is that I have too have interviewed Michael Shermer on my show. It was a great thrill to interview one of my favorite authors. Sure, there were a couple other podcasters at TAM6, who have had big time guests like Shermer on all the time, but my podcast is pretty new. I’m only eleven episodes in, and still learning the medium.

Listening to the interview again, I see places I could have done better. I realize I spoke a mile a minute, though, my memory is that he had some place to go quickly, so I didn’t have too much time to delay. One thing I’m glad didn’t happen, is that I didn’t have a “You’re so awesome” interview. I tried to ask questions I really wanted answers for.

The interview was included in our 11th episode of The Libertarian Dime, but if you don’t want to listen to all that, you can download the interview here.

Enjoy!

…because apparently the FBI has time to investigate the recent leaks of new Guns n’ Roses tracks:

FBI visits blogger….

I guess this pretty much confirmsthat the tracks were legit, which is a cool thing, because they rock. I’ll post a review later.

Well, I’m back from TAM6, and it was probably the best overall TAM for me. The speakers were consistently interesting and I did get my interview with Michael Shermer. Because of his schedule and the setup of the conference I was only able to get 10 minutes, however, that is as many minutes as he appeared on The Colbert Report. I also found some new ideas for upcoming guests, and I hope some of those guests will be on in the near future.

I will write a guest by guest summary sometime, but for now, I will just say, it was one of the best times I’ve had learning about things ranging from real crime scene investigation to a spoon bending lesson from Teller. Just a great conference all around.

So, in short, episode 11 of the Libertarian Dime will have my interview with Shermer and our usual opinions on current events. TAM6 also made me more determined to keep going with The Dime, and to expand our offerings. And while I’m at it, I will need to plug my podcast again: http://thelibertariandime.mevio.com.

Josh and I have been enjoying the TAM6 conference quite a bit. Friday’s speakers were all around pretty good. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson was so good, he was asked to go over his time by 30 minutes. If you think he is good on the Colbert Report, he is even better in person. PZ Meyers and Ben Goldacre were both new to TAM but they were also pretty good. About the only low point, was someone named George Hrab, who sings folk songs about skepticism. Because Christopher Hitchens was unable to attend, Hrab sang a song he dedicated to Hitch called “God is not great.” Well, I can tell you that it is more like that God is great than that song was great. I wasn’t alone, a number of people left during the 10 minutes of folk songs.

I was not able to interview Michael Shermer yet. I did go up to him and check in, and was working on his laptop on his presentation, and clearly was also very tired. During the Penn and Teller session, he was actually sleeping on the floor. So I’m assuming he was actually tired, and not blowing me off. So, sometime in the late morning I will try to arrange a time. I’m still a little nervous, but I think I’ll do okay.

Well, that’s it for now. Josh and I will be heading out to Saturday’s festivities in a little bit. Shermer, Phil Plait, and Adam Savage are on today, and oh, hey, I have a big interview as well.

Tonight Jonathan and I recorded the 10th episode of The Libertarian Dime, and it didn’t even have to happen. Jonathan’s computer hard drive melted down, causing him to lose his data and his Skype access. Show material was lost. I would have forgiven him if he had decided not to do the show. He exhausted his Microsoft oriented avenues for repair, and instead, booted his PC with a Linux LiveCD so he had access to the web, AIM, and our online show agenda. He set up next to the phone, so I could dial up him with Skype and do the show. Just like the first episode, he was doing the show over the phone. Starting much later than expected, we took a deep breath and dived into the show.

And it rocked. With scant notes, missing material, compromised sound equipment, and fatigue setting in, we kicked ass. Our best performance yet. We did the show with an ease and comfort that would at home on any radio show. We kicked it up a notch for sure, on our special 10th episode, and it didn’t even have to happen.

I saw a link to this story:

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/06/16/accidental-breast-reduction-hobbles-online-game-age-of-conan/.

I don’t remember a time in my life, teenager or not, where I would get outraged that the breast size of imaginary computer characters had been reduced. In fact, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t care. I have to admit, I cringed when I read, from the image it portrays of teenage male gamers. Ouch.

For some reason, the last couple years, I’ve had life changing events in the month of June. Two June’s ago, I married Kelly at the Stratosphere in Vegas. It was by far the cheapest chapel and had the nicest view. I can’t say that a whole lot has changed since then in terms of how Kelly and I act, but the tax benefits have been nice.

Last June, Kelly and I took possession of our first house, a 4900 square foot true ranch, that sits on 23 acre and has a 5 acre pond. I think we got it for a pretty good price, and I can’t imagine a house that fits our needs better right now. It has so much potential, so much in fact, that I often find it overwhelming in determining what we should do. I’ve already gotten very use to the expansive space in allows us to have, and I don’t know if I could easily go back to anything less than 4000 square feet. I know that sounds snobby, but that’s just how it is right now.

This June, I get to (hopefully) interview Michael Shermer this week at the Amaz!ng Meeting for my humble podcast, The Libertarian Dime. I believe I have more Schermer not-fiction books than I do of any other author, and I’ve subscribed to his magazine Skeptic Magazine for years, so this is a big deal to me. I’m obviously not a media person in my professional life, and my only in-person interview experience I have is grilling prospective employees for my company. Some of those interviews have gone well, some interviewees have emailed the CEO after feeling humiliated. So I guess my results vary.

All joking aside, I’m confident that it will go well. After doing eleven podcast episodes, my ease in doing a show has increased, and I’m a lot more confident in my abilities. I think it will go really well, assuming, I sack up and get the interview going.

I recently uploaded episode the 8th episode of “The Libertarian Dime“, but it really marks the 10th episode over 11 weeks that Jonathan and I have done. I don’t know how many podcasts die before they get to 10, but I imagine it’s quite a lot. So I’m proud that Jonathan have done as many as we’ve done, but we won’t talk about numbers again until we hit our 50th.

Enjoy!

http://thelibertariandime.mevio.com