See you tonight!

(note: If you are shy or just don’t want to talk you can still listen live or chat with us live during the podcast recording. To do so visit this page on TalkShoe around or after 9pm EST.)

• The Hyrdacooler is still recording regularly. They are filling time during the hiatus re-watching and analyzing Lost starting in Season 1. They just recorded an episode discussing Walkabout. Make sure to check out their page on TalkShoe for upcoming episode info and the show’s archive. Here’s the episode:
  
  
  Download it (MP3)
  
• The GSPN Lost Podcast recently interviewed Bonnie Covel of lost.about.com which is definitely worth a listen. Bonnie is extremley knowledgeable about the show and covering Lost is her day job.
  
  
  Download it (MP3)
  
• Clay and Chris of The Dharma Dummies do a character analysis of John Locke which should be a good listen for any fans of Locke. These are the same guys who bring their grandmothers on to the podcast occasionally, which I love.
  
  
  Download it (MP3)
  
• As for upcoming shows, The Lost Flashbacks is changing nights from Monday back to Thursday (or that’s what it seems like for now.) They are all set to record a new show tonight, live on TalkShoe at 9pm EST. Be sure to join.

• The Transmission is preparing to record a podcast reviewing Season 4. They are looking for people to call in and discuss the season. Check it out.
• The Lost Community Book Club has released their summer and fall reading list. All you book worms will love this. And it will give you a chance to geek out about both Lost and your reading habits. View the list then tune into their podcasts.

Now, if you’ve been following you know that they were planning a live call in with Daniel Dae Kim during their 25-hour podcast but that ended up getting botched by TalkShoe. Could they have been dropping a hint that DDK would be dropping in during this live show? I recall them saying they’d try to make it up to us soon… perhaps this is it. Anyway, enough podcast theories… here’s the show:

To make things even better she gave each contestant of Lost Jeopardy a copy of her book and she gave the winner, Amanda of The Lost Flashbacks, a basket of cookies as well. Wow. I am amazed by this and Anne Dawson has forever, in my opinion, altered the definition of giving someone a cookie on the internet.

Here now is the full interview with Anne Dawson, cookies included (blame the audio on TalkShoe, O’s final version will sound much better):

To listen or subscribe to the Cranky Fanatic on iTunes click here.

Hello Colleen. I want to assure you that by no means did TalkShoe single out this call or do anything intentional to derail it. We have seen a very heavy demand for TalkShoe in the last weeks and this may unfortunately have impacted the call. We think that the call for Autism is a great cause and will do everything we can to help make the most of the event. Having the call up for 24 hours is no easy task but we understand that is no excuses for the failures.

I personally apologize for any inconvenience this may has caused, as we strive to provide not only a service that people can use for free but one that is reliable.

If you have any further issues please continue to email support or call our support telephone number.

Aaron Brauser
VP Product Management
www.talkshoe.com

It should be noted that this type of response in blogger comments is typical of TalkShoe. It’s great that they are apologizing but I am curious as to how they will address all of the problems that Colleen and I laid down on them. I would also like to see them step up and donate more money to Autism Speaks.

The only logical explanation I can have for Aaron calling me “Colleen” is that he thought all the posts came from the same blog (since Colleen and I seem to be sharing blogger templates.)

All things being equal I will continue to use TalkShoe as so many podcasts I follow use the service. Thanks to Aaron for taking the time to apologize and it would be great to see some of the problems that were addressed dealt with in future releases of the service.

Read what Colleen had to say about the fiasco here on her blog. (which at the moment is using the same template as mine =O … I need to do something more original it seems.)

• Jay ended a show for his first segment and due to Talk Shoe’s ass-backwards policies they were not allowed to start another podcast for 30 minutes, confusing the hosts and delaying celebrity Jorge Garcia from joining the show for at least an hour or so.
• There were so many people in the chat room at times that it began to lag because Talk Shoe’s cache would not clear itself, forcing the hosts to start a new show. This problem also made it near-impossible for the hosts to un-mute callers and for people in the chat (using Talk Shoe Pro) to talk to one another.
• Daniel Dae Kim, for some reason or another, was forced to cancel his appearance on the show because of Talk Shoe’s issues. Thanks a lot.
• Talk Shoe, several times, had this bug where no one could hear the hosts or call in to hear.
• Because of these problems Jay and Jack lost valuable time and momentum raising money for Autism Speaks.
• The chat room was full of “Guests” in addition to registered users. The room’s number of allowed chatters got maxed out and people with Talk Shoe accounts were getting auto-muted, while many “Guests” did not. Once you were muted the only way to get back in and chat was by either logging on as a “Guest” or creating another account. I wrote to Talk Shoe about this and they replied blaming Jay and Jack for the problem.

How about this Talk Shoe: Cut Jay and Jack a check for Autism Speaks to make up for all the time they lost and get rid of the stupid guy talking about “Shoe Phone” at the beginning and end of each podcast. Do all that and I’ll call it even.