I’m sure you’ve noticed, but we haven’t released in a couple weeks. Certain life issues have gotten in the way, for all of us, and until that all clears up we’ll be on a hiatus for at least a month. This is no Fenris Hiatus, I assure you that (if you understand that reference, high fucking five), but we’re not dead yet.

Please keep sending in any show ideas (What Ifs? Hedge Knight, HBO series, etc), feedback, and declarations of love. Twitter, voice mail, or just old fashioned email via the contact box to the right… We all still love to receive that, whether it be positive or negative. It’s all welcome.

Sorry again, we’ll try and get everything back in gear soon enough. Don’t go forgetting about us!

You can send us any questions, comments, declarations of love, show ideas, etc. via the comment box to the right, which goes straight to iceandfirepodcast@gmail.com. You can also follow and message us on Twitter @apoiaf. But the newest, most fangdangled contraption Amin has managed to rig up is the Skype voice mail system.  Simply call up the user APOIAF, wait for the beep and leave your message. Voice only, please, as text will not be received.  Who knows, you may even appear in an episode! Although if you don’t want to be put on air, please specify that.

If you would like to guest host on the days we’re missing a member, feel free let us know. We usually record on Thursday nights at 8-10pm CST, so make sure you’ve got the schedule for that.

Contrary to popular belief, the Podcast of Ice and Fire is still alive and feebly communicating.  The holidays have been a busy time for us (in terms of real life, not nerd shit).  We’re still trying to get this podcast back on track and are working to release a solid episode.  2009 deserves an explosion of all-new boner jokes.  Just bear with us and keep checking back for a new episode.

And don’t worry- if we ever decided to quit the podcast, APOIAF would go down in a blaze of glory and name-calling.  We’ll always be here for you, to fill the gaping void in your soul that ADWD is rendering.

Three things:

1. We are now officially podcastoficeandfire.com, after heavy deliberation. Anjou’s bastardsoficeandfire.com idea was a close second, and Mo’s hotpieissexxy.com suggestion required intense consideration. That link will redirect you to this blog for now, until we can persuade someone to help us construct a website.

2. We might also be looking to take on a new host for our podcast, since Ben has been missing in action. His shoes are hard to fill, and we’ve had a lot of offers from listeners who’d like to contribute so at this point it’s hard to choose. This decision may very well have to be settled with a joust to the death. Keep listening and reading for more info.

3. Give us topic ideas! We’ve been working on trivia questions and tossing a few ideas around but we’d rather give you what you want to hear. We’re recording again soon and want this one to be solely concentrated on listener suggestions, so leave them here. This will be Mimi’s homecoming episode so expect really terrible innuendo.

Greetings from the Dothraki sea, everyone! And by Dothraki sea, I mean Mongolian steppes.

First and foremost, the podcast crew would like thank everyone who has been leaving interesting, funny, and awesome comments on our blog. We love reading the replies so much that we want you to record them! Send us an audio mp3 file of your insights, questions, and general feedback to staff@podcastoficeandfire.com. We would love to include listener sound bites in our future episodes so we can discuss and respond. Windows Sound Recorder and Audacity are great, easy tools to record an mp3 with. If you have any questions about how, don’t be afraid to ask!

Secondly, we’d like to start receiving email submissions of questions for two upcoming episodes: the What If? podcast and the Ultimate ASOIAF Trivia Contest.

Ask us the “what if…” scenarios that were always on your mind as you read through the books. What if Ned had taken Renly’s or Littlefinger’s advice during the last hours of Robert’s reign? What if Khal Drogo had survived and took the Dothraki to Westeros? What if the Starks had stayed in Winterfell?

For the trivia contest, pose some great questions! We need a lot, ranging from mildly easy to mind-rackingly difficult. Try to avoid the no-brainers like “What is the first book of the series called?” as well as the tediously detailed ones that require book consultation such as “What is the third word of the fourth paragraph in the UK edition of A Clash for Kings?”. Send us as many or as few as you’d like, we’d like to make this episode a big group effort.

staff@podcastoficeandfire.com.  Get emailing and you’ll get some love letters in return!*

*love letters not guaranteed

As you may have noticed, we’re a couple of podcasts behind our weekly publication. A couple of listeners have asked when our next episode will go up. But things have been super hectic recently within the crew.

Mimi is in the process of graduating, moving out, and is flying to Mongolia in one week. Chris is taking night classes that conflict with the routine recording schedule and has a lot going on with work. Aaron is busy with finals and eating ice cream. Ashley 1 has recently suffered the loss of a close friend in her life, for which she has all of our condolences and the understanding that the podcast is definitely not a priority for her right now.

We can’t guarantee any timely publications as of right now, because it’s hard getting everyone together amidst all of our personal issues currently. But here is what we know for sure will be gracing your ears in due time:

Episode 6, already recorded and undergoing editing. This one is a mini-episode since it doesn’t feature real discussion, but it’s relevant to the books (and somewhat interactive!) and will (hopefully) be funny.

Episode 7, the big prophecies podcast. It’s taken a long time for us to get around to this one because we want to do it justice. We’ll be recording it this week.

As well as two more, guys night out and girls night out episodes. Apparently these are sneaky, competitive, secretive recordings and I have no idea what will be featured in either. But expect bad jokes!

Thanks for being so patient with us, we love reading the recent comments and discussion on the blog!

Don’t forget, you can alway subscribe to our podcast episodes via iTunes by clicking the iTunes button on the sidebar. This way, you can keep up-to-date on our episodes as we publish them without having to go through the hassle of streaming/downloading each individually. You can also put us on your iPod now (it’s like carrying five nerds in your pocket, hooray technology!).

For the next episode, we’ll be discussing deaths in the series. If you have any theories, questions, or points for debate you want to contribute, please let us know!