so then went back inside.

I recommend listening to it with headphones on–your best pair–and in a very quiet setting. The detail is incredible, if I do say so myself. You can hear exactly what I was hearing. Try picking out the two times I scratched my head.

It loops very well. I feel asleep listening to it and dreamed I had little vicious frogs stuck in my hair. No joke.

I’m using the NYU Distributed Network to cache and distribute this podcast. Please let me know if there are any problems with it.

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The “For Chrissake Just Get Something Out There Already” Podcast

Rich Pav 8 Comments

Ah…like…sorry. It’ll be better next time.

Show Notes:

Masagoro’s Website
Take 7

The Godcast Network: Behind the Scenes
The Sound Professionals: binaural microphones
Pictures of the stuff in my rig for binaural recording.

Digital Flotsam Podcast

BoingBoing blog

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Being Rich Pavovitch

Rich Pav 16 Comments

Hitch a ride inside my head while I roam the streets of Kabukicho in search of…well, audio. My favorite part is when I buy a bottle of green tea from a vending machine and you can hear the sound of me drinking it as if you were there inside my head. The hawkers who try to temp me into their tittie bars, nightclubs and whorehouses won’t take no for an answer until I practically beat them over the head with it. There are a few craptacular camera phone pics in the gallery. I also updated the gallery for last week’s show.

Please don’t announce this podcast to tens of thousands of people. I don’t want to incur the wrath of the bandwidth gods. Let’s leave it as a well-kept secret for now.

The tour was so long that I didn’t get to cover some things I wanted to, like my meeting with Scott Lockman of Tokyo Calling. He came to my company’s office on Thursday evening to discuss a teaching gig. It’s funny how radio guys never look the way you imagine them. Matching the face with the voice for the first time is like watching a movie that’s been dubbed–only difference is the mouth moves in perfect sync with the voice.

My apologies to those of you on dial-up connections–this one’s also a bigun’. Also, sorry for the audio levels being set way too high, but unless you’re an audiophile you probably won’t notice. Just turn the volume down a bit.

Thanks to everyone who left comments. What a nice bunch of people you all are.

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