Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: Really, can you just not have Brian Tong on the podcast?

I'm all for having fun and goofing around, but that's not why I listen to BOL. This reminded me of "Tom's away, so the kids will play". Give me Tom's quick quips any day.

This podcast got out of control at times for my tastes. Let's put it this way: If Tong was a regular part of the podcast, I'd go elsewhere. Nothing against him, personally. I'm sure he's a fun guy, but I'm not listening for comedy or silliness, at least not in such large doses. It was like listening to someone else's party. Sorry; I've got better things to do with my time.

THE Tong?, if that works for you, I'm sticking with THE Tom,

This has been the best week yet! From the hip, not afraid to offend someone...

That is what great broadcasting is about. I like Tom...Natalie is not ready to work off script.

Shows very clearly how much people didn't like BT until they got used to him. I wonder if people will necrothread the Natali one in a year or so?

...but Tong's delivery is immature. He comes across like a he's trying to force his cool, a la Poochie the dog (e.g., "true dat!"). It's incredibly insincere sounding.

And sometimes he's just offensive. There's no excuse for anyone using the word "retarded" in any type of media. It's inexcusable.

When Tom is away the show does tend to get sidetracked easily and often...

But I think he'd be better guest hosting with Tom than with Molly. Sometimes when a more serious guest host sits in with Tom the podcast gets a little dry.

I think it is nice to have a young, cute, fun person on the show. People complained about Veronica too for the same reason. Leave Brian alone. As far as I am concerned Brian is fine and whenever they want him to sit in for Tom or Molly when they are off he is welcome.

I first read this posting, then I listened to the postcast. Based on this thread I was expecting Tong to ruin the episode - that was totally wrong. The only thing that almost ruined this episode was that other guy pretending BOL was an airline flight. But that's not Tong's fault.

Sure Tong spent much of the episode doing his best Molly impression, but maybe he looks up to her or something. Tong is not so bad.

It was amusing and fun. I listen to BOL for the commentary on the news anyway. If I wanted straight news, I'd go to ABC or something.

Of course, I'm the type of guy who listens to TWiT and loves it when they go off on tangents. Especially if it's a slow news day.

...it makes the podcast seem more...I dunno. Human. That's one of the things that draws me in.

If they had all of the guests hosts, I think they should do a roundtable type discussion. Not to move in on TWiT's territory, but it would be nice to hear the opinions of different Cnet personalities. Probably keep it to five or six. Molly, Tom, Jason, Cooley, Rafe and Caroline or Natalie.

At least with TWIT, you can count on Dvorak to bring them back to to the topics at hand. THAT'S amusing, hearing him chastise the host and other guests for digressing. But TWIT is normally at least an hour long, if not 1.5 hours. You know there's going to be rambling there. Laporte encourages it. He's got time to fill.

The difference with BOL is that it's been setup as a fairly fast-paced story-by-story news/analysis podcast, so when it ventures off that path into just silliness, it loses its own identity. Look, I don't want to make this into more than it really is. It was one guest host named Brian Tong on one day. No biggie. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't listen if this were the format I would hear every day.

...but while BOL entertains it usually manages to stay focused. It's a great balance that few podcasts manage to capture.

My issue is that the episode got off-track several times for extended periods. It had nothing to do with having guest host, it was more that no one played Tom's roll of pulling it back on-track. It's not gonna make me stop listening to BOL but I was happy to see a few others in the audience had a similar reaction.

There are plenty of other podcasts where you can get three minutes of goofing off for every minute of news. That's not BOL's style and it's why I am a devoted listener...

JohnD