So all you guys have been asking me for about a year now when the next Rubenerd Show is coming out, and I reckon all things considered I’ve done a pretty good job dodging the question up until now. With this latest flurry of retweeted messages though, I figure I finally owe you all an explanation, so here it is.

MI5 is on to me. There, I said it. I said something about the Queen’s hair and they want to take me out quietly before anything can leak out to a tabloid. While I can’t tell you much about my huge scoop (say no more), what I can say is she’s not naturally that grey. Keep watching WikiLeaks.

Moving on

I kid in jest of course. As opposed to kidding in something other than jest, which I don’t think would be kidding then, would it? Does the term kidding imply jest, or can it also refer to something else? Say for example, chess?

I’m very good at talking nonsense when I don’t want to answer something. Maybe I should become a politician, or a public serviceman. Serviceperson. Servicehuman. Someone who provides public service. Like, say, chess.

Moving on, again

Okay okay, for real this time! This is the part of the post that contains all the pertinent information, all that other crap above this sentence was entirely pointless and should really have been discarded in favour of starting the post here. In fact, that last sentence was also entirely pointless which isn’t helping my case.

I’ll tell you why the Rubenerd Show is on another extended hiatus again. Is it because I lost all the equipment in a fire? Is it because I’m lazy or couldn’t be bothered doing another one? Is it some technical reason to do with webhosting or post production? Is it because I can’t stand to be reminded that open source people can’t name applications whenever I compress shows with LAME?

Possibly a little of each of those may be true to some small extent, but there’s another reason which is so lame and stupid it’s taken me six long and painfully useless paragraphs to reach it. Seven even, because I’ll be starting that thought on the next line.

I’m terrified

That was way harder to admit than I thought it was going to be. Hopefully things will get easier now. Forgive this self indulgent nonsense!

Look for most of my life I’ve been a painfully shy person; I never liked having birthday parties as a kid and working up the guts to approach someone I didn’t know was the stuff of nightmares. Perhaps because I was forced to, but by late high school and university I’d started getting a little better. I didn’t need detailed plans before I left the house and I didn’t feel as though everyone was staring at me.

For a reason that continues to baffle me, since about late 2009 I feel as though I’ve started to regress again. Whereas a few years ago I’d be a bit jittery and nervous, sometimes now I’m flooded with feelings of anxiousness and fear at the prospect of leaving the house. Once I’ve made that critical first step I’m mostly okay, but sometimes its just too much. Its impacted relationships with friends, my studies and heaven knows what else in a way that I thought I’d got over in primary school.

Its got to the stage where I’m worrying that I’m worrying, and that can’t be a good thing.

What does this have to do with…?

This is where podcasting comes in. It sounds preposterous, but the idea of recording my own voice for other people to listen to scares me in a way it never did before. Literally I look across at my mixer board and I break out in a cold sweat. Jokes about the quality of the Rubenerd Show aside, I can’t explain it, but it feels like this deep seated fear that something terrible is about to happen, like that a grand piano will come hurtling through the ceiling as soon as I speak.

For some reason blogging isn’t a problem, perhaps its because I feel insulated from the outside world because nobody can see or hear me as I type this. Except maybe the people down the hall, this buckling spring keyboard is as loud as all outdoors.

Anyway I know this is a maddeningly ambiguous conclusion to leave you with, but while I’m pledging the Rubenerd Show hasn’t been retired, as much as I would love to produce more episodes, right now I just… can’t.

I appreciate all your support and comments, I really hope one day I’m confident enough to do the show again for all of you. In the words of Monty Python, the Rubenerd Show isn’t dead, it’s just resting.

Thanks :)
Ruben

I’ve figured out why some iTunes users have been reporting problems with subscribing to the Rubenerd Show through the iTunes Store. I deleted my own subscription, searched for "Rubenerd Show" in the iTunes Store and resubscribed to only be given a small circle and an exclamation point.

When I right clicked and chose "Show Description" I was given the above dialog box. No wonder it isn’t working, it’s trying to access new shows from http:///show/feed/ for some reason!

I don’t know how or why this happened. I’ll be contacting Apple about this to see if I can get it pointing back to the proper URI again. I believe my good friend Felix Tanjono submitted my podcast to the iTunes Store back in 2005 back when Australia and Singapore didn’t have access to it.

While I’m sorting this out you can still go to iTunes, choose the Advanced menu and click Subscribe to Podcast, then enter the following address as a stopgap:

http://rubenerd.com/show/feed/

Sorry about this, I don’t know how this could have happened :-(.

Getting hate messages a sign of honour; maturity by being able to laugh at yourself; news still being news if its not new; IRC and Twitter mudslinging whatnot; people getting snippy at me quoting David Letterman’s comments on Aussie Rules football; scoring points if you miss; making fun sounds with buckling spring keyboards; the awesomeness of Unicomp in the US of A and this thing called a sense of humour!

Download MP3 to listen 21:16 9.9MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Moving lots of blogs into one blog; people like Zombie Plan and Neal from IntoYourHead going the opposite ways; working and living places after university; iTelephone cases and downloading; The Googles and I losing track of core competencies; too much self respect to use Chandler Bing and vacuous people getting angry at Twitter for losing spam followers!

Download MP3 to listen 19:18 8.9MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

This could very well be the greatest episode of the Rubenerd Show of all time. Even though Into Your Head has a spiffy new layout, it just can’t compete with the quality and intelligent discourse of this episode.

Download MP3 to listen 1.7MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Clock and calendar silliness; the Queen’s Birthday isn’t the Queen’s Birthday; Queen Elizabeth’s mugshot on Australian coins; blogging about FreeBSD desktop background managers; the de facto one episode a month show; people whinging about too many blog posts; Zombie Plan on useless tweets; MannyTheMailman’s brand new air conditioner; Asia Pacific being ahead of Hawaii; iPhone Apple WWDC speculation; Neal O’Carroll and I suing for the iTelephone name; Elke’s lack of tweets; the world is flat; illegal Dutch pot scenarios and zombies eating skittles.

Download MP3 to listen 12:30 5.9MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Scaring people who think I’m a chick (ha!); late Friday night train journeys; nostalgia for 2007 Twitterland with Twitterrific; TwitterFon inserting advertisements; moving over to Tweetie on the iTelephone; obsessively using the huge but efficient TweetDeck; and the spectacular cost of mobile phone company text messages!

Download MP3 to listen 21:30 10.0MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

The reason why people hate the iPhone’s keyboard is the reason why I love it; Riverdance keyboard typists; the fun of being a shy introvert; evening walks around Mawson Lakes; the Australian Bicentennial; childhood steam locomotive nostalgia; the New South Wales 3801 streamliner and the Victorian R761; and obsessively wearing out VHS tapes!

Download MP3 to listen 21:30 10.0MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Fun with dealing with broken corrupt backups, misleadingly labelled auto rent payments and my former webhost Servage now that I’m safely typing this from Segment Publishing!

Am particularly flustered and fast talking which saves on file download times for your convenience. Thank you.

Download MP3 to listen 20:55 9.7MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Back in Adelaide again; losing control of RubenerdShow.com for some reason; losing an episode source file again; a silly proposal for an onomatopoeic word to describe places; reminiscing about family trips to Ubud in Bali; our end of year holiday to Singapore; food poisoning isn’t as fun as the brochure said; our new family Christmas holiday ritual; story behind my beautiful shiny new Nikon D60 instead of getting a D40 or D40x; remembering I’m supposed to be keeping episodes under 20 minutes; and a lousy joke about wishing I had Nikon VR on my person!

Download MP3 to listen 20:55 9.6MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Terribly good jokes told by people who can’t tell jokes; Barack Obama’s inauguration on TV; relieved farewell to Dubbya; more relieved Sarah Palin didn’t win than Barack did; silly thing John McCain said; the American founding fathers; Thomas Jefferson on church and state; getting a Nikon D60 for Christmas; pixel density is more important then megapixels; my old FinePix S9600; how bridge cameras compare to real single lens reflex (SLR) cameras; realising shows shouldn’t be recorded at 2am; an exciting new hobby and discovering green tea is… green tea!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 20:45 9.7MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

You’ve joined me at a tremendously exciting moment; unabashedly ripping off IntoYourHead; microwaving coffee after I said you shouldn’t; Family Guy; Germans can make better Christmas food than the French; family trip to Europe in 1998; asking for the bathroom with sign language; Frankfurt am Main; time speeding up as you get older; Melbourne since 1990; remembering primary school; flag carriers and whatnot; Tom Keene talking about ridiculously expensive bottled water with David Zetland on Bloomberg on the Economy; the political compass thingy; and a Paul Shaffer smoke alarm!

UPDATE: The date for this episode has been fixed to show 2009 instead of 2008 after I received a smartarse comment ;-)

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:00 9.8MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Can I get a monocle? A monocle? Also discussing my displeasure over companies that just make money from money; the financial crisis; the infamous red light Orchard Towers in Singapore; the Jason’s Gourmet Grocer; hard versus soft energy drinks; Irn-Bru; review of Alton Brown’s Good Eats programme; Jamie Oliver; the joys of steel cut oats; how much Singapore has changed in a decade; Bob’s Red Mill in Oregon; finding out buttermilk isn’t as horrible as it first sounds; Pepsi is in fact better than Coke; why instant oats suck and can I get a monocle?

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 20:56 9.8MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Having delusions of effectiveness; Burnt tongues; differences between robusta and arabica coffee; lack of FireWire ports on the new MacBook; instant coffee crap; the teachers pet phenomena; high school library studying adventures in 2004; WordPress mistaking m3u for mp3 in enclosures; too many darned files; FireWire 800 versus FireWire 400 versus USB 2.0; review of the Western Digital My Passport Studio FireWire external notebook drive and a heavy bag of bubble wrap!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:01 9.8MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Do more people know where Singapore is now? Sleeping with blinking lights; Asia changing every five minutes; gutting the Bishan MRT station; the Singapore Heartland; changing skylines; apartment buildings springing up from nowhere; the feared "en bloc sale" phenomena; the Adelaide Glenelg Tramline; the Sydney Cross City Tunnel; using the Internet Archive for Rubenerd Shows; rating shows with stars; Liberal and Labor guys; an extended rant on building roads instead of public transport; and don’t blame me I voted for The Greens!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:15 9.9MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

The issue that everyone is thinking about: motorised street sweepers. Also discussing Twitter password adventures; internet obsessions when asleep; transit stops in Bali; code injection attacks; file permissions giving permission; domain adventures; the Googles refusing indexing; Ourmedia; the Internet Archive; Harvie Krumpet’s backyard (not to be confused with Burke’s backyard; Starbucks Christmas blend; NesCafe; the ill fated Viennese Coffee House; the Boatdeck Cafe; throwing bottles at people’s faces and midlife crisis coffee roasting machines!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:03 9.8MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

The very lovely Nicole Kidman’s awkward interview on David Letterman’s Late Show (YouTube link); an official apology for Rubenerd Show 258; the joys of insomnia; missing my MadPlayer and Armada M300; DavesPhotoGallery.net; my back hates my MacBook Pro; amazing detail exposed with flash photography (ha!); unscrupulously punching holes though property; automatic bright orange snow shovels; Google Reader and curious white powder on recycling bins!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:09 9.8MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

The show title says it all. One of the most comprehensive, well researched, intense, respectable, accurate, relevant, without peer, hard hitting and to-the-point episodes ever recorded. Music from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC1 News service.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 15:19 7.2MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Freak weather in Australia (torrential storms in Brisbane, fluctuating temperatures in Adelaide, snow in Victoria a week before summer!); my cheesy slogan from primary school; my dad’s plant designs in Pinkenba; the iPhone and iPod Touch 2.2 update (still no copy/paste, the amazing street view feature, the new weird MobileSafari layout); Toronto, Adelaide and Dublin; the IntoYourHead show; and utopian science fiction writers!

UPDATE: I referred to the CEO of Microsoft as Steve Jobs not Steve Ballmer! The blasphemy! Please forgive me!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:05 9.7MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

My obsession with and purchase of a soft cover Moleskine book from NoteMaker, Impromptu review of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, my take on The Rampler with blogging, Amazon delivery of David Letterman Late Show Fun Facts, the anatomy of the human hand including the ever elusive thumb, colour computer nostalgia, where the number 256 keeps cropping up, afternoon post office bus trips and wondering what the heck an Australia Post eParcel is!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 30:34 14.1MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Recording shows at 03:45am; bizarre South Australian and Indian timezones off by half an hour; installing operating systems in virtual machines, VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation, Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox; getting your hands dirty with real partitioning; choosing from FreeBSD, Draco GNU/Linux, OS/2 Warp 4.x, BeOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, NetBSD; why it’s a great time for OS enthusiasts to be alive; and why this should really have been filed under Rubenerd Unplugged and not made into a proper show!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 17:00 7.9MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

It’s official ladies, gentlemen and everyone else: the fine folks at the IntoYourHead show are officially at war. In response to this situation, I have recorded this highly sophisticated response. Please listen to in a well ventilated area, for the fumes of professionalism may overwhelm you.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 09:18 4.3MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Reviewing the first Formula 1 Grand Prix night race in Singapore, Massa’s pits fuel pipe adventure, the lights and skyline, Alonoso was one lucky guy, Ferrari’s woes; version 1.1.1 of the addictive Nations application on Facebook; Twinings Chai tea; ridiculous Telstra phone bill nonsense; and avoiding suggestively named Naked DSL!

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 37:00 17.1MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

I caved and bought an iPhone; the reasons why I was disappointed with Google Android; sophisticated text messages from my sister; the LG Secret mobile phone; snapping Australian Medicare cards; New Zealand Australia Centrelink migrations; Gordon Brown’s Labour speech in the UK; palindromic numbers; distrusting spell checkers with gibberish; fancy new embedded Rubenerd Show cover art; compressed graphics looking crap; antihistamines; the term podcast; my take on the Andy Kaufman situation on The Overnightscape; my dad setting off security at Adelaide Airport; the iPhone keyboard; the TwitterFon iPhone Twitter client; I love the Objective-C programming language; fond memories of the Palm Tungsten W and Palm OS; basing your opinion of devices just from spec sheets; practical use for GPS and Safari; and hallucinogenic throat lozenges!

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:00 15.2MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Was SUPPOSED to be discussing our Flinders Ranges trip and my new iPhone, but ended up discussing the cola wars, my dad’s much needed holiday with us in Adelaide, having no energy sucks, mistakingly assuming malice instead of stupidity, the sad decline of Vodafone service in Australia, multivitamins and coffee preparation, the Aussie outback is REALLY flat, signing up with Optus, mobile phone prepaid plans are a ripoff, really humbling super old rock, good to be back home, sculling boiling water, phone calls with Elke, and some "realistic" philosophy!

Flinders Ranges trip and iPhone adventures will be released in the coming week. Heaven forbid I actually record what I’m supposed to one day :-).

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:00 15.2MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Looking back 10x at episode Rubenerd Show 25, flu is fun, fun with IP addresses and DNS servers, Happy 60th birthday to Bem Adolph in Sydney, meeting my old man back in Adelaide, forgetful MadPlayers, music lobby groups and companies making us feel guilty, John Grisham, Disney copyright evils, Whole Wheat Radio artists, Nations application on Facebook (with link to Rubenerdia), Schweppes Lemonade, huge controversy surrounding Ginger, the cute Rundle Mall mascot and silly roller coaster analogies!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 43:34 20.1MiB

Video and images from the Rundle Mall advertisements can be seen on the Rubenerd Blog: Not everyone approves of Ginger in Rundle Mall.

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

From Adelaide: On Saturday nights some young people go binge drinking at nightclubs. Ruben does the hardcore thing by releasing a ridiculous, disjointed, repetitive, mildly irritating podcast episode with little cohesion or rational thought. And some people say he’s a loser, can you believe it? Including vintage audio from Not Only but Also!

This also serves as a crossover for Rubenerd Unplugged, the cheap knockoff of the Rampler which is coming soon. This will be the only episode where Unplugged material is played here, unless someone uses an effective form of persuasion against Ruben such a gun, or grilled cheese sandwich.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 15:53 7.4MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

From Adelaide: Finally some beautiful weather in Adelaide, river walking paths late at night, the Mawson Lakes suburb, Rubenerd Unplugged inspired by The Overnightscape Rampler, a new use for my Ourmedia account, advice from Jerry Novak and a scary almost lethal close encounter!

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 30:56 14.3MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

Hashing out and talking through some ideas about the future of Rubenerd.com and how I want to move my five separate sites over to it. Might be listenable for a pleasant background distraction if you mess around with weblog engines, databases and whatnot, otherwise don’t feel bad giving this one a miss. Looking at Dave Wares’ Photo Gallery as an example of where I want to be.

To make it somewhat more interesting, I’ve included some retro audio easter eggs :-).

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 01:12:11 33.1MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

A rant episode in response to a new technology reported by Webware and an article calling the exposing of P2P as a red herring; talking about net neutrality, attacking symptoms not causes, RIAA/MPAA inspired bullying tactics. Not the same calibre as a Jimbob Kloss rant but I try my best!

Also briefly talk about a fascinating interview article from Slashdot from the inventor of C++, and the internets are working again at home!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 40:24, 18.6MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.