Somehow, I’ve become the kings of plugs for my site over the past few months. In fact, it’s gotten to be a bit of a joke over at theStarkville House of El. So, what happens when I am a guest on other podcasts? I guess I pimp out both myself and their shows.

First, my good buddy Michael Bailey released the second part of a three part discussion we had at DragonCon. You can find that conversation along with the first part at www.viewsfromthelongbox.com. In the first part of the convo we talked about a lot of things. In this part, the plane finally lands and we stick to mostly Superman talk. Go check it out and while you’re there subscribe to Views. It really is a great podcast.

Secondly, I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Jones at DragonCon. (No, not the British singer from the Monkees.) He invited me to come on to his podcast at some point and a couple of weeks ago, I finally had the opportunity to sit down with Dave and Sam and talk all things Clone Wars. So head over to their place on podbean at thevortex.podbean.com. Dave and Sam were great and I had a great time yuckin’ it up about Star Wars with those guys. They are also into all things Dr. Who, so if you’re a fan of the Doctor, you will probably be a fan of these guys. They do a great job. Oh, and just so he’ll know…Dave is a friend of mine now…and I’m happy he is.

So, that’s where I am on the net this week. Now…if I can just figure out a way to will myself onto The Force Cast. We should so make that happen. GEEK OUT ARMY! FORWARD!

Well, after the small firestorm struck up by my commentary on Trekkies yesterday, I feel it’s time to offer up the olive branch and remind everyone that Geek Out Loud, the official podcast of Geek Out Online, has moved. The new website for the podast is www.geekoutpodcast.com.

If you go there, make sure that you use the link available to subscribe to the new feed.

If you use iTunes, click here to go to the new Geek Out Loud page in the iTunes store and resubscribe from there.

I want to say a big thank you to Micheal Cohen for providing the new look and logo for the site.  Michael heard the request on the podcast and responded pretty quickly.   I think it looks great and it’s a great way to start the new year with the site.  You can check out Michael’s art at arkwulf.com and . Make sure to check it out and tell other people about it so he can get some traffic and some business.

As I stated last night, there was a ghost hunt.  I was a part.  We recorded audio for a podcast version of it, and that’s where things start to go south.

The members of our investigation team were myself (Big Honkin Steve), my friends Josh and Heath, and my sister-in-law Debra.  

The location was J & D Design, a store in downtown Douglas, GA owned by my brother, John.   Lately, there have been some weird happenings in the store, so we thought we would set up our own semi-amateur investigation. 

The happenings?  Sounds of something breaking but no broken item to be found, boxes that were opened are closed when the person walks back to the boxes, clapping noises heard when no one else was around, and a door that was supposed to be locked opening on it’s own. 

The equipment?  A digital voice recorder, JVC camcorder, digital camera, a mac, and a pc.  PC sucked.  It was all embarassed to do anything around the mac, so back in the crate it went. 

Just before we began the investigation at approximately 11:15, the store phone rang.  No one should have been calling.  Josh answered to staticky old timey music on the other line.  Kinda freaky, but set up by my brother.  Jerk. 

As we went dark, we began to attempt to debunk some of the experiences.  We could not explain completely the clapping noise heard in the store, though someone could have been right outside of the store and out of eyeshot of the window and made a noise and be heard.  Just not clearly.

The door could have been slightly ajar and pushed open by the wind.

The hypothesis is that the experiences could have been caused by Evelyn, the original owner of the store who sold the business to my brother.  He changed the name of the business and is now getting ready to  take down the original sign that hung on the building for years.  Therefore, we went in looking for Evelyn.

We attempted to take EVP’s in various places throughout the store.  So far in our analyzation of the evidence, we have noticed nothing that may have been captured on audio.

Also, we took some pictures which also yielded no results.

These are the facts of the case.

The experience itself was probably more fun than it should have been.   Between laughing at questions posed to the ether, rumbling stomachs, and apparent drug flashbacks, it could be argued that we had a bit too much fun.  I have to say though, there’s nothing like sitting in a pitch black attic for 20 minutes holding a digital recorder in the air and throwing out questions every now and again.

As we have come back and processed our experiences together, here are a few of the favorite moments of the team:

Josh – We were sitting around the design table, just sitting and seeing what we could experience and attempting to get some EVPs when Josh asked, “Did you work here?”   Not funny at all.   Until I asked, “What was your favorite thing to design?”  Apparently, we were only supposed to ask yes or no questions, because the second I asked that question everyone laughed.

Debra – We were in the same location and Josh said, “We are not here to hurt you or bother you.”  I began to get a little freaked out, so just to make sure any spirits knew where we stood I said, “And this would be a good time to mention that we are all protected by God Almighty.”

Heath – When Josh used the digital camera to flash pictures of a couple who kept walking back and forth in front of the shop.  There we were in a dark shop hiding in the shadows.  As these two people walked by, Josh held up the camera and made it flash…several times.  The people kept looking and apparently couldn’t find where the flash was coming from.  Unproffesional?  Yes.   Funny?  Yes.   Worth messing up the investigation for?  I’m gonna say….YES!

Steve – My favorite moment came when we were trying to experience something, and sitting around trying to catch some EVP’s.  I was across the area from Josh.  Josh said, “Show us a sign of your presence.  If you are here, could you move something?”  To which I said, “If you do happen to move something, could you do it close to Josh?”

While we experienced nothing except the inability to get a special edition of the podcast out, we had a good time and may have stumbled on a Halloween tradition.  Now, bring on Christmas.

The past week has been pretty hectic in real life and I have had to put the geeking out on a bit of a hold as I have been in and out of the hospital with my dad.  Everything is ok, but real life will put the skids on the fun sometimes.

 Because of all that’s gone on with me, I wasn’t able to get a fifth episode of Geek Out Loud recorded over the weekend, and I decided to just go ahead and wait until the end of this week to record, but there is much to discuss, so go ahead and throw names for the Heroes clan into the hat, and let me hear what you want to geek out about.

Finally, Geek Out Online is about to get a really neat push in the form of yours truly guest hosting Starkville’s House of El podcast. That’s right, Derek has asked me to come on the show and share thoughts about this week’s episode of Smallville, Lara. It looks to be a huge episode and I am soooo greatful for this huge oppurtunity. So make sure to check it out.

Also this week, I will post my full review of “Action,” the latest episode of Smallville, there may be some neat news out of THE DARK KNIGHT camp as the candle burns down at whysoserious.com, and hopefully we’ll get back to the almost daily blogging that the site has become famous for (yeah, right), culminating in what will hopefully be a great episode of Geek Out Loud.

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