As I've mentioned several times to anybody who will listen, my favorite podcast is Hey! That's My Hummus! which is a creation of my most excellent blog friends, Mr. Shiny and Faiqa (both of whom are on a blogging sabbatical while they're working on the show, so I linked to their Twitter feeds).

If a Jew and a Muslim walked into a podcast you get, well... "Hey! That's My Hummus!" It's an awesome show filled with respectful discussion of numerous topics with a humorous slant. If you're not listening to it, you should be.

Anyway...

With Faiqa being in San Diego for BlogHer, Shiny asked if I would like to "virtually guest-host" a "Best Of..." clip show. Since I am not Jewish or Muslim, but instead a non-practicing Buddhist, I thought this was an incredible honor.

So I agreed, and you can listen to my episode right now by clicking on this link!"

It's an awesome show because it has both me and Batman in it.

Oh... and Faiqa and Shiny too.

   
BONUS! BEHIND THE HUMMUS SECRETS! (spoilers! listen to the podcast first!)

1. Shiny says he sped up my voice so I sound like a chipmunk. Personally, I think I sound more like a honey badger! A ferocious, crazy-nasty, bad-ass honey badger! Honey badger don't care!
2. I used my MacBook's built-in "Podcast Publisher" to record my intros. This was a mistake. I should have recorded directly in Garage Band, since it can output MP3s. As it was, I ended up having to drag the Podcast Producer MOV files into Garage Band so I could convert them there.
3. The opening bit was recorded perfectly in one take. But I live a half-mile from the railroad tracks and a train went by in the middle of my recording, blowing it's whistle through my open window. I hoped that it wouldn't be audible, but it was loud and clear so I had to record it all over again. This time it took four takes, and it still has a couple goofs in it.
4. In my intro, I say that I love Shiny and Faiqa more than chocolate pudding. This is 100% true. They are two of the most wonderful people I know.
5. My MacBook, still suffering from a botched install of Apple's new Mac OS X Lion, kept overheating. This caused the fan to turn on, which made noise throughout the recording, ruining it. Rebooting worked for a minute, but the fan eventually came on again. To solve this, I sat my MacBook on top of a tray of ice cubes that had a paper towel on top. I then set an ice pack over my keyboard.
6. In the second intro I mention that I'm a fan of Batman. This is an understatement. Batman is my favorite super-hero by far, and I am borderline obsessed with the character. Shiny couldn't have chosen a better segment for me to introduce.
7. The second intro took six takes to record. You try saying "so we're revisiting" in a sentence! It kept coming out as "we'revisiting." Walter Cronkite I am not.
8. Faiqa is, in fact, in San Diego for BlogHer. I had no idea what Shiny was doing, so I decided he was making a piñata. In my wrap-up I joked about Shiny having a "piñata emergency"... I have spent a lot of time since then wondering exactly what a "piñata emergency" might entail. It sounds crazy-dangerous.
9. With suggestions from Shiny, I wrote up a script I could read from so I wouldn't accidentally cause World War III or something. My final recording doesn't match the script at all, as I tend to wander off script when I do this kind of thing. I have no idea how everything ended up coherent. Maybe it didn't.
10. I actually do love hummus. Along with falafel, pizza, and chocolate pudding, it's a staple of my dietary regime.