I plan on writing a longer post on my trip – maybe a bit of a narrative – and of course embed slideshows of the photos I took. I have a lot of raw video to go through as well but I’m waiting for iMovie ‘09 to get it all put together. I really want to use some of those cool new map transitions – Indiana Jones style!
If you follow my Twitter (or Plurk or anything else) or saw a recent post to this very blog, you’d know that I ordered a Røde PSA-1 Studio Arm from B&H Photo in New York. I received the boom arm and was extremely excited to get it set up and working. I took it out of the box and noticed I was missing a part that was advertised on the box: a 3/8″ thread adaptor. So unable to mount my Blue Snowball on the arm as I’d originally planned, I got it all set up and realized that the arm would only stay extended; it would not retain it’s position. Naturally I was very upset about this – the point of the boom is to position the microphone so as to be more convenient. I immediatley e-mailed Røde technical support as well as the retailer. A non-position-able boom arm is not what I was hoping to get. I quickly got a response from Røde which made me happy but I didn’t quite like his answer:
Hi Ben, there isn’t anything wrong with your PSA-1. It is designed to work with the PodCaster microphone. The microphone acts as a counterbalance that stabilizes the PSA-1. You will need a mic that has a comparable weight to the PodCaster which weights about 21.5oz.
Ok great. Now he wants me to buy a Podcaster which starts at over $200. I was under the impression that the PSA-1 would work with any mountable microphone. Hmm. Well, I decided to test his theory and approximated the weight of a Podcaster microphone. It worked. Then I got the brilliant idea to hang my Blue Snowball from the boom arm using a velcro strap. Also works. Here’s a video of the hanging Snowball in action:
The nice man at Røde Support (Michael is his name) offered to mail me the adaptor that was missing from the box. Thanks! Hopefully when that comes the hanging Snowball will be no more…but for right now it seems to be working fine.
This was released as a “webisode” supplement to last night’s SNL. It’s funnier than most of what they actually put in the show. Is it because all of the bleeped profanity? It’s bleeped.
Can’t explain it. Don’t know why. Maybe it was because Christopher Walken looked like he was reading his lines off a cue card just off stage right. Maybe it was the chuckle-inducing Bill & Hillary cold open. Or the laugh-out-loud Weekend Update. Below are my two favorite skits…I hadn’t laughed that hard while watching SNL in a long time.
Proof that Kristen Wiig is hilarious. This one just built and built and I found myself laughing all the way through.
The best part of this skit was comparing everyone’s Christopher Walken impressions. I thought Andy Samberg’s was better than I was expecting.
Overall a fun episode that, as usual, died off near the end. Why oh why are you still 90 minutes long? Sixty would be just fine, thank you very much.
