so don't ask if you don't want to know
Posts tagged podcast
The month from Hell
Oct 21st
If there really was a Hell, I’d be standing on the edge.
My car died. And I keep getting the same lame-ass phone monkeys when I contact Wells Fargo about what to do now. Could I please speak to someone who can actually READ the notes?
My phone died. Again. This time it just won’t charge or turn on. Eventually I get another replacement, but there was a week there when all text messages and voice mails evaporated.
My rent check got lost – which actually turned out OK, but I had a really angsty week worrying about late fees and stuff. With proof the bank screwed up I’m cool with no late fees. I lurve my landlord.
My son left for his second deployment to Iraq.
My support check is late. So I can’t even get another rental car until that shows up. And the car Ginnie borrowed for 5 minutes to pick me up from the rental place ran out of gas.
Daughter just happened to step outside tonight just as the ex was cruising past our place. I wonder how many times he’s done that! And Ginnie’s met the new girlfriend who was with him. Nice date, cruising past his ex’s apartment.
The program I bought to create the Program Directory for PodcampAZ has been giving me fits. It says I can use any Windows acceptable font, and is supposed to save to pdf but every time I try it I ended up with white text on white background. Finally, after hours of searching help pages for both this stupid program and Adobe, I managed to get it to work. But not on an Adobe reader – there are with X in it at the end of every line. Yet if I open the same pdf with another reader those marks aren’t there. I win?
I have the Evo @ 11 recording Wednesday night, possibly Gangplank‘s podcast too. I have a Podcamp workup on Saturday and I have Jury Duty next Monday.
I cannot WAIT for this month to be over.
On the edge
Oct 1st
I’m seriously thinking about defaulting on this car. I don’t know what else to do. Casey called me today to yell at me to get a new tire. Apparently his father checked it out and there’s a big chunk missing where it was jammed into a strut underneath. Could blow any minute. Fuck.
I got my check today and after paying all my regular bills (except the fucking car payment) I’m left with less than $200. New tire means no birthday present for Kira. New tire means being stuck at home more than I am now. New tire my ass. Car payment will likely be used as a down payment on something else.
Speaking of their father, Ginnie keeps dropping comments that I don’t really want to hear. Only to hope that as long as he’s happier maybe he’ll hate me less and someday we can be in the same room – for the kid’s sakes. She says she wants to ask him for either help getting a car or a new laptop for Christmas. And that he should be able to help her seeing as how his new live-in girlfriend makes big bucks and where could his money possibly be going, etc. I DON’T FRICKING CARE! I don’t ask. It’s none of my business and I don’t want the kids reporting back to him either.
Other than the car, I’ve been having a pretty lucky day. Slept good, great bagel for breakfast, decent sales at the grocery stores, good parking . . . knocking on my wood desk now.
Going to Gangplank tonight to record the Gangplank Podcast and Evo @ 11. I’ve been working on a new intro so we’ll see if Evo likes it. If so, it’ll be on this week’s show. And I’m going hunting for a better word processing/desktop publishing program than MSWorks. Works sucks ass. I’m managing, but I’ve volunteered to do the program for PodcampAZ and I’d like a little more flexibility.
S’all. Mebbe mo laterz.
How soon they forget
Sep 21st
I heard on a podcast today that there was a WI3D recorded at Dragon*Con. My first impulse was WTF? A little pissed, a little hurt, a bit disappointed. And then I listened to it.
Let me list some former WI regulars and guests who were actually at D*C:
Me
Evo
TD0013
Kris the Cheesecake Lady
Thomas from Flagstaff
Tee Morris
Mur Lafferty
Trucker Overdrive (Jack Jaffe)
Brian Brown
And I’m pretty sure we were all there by Thursday evening.
People from the previous list who were at the D*C recording:
Brian Brown – the guy who threw down his headphones and said, “I quit” and stormed out of the studio at our last regular studio recording.
And this makes sense how? Whatever. And then when something was mentioned about other cast members not being there he had the nerve to say, “yeah, but you have the best one here.” Way to go asshole. You know, the asshole you didn’t want to be?
Brad Bower (podculture) and Brian Richardson did a good job hosting (except for their levels – Brad is a bit overpowering on this recording) and there was the usual trying of new drinks and randy innuendo. The show was fine, but as a listener it didn’t feel like a Wingin-It to me. I hope they’re all happy.
Again, whatever.
Alright fine! I'll update already.
Sep 19th
Geeze you people are nosy.
This week was mostly spent at home doing absolutely nothing but catching up on all the podcasts I missed the weeks before. Tuesday’s helping with Tyson was canceled*, but Wednesday I managed to get to Gangplank for his lunchtime talk regarding “What is Art?” After that I hung out with Sheila and we watched a couple of movies and headed back to Gangplank for our recordings. I got both episodes edited and loaded online by midnight and then crashed for the night.
The mail was slightly interesting today. I’m for jury duty on Monday, October 27th, which is going to be logistically difficult with the Girlchild’s school schedule. Oh well, plenty of time to figure it out. Also got a short survey from Nielsen and they pre-paid me two whole dollars! Whoopie-shit.
What else? Need a man. Need a sexual partner in the worst way. Don’t want a re-la-tion-ship, just someone to come over on a quasi-regular basis and have some fun. Know anybody?
Also caught up on some DVR’d stuff. Guessed correctly who the last 5 were going to be on America’s Got Talent. Watched How to Look Good Naked, Jon and Kate Plus 8, Project Runway, and the last of the Jeremiahs. I really liked that show. I’ve checked out the new 90210 (blech) and the following show Priveledged, which isn’t bad. Netflix has provided me with a couple DVDs of Planet Earth so I’ll have something to watch this weekend. I’m pretty sure I have my DVR set for all the returning shows and I don’t think I’ve seen anything new advertised that I want to see. Maybe this podcast I’m listening to now will have some suggestions.
Oh yeah, I’ve decided to be nice and told Casey that if he wanted to invite his father to Kira’s birthday party next weekend, I’d stay away. My choice. Buck’s still apparently got issues being around me and I’m with Kira all the time so let him have that day. If he decides not to attend (which I secretly expect) I’ll go after all.
Okay, that’s all I can think of. I get paid tomorrow so I expect to click someone’s paypal button first thing in the morning. I wish I could do more.
Ketchup/Catsup time
Sep 12th
Man this has been a busy and stressful week. I’m sitting on my ASS this morning and not doing SHIT.
Monday Casey called and said he had no money for mPower and could they stay with me until he got paid. Sure, and as soon as Ginnie got home from school with my car, I drive out to south Phoenix and picked up Kira and came home. Then went back out to Tempe to pick up Casey from work at 8. I told him then that I need someone else to take Kira Wednesday. Period. I have stuff to do.
Tuesday morning took Ginnie to school (7:45) and then Casey back to work (10:00), and then picked Ginnie UP from school (12:15) and she watched Kira nap while I ran out to Chandler to Gangplank (2:30) to work on Tyson’s podcast and then ran back home (4:00) so Ginnie could do what she had to do and then back to pick up Casey from (8:00) work.
Wednesday was worse. The same school and work driving and dumping but throw in a visit to twinklergirl‘s music for toddlers class thing. Which kind of freaked poor Kira out, but now that she knows it’s okay this time to run and play and have fun – as opposed to being shushed and calmed down every time she gets rowdy – she’ll have more fun next time. Casey on Monday had arranged for his friend/my neighbor to take Kira from 4 – 9 and reminded them on Tuesday and yet . . . nobody home. I texted a bitch-note to Casey and he tracked them down. They’d forgot. Pissed me off. Finally connected at 4:30 and I sped over to machinegirl‘s new place in Tempe to take her to Gangplank with me. We got there just before 5:30 but they’d started the Gangplank recording without me. Relaxed for a bit, then recorded Evo’s podcast. machinegirl decided I needed to unstress by having ice cream! That worked for a few minutes but after picking Casey up from work and dropping her off at home we hit WEATHER.
So much for unstressing. It poured buckets! Hydroplaning down the US60 alternated between fun and terrifying. We got ahead of it and got home just before it hit here. Hail, sideways rain by the buckets and flooding in the parking lot.
I tried to edit the Gangplank podcast but I was just too tired to make sense of unfamiliar material. It’s tough to shave out stuff and make a shorter coherent cast when you have no idea what they are talking about. Yesterday morning I bitched at Casey and told him I needed at least 2 hours without Kira and he needed to step up and keep her out of my room, which he did. At least I got one job done. Then he decided to send her to another friend’s for the rest of the day. I was too stressed.
On the way some Fucktard just about took off my bumper sliding in behind me and as I turned into the gas station I flipped him off. Then he drove around the building and as he passed me walking into the station he yelled Asshole at me! Then I (using all my pent-up frustration and stress) screamed FUCK YOU at the back of his truck. Casey jumped out of my car ready to kick ass. I took off around the other side of the station to see if he was still around. You seriously didn’t want to fuck with me at that moment! But alas, the pussy was gone, and I was left with a half-dozen very surprised gas station patrons staring at me.
Got Casey to work (11:30) on time, dropped Kira off at Chad’s (I can’t say Chad without a snarl. I used to hate him and his family but he’s much better now) and managed to only be a couple minutes late picking Ginnie up from school. She and I came home to a quiet apartment and I talked her into watching Fame with me. One of my all-time favorite movies, and she really liked it. She and I had been like ships passing in the night with no chance to talk for days! Then she took off and I finished my editing and watched another movie – something with Morgan Freeman as a bad guy and John Cusak – and just chilled out.
Today I’m not answering my phone. Don’t get me wrong, I love Kira and spending time with her, but I need time in there for me and my commitments. Too much time in the car, too much stress of getting everybody where they need to be at certain times, IN the heat with the poor kid strapped in the back seat. She was whiny and sometimes rightly so. Kids need stability and there was nothing stable about this week. And to top it off, Wednesday morning she stepped on an ant hill and had 7 bites on and between her little toes, which she whined and complained about for two days but would go absolutely ape-shit if you tried to put any kind of medicine on them. Even in her sleep. Poor baby.
What a week. Somebody somewhere has GOT to want to get their drink on tonight. Please?
This week has kicked my ass . . .
Sep 4th
and it’s only Thursday. Shit.
I completely lost Tuesday. I think I spent the morning driving Ginnie to school and Casey wherever he needed to go. He was late for work, though I did ask him twice what time he needed to be there. I came home from that and crashed HARD. I tried to catch up on email, lj and flickr stuff but failed miserably, opting for a bit of grocery shopping instead. One must eat.
Wednesday I got up and managed to put a dent in most of the above sites, and planned to go to Gangplank that afternoon to work with Tyson on his podcast. Halfway through the morning I noticed a tweet from someone about not attending hacknight that night and thought OH SHIT, IT’S WEDNESDAY? Oops, Tyson records on Tuesdays. Dropped Ginnie at work and eventually headed up to Gangplank to do their podcast and Evo‘s. The guys there had recorded one last week while we were at Dragon*Con and I copied that to bring home to edit, along with the two we threw together on the spot.
What a monster edit that was. I had to cut about 30 minutes of “guy” talk, laughter, fart jokes and general mistakes down to maybe 8 halfway decent minutes of actual content. Took me two hours last night because of course I’m so anal I wouldn’t quit ’til it was done.
Last night’s sleep period was filled with evil dreams. I got up this morning and finished the final steps and loaded that podcast on the site. Took Ginnie to school and buzzed over to Casey’s for his Thursday/Payday runaround to then to work. Then Ginnie from school and dumped a couple of her friends before coming home.
Where I found my copy of the Gangplank ‘cast we recorded last night turned into 15 minutes of NOTHING. Shit. I’ll have to go back up there and hope upon hope the original file is all right. It was really good content, too. I worked on Evo’s episode this afternoon and managed to get everything done in time to fix dinner. Now it’s barely 8:30 and I’m ready to go to bed. How lame is that?
I don’t have anything planned until tomorrow afternoon, so maybe I’ll be able to think straight by then.
Everyone’s talking about the political conventions. The Dems did this and the Republicans did that. I have NOT been paying attention but you can’t help but hear (see?) so many rumors and people posting crap against the “other” side. I KNOW I’m NOT voting for McCain. Period. I was leaning towards Obama but there’s so much shit floating about that side, too. Who are the other candidates? (Rhetorical question, y’all.) I’m so fed up with the bullshit, I just want to know what are my other options and I’m sure there are lots of people out there that feel the same way. Whatever happened to fair and balanced reporting? (Another rhetorical question.)
Got in an argument with Evo about the two spaces after the period (or other closing punctuation) rule. He says not any more. I say absolutely yes. Can I get a ruling on that? It’s driving me nuts. Yes, I realize in my case it’s not a drive but a walk but I still think I’m correct.
Book you must get TODAY!
Aug 25th
I’ve written here and here of Playing For Keeps (podiobook) before. Loved it! And now you can get the published version at amazon.com!
Go and order yours today! They’re print-on-demand so demand yours now.
Mur (sailormur) is the coolest! Who else would get this kind of ink done?
I’m such a fan of this story that I bought the shirt. Everybody loves Mur.
Me with Jack Mangan, Philippa Ballantine, Tee Morris, Dan Klass, and Jonathan Coulton, who smells really really good.
I can’t wait to see her later this week. She’s gonna be soooooo happy this launch is going well. #20 on the amazon.com list right now. WOOT!
So . . . yeah . . . hey y'all
Aug 21st
Somehow I’m helping with yet another podcast out of Gangplank. That makes three so far. And I’m still figuring things out! Pressure, pressure.
There’s the Gangplank Podcast, where they discuss what Gangplank is, social media, marketing, ice fishing, etc. The second podcast hasn’t been announced yet. And the third is run by my friend Tyson Crosbie and I think it’s going to be about marketing, small business and I dunno what, I’ve only worked on one so far.
I’m loving it. Srsly. FINALLY I’m contributing something! Not just given a “job” without the materials or feedback to carry it out. No having to nag people to get off their ass and give me the files or contacts or whatever if they want me to do it. No more being set up to fail. There’s follow-through now. Ideas are wasted time when you don’t follow through. This group is moving forward.
Okay sure, I don’t know everything I need to know about peaks and levels, and how all the equipment works exactly. But I’m learning pretty quickly. And I think I’m good at the editing part. I think I have a good ear for it. At least I’m getting excellent feedback and support!
Went to see Mamma Mia! the other night. Don’t bother. It’s a rental. Not campy enough to be campy. OVERacted to beat the band. And although Pierce Brosnan makes an excellent spy, when he sings you’re left wondering just how big IS that vice grip attached to his balls? Painful! I did love how much fun Christine Baranski and Meryl Steep seemed to have doing those song and dance scenes. The best part of the whole movie is the final credit sequence. And there’s a couple of ABBA songs I’d never heard before and liked.
New Media Expo
Aug 18th
Vegas Baby! The road trip was actually really nice. I got to know someone a little better than I had before and made him laugh and only stopped a few mutually agreed upon times. We left a little after 7 and got to Vegas a little after noon-thirty. I stayed at the Sahara and the room was old but fairly clean and conveniently located. The entrance to the monorail was right next to my elevators.
A lot, a lot, a lot of walking even after using the monorail. Through the Hilton to the back of the convention center and back again a number of times. I got to meet hellziggyright off the bat! With her was a friend of wickedgroovy Carrie who talks and talks and talks. Bunch of us met for dinner (pizza) and then off to the Coverville 500 concert. That started off with a live Dr. Floyd followed by Natalie Gelman.
ASIDE: You know, I didn’t really care for appreciate this young lady’s singing but I listened anyway. What I could hear. There was a bunch of loud-ass people at the next-over table just laughing and talking as if the singer was on a jukebox instead of live. Evo and some other people were tweet-bitching back and forth about this group so I made up a sign that said “STFU!” in bold letters and flashed it at them. At the same time, Evo’s wife Sheila came back to our table (she’d been photographing the performers) and marched over there and confronted them. Assholes.
Anyway . . . more
