Archive for stuff and things

The Dark Shadows Dare

November 28, 2012 stuff and things, tv, wtf?! No comments

Welcome to a new round of Dare the Internet to Make Me Do Stupid Things this time with guest-stupid-person Laszlo Xalieri!

You see, right now at Amazon the complete Dark Shadows is on sale. When I say “on sale” I mean $250 off reducing the price to a cheap $350 dollars. That’s $350 for, get this, 1225 thirty minute episodes. One thousand, two-hundred and twenty-five episodes. Holy crap. This set weighs like 15 lbs. and comes with 131 DVDs. It has 470 hours of TV. All of it is Dark Shadows. Look at this set:

This is where the stupid comes in. No one really wants to commit to watching that much Dark Shadows. Or owning it. Imagine the tears rolling down a cheek as another DVD case is lifted out, as Season Umpteenbillion rolls onward. No one should do this and consider that they may remain sane.

This is where you come in. Laszlo and I are willing to risk our very sanity for your amusement! We will each put in $50 bucks. That leaves $250 for you to donate. Here is a PayPal button:

What you get if we raise the money:

* We have to watch every single damned episode of Dark Shadows.

* We must try to do this before the end of 2015. We will do our best but there are 1,225 episodes so, you know, we may be a few weeks off target.

* I will write up every single season. Not every episode but at the end of each season watched I will write a review/article about it. Laszlo may also do his own article, but I will promise mine.

* The ability to ask me, at any time, what episode we’re on and get an answer, right then, with Season and Episode number, so that you can feel good about torturing me.

What we get if you donate money:

* Pain. Frustration. The requirement of watching 1,225 episodes of Dark Shadows.

Other Considerations

How long do we have to raise the money? 24 hours. If by 10AM on November 29th there is not the full amount, then we move on to some other thing to watch and hate ourselves for. Also the PayPal buttons are removed then.

What if we don’t raise quite enough money? Well, we will buy some horrible TV show or movies that we will then review and be tortured by. Choices will be made and maybe a run-off vote will be had should this come to pass.

What if the sale ends and the money is raised but now it is $250 dollars short? See the above. Basically you are ensuring we will torture ourselves watching something, we are just all “hoping” it is Dark Shadows.

Here is the PayPal button again:

THIS SPACE IS RESERVED FOR DONATION STATUS:

Current Status: Around 1/5 of the way there, God help us.

Con prep

August 28, 2012 stuff and things 3 comments

I should write this post at the start of a con season I suppose, but I never think of it until late. If you are going to be at a con, working a table, holding down a table, I’ve found there are some things you should think about. It’s not all slinging books and art. There’s prep involved. And after years I’ve come up with my own set of stuff (each item will have a link to it):

Plastic Bags – Now, some people might prefer paper bags but the plastic is easier to use for a bunch of different sizes and has handles and what not. The paper ones I linked above, you want to double-check the size of. But anyway. Bags! The important thing is to have bags. And to get enough bags that you can give them to anyone who seems to need one. Regardless of them buying something at your table. If you see someone with an armload of crap and you have a stack of bags – you offer them a bag. Help out. It’s the right thing to do. Bags are important, and not enough people bring them.

Book stands! Now I like these three fold wire stands. The fold up nice for travel and can hold a surprisingly large book. They’re great for art, or tomes or all sorts. Yeah, you can often manage to stand your books up but a nice book stand ensures it will stay and presents it well. Spend the few bucks and get a stand or six.

A money bag or fanny pack. Don’t keep your money in a loose envelope. Many people swear by the fanny pack since it attaches to you. That is a nice bit of security. I often like the separate money bag because it holds so much more. Whichever one works for you, make sure you have one. You want a place your money goes – always. Makes it easier to keep track of and to remember what you’re doing. If you do a ton of transactions you might even want to go for a cash box.
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Kick. Start. Stop. Kick.

August 16, 2012 stuff and things 2 comments

You want to fund your Kickstarter. You want to get out there and get noticed! That’s awesome!

But here is where you are doing it wrong:

If you message me on Twitter, DM or just an @reply, asking me to consider your Kickstarter and I don’t know you do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to look at your Twitter feed. and if I see it is 90% or more just you @ing people, strangers, to support you – I will never give you a cent.

If you email me out of the blue, like old time spam, and tell me about your project, chances are I will never give you money. Ever. Chances are worse when the email is badly written and boring. Just FYI.

Look, you want your thing to succeed. You need eyeballs on it. I get that. But spamming the world doesn’t win anyone to your side. We want to support you but it’s hard when all we get are lists of “@PERSON Please support my new Kickstarter!”

No. No I will not.

Build relationships. Write essays on why it should be supported, what makes it great, and what it means to you. Talk about the project and be a human being. If you send spammy emails and your Twitter feed reads like a damned spambot – you will be treated as such.

This isn’t hard, and it makes me sad, because I know the people who do this, in general, are good people who really stand behind their stuff. I just refuse to reward their behavior with even a cursory glance.

I love Kickstarter. I have backed a lot of projects, probably more than my wallet would have liked. I do it because I adore seeing people who are passionate about their creations hit the ground and just put it all out there. So I enjoy it when I hear about a Kickstarter project that is something I can get behind.

So please, please, don’t just spam people. Be a human and relax a little. You can still get funding, more so if you aren’t a Robodouche about it. Promise.

Creating PLUS.

July 31, 2012 brainmeats, stuff and things, writing No comments

Being a creative used to be, for a time, about creating. These days, and I say this as a warning to you all, it is about 60% about being creative and doing the work.

The other 40% is… well let me break is down for you:

I spend about 3 to 5 hours a day “writing.” Used to be that was 3 to 5 hours a day actually writing. Now it’s more 3 hours writing and 2 hours working out PR ideas, answering emails, making phone calls, being my own business manager and PR person and ad agency and research dept. and…

No one will ever do this stuff for you without charging you far more than you can afford, and even then they will lack the personal touch that connects with people – so you do it yourself anyway. And you make it fun, as fun as possible. But seriously. You will be doing one hell of a lot that you might not expect to be doing at first.

Let that sink in. Seriously, start living with the idea that you will be doing your own PR, your own tracking, and so on. Realize what that means:

You want an ad campaign? Great! Who is going to design it? Maybe you have the skills, maybe not. If not – hire someone. Better to pay and do it right than do it so badly it looks like crap.

Do you want to send out review copies, or get interviews and be on podcasts? Of course you do. So start looking at places that might be a good fit for your work and searching them and researching them for names and email addresses. Remember it is better to target than to shotgun and pray. Oh, it’s tempting to shotgun but you get better results with one well placed article than five smaller ones at places whose audience isn’t yours.

But you have to make these lists and update them and grow relationships with reviewers and sites. Of course, no matter how good you are in with a site or a reviewer you should never, not once never, expect a review. You are never owed anything just for showing up to the dance. And when the people you started to think of as friends give you a bad review, or just don’t bother to review you that one time – you’re still friends. They’re doing their job, just like you’re doing yours.

You are the first and last stop to get word out about your book. That isn’t an invitation to be a jerk about it, just know that you have to be a professional and learn a ton of new skills. It takes a while. That’s all right. Everyone understands.

Your best bet is to stop and consider what you want to do and them lay out the skills you’ll need to learn and triage them – which will you learn and which will you pay for? For years, to give you an example, I have been doing my own text logos for my site. I design the site and change it all the time so why not that as well. Recently I decided to pay for a professional logo, and worked with a designer to find a logo that will be able to withstand my normal changes and give me a better, more seamless, look for a bunch of things.

It cost a bit of money but it will save me time, enhance what I do and look far better. I should have done it years ago. But I was afraid that spending the money was a waste. It often isn’t, though it can be scary. Spending money, when you’re new to the game and don’t have much, is always scary. There are times it is 100% worth it, however.

So you try and you learn and you keep learning. As you go you’ll find you do less and less creative stuff because you have to get this other crap done, too. Then you’ll react to that and do less of the PR/Marketing and more creative stuff and the balance will swing.

Eventually, if you keep working at it, you’ll find a sweet spot where you have time for both, farm some out and learn to enjoy all of it.

So take stock of what you need to do, what you are doing, and what you want to and can learn. Then take a deep breath and start taking care of business. No one is going to leap in and do it for you.

Pop Culture Is Dead

June 25, 2012 brainmeats, comics, humor, idea file, movies, music, original writing, stuff and things, writing 7 comments

Please note: This was originally supposed to the be the end of the show I just did. So it’s a bit way long when written out and may be a bit rambly. I’ve edited it down some and tried to make sure it seems focused but you’ve been warned…

I was talking about Saved by the Bell the other day. And well, thinking about it really brings something home for me. First of all, we really need to stop making live-action TV shows with minors, because there has never been a cast, I think, on earth, that was not horribly scarred by this. Neil Patrick Harris survived. We can maybe call Danny Bonaduce a survivor NOW, but that’s about as far as you get.

Diff’rent Strokes, of course, were all criminals at one point, or on drugs, or both. And, funny story, Diff’rent Strokes, the two black kids, they’re did all right in the end, mostly. White girl? Dead of an overdose. That’s the reality of Diff’rent Strokes for you right there.

Punky Brewster, I don’t know whatever happened to her. She got tits, that’s the last thing I heard, maybe she was swallowed by them, I don’t know, haven’t heard much about her.

Winnie Cooper went on to get a degree in math. Her and Neil Patrick Harris should little have survivor clone babies together.

But, man, most of these shows, and you look back at Saved By The Bell — you have Dustin Diamond, who, of course, has become Dustin Diamond, which is not a fate I’d wish on most people I meet. Then you have Elizabeth Berkley who thought she’d have a movie career if only she’d stripped hard enough, and was proven wrong by the universe… not that all of us didn’t figure that one out early, but she had to prove it to herself.

So, we really do need to stop putting minors in TV shows because no good comes of it.
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The sun.

April 13, 2012 stuff and things No comments

I joke about the Ball of Skyfire. But then you see something like this (and by all means stop and make it full screen and watch it several times) and – well shit, you have to admit the universe is a pretty awesome place to live, isn’t it?

Look at that. That’s your sun. The thing that keeps us alive. A giant, ever-exploding ball of fire hanging in space. And thanks to living in the future I can see it in such detail and clarity that all the special effects in the world look cheap.

This is where we live. Never forget that. You live on a spinning rock that shares space with countless other spinning rocks. Many of them orbit balls of pure fire and destruction, and that’s a good thing.

So never forget: The universe is awesome.

Own Your Uggly Shoes

April 5, 2012 stuff and things 4 comments

What is it with people who wear Uggs. They don’t own the fact these are ugly, Thundarr the Barbarian styled hot messes of bootdom. It isn’t like they didn’t mean to buy the boots. They aren’t vampires.

“N-no, I was home, and in bed and I heard this rustling noise by the window. Some… there were some boots, they were floating, you know, in the air, and I thought, well, I thought that was strange. But I didn’t want to know, I was asleep, maybe it was a dream. But they kicked the window gently, just a soft tapping. Tap tap tap tap. And so I opened the window. The boots, they… they asked to be let in. I wanted to say no but I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t! Well the boots got in and they… I’m not sure. My feet hurt but then I fell asleep. When I woke up I assumed it’d been a dream but now… look! Look at my feet! I didn’t buy these boots and I can’t take them off!”

That shit right there does not happen. Uggs are not Vampire Footwear. They do not foist themselves on unsuspecting feet. People go out. They see these things. They pay money for them. They put them on. Then they go outside.

And yet to talk to them they don’t see the problem. I’m not saying people shouldn’t wear Uggs. I’m saying they should admit they’re wearing some ugly-ass footwear. That’s all. It’s fine! Own that crap and enjoy it! See also: Crocs. Just, come on. Admit it, move on, and enjoy.

Beaded

February 21, 2012 stuff and things No comments

Well here it is Fat Tuesday again. Not feeling much like celebrating anything this year. Lots of crap going on. Stuff I’ll probably talk about later, but can’t right now. Regardless. It is still the start of Mardi Gras and that means, normally, one thing:

Indeed.

So there you go. Have some beads, and enjoy the day.

I dunno. Just not in a great place. But if yer bored and wanna chat, email me. Cheer me up. Tell me a story. Just don’t throw beads at me and expect a free show – it’s chilly out there.

Digital vs Print.

June 25, 2011 stuff and things 3 comments

Please remember, when discussing digital books and/or comics – no one is saying you can’t buy it in print. No one. There are no plans to stop printing books or comics any year or decade soon. It’s another format. Some people like it more some like it less and frankly the formats themselves are still in their infancy.

But look at music. It was a decade or more after CDs came out that I found it really hard to buy cassettes. It isn’t like someone flipped a switch the day CDs came out and said that’s it no more show’s over. Nope.

And shit, the iPod came out around, what, 2001? It’s 2011 now, ten years later, and though I, personally, don’t buy physical music media much, choosing to buy mp3s instead, both are a valid option!

So yeah, like books and comics in whatever form you choose to like them in. Just don’t act like the emergence of a format means the removal of another tomorrow morning. One format does not preclude the other. It may, in the future, but the technology, buy in price, and formats will have evolved and reshaped and things will be very different.

Technology almost never upgrades in a straight line, it gradients. Different people move at different speeds and it isn’t until a mass adoption is reached that the lowest level can even be considered for removal. Even then it is often still around as a collector’s edition (see also how the last three albums I bought all offered LP editions).

It isn’t one or the other. It’s both. So when debating the merits, can we at least not act like one will kill off the other by morning? It’s a false argument that detracts from the ability to really discuss the topic.

In other news…

May 22, 2011 stuff and things No comments

Stayed up too late working on something last night. Fairly baked today. So all that’s in my head right now is these guys:

I like their little dance. I wish to subscribe to their newsletter.

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